48. The Stranger
Chapter Forty-Eight
The Stranger
I heard her call for me. An echo on the wind, a silent plea, a scream for a reprieve from the torrent of agony she lives with.
The ashes of the carnivorous fog still drift in the air, the trees whispering to one another, alive and free for the first time.
The wild magic that manifests as the carnivorous fog is not supposed to be defeatable .
You can only neutralize it, and even that is risky.
Only a powerful, experienced sorcerer has a chance of surviving it.
It requires them to perform a convergence, in which the carnivorous fog is transformed into raw power.
They can then absorb it into their bodies to balance it out.
Summer eradicated it, meaning she unraveled raw, untempered magic. The only way she could have accomplished that was to be more . More than pure arcane ability, pure possibility. She is pure potential.
She sobs into my neck, and even as I open a portal to my bedroom, I shift to make it easier for her to bury her face in deeper. She won’t want to go home, not when she’s completely drained and vulnerable, and Rafe and Alice are waiting to pounce with questions.
So that leaves one option. My bedroom is nondescript, with no personal photos or items. Truly, it’s a place I sleep and not much else, but it is comfortable. The four-poster bed occupies most of the space. The sheets are soft, and the icy-blue comforter is plush and warm.
Summer doesn’t seem to even notice the change in environment, other than to hold on to me tighter and try to burrow closer.
I can feel how cold she is, and I know it is because she’s expended too much power, far too quickly.
I’ve done it myself more than once, depleting my power in moments of great desperation.
She’ll need food and sleep, but first, she needs to get warm.
I can’t do that with my avatar. It’s made of magic and air and only mimics a human shape. It produces no heat.
I drop my avatar, switching it to a glamour of a leopard shifter. He has dark red hair and dark eyes, and his height and build are close to mine. Selfishly, I want the glamour to be as much me as possible. It is bad enough that she can’t look into my true face and eyes.
Activating one of my runes, I increase the heat of my body and sit on the bed before tucking her as close as possible.
I press a gentle kiss to her forehead, holding her tight as she processes the emotions she went through in releasing the part of her she has repressed for so long.
I don’t know how long we sit like that, with her cradled in my arms, but she finally drifts off.
Tears slowly dry on her cheeks, and even in her sleep, her breath hitches with small hiccups left in the wake of her sobs.
Part of me doesn’t want to move, not even a little, but she needs more warmth.
Shifting carefully, I keep her pressed against me as I slide us both under the covers.
Hours pass, and she continues to clutch at my shirt tightly, her nails curled into the fabric.
Would she cling to me this tightly if she were awake and knew it was me?
Or would she retreat behind those walls she pretends are strong enough to keep me out?
She would run. She would hate this if she were awake.
The runes on her skin flicker in her sleep, her power nearly depleted. The iridescent marks are closer to a dull white. If they dim completely, they will be useless. All the spells and magic stored in her body will be nothing more than lines on her skin.
Lacing our fingers, I close my eyes. For a second I allow my glamour to fade, needing to concentrate if I am to feed her bottomless well. I cede a good portion of my power, and even so, it’s barely enough to stabilize her.
I doubt even I have enough raw magic to fill her limitless potential.
Most are shallow ponds, and greater magical beings might be rivers or lakes.
Summer is an ocean. One that never seems to end.
Her repression of her power is the only thing that lets her go unnoticed.
I doubt she realizes it should be an impossibility.
There is a reason lockboxes and such wards exist. We are merely vessels of potential.
The primal power that lives inside us does not like to be caged.
It can turn feral. If that happens and it breaks free, we are powerless against it.
Yet she’s lived her entire life with her powers suppressed.
It’s just another way her existence is a challenge to the rules of the realms.
Her runes stop flickering, and she sighs contentedly.
She continues to hold on to me, perhaps sensing that I am the reason she is feeling better.
She’ll be hungry when she wakes up. I press a kiss to the crown of her head, not wanting to leave her, but knowing I should prepare.
