Chapter 18 Blood and Belonging
BLOOD AND BELONGING
“We’re going to try something new today,” Daire says, drawing my gaze from the trees heavy with snow around us. We’re in the same clearing as yesterday; only this time, all five guys are out here. Watching. Waiting.
“We’re going to see if you can feel when we use our elements.” He offers his hand to me.
I don’t know why taking it is so hard when it feels as simple as breathing once our skin touches.
He brushes his thumb across the tender space between my thumb and forefinger—absentmindedly, or maybe intentionally—then raises his opposite hand.
Fire licks up his fingers. It should terrify me.
I should recoil, fearing his strength and raw power, knowing exactly what those flames can do—but instead, I’m mesmerized by how the heat caresses him. Worships him.
His grip around my hand tightens, each rough callus stroking my skin. Heat races up my arm—heat that has nothing to do with the fire. I step closer, the flames more invitation than threat.
“Do you feel anything?” His voice is gravelly, making my pulse skitter.
I nod slowly, though I can’t explain the sensation.
I feel light and heavy all at once. A part of me wants to giggle.
Another part wants to slumber. And underneath both is the desire to shred every stitch of clothing from his body and trace him with my tongue.
I shove the impulse into the recesses of my thoughts, refusing to name it.
The flames on his fingertips grow, dancing higher, hypnotic in their beauty. Without thought or question, I shift forward and slip my free hand into the fire.
Holden startles with a half-formed objection, one mirrored in Daire’s gaze, but I’m already tracing the edges, already trying to capture the ash in my hand. I feel more than the heat of the flame—I feel Daire. Feel his relief, curiosity, and longing as though each emotion is my own.
Daire belts out a laugh, squeezing my hand even tighter.
“It doesn’t impact her,” Kai marvels, almost reverently. “It isn’t hurting her.”
“Because she’s our Mate.” Griffin’s words are a caress down my spine.
“His power isn’t strengthening,” Lochlan drawls, unimpressed.
“Probably because the bond isn’t sealed,” Daire says, but the fracture of doubt in his gaze is as evident as his grip around my hand loosening.
For the next three days, training consumes all my time.
I go from the gym to the clearing in the forest, to shielding.
I’m passed like a relay baton that no one wants to carry.
Occasionally, Holden lists off a dozen or more questions about my past—questions that are always clinical, always specific.
I never know if I’m filling in blanks or being quizzed. I don’t ask. I pretend not to care.
Lochlan leaves every morning, always in a suit, never without one or more of the guys.
Either Daire or Griffin remains at Mysthaven.
Again, I pretend not to notice, just as I pretend not to notice all the careful, fractional ways they’ve begun distancing themselves from me since I touched Daire’s flames.
I slump down on the couch, exhausted both mentally and physically.
I’m relieved.
I’m confused.
And as much as I don’t want to admit it, thinking about their rejection feels like pressing on a bruise.
“Ready?” Kai asks, slipping his crystal link into his pocket.
I nearly remind him that I’ve been waiting on him for the past ten minutes. Instead, I close my eyes and draw my shields.
Kai is quick to point out a weak spot. “Again.”
I take a breath and picture my old apartment, but footsteps somewhere in the house distract me, and before I can shield, Kai’s in my head.
Once again, he selects a memory, and once again, it plays like a movie in my thoughts.
I’m ten, standing outside my elementary school.
The wind bites my cheeks as I realize my parents either forgot or got their wires crossed about who was supposed to come and get me again.
Even at a young age, I worked to never be an inconvenience. Knew to rely on myself.
I take the shortcut through the woods, the one that gets me home and out of the rain in half the time. Somehow, I get turned around, lost in a maze of trees and ferns.
I build my mental shields as the memory changes, the woods dissolve into bales of straw and leaves the colors of sunflowers, eggplants, pumpkins, and candied apples as the scents of fried doughnuts permeate the air.
Beside me, Mom claps, lifting her chin toward the small makeshift stage where my father’s giving a sermon.
“You’re not even trying,” Kai says, running a hand through his dark hair.
I lean back, annoyed as the undercurrent of melancholy and resentment sours my mood, making shielding feel like an even bigger chore.
I loved autumn in Vermont. Loved the festivals where competitions for the best pumpkin spice doughnuts mattered more than most holidays.
More than that, for a few brief seconds, the comfort of being with my mom in a normal setting, with my normal blemishes, was a balm I didn’t realize I needed—wanted—until Kai pulled me out of the memory.
“It doesn’t feel natural. All this visualization stuff is. .. difficult.”
“Stop picturing your memories as tangible items and focus on the perimeter. Secure it. Lock it down.”
I sigh and imagine the walls, ceiling, and floor of my old bedroom, but before I’m ready, Kai selects another memory, and I’m suddenly on an inner tube, the wind tugs at my hair, and the sun beats against my skin.
My laughter is high-pitched, threaded with apprehension.
