Enflame (Insight #6)(63)

“You have no idea. He and I...we were unstoppable. Both charismatic one minute, deadly the next. There was no circle we could not break into, no one crossed us, and we let no one in.”

“You let Skylynn in.”

He tilted his head down and let his eyes rise to meet mine. “Jealous much?”

“All the time.”

“Typical.”

“Whatever.”

“We never let anyone in, and neither did Skylynn. Don’t let her get to you.”

“She’s not.” I pushed my empty plate away from me. “While I was driving around for no reason, I did manage to think of a few questions for you.”

“Listening,” he said, wiping his mouth.

A second later I was sitting on my couch in front of the fire. I gasped, looking over my shoulder, hating that he could move so fast—move me.

“I did the dishes,” he said as he sat down on the other end of the couch from me.

“Right,” I mumbled, adjusting myself to a more comfortable position. “All right, explain how I fit into this. How vital am I? I mean, I get the impression that all that time you were with Landen, it was spent trying to find me...did you have a back up plan if you found me and I was broken?”

“Deep thinker when you drive your little box around, huh?” he mumbled as his gaze fell to my medallion. Unconsciously, I reached for it, letting my fingertips trace the perfect details of it.

“Never mind. I’ll ask Landen,” I said as I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, stop your whining,” he said, throwing a mischievous glance at me. “You’re not broken.” He stretched his legs out as he gazed at the fire. “And your images are only a fragment of your purpose. And don’t ask me what that is. If you haven’t figured it out, then...well, it’s not time to. Better off that way, considering the emotion you are fighting.”

“Love?”

“You’re not fighting love,” he said with a glance that made me feel like a fool. “Fear. You fight fear.”

He had a point there.

“But, okay, say we open this gate and you guys ride the souls out, or Draven and the others throw them out. What’s next? And what happens if it goes wrong? What is the risk?”

“The next porthole is next. This web is bigger than one spell. We’ll deal with what goes wrong when it goes wrong.” His eyes danced across my clueless expression. “Don’t look at me like that. Trying to fix what could go wrong before it went wrong is half the reason we are in this predicament. Souls are power, and right now a lot of souls are enslaved. Focus on that, not the images. Not the fear.”

“So the point is to get them out? Straighten out the past by looking forward? Confusing, that is what that is.”

He glanced at my wrist to my tattoo, the star. “Has your other been meddling in your mind?”

“Like he had time. Why?”

“I told you: I know how a Scorpio’s mind works. All this time, you’ve been told your heart is the power, needed to break a curse, to run a dimension—making your other look like the bad guy, only wanting your power. Then I show up, Skylynn does. You hear us bickering about the past, that Guardian had told us you were the key. Now who looks like the bad guy?”

“I don’t doubt why Landen loves me.”

“Good. Because I would throw you into the fire if you did,” he said, nodding to the flames that were heating the room.

“I dare you to try,” I mumbled. Before he could respond, I said, “How did you know all that about me? What we’ve been through?”

“People talk. The dead talk. All of people are waiting for your victory.”

“It doesn’t seem that hard now. I mean, we just have to cut off the power, find a way to end Donalt for good.”

He smirked. “Woman, I don’t want to see your version of hard, then.”

“Next question,” I said, adjusting myself to face him more comfortably. “Paths were crossed. Charlie Myers’ daughter and her friends are going to play and open a gate for us. They said they found their way into The Realm when they played a song, that when they stand in a perfect circle balanced by light and darkness that they can pull more out.”

“Very modern. Too bad electric guitars were not invented when the spell was cast the first time around.”

“Let me finish. You said if I could not feel someone, it was because they were dark. I can’t feel Madison, my twin. If she’s dark, then she and Drake are the same, too. That also means their circle was not balanced at all.”

In dismay, he gently moved his head from side to side. “Should have popped in that car long before I did. You are going to think yourself to death.”

“It’s a valid question.”

“Right, then. She is bright as the sun. Hell, it would be nice to have sunglasses right now,” he said, nodding his head in the direction where August’s house sat. “Xavier is no fool. He broke the link between the two of you.”

“Why, though?”

“I’m sure we are going to figure out the ‘why’ right when it’s too late.” He raised his chin. “Then again the good guys could have done that so she would not have to feel any wayward past emotions you have for her man.”