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“No, seriously. That baby bird could have been sick and we’re not sure the fire blazed up because of anythingIdid. I guess it looked bad, but maybe a log shifted or whatever—I don’t know. But why attribute it to me?”
“You healed me, princeling.”
“Even that’s not for sure. I didn’t consciously do anything. Maybe you healed yourself, and just hallucinated the rest of it.”
Asher spoke up then, coming down on Lex’s side, of course. “We both can feel that you have magic, Rory.”
“Well, maybe you’re both mistaken.”
They glanced at each other, and Lex shrugged. “If you have no magic, then it shouldn’t make any difference if we do a quick binding then, should it?”
“Oh, go ahead,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “You’ll do what you want to anyway.”
Another glance at each other and then Asher went to Lex’s desk and pulled some white candles from the bottom drawer and tossed Lex a small pouch. Asher set the candles around me, one at each compass point and Lex took a handful of salt from the pouch and sprinkled it around me in a circle. Like I was some kind of demon, or something.
Resentment hit me hard, but I managed to keep my mouth shut and just refuse to look at Lex, even though he tried to catch my eye. Asher lit the candles and they began.
“Close your eyes, princeling,” Lex said.
I closed them, because I trusted Lex, even though I was mad at him. And he’d still never said he loved me. I was mad at Asher too, for that matter. But I felt nervous, and my chest was tightening with nerves. I peeked out from under my eyelashes and saw they were both on their feet, kind of looming over me. Slamming my eyelids shut again, I tensed and waited for whatever was going to happen.
They began by chanting something, using words I didn’t understand. I thought they may have been Morovian or maybe Latin. Their voices got louder, and they seemed to be working to some big finish. I felt one of their hands on my head, and then I began to feel icy cold seeping down from that hand all the way through my head and neck and into my body. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it was uncomfortable, and I could feel a pressure building in my chest. Then it intensified and began to get painful. It felt like my lungs were being turned into icicles and they were going to just shatter into a million pieces. It was getting harder to breathe, and an ache was beginning right in the center of my chest. I put up a hand to rub it and soothe myself a little.
That’s when one of them grabbed my hand and pushed it firmly down by my side. It suddenly infuriated me. Were they trying to kill me? Didn’t they even care if I was in pain? Well, not pain exactly, but I was getting very uncomfortable.
I’d always heard about people seeing red and now I knew what it meant. I was filled with rage. I seethed quietly for a moment, aware that I rarely felt anger like this, and it had to be something they were causing. My breathing got noisier, and I felt like something inside my chest was about to pop. I didn’t like being so mad at Lex. It seemed to go against everything in my heart that I felt for him, so I pushed that anger away from me as hard as I could, and suddenly there was a small explosion of sound in the room, a loud and resounding pop.
My eyes flew open in alarm in time to see Lex and Asher both being knocked backward, Lex falling on his back on the desk and Asher flying up against the wall behind him. Scared, I jumped to my feet and after one quick look to make sure Lex wasn’t hurt, I bolted from the room and ran out into the front hall. I heard loud voices behind me and saw Brandon and Wyatt rushing out of another doorway, heading for Lex’s study, but I passed them by and ran straight out the front door and into the dark night.
Chapter Twelve
Lexington
I’d never experienced a burst of power so strong. Asher and I had been working up to the end of the spell, which was a standard one for binding a warlock’s powers. Nothing unusual or particularly harsh about it, because I’d never risk Rory that way. I had become increasingly fond of him over the last couple of weeks.
Rory told me he loved me almost every day. It would have been two or three times a day if I’d allowed it, but I was trying my best to slow down this crazy attraction he seemed to have for me if I could. I still thought it was too soon to say love, though I had finally admitted there must be something to this idea of true mates. But he was very young, and he’d been mistreated in his life, and I didn’t want him to say too much that he might later regret, just because I had shown him affection.
I still had to consider what I was supposed to be doing here. My brother had deep concerns about Rory, and I had been tasked to bind his powers and make sure he didn’t present any kind of threat to our kingdom. I’d been holding him at arm’s length the best I could, though it was getting harder every day.
My brother had sent me to Igella on a mission for our country and not to fall in lust with an omega, no matter how beautiful and sweet that omega might be. I couldn’t forget that his mother was Vesper, who was infamous in our country for some very wicked deeds that had killed many people. This was why dark magic was so dangerous and insidious, and I couldn’t allow myself to forget that.
I had been watching Rory’s face closely for any signs of distress. Toward the end, he seemed to be squirming a bit in his chair and he put up a hand to rub his chest. Asher pulled down his hand, because it was blocking the area we were working on. A witch’s power came from their core, after all. That’s when it happened. It felt like a hot wind blast bursting out of him and coming straight at us—not a burning blast of air—nothing meant to harm us, but still very warm and strong. It picked me up off my feet and thrust me away from Rory and onto my back on the desk. It had seemed to come out of nowhere, and it took both me and Asher by complete surprise.
Asher flew back into the wall but neither of us were really hurt—just shaken and surprised. Hell, we were shocked at that sudden burst of power. By the time I sat up, trying to understand what had just happened, Rory was gone, and Brandon and Wyatt were bursting into the room.
“Are you all right? It sounded like some kind of explosion in here!” Wyatt was yelling and Brandon had gone over to Asher to help him up off the floor.
“Where’s Rory?” I said, beginning to feel alarmed.
Brandon pointed toward the entrance hall. “He ran past us like something was chasing him.”
“I need to find him,” I said and got to my feet to begin running toward the hall, Wyatt’s voice following me accusingly.
“What did you do to him? Did you hurt him?”
I didn’t stop to answer. I ran out into the entry hall but there was no sign of him. The only thing to show that he’d even come that way was the open front door, the dark night yawning outside it.
It was pitch black outside with the moon hiding behind clouds, and my first thought was that Rory must be hiding somewhere inside the lodge. No way would he go outside as dark as it was—he was afraid of the dark. Even now, we had to leave a small candle burning somewhere in our bedchamber at night—I think it was the comfort of seeing even that small light that he craved. I turned and shouted back toward the others.
