Page 17

17

EMBERLYNN

I ’m walking around a field of dead trees. Crows are circling around me, along with wisps of smoke. The land beneath my bare feet is scattered with dirt and ashes. In the distance, fires blaze.

“What is this place?” I whisper as I turn in a circle.

“You don’t know?”

Every single one of my muscles stiffens. “No, Kaiden kicked you out of my head.”

Shadow Man laughs. “Aw, it’s cute you think your little lovestruck warlock can get rid of me.”

I curl my fingers inward until my fingernails pierce my palms. “He’s not lovestruck. He barely knows me.”

His laughter echoes around me. “So na?ve about your own roots. But you were always such a stupid little girl. Although, you were less stupid when you were with me. Face it, my little pet, without me, you’ve been lost. ”

“No, I haven’t been.” I cover my ears in a lame attempt to block out his voice. “I was glad the day I was taken away from you.”

Silence trickles by.

Did I get him out of my head?

“Taken,” he growls. “YOU LEFT ME! YOU SNUCK OUT, AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW! TELL ME NOW! TELL ME WHY I CAN’T FIND YOU!”

My shoulders lurch upward as the loudness of his voice scares the hell out of me. Birds scatter, fleeing away. I wish I was a bird right now. I wish I could fly away, too.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, loathing the quiver of my voice.

It’s the truth. I never could fully recollect how I got away from him. I assumed something had happened to him and then humans found me. But what he just said implies that isn’t accurate.

“Go away.” As my legs threaten to give out, I sink down onto the ground with my hands still over my ears.

His laughter mocks my eardrums. “Never, little pet. I’ll never let you go. You. Are. Mine.”

“Emberlynn,” a wonderfully sweet voice whispers through the noise. “Come back to me. Follow my voice out.” The wisps billowing above my head dive down and spin around me.

Out of pure instinct, I touch one. The tip of it slithers around my wrist and coils up my arm. No drop of fear is present in me, though, as the wisp pulls me to my feet then upward, toward the sky.

“Don’t you dare leave!” Shadow Man shouts after me.

But I’m already sailing away to a much better place .

Because anywhere is better than here with him.

When I wake up, it’s a lazy sort of awakening, like waking up after a night of drinking, still drunk, an incident that happened once after one of my foster mothers allowed me to drink with her. She slept a lot during the day and drank before she went to work at a “special” bar. Really, it was a strip club; she just didn’t want anyone to find out.

She wasn’t a bad parent—I’ve had a lot worse—but she definitely wasn’t great at setting a good example. She was nice to me, though, and that’s a rarity in the foster world.

As I open my eyes, feeling hazy with drunkenness, a ceiling is the first thing to come into my view. My gaze swings to the right, to a wall with a framed portrait of a willow tree. I recognize it from the photo in my room.

I’m in my bed. Or the bed that’s in the room I’m staying in at Wylder’s place. And when I turn my head the opposite way, I find Wylder.

He’s sitting in a chair beside my bed, with his head resting in his hands. His blond hair is sticking up in all sorts of directions, and he still has on the same jeans and T-shirt he did when Kaiden performed the historia legere on me.

“Did it work?” Part of me is hoping it didn’t, that Kaiden didn’t see all the darkness that maps my past.

Wylder’s head snaps up, panic possessing every inch of him. “Oh my gods, you’re okay.” He moves from the chair to the edge of the bed.

“Was I not okay?” I start to sit up.

He places a hand on my arm. “Careful. Don’t move too quickly, okay?”

“Why? Am I going to break?” I joke in a raspy voice, sounding like I did a few days when I first started talking again.

He doesn’t even so much as crack a smile. “I’m mildly concerned about that.”

I rest against the headboard. “I take it everything didn’t go okay.”

Smashing his lips together, he shakes his head. “Kaiden was able to find some of your history, but then he lost you in your own mind. There were all these blocks and dead ends …” His eyes search mine. “It’s like someone tried to erase your memories.”

Part of me is grateful Kaiden couldn’t find all of my memories, but part of me is worried that Shadow Man played a role in it.

“I’m guessing losing me in my own memories isn’t a good thing, since you look completely stressed out.” I touch the strands of his hair then withdraw as his delicate magic kisses my fingertips. “Sorry.”

A wrinkle touches the space between his brows. “For what?”

“For touching you.”

His eyes flash with something I don’t quite understand, but it’s definitely intense. “You don’t ever have to apologize for that. Or worry about it.” He briefly pauses. “Do you need some of my magic right now to make you feel better?”

I want to say no—it’s obvious his magic could become addicting—but I nod, anyway.

He threads his fingers through mine and holds my hand, allowing a drop of his magic to spill through me. “Better?”

