On a Razor's Edge (Darkness #3)(8)

Trusting Stefan, I opened on up, having to immediately fight the elements as they filled me with magical Prozac, my body starting to sing and dance and crave to draw in more. “How much should I draw?”

Toa stood staring at me, his ice blue eyes reminding me of the middle of a glacier—right before a huge chunk broke off and caused a tidal wave. “All.”

“That’ll make me pass out.” I let in a bit more, stuffing up all available space in my body. Fighting with it. Needing to bend it, or shape it, or run out of here to release it, or this room would need a serious redecoration.

“As much as you can, then.”

Toa was irritatingly calm. Plus, did the man ever blink? It was weird.

“It’ll make me pass out.” And probably skirt the edges of magic shock.

“Go until you feel the warning, Sasha,” Stefan helped.

I hated doing this. Ever since I had to stop Trek, white mage, from killing people by robbing all his—quite substantial—stockpile of magic, I shied away from overloading. But these guys were here for a reason, and this was important to Stefan, so I drew in more until I felt the prickles on my skin.

“Is that all?” Toa asked in his sing-song voice.

Scowling, I drew in more until the prickles turned into needles, stabbing my skin and yanking at my hair follicles. “Any more and I’ll have to use Stefan—the Boss, I mean—as an overflow.”

Toa turned his unwavering stare at Stefan, analyzing him for a few moments before saying, “Show me.”

“You might save that for last,” Stefan said in a voice filled with steadfast command. “We’ve only done it once and she did, in fact, pass out. It was an unavoidable risk to both of us.”

Toa stared for a few more seconds, causing my butt to tingle in uneasiness. Something was happening. I had no idea what, but judging by my telltale sign of danger near, I stood in a battlefield of some sort.

“Leave it, Toa,” Dominicous ordered, his eyes on me. “He is responding like a male to his mate. We’ll deal with it after we assess…the matters at hand.”

My body filled with warm fuzzies before I could force them away. Holding a crap load of power like a washer woman would a basket of laundry and three squirming kids took all my concentration. I met Toa’s stare again and cringed when he said, “Release it.”

“Can you open a window?”

I got him to blink! I must’ve confused him.

“I don’t want to blow anything up. It’s sometimes easier to just shoot it out a window… Although, someone would have to go kill whatever crops up.”

Toa put his hands out in front of him, palms facing each other, and said, “Do this.”

I felt a swirl in the air, like static electricity fizzing along my skin. If I was in a thunder storm, I’d look skyward, wondering if a bolt of lightning was about to strike me. Him drawing power? It must be, though I’d never felt anyone else do it, including Stefan. Which was weird, since Stefan and I had that link.

Between Toa’s hands glowed a lovely white ball, so white and pure it looked solid. With all the magic filling me, I could make out the tiny fissure marks where the magic didn’t gel into the spell perfectly. As I watched, the lines became cracks, which became holes, until the whole thing kind of vibrated into nothing. The magic swooshed back around me.

“Weird.” Sweat beading on my brow from holding my max magic for so long, I did as he had done, putting my palms together in front of me and creating something like a tube to direct the magic from my body into the air between my hands.

All hell broke loose.

The magic exploded from my body, knocking into Toa like a solid mass and flinging him backward, his lovely locks flying as haphazardly as his limbs. Stefan had a burnished gold shield in front of him, worried that might happen, and Dominicous had a grin and a new hairdo.

“At least it was benign,” Dominicous said with a chuckle, smoothing his hair.

Toa was not amused. Gliding back in front of me like a fallen angle with a vendetta, he squared off with that icy stare once again. “Your control needs work. I need to see the color of your power.”

“That almost sounds scandalous,” I muttered. “Okay, I think I can make one of those protective boxes—it worked when I didn’t want it to, when we battled that caped idiot. It might blow up, though. Oh—I can turn my blade black…”

Toa shook his head. “The coloring is marred by the blade. That is the chief reason for the power-level confusion.”

I stuck out my lips in the strange “thinking pout” I was known for. And made fun of. “O-kay, let’s see.”

“Can you not do spells or charms?” Dominicous asked with disapproval.

“I can attempt a great many spells and charms, but they always turn into something unexpected and usually not very fun.”

Dominicous leaned forward. “Show me.”

I scanned the room. It housed the usual finery; expensive oil paintings, porcelain knick-knacks, quality and plush furniture. “Probably not wise right here. We should go outside. And you guys will want your swords.”

As we exited the room, Charles jumped up with a men-at-arms kind of blank expression. Seeing me, his brow furrowed.

“What ha—?ˮ His gaze swept to my followers. He peeled away to the side without another word.