A wave tips me higher. The tube crashes against the surface.
My hands burn as I try to hold on, but the impact is too great.
One second, I’m on the float, and the next, I’m underwater, struggling against an invisible current that I didn’t see coming and don’t know how to fight.
Fear races through my veins. I don’t know which way is the surface or how to swim.
Did they even see me fall in?
The last thing I want is for Kai to have a front-row seat of my nightmares.
I struggle to set my shields as the cold rush of water presses against my ears, throat, and eyes, so cold that I can’t tell if it’s the memory or my present self that aches before everything fades to blackness as I finally manage to shield.
The space I’ve created isn’t one I’ve ever seen, but one I’ve visualized a million times, a clearing set in a field of wildflowers, the sun hanging lazily in the sky, shining down on me.
In this fantasy world, I don’t have to worry about sunscreen or ticks, spiders, or snakes.
Not even mosquitoes reach me in this perfect space I read about in a children’s book long ago.
“Lower your shield and let’s try again,” Kai instructs.
“I have it now.”
“You’re struggling with raising your shields. If you falter, you have to be able to recover instantly.” He snaps his fingers.
Slowly, begrudgingly, I allow my perfect field of wildflowers to fade away.
Kai nods. “Now raise them.”
I try to draw the field, to feel the sun, but another memory pushes in.
Rough hands dig into the flesh of my upper arms, shaking me as my mother demands an explanation for why I let go of the rope and fell off the inner tube.
The memory is so real and raw. My lungs and throat feel shredded, like I’ve just swallowed a bucket of nails.
With the burn still in my lungs, I build my shields.
“Again,” Kai says.
Emotional turmoil has my skin crawling, but I refuse to admit defeat any more than I’m willing to face him.
I lower my shields, and a memory instantly pulls me back in time and space, straight into the house I grew up in.
My backpack is heavy on my shoulder. Once again, the reminder of the day fills my thoughts, recalling the grueling basketball practice I’d endured after a particularly lonely day.
It’s my seventeenth birthday, and I spent much of the day alone because my best friend, Sarah, made a new group of friends who only care about boys, fashion, and tearing others apart. I’m starving for more than food.
The house is empty.
It often is.
I stop at the fridge, seeing my mom’s handwriting.
Brielle,
I shield before Kai can read the note, uncertain how much context they have access to when invading my memories. He tears through them.
Carrie needed help with the Lancasters’ horse. Sorry to miss your birthday. We’ll celebrate Sunday.
Love,
Mom
I slam the memory closed, locking it behind a mental door.
“I pushed you out,” I say, anger flooding me as I meet his icy blue eyes.
“You left a gap. Lyra won’t be half as gentle.”
“Ripping my shields down is hardly a gap.”
Kai pushes to his feet.
The action is so fast and aggressive that my heart seizes.
He stops—freezes—his gaze locked on where I’m gripping the seat cushion. Rage flickers in his eyes, but he still doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe.
Seconds pass before he asks, “Who were these assholes that raised you?”
Over the past few days, he’s seen too much of my life. Too many of my worst and loneliest moments.
“Why do you keep picking the most invasive memories? I didn’t even know your element, and you’re here, feasting on every dysfunctional part of my life.”
He pivots, brow drawn.
“How much longer do we need to do this?” I ask before he can respond.
“Until you start shielding faster.”
“What if I can’t?”
His jaw flexes, causing those damn dimples to become an even greater distraction. “You don’t have a choice. This is more important than your elements. Focus.” He resumes his seat across from me. “Again.”
I form my shields, but he rips them down again, and again, never pausing on a single memory long enough for them to play.
“You’re taking too long.”
“Why are we even doing this? Why not let the Council read my mind? Hell, why don’t you? You have a freaking roadmap to my innermost thoughts, yet you’re teaching me how to block you while accusing me of being a traitor.”
“Thoughts and memories can be manipulated.”
“Wouldn’t you see if I was doing that?”
Kai doesn’t respond. He grips the back of his neck, his jaw tight as he pulls out his crystal link again and types something, likely how annoyed he is to be babysitting me.
I stand, feeling increasingly claustrophobic from constantly imagining myself in the most cramped environments. “Are we done?”
His gaze flashes to mine. “You haven’t kept me out yet.”
“And you haven’t answered any of my questions.”
Kai’s jaw remains locked as he stares at me with those impossibly blue eyes that give nothing away.
“Am I allowed to go for a walk?” My voice is patronizing as I glare at him.
He gives a slight shrug. “You’re not a prisoner.”
I scoff, turning toward the back door. I’m less sure of that with every passing moment.
Behind me, Kai quietly swears. “You need to master shielding because if Lyra finds out that you imprinted on Griffin and Daire, there will be a bloodbath, and yours will be the first that spills.”
My hand hovers over the doorknob as I look back at him and shake my head. “Why?”
He buries his fingers in his dark hair. “Because you shouldn’t exist!”