I dazedly nod. “Where is everyone, anyway? And what did Kaiden find out?” Nervousness attempts to weave through my veins, but Wylder’s magic is much more powerful.

“They’re out in the living room. We brought you here so you could lie down and rest.” He gently caresses the back of my hand with his thumb. “Kaiden has gone into full research mode, trying to figure out what blocked your memories. We were also worried you weren’t going to wake up, so he’s been looking into that.”

“What are Phoenix and Nico doing?”

“Researching, too. But Kaiden tends to take over.” His lips quirk as he says, “He’s very intense about researching. When we believed you were dead, he spent years looking into how that could’ve happened. I also think he was hoping to find some sort of evidence that it was wrong.”

“Well, it was.”

“I know. And I can’t even describe to you how glad we are that it was. But the fact that it’s never happened before, I think, at least for Kaiden, has him questioning if there’s more to it than just a mistake. And now with your memories being blocked … he’s probably going to go mad trying to find answers.”

Could this all be because of Shadow Man?

It’d make sense except he sounded as if he had no clue why I was able to get away from him.

Who the hell am I?

“Can you walk?” Wylder asks. “We can go into the living room, and Kaiden can explain all of this. I can carry you if you need me to.”

I scoot toward the edge of the bed. “I can walk.” Despite my assurance, he steadies me by placing his hand on my elbow as I lower my feet to the floor and stand up.

The world tilts, and I latch onto his shoulder, pressing my chest against his side while my other hand lands on his abdomen.

His fingers curl around my waist. “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry you?” he whispers, his breath dusting against my forehead.

Sucking in a breath, I nod. “I’m good. I’ll just hold on to you.”

We leave the room then and go into the living room. The place is in total disarray. The candles are gone and are replaced by stacks and stacks of books. Kaiden is pacing the little space that’s left with a book and pen in his hand that he’s chewing on the end of.

Nico is flipped back in the armchair with his legs stretched out and his head tipped back, his attention elsewhere other than the open book that’s on his lap. Phoenix is standing over by the window with a book in his hand, the moonlight trickling in from the window and casting across his face as he reads.

Wylder clears his throat as we enter, causing Nico to bolt upright, Phoenix to whirl around, and Kaiden to drop his pen.

They gawk at me like they can’t believe I’m here.

“Yeah, I’m alive,” I joke then add a spooky laugh. When they all continue to stare at me without so much as cracking a smile, I add, “Sorry. Bad joke, I guess.”

Nico springs to his feet and strides toward me. “Not a bad joke. We’re just a little too stressed out to laugh, I guess.” His gaze drinks me in, and then he starts to reach for me but pauses. “Can I hug you?”

“Sure?” I say more like a question.

He hugs me, anyway, his arms looping around me.

It might as well be the first hug I’ve ever received.

In the human world, the idea of being touched made me cringe. The way Liam acted toward me wasn’t a rarity and, because of that, I developed the skills to avoid contact as much as possible. Not that it always worked.

This, though, the way he feels, all warm and strong … the scent of mint and crisp winter snowflakes coming off of him …

“Mm …” A soft, little moan purrs from my lips as I curl into him.

He hums in response, grazing his lips across my forehead. “I’m glad you’re okay. ”

“Me, too,” I agree, fighting the desire to pull him back to me as he steps away.

His smile is a ray of sunshine as he gazes down at me.

My heart flutters.

It’s weird.

Is this connection all because we’re in the same coven? Or am I finally just getting lusty over someone?

Nico drags his teeth along his bottom lip.

I want to kiss him …

Wylder coughs.

Nico blinks. “Right.”

And again, I’m perplexed. “What?”

“Nothing. Let’s go sit down and talk, okay, pretty eyes?” He caresses my cheek with the back of his hand before spinning around and sauntering back to the living room.

The four of us sit down with me wedged between Phoenix and Wylder.

I’m beyond apprehensive about what they’re about to tell me, especially with how twitchy they are. Then again, I’m not sensing they’ve discovered I’m a murderer yet, so I guess that’s a plus.

“So, you’re not seventeen,” Kaiden tells me as he sets the book down on the table. Then he slants forward and rests his arms on his knees. “Your birthday is on October tenth, so in just a few months. But you won’t be turning eighteen. You’ll turn nineteen, which makes sense since we’re all nineteen, and members in covens are almost always close in age. ”

“Oh.” Any of my optimism dwindles into a puddle of pessimistic goo.

“I know it’s a lot to feel like you’ve lost a year of your life, but it’s kind of a good thing, because that means you’ll get to graduate with us.” Nico attempts to bring my mood back up.

“Yeah, I guess so.” My frown remains. “Why do you guys go to school until you're nineteen? In the human world, you’d be in college.”

