Enflame (Insight #6)(11)
“I have more energy than I can handle.”
“No, you don’t.”
He raised his hand as if he were telling someone to quiet himself. My eyes raced in every direction, looking for anything, anyone. I wanted Landen back now. How could he just leave me here?
“I told you that we are the same. Someone lit your fire only to leave you to burn out, and if it’s this chap, I have a good mind to let him starve. That’s borderline abuse—at the very least, reckless. People don’t have the means to pay for your temper tantrums, the butterflies in your little tummy.”
“You’re psychco.”
He looked at me like I was insane. “Woman, I guarantee that in the last half hour, you have caused not only emotional, but property damage to every being and house on this block. Can you not feel how terrified the people are right now? Hiding in broom closets, watching their magic boxes, looking for a reason as to why a night that was forecast to be clear is anything but.”
“It’s not my fault,” I uttered as I edged backwards. I was almost sure I could get out of this house, at least this room. The ice was gone, so the ghosts must be, too.
“Yes, it is,” he said, reaching his arm back and pulling me to him as if I were a lost child. “Who did this to you?”
“Did what?”
His fiery eyes sympathetically cascaded over me. “Opened your mind and left you. Is that why Skylynn called me to you? She expects me to train you?”
“For the last freaking time: I. Don’t. Know. Who. She is!”
“Right. So she just decided to take one of her last three ounces of my ashes and give them to you as a good deed? I doubt it.” He glanced to his right. “Is she your friend, chap?”
“Who are you talking to?”
“Not sure, can’t quite see him. Must be young. I make it a habit not to feed the young. If you do, they never leave. Like stray cats, they just keep coming back.”
“Young? Like just died?”
He puckered his lips, then spoke to the empty room. “You were raised. Who sent you to feed on her?”
“Quit saying it like that!” I said, hitting his chest. “Its just energy. I know people who were just raised. Who is it?”
He leaned forward so his face was inches from mine. “What. City. Did. You. Grow. Up. In?”
“Franklin. All right?!”
He glanced at the room. “First kiss. Name him.”
I turned crimson. “Dane.”
He raised one brow ever so slightly as his eyes drifted to my lips.
“All right then.”
He stepped back, casually extending his fingertips in my direction, then pulled them to him as if he were telling me to follow, but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed in place. Then what looked like smoke eased from my skin, dancing across the air before twirling around his hands. He shaped what could only be energy into a sphere in his hand.
“I’m going to give this to him, and if you tell me he’s a foe or if I know him to be one, you and I are leaving.”
“I’m not leaving with you.”
“It wasn’t an invitation. You’re dangerous. Out of control. Every spirit in this town has their eyes on you.”
“What did I do to them?” I scoffed.
“Wasteful is the common complaint. That and you’re blind and deaf,” he said with a smirk as he continued to toy with my energy that was in his hand.
“I am not!”
“You are to what really matters,” he muttered as he began to focus his attention on my energy.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Do I not?” he said as the energy moved across the palms of his hands. “Scorpio born.” I swallowed when his eyes dared me to tell him that he was wrong. “You are pure darkness, but a light has claimed you as his.”
“I’m not dark.”
A ghost of a smile eased through his fiery eyes. “If you were not, you would feel every part of me. It’s the soul’s nature to be blind to who they are.” He circled me, still holding my energy as if it were a crystal ball. “Odd, really. For you to betray this light image, you must have been claimed at a young age. That’s fine and all. Only issue is you have never tasted who you are. The power inside you is fighting to get out. You do not have the mindset to balance what he gives you with who you are.” He stopped next to my side and leaned in, holding the sphere of energy where I could see it. “What do you see here?”
My nervous gaze found the energy in his hand. Most of it was glowing white, but up close I could see what looked like veins, the color of ash.
“Mesmerizing, isn’t it? This right here is not even a breath of what power is in the soul. This is the brush off, a vague mist that is easily given without thought.” He turned the energy in his hands. “Yet, right here you can see the essence of who you are. Darkness threaded with light...I can see how you could think you were on the opposing team, but the truth is, without him your energy would be as dark as night.”
“I don’t believe you. I’m not dark. I fight darkness with him.”
“Do you believe you are the first to fight against your own kind?” he bit out audaciously.
“I’m not dark.”
He smirked. “You act as if I am telling you that you and your mate are wrong for each other.”