“I don’t know!” she cried in exasperation. “I don’t know what brings on the visions. They just come to me sometimes! And today you were on that field with me and you were all I could see, smell, and feel before it happened. You were so…”
“So what?” I demanded when her voice trailed off.
“Sothere!So overwhelming!”
Her arms fell away from her chest, and she pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her eye. The musky aroma of her sweat mingled with the lingering scent of her lemon-scented soap, and dirt streaked her golden skin.
“And then we were alone and they were coming.” Her gaze went past me to the wall of the tent, but I had the impression she was looking beyond it. “I have no idea how it happened today, but once before, I shared the same dream with my brother, Gage.”
Without meaning to, my thumb stroked over her chin before I released it. “So you can enter other’s dreams?”
She frowned at me. “No… I mean, maybe. We had the same dreamonenight.”
“What else?”
This time, she did take a step back from me when I moved further into her personal space. “There’s nothing else!” she snapped and placed her hands on my chest to push me away.
I didn’t budge in the slightest. Taking hold of her chin again, I loomed over her as the backs of her thighs and ass pressed against the table. She leaned back over the table, her eyes shimmering with anger. Before I could speak, the rustle of the tent flap silenced my next question. My head turned as Corson and Bale stepped into the tent.
“Kobal—” Bale started.
“Leave us,” I commanded brusquely. Bale’s eyes shot to River before coming back to me. “Now.”
She hesitated before ducking out of the tent. Corson followed swiftly behind her. I turned back to River when the flap settled into place once more.
“I don’t appreciate you trying to intimidate me!” she snapped.
“I don’t appreciate you lying to me.”
“You forced me here!” she spat. “For some reason no one will tell me, I was torn away from my home and thrust into this madness. All I’ve ever gotten is a runaround instead of answers, so why would I tell you everything about me? I have to protect myself, and I’m not going to reveal everything when everyone is hiding things from me!”
She pushed against my chest again and this time I relented to her hands. I walked away from her and over to the sideboard and the wine.
“You’re right,” I said as I poured two goblets. “Sit.”
“No.”
I glanced at her over my shoulder before re-corking the wine and walking over to the table. I placed one goblet in front of my chair and the other before the chair next to it. I grabbed the back of the chair and pulled it out for her. “You’ll get your answers; now sit.”
She stubbornly stared at me for a minute more before finally settling into the chair. Her eyes followed my every move as I walked over to my chair and sat down.
“What does it matter what I can do?” she demanded.
“It matters a lot,” I told her. I took a sip of my wine, watching her as she stared at me. Then she looked at the wine and lifted it to her mouth. The liquid slid down her throat, putting some color back into her pale face. “Tell me what you know.”
“I lit the curtains in our house on fire once, by accident,” she murmured. “When I was a teen. I was never entirely certain if it was me who did it, or if it was some other fluke thing that had occurred. I guess I know now.”
“And what else can you do?”
She stared at her hands before lifting her head to me. “And that’s it.”
I didn’t know if she was telling me the truth or not, but staring at her now, I became aware of a sickening emotion so unfamiliar to me that at first I had no name for it. It made my hands sweat and my belly twist in a new and stomach-turning way. My fingers traced over the delicate designs etched into the goblet as I finally put a name to the emotion, fear.
I’d never known fear before. Power had always been mine for the taking. There had only ever been one as powerful as me, and Lucifer and I had each walked away from our battles more broken and beaten than before, but alive. Unlike my ancestors, he had not been able to defeat me.
Now though, I felt fear for this woman, which was something I had never believed myself capable of. There was no denying whom she was now, and it meant she was going to have to do things no other mortal or demon would, or could, and I would be the one who would lead her to Hell.
“Are you sure?” I inquired. “Have you ever been able to move things with your mind?”