“All creatures attend the academy from the ages of sixteen until nineteen, then we’re done with school.” Kaiden rubs his hand across his mouth, briefly lost in thought. “I couldn’t see much of your earlier life, Emberlynn, so, unfortunately, I didn’t get many answers like who your parents are. The earlier years of your mind were heavily blocked off.” He studies me. “That’s where you got lost at. I don’t know where you went, but I was lucky I was able to pull you out with my magic.”

“Those wisps were you magic?” I ask, remembering how safe I felt when they pulled me out of that land of ash and flames.

He nods, a wisp of his dark hair falling across his forehead. “I was also able to learn a bit about your magic.”

My frown deepens. “Great.” I despise my magic. It’s dark and dangerous.

Did he see that?

Is he about to kick me out?

“You don’t need to be afraid,” Wylder offers me reassurance. “You’re safe with us, no matter what. ”

We’ll see if that vow stays when they learn about the blood on my hands.

“The thing is you don’t have a prominent power source.” Kaiden picks up the pen and starts twirling it around his fingers. “Every witch and warlock has a main source. Wylder’s is healing, Nico’s is sunlight, mine is … shadows and darkness, and Phoenix’s is … death whisper.”

“Death whisper?” I verbalize my confusion, glancing at him. It sounds spooky, but so is what I can do. “What’s that?”

He avoids my gaze. “Let’s worry about that later.”

As outlandish as it sounds, it brings me a drop of comfort that he’s secretive about his powers, like I am.

“Why don’t I have one?” This question, I direct at Kaiden. “A power source, I mean. And didn’t you say I was a healer like Wylder?”

“Just because you can heal, doesn’t mean that’s your power source. Your power source is your strongest,” Kaiden replies, continuing to twirl the pen. “But as far as I can tell, you don’t have a main one.”

“So, I’m just not powerful then.” I seal my lips together to hold my breath, hoping he confirms this.

He stops twirling the pen, his intensely powerful gaze melding with mine. “I think it’s quite the opposite. I think all of the power sources are your main power. I’ve wondered this for a bit.”

I swallow hard. “That’s a thing?”

A skip of a pause, and then he tosses the pen onto the table. “It’s very, very rare, and as far as I know, hasn’t appeared in any witch or warlock for a long time. But there are records of it.”

My heart is a warning pounding in my chest.

Maybe I should’ve run …

Kaiden’s gaze is searing. “We will never, ever hurt or abandon you. Our job is to protect you. You need to understand that. But other than the four of us, no one can know about this. I’m working to find out if any of the council suspects this, because I’ve had a feeling that a few members might have intentionally kept your existence from us.”

“Why would they do that?” I whisper, still stuck on what he told me. “And then suddenly tell you?”

“Technically, they only told us after we felt you use your power,” Phoenix clarifies with his arms folded over his chest. “The day you cast that spell that put a hole in the ground, we all felt that.”

My lips form an O . “Does this mean I’m in danger?”

The muscles in his jaw pulsate. “Never. I’m going to figure out if anyone knows about you and take care of it. And as long as this stays between us, no one will ever have to find out.”

Does Shadow Man know?

Is that why he wants me so badly?

I pluck at a loose thread hanging from a hole in my jeans. “How do you take care of that exactly?” Really, there are probably only two options: kill them or erase their minds. I already know they can do the latter since they did it to Liam.

“He’ll erase their minds,” Nico tells me then shifts his focus to Kaiden. “You better be careful. If you get caught doing that, even your last name won’t be able to save you.”

Kaiden appears unperturbed as he states with undiluted confidence, “I’ll be fine.”

I wring my hands, restless and uneasy. “So, I shouldn’t use my magic.”

Kaiden gives a dismissive shake of his head as he retrieves a thick, worn book from off a stack beside his chair. “Not at all. I’m going to teach you how to harness it, so there’s no more accidental holes ripping open the ground.” A shadow of a smile haunts his lips.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was proud of what I did.

“He’s so getting off on her magic right now,” Nico says with a joking laugh.

Okay, maybe I did read Kaiden right.

Kaiden starts reading through the book but plucks a pillow and chucks it at Nico. Nico effortlessly ducks out of the way, laughing. But then Kaiden uses magic to launch another pillow at him, and it smacks Nico square in the face.

And as simply as it takes for someone to take a breath, the guys return to normalcy, chattering about class and what we’ll have for dinner. It’s like they have no worries about my rare magical ability. As if they trust me.

They shouldn’t.

I don’t want to hurt them, but I also have hardly any control over my power .

And if Shadow Man gets a hold of me ….

No, I won’t allow that to happen. If he finds me, I’ll run. I won’t let him use me as a tool to hurt anyone ever again, no matter what I have to do.