Chapter 10 Scars and Secrets #2
“Pardon?” Holden looks up from the list of notes he’s compiled, his dark gaze shifting from me to Griffin, and then Lochlan.
“Your lie detection or whatever this was,” I say, gesturing toward Lochlan.
“You took a drink every time I lied. When I tried to tell you it was nothing. Again, when I told you Cecily Mason broke my arm. And a final time, when I told you I didn’t know the guards.
” I turn to the page where Cecily Mason’s perpetual glare stares back at me.
“She dislocated my shoulder.” I close the binder that contains too many of my nightmares. “How does your power work exactly?”
“That’s none of your concern.” His words are a blow that I should have seen coming, and one that definitely shouldn’t hurt.
“Loch, I’m two seconds from strangling you with your own fucking intestines,” Griffin grits.
“No. He’s right. It’s not my business. None of this is.” I start to stand, desperate to leave, but the same binding feeling around my ankles and wrists that occurred in the medical facility returns, only this time it encases nearly all of me, keeping me pinned to my seat.
I glare at Lochlan.
His silver eyes dance with malice. “We aren’t finished.”
A quiet sound that can only be called a growl emanates from beside me, and Griffin’s spine goes rigid.
“The imprint is impairing your judgment,” Lochlan deadpans, turning to him.
“Both of you.” He swings his attention to Daire.
“Think about it. She’s twice the age of Elementals we recover.
” He waves toward me. “The big bursts to capture our attention followed by lapses of silence...” He’s silent for a moment, clearly thinking about something before pinning his stare on Daire.
“Karraelas thought it was a trap, didn’t he? That’s why you were brought along.”
“He didn’t know what we were walking into. He thought it was a coven.”
“The day after the Umbral Sovereign went dark.” He nods mockingly. “And instead of a coven, you recovered a lone Elemental who escaped Kaelith and Mao and claims to know nothing.”
Daire flips over his arm, stabbing his finger against the imprint.
But Lochlan shakes his head. “Our fate was written hundreds of years ago. We know she can’t be who you want her to be. That mark doesn’t change anything.”
Griffin brings his fist down on the coffee table. The crack of splintering wood has me recoiling. “It changes everything. Our Mate is right. Fucking. Here.” He gestures to me. “Right here. If this were a trap, they wouldn’t send her in here alone, not when they know what we’re capable of.”
I don’t understand this trial—the roles, or even the offenses I’m being accused of—as silence seeps through the air like a poison.
Kai leans back and lowers his gaze to mine. “Unless Holden’s right, and they didn’t warn her.”
“Who’s they?” I ask.
“Stars,” Daire mutters, turning to Lochlan. “Look through my fucking memories. You know you want to. Look and then tell me she’s a traitor.”
“A traitor?” The word feels clunky and bitter in my mouth.
Lochlan raises his brow. “Just remember—you invited me.”
The silver of his eyes shines as Daire grits his jaw, the ropey muscles in his neck straining. He doesn’t say anything—I don’t know if he can.
The memory of what Lochlan did to Willow at the healing center consumes my chest and steals my breath as Daire’s knuckles turn white.
“What’s he doing?” My voice is a raspy plea, fear dragging its talons over my skin as my heart thrums a chaotic beat and my body flashes between being too hot and then too cold and then too hot again. “Stop!”
I don’t know at what point I stood, trying to position myself between them. “I can’t—!” I clench my fists, terrified for what I innately know is about to happen. “I’m—”
Flames burst from my hands, surrounding the couch where Daire and Griffin are seated and myself, so high I can’t see the others on the other side of the ring of fire.
The flames climb higher.
Griffin stands, raising his hands, but Daire remains frozen, jaw clenched. Lochlan is still holding him in place, his power pressing into him.
Chills course through me despite the unbearable heat surrounding us, and sweat gathers on my brow.
Water dances with my flames, so hypnotizing it nearly distracts me from my stomach free-falling, my face flushed with heat.
My vision blurs as I grow increasingly lightheaded before the world turns sideways and then black.
“You’re safe.” The deep voice prods at my blissful state of nothingness. “Open your eyes, Spitfire.”
I want to refuse. To lash out. To be left cold, alone, empty, and unburdened.
“She needs time,” another voice says.
Time.
I’ve had too much of it. And yet, not nearly enough.
I find that blessed velvet darkness and let it take me again.
“Her pulse is normal.” The voice trips an alarm in my thoughts, sifting through the nothingness I want to cling to—but it’s like fog: fleeting and incorporeal.
“She’s fine.”
“Clearly, she’s not.” A soft brush of callused fingertips along my temple has that alarm blaring even louder, causing my body to go rigid as the telltale feeling of heat and cold pulsing through my body warns me I’m about to light something—someone—on fire.
“You’ll burn yourself out, Witchling.”
I try to open my eyes, but like the rest of my body, my eyelids are sluggish and too heavy.
Daire swims into view first, balanced on his haunches as he examines me. Behind him, Lochlan leans against the bookshelves, arms crossed.
My heart pounds like a nail gun. Bang. Bang. Bang.
“And you said you weren’t the fainting type,” Daire teases, sifting his fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry. We triggered you.”
“Not half as sorry as the carpet,” Lochlan drawls. “You have no idea how old that piece was.”
A curse has me twisting to see Griffin at the end of the couch that I’m lying on. His body is stiff, his breathing ragged. Holden sits behind him on an oversized chair, his expression unreadable.