My glamour returns, and I squash the regret that turns my stomach at the small boundary between us.
Even though I keep it thin, it still stands as a barrier, keeping me from truly feeling her touch.
“Let me get you food, princess,” I whisper softly, brushing her hair back from her face.
She moans sleepily and rubs her face against my chest. It takes a moment for her fingers to relax enough for me to slip from her hold.
I tuck the blanket around her before darting downstairs.
While I heat up some leftover soup, I make a sandwich, stacked high with protein, before hurrying back to her side.
Placing the plate and a cup of soup on the bedside table, I kiss her forehead again, unable to resist the moment of intimacy before I wake her. She stirs slightly at the touch.
“Summer, wake up. You need to eat. You need protein,” I say, adding a touch of command to my tone.
Her icy-blue eyes take a moment to open, their usual brightness glazed with exhaustion. “Where am I?”
“My home.” She tenses at the words. “You were spent.”
She pulls back from my touch, looking around.
“Eat,” I order, drawing her eyes to the food on the bedside table. She shifts to a sitting position, putting more distance between us.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asks, and I hate how dull she sounds.
I pick up the plate and hold it out to her. “I thought you’d prefer not to answer Alice or Rafe’s questions.” And because I wouldn’t miss the chance to have her in my bed, lying in my arms.
She takes the plate but looks away. “So you’re not planning on asking me any questions?”
“Would you answer them?”
Her fingers tighten on the plate. It’s a silent answer, but it is still an answer.
“I have to go,” she says, her gaze flicking around the room as if looking for a way out .
“Just eat.”
She glances at me before reluctantly picking up the sandwich and taking a bite. I remain silent, studying her as she eats. She takes a deep drink of the soup, and her natural glow returns to her skin, lessening her pallor.
“Better?” I ask.
She nods, and I nudge the plate, the majority of the food still sitting there uneaten.
Slowly, she picks the sandwich up and takes another bite.
We sit in silence together as she eats. When she clears the plate, I set it to the side, relieved to see she didn’t push herself past the point of no return.
There are those who have lost all their potential.
They ran their well dry and could never come back from it.
It is better to be dead than magicless among the Arcane realms.
“What face are you wearing today?” she asks, finally breaking the silence.
The question makes me tense. Her tone is sharp, defiant, a pointed knife spinning through the air. She doesn’t like that I brought her here. That I’m here.
“I can go back to my avatar.” My formless, touch-deprived state. “If that is preferred.”
“I just don’t understand the point of it,” she says, her tone still sharp. “I know you’re not a shifter, so why use the face of one?”
It’s easier to create a glamour of a face you’ve seen before, and this is one I remember vividly. I always remember the faces of those I’d been tasked with killing. So my glamours almost always resemble my victims. It helps that my list of kills is longer than most, if not the longest.
“You were cold.” I study her features, trying to guess her mood. “From the rain.” She blinks in surprise at my response. “So I dropped the avatar for a glamour.”
“And he had to be hot, because ?” she asks, arching a brow.
“Hot?” I ask. I needed to warm her up?.?.?. Oh . My jaw clenches. She thinks this glamour is hot ? I should change back to my avatar, then. I do not like it when she finds my glamour attractive, even when I am the one wearing it.
“I’ll change back.”
She glances away. “Leave it?.?.?.” A moment later, she glances at my arms, her eyes glowing slightly.
I lift my arm and hold it out for her, wondering if she will reach out and touch me. Not every part of my body is altered by the glamour, and while I might have the markings of the shifter, my arms are mine. So she must genuinely like this part of me. My blood hums with pleasure at the idea.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, but her eyes don’t leave my arm.
“You can touch.” Touch me. Touch me. Touch me. It will be the first time she will do so willingly.
“You want me to?”
I nod. “I won’t deny that.”
That’s a simple fact of my reality. With every breath, I crave her more and more, until my own skin feels wrong, abrasive, and coarse.
So touch me, Summer. I’ll take it. I need it.