Page 33

Out Of Control

Reven’s face contorts, twisting the way he looks at me, so full of blame, I might shatter and turn into a pile of ash and sand right here.

“Then I’ll take them from you,” he snarls.

The darkness around me rears up and punches out for him, a direct threat, but a shield of shadow forms in front of Reven.

To protect himself.

From me .

Darkness spews from within me and slams against Reven’s shield, the reverberation knocking me off my feet. I roll back up and try to cut off my access to Eidolon’s power. Maybe that will stop them.

Reven stalks toward me, shield still up.

“Help me!” I shout the words as I stumble backward. I reach for the connection that once bound us. Maybe I can make his heart open so he can hear me. “Reven! Help!”

He drops his shield and, with no warning, rushes me in a blur, just missing the hammer the Shadows manifest out of nowhere. How are they doing this? I turned off the power, didn’t I? But the glow from my hands tells me otherwise.

“Reven!” I scream his name as darkness surrounds me, cutting off all my senses except one.

Touch.

Reven doesn’t kill me…he touches me.

This is his darkness.

His hands go to my face, and that small act, that small point of contact grounds me enough that I can feel myself again. My own control is there now, warmer. Not just the cold of Eidolon’s.

Again, I try to cut off the Shadows’ control, to obliterate the siphon to the king’s power that has to be feeding them. But it’s not working.

I do the only thing I can think of.

A new heat sears through my body and across my skin as I draw on my own power. I’m stronger with it because it’s mine. In an instant, the sands around us rise, and I flash heat them into a knife blade so fine, it would slide through bone like it was water.

I jerk that blade up to my throat. It stings as the edge digs in, a warm trickle of blood leaking down my neck. “Stop or I end this!” I command the Shadows.

Immediately, the darkness sucks back inside me like silken skeins being wound up. And as fast as it all came on, it’s over. I feel like I’m the one back in control. I test the walls of the box inside me that I keep the Shadows in and it’s solid, containing them.

I never even felt them get out, even when they writhed. I stopped too fast.

Mother goddess. What is happening to me?

I’m still holding the glass blade to my throat, staring in horror at Reven whose hands are gentle and warm against my skin.

We’re both breathing hard.

Darkness—true shadows of night, warm and alluring—ease and dance around us in a swirl.

“Meren?” he asks.

Those tendrils brush over my skin, over his, seductive and intoxicating. They wind around me, drawing us closer together. But this isn’t the evil inside me wielding them now.

It’s me .

It’s me with him, beside him, working together. We stopped Eidolon’s evil together. The way we’re meant to. A sense of rightness settles in my center. I swallow hard. “Can you hear me?”

My voice sounds normal.

He frowns, not in anger now but confusion.

“I was screaming for you to help me. To not listen to them.”

The way his expression sort of shuts down sends a shiver sharply through me.

“His Shadows are contained,” I assure him.

His gaze narrows as he checks the swirl of darkness enveloping us, urging us closer. “I know.”

He does?

The darkness punches out, leaving only us. Me and Reven.

The glass blade drops from my fingertips as I reach up and put my hands against his cheeks. I try to smooth the lines of wariness, of questions, with the pads of my thumbs. Reven grabs my wrists, I’m sure to stop me, but then his touch turns softer, not pulling me away.

“What are you doing now?” he asks.

I sag into his touch. “What I should have done from the moment I pulled you out.”

I go up on tiptoe and press my lips to his once, softly, sweetly, and something else inside me eases. “I love you,” I say against his lips.

A tear squeezes out of my eyes. All the heartbreak of these last days released in that tiny, single drop.

“I love you and I need you to hear that.” I open my eyes and step back from him, giving myself permission to memorize every nuance of his face. “And I hate to put this on you after you’ve endured so much already, but the Shadows might destroy me before we figure this out. I’ll try to give you time and space. But I can’t not love you.”

Reven searches my gaze. For what? My sincerity? My determination? It’s all there. I’m not holding back any longer.

He seems to be, though. “Meren…that wasn’t the Shadows.”

I frown. “Of course it was, you just couldn’t hear—”

“I could feel them inside you, still can. They were never out of where you have them contained. Not for a second.”

Horror slams through the hollows of my bones.

“What?” I can hardly get the word out through lips so stiff they feel sewn shut. This can’t be right. It’s not right. I’m shaking my head, harder and harder. “No—”

“I wouldn’t lie about this.”

That would mean it was me all along, but I was fighting them. Wasn’t I?

“No! I wasn’t doing that. It wasn’t me.”

Reven breathes out harshly, but it’s the way his eyes soften that slays me. “It was you, Meren.”