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"The fuck is this shit?" Ly's voice growled, shocking me awake, legs shooting out, spine straightening. All at once. Forgetting about the confines of my bed. My feet and the top of my head slammed into the unyielding porcelain, sending pain through me as my heart hammered in my chest.
"Ow ow ow," I whimpered, my hands going to the top of my head, trying to rub the ache away.
"What the fuck are you doing in the tub?" he demanded as a headache started to pound behind my eyes, the top of my head still throbbing.
"Leave me alone," I demanded, hearing a whine in my voice, hating it there.
"Get the fuck out of there," he demanded.
"I wouldn't be here if the basement wasn't locked," I shot back, anger replacing the surge of sadness I had felt a moment before.
"There's a bed in the other room," he reminded me as though I was too stupid to remember that fact. "Get out," he tried again, reaching down to grab my hand, to pull it away from the top of my head.
And the rage that poured through me sizzled, and zapped at the point of contact between our bodies.
"Fuck," Ly hissed, yanking his hand away as I shot upward.
My mother could shock someone if she got angry. I always figured it was unique to her. But, apparently, it was a family trait. I had just never been angry enough to see it manifest.
The shock on Ly's face as he cradled his hand to his chest matched the sensation I felt inside.
Because, suddenly, I didn't feel quite as powerless.
I might have been forced to live in this house, to be a Sacrifice to this group of evil creatures.
But that didn't mean I was weak.
It didn't mean I had to accept abuse from them.
"Don't grab at me," I told him, angling my chin upward, faking a fierceness I in no way felt.
"No shit," he shot back, pulling his arm out to inspect his hand.
It was bloodshot and blistered, a raw-looking wound I knew wouldn't last.
You couldn't kill demons.
You could wound them.
But only temporarily.
And then you would need to deal with their anger afterward.
"Look at me," Ly demanded, drawing my gaze up from his raw hand. "Don't tell Ace you can do that."
"Why not?" I asked, wanting to shout it from the rooftops, needing everyone to know I wasn't weak.
"Trust me."
"Why would I ever do that?" I shot back, feeling my lower lip start to tremble before I forced it to toughen up.
"You might not like me, witch. But I can fucking guarantee that you won't like it if any of the others find out you can do that."
I didn't know what he meant. I didn't want to ask. But there was something in his tone that told me he wasn't lying to me.
The others could never figure out that I could do more than make it rain when I was sad.
"Get out of the tub," he demanded again, glancing at his hand which already looked less red.
Because it was my plan, I climbed out of the tub, moved past Ly, then through his room, to the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Ly hissed at me as I stepped into the hall.
"Back to the basement."
"I didn't say you had to go," he shot back.
"No," I agreed, turning to look at him. "But I want to."
"And if I said you can't go?" he said, brow raising, clearly not used to being argued with.
"I'd wonder if you were able to stop me," I told him, chin jerking up as I raised my hand, rubbing my fingertips together. It was all for show. I felt nothing, no sizzle of power, but he didn't know that.
To that, his eyes went hard.
"Be very fucking careful," Ly said, teeth clenched as he tried to speak through them. "You don't want to fuck with me, witch."
"Maybe you don't want to fuck with me." The words felt clumsy on my lips, but came out strong.
And while I still felt like I had the upper hand, I made my way slowly down the hall, the stairs, and into the unlocked basement.
Chapter Eight
Lycus
She was powerful.
I should have been happy about that, excited, even.
It was good for us.
It was what we had been looking for with the coven for generations.
It was what we had been missing.
It might make all the difference.
But I'd told her not to tell anyone.
It made no fucking sense.
I stood in my bedroom an hour later, watching the color start to return to my hand, the blisters shrinking and disappearing like they'd never been there in the first place.
One second of contact to her power had given me third degree burns. I shouldn't have been able to burn. Not when I came from a place where everything burned. But she had done it to me.
