Fuck. That.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I dropped my head. I fought to get a hold on my emotions, fought to grapple them into submission. But they were just so hot, so fierce.
Unable to kill the tremors racking my body, I stubbornly continued to wage war against the storm inside me. My head pounded with the effort, and my chest heaved with every ragged breath.
Eventually, I felt my palms cool. Felt the tickles of sparks disappear. Felt the orbs disintegrate. But I wasn’t yet in a good inner place.
“Let’s make our way back,” said Ajax.
I couldn’t. Not yet.Hemight feel that the danger had passed, but I wasn’t so sure of my control.
“Catch up when you’re ready,” he added.
I didn’t look up. Not even when I sensed people leaving. I just stared at my muddy boots, trying to stop my mind from again reliving that moment when Atticus—
No, don’t go there.
I heard someone take slow, purposeful strides toward me. I snapped my head up. Talon didn’t falter in his pace, he just kept coming my way, his posture relaxed and non-threatening. Raising his hands slightly in reassurance, he slowed to a stop only when inside my personal space.
“I wasn’t lying,” I said as I lowered my head again, not wanting to see doubt flickering in his eyes. “And I wasn’t mistaken. That dick let me drop.”
A hand palmed the back of my head, gently settling in the nest of curls there. I didn’t know what he was trying to convey, or if he was even trying to communicate anything at all.
His fingers remained buried in my hair as we stood there for long minutes, while my breathing steadied and my heart ceased beating frantically. Finally, my emotions stabilized and I could officiallythink. At which point it properly hit me that mysystem had fully bonded with theichor, bringing to the surfacethe power that had been lying dormant until now.
Power the color of moonlight that manifested in scorching hot ashes.
The earlier pinch of wonder returned, brighter now. But it still had no way to take hold of my emotional state. I was too much a mess inside. Too in pain, my back still smarting. Too furious at Atticus. Too frustrated at having no one believe that he purposely dropped me. The most I could feel was relieved that I’d survived the surfacing of my power.
It hit me then that it had been gradually doing so for weeks. So many times I’d woken with grains of dirt on my hands and not thought much of it. But it hadn’t been dirt at all. The gritty granules were actually particles of ash.
“None of you ordered me to stand down just now,” I noted. “None of you interfered or even insisted I take a deep breath. You were waiting to see if the power would take me over; if the surfacing of it would kill or drive me insane, weren’t you?”
He let out a low grunt of affirmation, his hand drifting down to curve around my nape. A move that felt protective, soothing, and even a little proprietary.
He was diabolically bold at times.
“You’re not supposed to be touching me,” I mumbled.
Apparently not giving a whisper of a shit about that, he didn’t move other than to idly breeze his thumb over my skin.
Pulling in a centering breath, I righted my head as I stepped back, making his hand slide away. “I’m good now,” I said, rolling my shoulders. Well, maybe notgood.But I was no longer on the verge of losing my shit.
He gave a chin-tip and then turned toward the earlier path we’d taken. I moved a little stiffly as I followed, my back still sore. I expected him to walk fast so that we’d catch up with theothers, but he kept his pace easy—maybe thinking that it would be best to keep me away from Atticus right now.
By the time we’d exited the swamp, the ache in my back had dialed down to a dull throb, thank the gods. “This isn’t the same route we usually take,” I remarked as he took a particular turn.
He glanced at me over his shoulder, looking … dare I say impressed?
“Is it a short-cut? Please tell me it’s a short-cut.”
Facing front again, he nodded.
Relief unfurled in my belly. A relief that blossomed an hour later, when the throb at the base of my spine faded completely. It would seem that I was healing even faster than before.
I lifted my palm and tried connecting with the power inside me. That part was as easy as making my legs move—little ribbons of moonlight arced prettily from my fingertips as a blistering heat radiated from my palm. But conjuring ashes?Notso easy.
The effort … it was like when you were squeezing a tube with one hand but needed both—only drabs of the contents surfaced. Roasting-hot embers of ashes would burst out of my palm, but only a few at a time. They would quickly ‘wink’ out of existence.
