Page 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

Fiona

I focused on his words, his steadiness, as I closed my eyes. I didn’t know enough about this power to know what it looked like, or what it felt like, even. My heart was still racing, but he was still talking softly, barely more than crooning, and that helped. Some lizard part of my brain felt like nothing bad could happen to me while Reed was there, whispering softly and holding me tight.

He was safety for me—now I just had to figure out how to be safe for him.

For starters, by not crashing his really expensive jet by causing an insane storm. Not killing us all was such a low bar, damn.

Focus, Fiona .

I blew out a breath, letting my lips go loose like this was a cushy, heated yoga class with soft music and not a life-or-death situation. And then I did exactly what he said and looked inward. At first, there was nothing but the blackness of the back of my eyelids, the soft static of nothing, of absence.

But after a few moments, I began to sense more. Lashing tendrils of power, streaming from my fingertips, my chest, my lips—feeding the weather outside. Connecting me, as if the storm itself was a living, raging thing.

My eyes popped open, and I scrambled backward, reaching for the nearest window shade and jerking it open. There it was, the storm I saw in my mind’s eye, all black clouds and sparking potential.

“I’m feeding it, but I don’t know how to stop.”

“When I was young and learning to shift between wolf and man, my dad taught me to visualize myself in the other form. I know this is slightly more complex since you haven’t actually seen your other form, but you know what you normally look like. Can you visualize yourself fully human on a clear, sunny day?”

I rolled the suggestion around in my head, then shrugged. “It can’t hurt. I don’t know what else to try.”

He nodded solemnly, letting me have my space, even as the jet continued to lurch and roll under our feet.

I stared out at the storm this time and imagined it blowing away. Being replaced by clear skies, by sun and little lazy birds riding high wind currents and sunning their feathers.

Slowly, the storm outside began to react. It was almost reticent, begrudging my desires for it to go away. I felt… resistance.

“You’re very beautiful, but if you stay here, you’ll crash this plane,” I muttered, scolding it lightly.

There, a little less resistance, the lightning stopped completely, and the clouds began to thin.

“Whatever you’re doing is working. The ride is much smoother.”

I nodded, continuing to stare out the window, willing the storm to ease, to dissolve.

When it was finally done, I felt boneless and exhausted, as if I’d just done the hardest workout of my entire life without moving a muscle. But I’d done it, and we were safe .

The captain’s voice came smoothly back over the sound system. “The storm seems to have cleared, and we’re on track to land in twenty minutes at the regional airport on our original flight plan. Please prepare for landing.”

Reed grinned at me and brushed a few stray tendrils of hair back from my forehead with a tender swipe. “You did it, Stormy girl.”

“I feel like I’ve run a triathlon wearing lead boots.”

He chuckled. “Power is like any other muscle. You’ve got to train it, and it can get exhausted. For your first time ever controlling it intentionally, that was exceptional.”

“If you mean almost exceptionally disastrous , I agree with you.”

He shook his head, pulling me against his chest for a hug. “Not a disaster. Why don’t you lie down and rest until we land? I’ll go get you a snack to help refuel your energy stores.”

I nodded, and he moved to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. His shirt was barely mussed, despite the fact that I was completely naked from our little interlude, his color back to normal, none of the heat lingering in his gaze.

“We’re going to figure this out. You know that, right?”

I swallowed hard, unable to meet his eyes, to handle the conviction in them. When I didn’t answer, just started pulling on my clothes, he left.

In the quiet, all my doubts crashed in. The shame of putting a jet full of people in danger because I lost my head was crushing. I could have killed Reed, his pack mates, and the jet’s entire crew in a ball of fire for a brief moment of pleasure.

It was sickening.

And I knew without a doubt that the power inside me didn’t care. It relished the destruction, raged against the confines I held it in. Resented being stopped. I’d felt that with startling clarity, as if the power was its own malevolent entity.

My power wanted to destroy everything I had started to cherish.

And no matter what it cost me, I had to stop it.

* * *

Reed and I rode out the rest of the flight in companionable silence, him feeding me daintily cut fresh fruit from a crystal bowl and giving me sips of some fancy handmade soda in between bites. Apparently, sugar helped wolves after a large magical expenditure, and he figured it couldn’t hurt other magical species.

