53
KYLO
I was with Blade and Harmony when the cyclone began, these ugly gray gusts of wind that coiled around Princeton’s house.
Where Evie was.
Princeton had told me never to interfere with their sessions, and I’d had every intention of respecting that request.
But not when faced with another natural disaster that was only growing, threatening to take down the whole neighborhood.
It was all so sudden, and I could just faintly hear Evie’s piercing scream.
The three of us moved quickly toward the house. Harmony erected a shield of shadow around us as we dove through the barrier of harsh winds.
My bones rattled under my skin. Raw power coursed through the air, the earth, my quaking flesh.
“Is that her ?” Blade asked incredulously.
But I wasn’t focused on what was causing the outburst and why. I only cared about Evie.
We burst through the front door, and I called her name.
She was sitting cross-legged, five feet in the air. Her eyes were completely onyx. Her blonde hair was lifted around her in a halo. Princeton was yelling over the rushing wind and surging power, saying something to Evie about anchoring, telling her to come back down to earth.
“She’s past the point of return,” he said to me, in this strange, very un-Princeton tone of voice.
“What in the good gods is happening in here? Lillian’s fucking reckoning?” Blade yelled.
“She’s going to hurt herself,” Princeton said. “She’s bottled too much in. Her magick is going to eat her alive.”
I didn’t waste time to think. I grabbed Evie and sunk my fangs into her neck. I pulled her blood into my mouth until I tasted her anger, her grief, her bottomless heartbreak.
Her darkness washed over me, finding a home with mine.
I fed until she fell against me, limp and unconscious. I clotted her wound, collapsed to the floor, and held her in my arms.
My shadows strained under my skin, frantic and wrathful as they fed from Evie’s power and grew ever stronger.
Princeton was speechless. “She didn’t even show it,” he whispered. “That was her, without even trying. Entirely unconscious, barely provoked. That was her when she was still fucking hiding and burying the core of her magick .”
Blade and Harmony stared at the blonde girl in my arms, jaws unhinged and eyes wide with concern and awe.
“Harmony,” I said, straining over the buzzing in my ears, the swelling power that I’d absorbed from Evie. “I need you to check the wards and make sure the neighborhood is still glamoured.”
“Of course,” she said, hesitating only a second longer as she stared at Evie.
Blade rubbed his beard as he shook his head. “Blood replenishing potion?”
I nodded. Princeton directed Blade to where he kept them.
My teeth ground together at the sound of Evie’s faint, fluttering heart. “Quickly.”
I hated that I’d drained her so profoundly. That wasn’t something I’d ever want to make a habit of.
“You saved her life,” Princeton said. “She’ll be fine.”
He still looked shaken. I’d never seen him this shocked and perplexed.
I glared at him in accusation.
“I apologize,” he said. “It was supposed to be a simple exercise. I’d asked her to get angry, to access more of her repressed power. So that she could learn how to anchor herself when she was triggered and prevent… an outburst.” He scratched his head, looking off into the distance. “But too much has been shoved down. It’s all grown stronger underneath her denial. If we don’t find a way to reacquaint her with her magick, I cannot fathom what might happen. To her. To anyone around her.”
Fear clenched my heart. I massaged the bridge of my nose. I studied Evie’s troubled, unconscious features, her delicate white dress accented with pink flowers. To see her like that—overflowing with power, eyes pitch-black—stood in jarring contrast to everything else about her.
“Kylo,” Princeton said, insistent. “The next time she explodes, it will not be pretty.”
I gripped Evie tighter. “I. Hear. You.”
Blade returned with a potion. “But imagine her doing that in battle.”
His smile fell the moment he met my icy gaze.
“She’s not a fucking weapon,” I hissed. The mere thought of Evie in harm’s way made me want to enact my own explosion. “She is not one of us .”
Something I didn’t care for flashed in Princeton’s eyes.
Blade raised his hands in the air. Princeton pursed his lips and didn’t speak.
I tilted Evie’s head back, slowly pouring the green-tinged liquid into her mouth.
“Swallow,” I murmured.
Her eyes flew open, coughing violently. She was still weak in my arms, disoriented as she found my eyes.
I sighed. “Sorry, baby,” I said. “I need you to drink.”
I raised the bottle to her lips again, and she swallowed like a good girl, eyes locked on mine. When she finished, she became conscious of the other figures in the room.
Her brows drew close. “What happened?”
Blade rocked on his feet, hands in his pockets, deferring to me. Princeton was still staring at Evie as if trying determinedly to find what she’d hidden away.
Her pulse sped up. Her soft gray eyes locked on mine.
“I didn’t realize how much power had built up,” Princeton said. “I apologize, Evie. I would’ve used a different approach. I’ve never seen magick like that in a witch, other than… well, me .”
Evie’s face fell, panic ripe in her irises. “Did I hurt anyone?”
I shook my head. “No. I fed from you to pull you out of it.”
Princeton looked like he wanted to say more—to do more—but I wouldn’t have any of it. Something primal and territorial heated my blood, making me want to shield Evie from my mentor, my clan, anyone at all who might ruin her pure, warm soul.
She wasn’t a secret asset. She was my Evie . She needed protection, healing, and care—not to be used like her parents had once used her. I refused to add to her suffering, to repeat the wounds of the past. And the mere thought of her being anywhere near the violence of war made me want to rip out someone’s throat.
Harmony returned soon, confirming that the wards and glamours held, and no one outside the neighborhood had sensed a disturbance.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said curtly to Princeton. “Later.”
I took Evie back to my place and postponed my afternoon meetings until tomorrow. I hushed Evie every time she tried to apologize.
“You did nothing wrong. You’re perfect just as you are.”
She sipped water, curled up on the couch while I answered correspondences in my many magickally linked journals.
When she finally relaxed, looking over at me in that adorable way she did—like I was her only source of oxygen—I set my work down and pulled her into my lap.
I kissed her forehead, listening to the steady beating of her heart.
“It’s frightening how much I love you,” I told her, watching those pretty pink lips curve.
“Your love doesn’t frighten me.”
“Maybe it should,” I muttered. “My love for you makes me extraordinarily violent. I saw someone stare at your ass yesterday, and I almost plucked out his eyes right there in the street.”
Evie’s eyes widened. “That’s excessive.”
I grinned. “Exactly my point.”
“Please don’t hurt people in my name,” she whispered. “I don’t want to live with that on my soul.”
My stomach dropped slightly. A feeling I wasn’t expecting reared its ugly head.
“Unless they’re an actual threat, of course,” she amended. “I’m not upset about you killing the born who attacked me.”
She frowned, and my grip on her tightened.
“Just maybe not men who check out my ass.”
“Can’t make any promises.”
She glared at me. I allowed her to lift up my arm, and she bit down as she maintained eye contact.
I responded by grabbing and pinning her underneath me, digging my fangs into her right breast without breaking skin.
She giggled, futilely trying to push me away. I grabbed both her wrists and shoved them above her head.
I melded my lips with hers, soaking up her laughter, sunshine, and innocence.
That stray, rare feeling was back, worming through my chest, prodding and poking.
Please don’t hurt people in my name. I don’t want to live with that on my soul.
I thought of that unworthy, hysterical man baby I’d exterminated in the cemetery. The man Evie had absolutely no idea was dead.
For the first time since I’d watched Jasper piss himself, I felt something akin to guilt.