We hold each other’s gazes, each of us in our own mess of assumptions and poorly-formed conclusions.
“Focus,” Pax says, clearly to Thane. “If you don’t stop thinking about pinning her to a wall and kissing the fuck out of her, I’m going to start concentrating really, really, hard on every memory I have of horses shitting – in slow motion.”
Silence, then the smug smile on Pax’s lips says he won.
“Why were you tempting your power, then?” Pax asks, pointing at my braies.
“Oh, that. Well, other stuff has happened while you were gone. Specifically, a mortal mage named Leon managed to get through the border and confront us.”
“And you let him live?” Killian growls.
“Fighting him would have let him get far too close to Kitten.”
“Should have ended him,” Thane adds.
“How? There was no one else here, and she’s stuck in a bubble,” I yell.
A bubble that’s shrinking, but I only want to explain that one time, once everyone is in the same room.
“She wasn’t happy standing behind me, though, and she was throwing my power at him…” I scrub a hand down my face, realizing how badly my instincts took over. I’m not used to having instincts that don’t involve intimacy and passion. “Kitten used my power to force information out of him. It knocked her out because Allure doesn’t work like that. I think my power is hijacking her desires, but I’m not sure if maybe she’s hijacking my power too. It’s impossible, but that just means Kitten’s the first one I’ve ever heard of doing it. I’ve been too busy –” I trail off.
Too busy trying to keep her alive. Too busy trying to keep my distance. Too busy with all the things I’m avoiding, things I don’t want to think about – but have to.
“She used your Allure?” Pax asks.
I nod, deliberately slow so there’s no confusion.
“She pushed it to its limit. To her limit. Wouldn’t let go of the mage until he promised to hold the border. If the border goes down, the mages will hold it for as long as they can.”
“Beautiful had control of a mortal mage?” Pax asks.
I nod.
With the mortal mage, she forced my power through her body and did enough damage to knock herself unconscious. Has she hurt herself every time she’s used my power?
I turn to Killian, “You saw her in there. She was using my power, wasn’t she?”
He nods.
“But she’s not absorbing it like a Saber, is she?”
Killian shakes his head, his lips pulling to a thin, strained line.
“But I was still absorbing her energy?”
“I could see your Allure,” he says, “I could see her pulling at it, but I had to look hard. Like she’s a thief using sleight of hand. But she’s definitely not absorbing it, just using it, and we are all still tapping into her energy, the same way all Silvari tap into each other.”
“It doesn’t feel like that. I enjoy pulling energy from others – that moment when they let their guard down with you, and you can take what you want. I know what it feels like, how it settles inside of me. I can’t feel that with her. She feels so fragile and yet so strong. She used Allure on me, and I obeyed,” I begin, watching what was excitement and awe in me come out as barely-bottled anger in Killian. “Something in her is connecting with us, but it’s all a one-way exchange. Maybe there’s a magical blockage, or somehow her power has been severed, like she can’t connect with it anymore.”
“Shadow is mortal,” Killian growls.
“Mortal,” Pax echoes.
“Not entirely, and she is using my power,” I argue.
Killian looks ready to kill something, his jaw ticking and his eyes piercing right into me. Pax isn’t moving, but I’m pretty sure that’s because of the sigil and not his personal level of self-control.
Yelling is getting us nowhere, so I try to calm my voice as I drop the next bomb.
“Eydis was the one who put Shade in the spring. Shade’s two hundred and seventy years old. She’s more Silvari than we thought. Whatever Eydis did, it has locked her completely into a mortal existence for all this time – and whatever we’re doing to her now is breaking down those walls.”
“She’s Silvari?” Pax demands, but once again the guy can’t move.
Killian has stilled too, drawing in a deep breath. “Mortal,” he corrects.
He doesn’t care about her genetic makeup. About how many years she has lived, or where she was born. Killian only cares for her threads – for what power makes up who she is right now.
And I agree, who she is right now is far more mortal than Saber – that doesn’t mean that she should be or that she has to be. “She has to be strong. She’s still alive.”
Killian shakes his head sharply. “Not strong. Blocked or cut off.”
Shit. He’s right. The thing that’s keeping her from accessing any kind of power of her own could also be the one thing stopping me, or any one of us, from ripping her soul right out of her chest. Like a stopper on a bottle of Silvari wine – you want to put it in before you lay the bottle on the shelf. Once the wine is spilled, there’s no putting it back in.
Shade shouts into the storm, and we all turn toward the commotion at the door.
“Guys,” Seth hollers.
Twelve Paces
Pax moves first, cutting between Killian and Roarke and stalking toward Seth and me. My heart does a double thump as the rings around his pupils glow for the barest second, all of his intensity is alight and piercing – and it’s not on Seth. In the background, Killian and Roarke split off toward the horses.
“Put her down,” Pax orders, and Seth drops me to my feet.
Pax has his intimidating face on. Dripping wet, with his dark hair clinging to his head and
