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Thorn sighed.
“It’s an item of power, Elena. You can’t just smash it and hope for the best.” He retrieved it up and held it out to me. “You have its mate inside you. Call it out of the stone.”
I frown at him. “You say it like it’s easy.”
“No, I say it like it can be done, and I say it like you’re the one to do it.”
I rubbed my palms toward the stone in his palm but didn’t touch it. While it was in his hand, I called it, using my seeking ability. When I felt the artifact in my mind, I pushed harder, mentally reaching through the layer of sediment around it until I visualized the internal object in my mind.
I flipped the image upside-down and recognized it as a heart. With the image firm in my head, I turn up my seeking, increasing my intensity. I focused on the rune inside until the stone quivered.
“More,” he whispered, and the golden flecks in his eyes glinted as though lit with a radiating light.
I did as he said, focusing with such intensity that the stone crackled, and fine lines appeared on its surface.
“Yes, yes, still more. You’ve almost got it. Stop holding back. You want it,take it.”
Almost as if he thrust it at me, the artifact flew from stone straight toward me. I threw up my hands and flinched while closing my eyes.
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes to Thorn holding the heart rune in his hand, smirking at me.
“Didn’t know you could do that, did you?” he asked as though he knew I could all along.
“No. Did you finish it for me? It suddenly got, I’m not sure— It got easier, at the end.”
“I suspected that when you stopped thinking you couldn’t do it and wanted it, it came to you.” His demonic smirk widened to a grin. “In fact, I suspect if your friend, Mr. Driftwood, had seen that, he wouldn’t have been nearly as surprised as you were that it worked.”
“Well, I’ve never done that before.”
“But all this insecurity about not shifting. Do you think the pack thought you were a shifter all that time? Or did you exhibit your unique powers when you were young, and they stifled them until they knew what to do with you or how to hamper you? What if they spent your whole life trying to make you doubt yourself so you could never live up to your potential?”
“But why? Why would they do that?”
“Because, my dear, your power frightened them.”
My jaw gaped. When I was young, things happened around me that others thought were strange. They even sent me to the pack witch to make the animals who found the plants that grew in my bedroom to stop. I wasn’t ready to talk about that with the guy who’s metaphysically attached to me.
“Maybe.” I drew out the word, trying to mentally sort this reframing of what I had been. “Maybe it’s true,” I whispered.
“Care to elaborate?” His grin spread until it wrinkled the corners of his eyes, and the gold flecks swallowed the brown and red, making him appear rakish and charming.
No one had taken so much time out of their own lives to take an interest in mine. Butterflies fluttered wildly, dangerously in my stomach, dive-bombing my good sense and threatening to tear down the walls I’d been building around my heart.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not important right now.” I backed away from him and the stone, and he placed it on the side table.
“Would you like something to drink? We left the party rather early. We could order in.”
“Thank you, I wouldn’t mind. After all, we’ve got one last artifact to retrieve, and we might as well plan our mission tonight.”
Just as he removed his coat,somethingreverberated through the room. Suddenly, he looked more himself, less irresistible. His shoulders relaxed too, and he stopped pacing back to the stones every few seconds and sat in the chair.
Well, I guess he’s happy with my work this time.
He folded his jacket over his arm. “I should hang this up.”
“I’ll hang it in the first bedroom.” I take it from him, and an electrical jolt jumps from the pocket closest to me. “What the hell?” I rub my fingers and laugh. “What do you have in your packet that shocked me?”
