"Not totally.” He sat back and looked me over, then gave a satisfied nod and his magic began receding. “I did my best."
"Amazing," I breathed. “You’re amazing.”
"Nah, it’s nothing. I picked up a few tricks from you about turning energy and feeling into magic, that’s all."
Him using sex magic without my help wasn’t out of the question given the crash course he received. But using intimacy to fuel my healing, using intimacy to fuel this kind of magic at all was something only the more experienced could do. And all without even needing my energy to guide him.
"Rob, do you realize what this means?"
"Yeah, I’m not a total mage fail."
"This is what your peers call an aptitude,” I spelled out. “This is your calling."
"What, huh?" His mouth dropped open.
"This is your specialty,” I said. “Tantric magic."
"Nah, I… what? Really?"
"This is it."
"Huh, it’s…” He seemed stunned to hear hehadan aptitude, unable to wrap his brain around it. “I’ve been stuck at the same point for so long, not progressing, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find…"
"Well, you did."
Rob was rough around the edges. He probably always would be. He talked too much to hide his nerves and insecurities. But he had a big heart hidden inside his chest. All he needed was a little encouragement and then the strength and heart inside him never quit.
"I believe in you,” I said, reaching out to grab his hands. “If we faced Lex again, you’d do better. You’re always improving. You just have to believe in yourself like I do.”
I expected him to pull away or protest, maybe deflect with a joke. Instead he squeezed my hands tightly.
"I believe in you too,” he said fiercely. “So you haven’t learned control of your extra abilities yet. Demons from Hell can manage, so can you.”
“Rob, we don’t know it’s really that simple. Lex doesn’t seem to have control and neither did Taryn.”
“But were they eventryingto control their new powers? Theylikekilling.”
Taryn saw our visitor from Hell as a game-changer. Mar. As it turned out, the man hadn’t even given us his real name. But he gave us real power, dangerous power. Taryn thought we could be kings here. That there was no reason to control ourselves when we could take charge and do as we pleased instead. Still…
“I can’t take that chance,” I insisted.
“Well, I trust you. When you’re ready, you’re free to feed from me again. You’ll get it right. I know you will.”
“So will we, Rob. We can still stop Lex. I know that.”
Rob groaned and shook his head, looking like he regretted this already, but he didn’t disagree with me. “Are we seriously gonna do this?”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re going to keep fighting.”
~
Rob
Deciding not to quit was only the first part of the plan. The easiest part. We still had to figure out how to stop Lex. You know, the plan part of the plan. And once we knew how to stop Lex, we still had to find him.
“I’m pretty sure we’re still tied by blood,” I informed Orion. “But I felt something fishy when I was trying to make tea. I think Lex cloaked our connection or something. Undoing whatever he did would take time, time he can use to summon your brother.”
I wish we’d thought of hiding the link between us first. That was much easier than removing the blood tie outright. And undoing whatever he did to cloak it would be simple for him, but it was harder for us without knowing what methods he’d used.
