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Then everything starts to move in slow motion.
Kye lunged at me.
And a conflagration of blue fire engulfed my body like armor.
Demonic voices whisper in my head that I can burn them all. It can’t hurt anything to incinerate them all. Kye backed away, but the marks and stones were in control now, and the flames licked their way down my arms to gather in my hands.
Gods, no.
I can’t kill the entire pack, can I? As if I spoke the thought aloud, some wolves warily backed away toward the door while others slowly circled me, looking for an opening. Either I will die in this unholy ruin of a church, or they will. The volume of the whispers in my head grew, drowning out the snarls of the wolves waiting to attack.
The floor smoldered under my feet, and still, I felt no heat from the flames that crept steadily outward from me in tendrils that mirrored the red veins crawling over my arms.
“I can’t.” I panted, holding up my hands to the wolves. “I can’t stop it. Get out. GET OUT!” I’m screaming, and the flames answer by bursting forth from me in a wall of fire, devouring the rotting church around me.
The wolves disappear behind the fiery wall, but their feral screams of pain drive me to my knees. They’re all burning alive because of me.
“Turn it off, Elena.” The voice is in my head like a cooling rain. “Let me come to you.” But I don’t know how. The more terrified I feel, the bigger the blaze grows. “I’m here. Nothing can hurt you.”
“Thorn?”
Hands gripped my shoulders, cold as ice, and the boiling in my veins cooled. Long, elegant fingers slide down my wrists, pulling me into an icy chest.
“I’ve got you. Let it go,” Thorn soothed.
“If I let it go, I won’t be able to stop the flames.” I strained to control the raucous chorus ringing in my head and listened only to him. “I can’t—”
“If you let it go, it will stop.”
I pressed myself into him and took a deep breath, releasing it in measure, but the heat pushed away all that gentle cooling, and I tore myself away from him, afraid I’d burn him, too.
“Get away from me. It isn’t safe.” I staggered toward the door, stumbling over the body of another dead wolf. “Oh, God, what have I done?” The entry is just ahead of me, with soothing, inky darkness on the other side.
I have to get to the water.
With no thought to the possibility of wolves waiting to ambush me outside, I lurched through the door, aiming for the pond between here and the safe house. The wooden porch goes up in smoke as I run down the stairs, night-blind from the fire.
“Damnit, Elena, stop running. Let me help you.” I paused, but the sight of Thorn, his shirt front burned away from blistering skin, only made the hurricane of voices in my head even louder.
I stepped backward on the gravel drive, and held up a hand.
“Thorn, I hurt you, and I don’t want to hurt you again. Please, stay back.”
“Elena, listen to me, only me.”
I think he’s shouting, but I can barely hear him over the roar between my ears. My arms are covered in thick, ropey red veins that pulse slower than my racing heart, and the night sky turns to day as I throw my head back to find the rising moon.
“Elena, no.” He’s the whisper in my head now, the riotous demonic chanting screaming at me from all sides. “Baby, it’s okay.”
But I can’t fight anymore, and the world is engulfed in my inferno.
25
“Hey. Slowly now. Don’t try to sit up, just lie there.”
I opened my eyes just enough to see a shadowy form leaning over me.
“Where am I?” The marks have resumed their insidious murmuring, but something mutes them, and I can't understand what they're saying.