It was endearing, and while I wanted to have hearts in my eyes for the man who’d given me a mind-blowing orgasm and was now hand-feeding me snacks like I was a precious, fragile creature… I couldn’t let myself fall into that trap.

For his sake, if not for mine.

When the wheels touched down on the tarmac, there was barely a bump, followed by a slight hum and the rapid deceleration of the jet to indicate we were no longer airborne.

I looked down at my lap as Reed cleaned up the snacks, not pushing me to talk or help. He was letting me be, coexisting in my presence. That was when I noticed that the mark on my palm had stopped glowing.

“Reed?”

“Hm?” He turned back to face me absentmindedly, one hand still straightening his shirt collar. He’d found the tiny imperfection and fixed it.

I held up my palm, showing him the now nearly invisible mark. If you weren’t an inch from it and looking, you’d probably never know there was an omega seal there.

“Interesting.” He stroked it with his thumb and smiled up at me. “We’re probably far enough from Brielle that her power is no longer charging it up.”

“Well, that makes things easier, I guess.”

“Yep. Leigh hates covering hers, so she’ll be happy at least.”

I smiled, though nothing inside me felt like smiling, and took his hand as we left the jet. The rest of our party was chatting happily, discussing the first things they wanted to eat in Italy and taking in the views. All I felt was numbness and shame, so I kept my thoughts to myself as we loaded into a sleek black SUV—slightly smaller than the ones in Romania—and zipped through winding streets to a beautiful, modern hotel.

It rose up from the surrounding nature with tall, straight walls of dark wood paneling mixed with gorgeous glass windows. The high, peaked roof still held a sprinkling of snow at this elevation. The whole scene made me want to sip hot chocolate and sit by a fire.

But as beautiful as the hotel itself was, the Dolomites were magnificent. Sheer rock faces, dusted with snow, seemed to defy logic and the effects of time. I could almost feel the magic in the air when we stepped out of the SUV, which was less absurd than I once thought.

If the dwarf king made his home in an entire city beneath the stone, well, there probably really was magic surrounding us.

Elodie threw an arm around my shoulder, gracefully stealing me from Reed’s side while he and Gael unloaded our luggage from the back. “Isn’t this the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen? I mean, the little town was so quaint and perfect, now this freaking gorgeous hotel! And just look at the view! The whole back wall is glass. We’re going to be able to see every snowflake from our rooms.”

She squeezed me tight, dragging me into her happy bouncing and making a laugh burst free from my chest. Her joyful enthusiasm finally broke through some of the numbness.

“It is gorgeous. Have you been to Italy before?”

She shook her head, gazing raptly up at the mountains as we talked. “I’ve never been anywhere before now.” Her tone was wistful, and I found myself studying her more intently.

Elodie seemed so young and vibrant, but with what I’d seen of wolves, it was impossible to tell they were aging until they were practically ancient. “How long have you been in the enclave?”

“Since I was fourteen. They start training us pretty much as soon as we hit puberty.”

Damn. That was so young, there was no way she’d gotten to really live a full life, know what she wanted for herself. “And where did you live before that, with your family?”

She cleared her throat, stilled. “Ah, I was orphaned when I was three. My mother died in childbirth with my younger brother and took my dad with her because of the mate bond. I didn’t have any aunts or uncles, so I was taken in by the pack’s Alpha and his mate until I was old enough to be sent to the enclave.”

“I thought the enclave was a whole old family tradition. If you were adopted, why…”

She tried and failed to hide her wince. “Their daughter was meant to go. But since I was legally adopted per pack law, I could take her place. It’s traditional for the second child to go, and after they adopted me, I was the second child.”

“Well, that just fucking sucks. I’m sorry, they shouldn’t be able to do that.” I was angry on her behalf, so angry, in fact, that my vision sharpened, tinged a bit darker.

“Hey, it was a long time ago, and it’s okay. Honestly, my maiden sisters are way nicer than the Alpha’s family ever was. No harm, no foul.”

She slapped me on the back, hard enough to make me stumble, then apologized as she caught me.

“I forget sometimes you’re not a wolf.” Her admission and the crooked grin that accompanied it were a balm to my battered heart.

“I wish.” The words were off the cuff, unthinking, and I regretted them the second they were out.

But it was true. Painfully, terribly true.

What I wouldn’t give to be a simple wolf instead of a monster.