The room reeks of smoke. The ruined table and carpet smolder, streaked with scorch marks.
My heart pounds against my ribs, fearing what happened while I was out, what happened with the fire, and a modicum of relief that they managed to evade it.
Daire runs his fingers down the length of my arm, and like before, my pulse slows. My thoughts clear. The tension gripping my muscles unfurls as a calming warmth spreads through me.
“How are you doing that?” My voice is a scratch in the silence.
His lips purse with a hint of amusement. It’s painfully beautiful. “The same way you start fires.”
Lochlan sputters and then coughs. “Without sacrificing thousand-year-old books in the process.”
Daire ignores him. “We were idiots not to consider that it would cause you to react. How are you feeling?”
Like a truck hit me, but I’m not about to admit that. Weakness is a tool too many know how to wield.
The first time I mistook compassion for manipulation, I was in one of those damn sessions. Someone in a clean uniform offered to unlatch my handcuffs, only they were replaced with a more painful pair that were then hooked to a pulley overhead while they told me how much pressure a joint can take.
Griffin shifts back abruptly, spewing a string of curses before taking clipped steps to the door.
For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to storm out, but then he stops, fists clenched at his sides.
When he turns, his gaze locks onto me with an intensity that sends a sharp pulse through my chest. “Who did that to you?” His voice is guttural, filled with rage.
Panic consumes me as quickly as shame does as I draw back.
Griffin’s gaze flicks to Lochlan before he points at the line on his arm. “I can see her goddamn memories.”
My blood turns to ice as violations old and new collide—guards stripping me, strangers beating me, doctors examining me, and now this man mining my thoughts without permission.
“You’re in my head?” I accuse.
Griffin’s gaze skips to mine, an agonizing look. “Not intentionally.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“You’re sending your thoughts to him,” Lochlan says, pushing away from the bookshelf.
“Which makes me wonder how you, little jailbird, can raise an air shield strong enough to trap us, but don’t know how to hold back your thoughts?
Thoughts that could easily be lies.” His voice drips with accusation.
Daire whirls around as he stands in one fluid motion.
Lochlan reads his intention, rising to the fight as he tilts his head and arches a brow, looking too damn arrogant. “Go ahead. Hit me. See if it triggers her again. My guess is she has enough left for one more fire, and then...” He shrugs dismissively.
Daire says nothing as he slowly turns to me. “You have to ease up. Everyone’s safe.”
I try to move, but my limbs feel heavy, my body sluggish. “How am I sending him my thoughts?”
Griffin crouches beside me, pressing a firm hand to my back, steadying me. “We’ll talk about shielding later, but right now, you need to drop the shield. It’s draining you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lochlan stalks toward the far wall and extends a hand as though he’s going to flick off the light switch, but stops short. Pain ricochets down my spine as he presses against the invisible barrier. “Do you know what we’re talking about now?”
“Are you fucking serious?” Griffin barks, murder in his eyes.
Lochlan removes his hand, and the pain ebbs, but too slowly to be a relief. My elbows feel like cooked noodles, and my head swims as heat and chills prickle over my body.
“She has no idea what she’s doing,” Griffin says.
“How in the hell do you actually—” Lochlan shifts forward, but Holden raises a hand.
“She’s going to kill herself. You need to talk her down,” Holden says. “Guide her.”
Kai swears. “He’s right. We have to do something.”
Griffin leans closer to me, his face ashen as he places his hand on my arm.
“You need to breathe and focus right here.” His opposite hand presses high on my stomach, where my ribs end.
“Think of your body as separate parts. Picture your heart and feel it beat. Then move to your lungs, and feel them inhale, and then exhale.” He pauses, allowing me to take a few breaths to discern each feeling he’s described.
“Good,” he says. “Now, right below that is your cindrel—where your element burns and your power ignites. It’s the core of what makes you an Elemental.
What makes you, you. It’s warm and feels like a rush of adrenaline.
” In response, my heart rate spikes. “That’s it.
That’s my girl.” His grip on my arm tightens. “Now, let it relax.”
My girl.
My heart rate turns sticky, and coldness seeps through my muscles.
“She’s pouring more into it,” Lochlan warns, turning his gaze toward the ceiling. “I swear to the Titans, if this is a trick and you try to attack us, everyone will pay.”
“Bri, focus.” Griffin’s voice snaps me back. “Right here.” He pushes against that spot on my stomach a little harder. “I’m going to make it stop, okay?”
I blink as my gaze blurs and replicates everything in the room.
Someone shouts, but my heartbeats are too loud to hear their words. I’m drowning, every part of me too cold and weightless.
I want to fall into it, let it pull me down, but I can’t. My fingers tingle—a strange, almost pleasant sensation that my heart condemns but my mind welcomes.
Another shout, but once again, it doesn’t penetrate me as the tingling sensation reaches my wrists.
Without warning, pain sears through my skull, making me scream as I grip my head.
No. The word is a silent plea as terror takes root in my thoughts.
“Rest,” Griffin insists.
I resist, held back by the primal instinct not to surrender. Not here. Not to them.
“You’re safe. No one will touch you. I swear it.” Griffin’s hand touches my arm.
Everything inside of me wants to riot and protest, but it’s as though I’m being pulled into quicksand.
The sound of footsteps is the last thing I hear before the darkness embraces me once more.