See How She Falls (The Chronicles of Izzy #3)(8)
“What about him? It seems like you need him more.”
“Seriously?” I pushed away from him, anger replacing the hurt that had just been there. His jaw clenched as he stared back, unmoving.
“Yes, seriously.”
“First, you should be nicer to him. I wouldn’t even be here if he hadn’t saved me.”
“You wouldn’t have died if he had taken better care of you. I think he did it intentionally, Izzy.”
“You think that he let me die so that he could change me? That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard quite a few whakadoo things this past year. He saved me, Kennan. And like it or not, that means that part of me is changing. If I want to understand what is happening to me, I have to understand him better. To understand him better, he has to be around. Would you rather my eyes light up unexpectedly in front of the Council?” My anger began coursing through me in discernable waves, traveling down my arms in rapid succession and ceasing at my fingertips.
“Umm, Izzy, maybe you should take a deep breath.” Kennan’s voice was on edge as he slowly backed away from me.
I looked down at my arms to find little flickers of electricity tracing down them only to culminate at a spark at my fingertips. That explained the wave feeling. Son of a butternut squash.
“Seriously, lightning when I get angry!” I shouted at the ceiling. “I’m going to kill him myself. How the hell am I supposed to hide this?” The angrier I got, the more sparks seemed to fly.
“Maybe try not to think about it right now, Izzy. Go to your happy place.” Kennan said, half teasing.
I tried to take deep, calming breaths to get myself centered again, the way Ian had been trying to teach me. I’d always been an overly emotional person; up until now it hadn’t been a problem. Unfortunately, a tricky little side effect of this new “change” that was happening was that any time my emotional state became unbalanced a fun new ability would pop up. Breathing in slowly, I mentally wiped away the anger as if it were written on a dry-erase board. The sparks finally quit coursing down my arms.
“I can’t do this without you," I breathed out, almost near tears once more. “You’re what I need to survive this, Kennan. Without you, I can’t make it.” I could feel the anger leave my body, only to be replaced by a gut wrenching sadness.
“You don’t have to, Izzy. I know I’ve been acting crazy lately, but I feel like I’ve been playing catch up since we got here. I just need some time to adjust. Just don’t expect me to ever like Aberto. He is up to something where you are concerned and I don’t trust him.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.” Kennan leveled me with his eyes.
“Then listen to me when I say that not in a million years could anything ever tear me from you. You are my home, Kennan. You are my shelter from this raging storm. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever change the way I feel for you. Even should I live to be as old as Aberto, which now seems possible, I will always love you more than I could ever love anyone. You are my other half, the part of my soul that has always been missing.” As the last words left my mouth an image of Aberto danced through my mind. I brushed it to the side, refusing to acknowledge that I literally had his soul inside of mine at the moment. This was a figurative ideal, not literal. Yep, that was my story and I was sticking to it.
“I’ll try to be more patient, but I can’t guarantee that I will ever be friends with him. I think I might learn to tolerate him. I know that you’re where you need to be, I just miss the life I thought we’d have. I am still playing catch-up.” Kennan pulled me back against his body, almost smothering me.
“I’m all yours, big guy. No matter what is going on in this insane world that will always be true.” My response was garbled by the mouthful of t-shirt I was trying to talk around.
“I wish that we could make-up. Those damned runes are going to be the death of me.” Kennan leaned in to gently kiss me, reminding me of everything I was missing thanks to these God forsaken doodles.
I pulled back with a raised brow. “I think you can find some creative ways to avoid them, if you really think about it.”
The wind was knocked from my lungs as Kennan pinned me to the couch. He hungrily kissed down my neck, careful to avoid touching any part of me that may have a rune. As he moved over me, a single thought crossed my mind. No matter what he’d said, I knew things wouldn’t be getting better any time soon. The more I changed, the more things would continue to shift between us. If he couldn’t accept what was happening, I wasn’t sure anything would ever get better. I shook the thoughts from my mind and turned my focus back to Kennan’s wicked lips. There was no harm in focusing on the present.
Just as Kennan began unzipping my dress, a knock sounded at the door.
“Damn," Kennan breathed. “It never ends.” He buried his face in my stomach for a second before getting up and moving across the room.
“What is it?” I choked out, trying not to sound as out of breath as I felt.
“Milady, the Council members are getting ready to depart, and they wish to bid you a proper farewell.” Conall’s voice sounded strained, as if there were a thousand other things he wished he could be saying about the Council.
“I’m on my way.” I stood and smoothed out my rumpled dress trying to rearrange the disarray. I looked up to find Kennan staring at me. “Are we okay?”