Vanish (Firelight #2)(33)

My mom has vanished from me. It’s not even her in that room. It’s her ghost, and I know I have to at least try and get her back. That I can’t consider leaving until I do.

I spot Az through my living room window. I’ve only seen her at school, and she’s usually with someone else. The need to talk with her alone, before I see Will again and possibly leave the pride for good surges inside me.

Snatching up my shoes, I sit on the couch and fumble with the laces, determined to end this distance between us. I miss her and want things right.

The knock at the door makes my heart jump. Az. Apparently I won’t have to chase her down the street. She’s come to me.

Prepared to grovel, I open the door quickly, hoping Az has had a change of heart and that’s why she’s here. After all, we’ve had our fights before, but nothing like this. She can’t stay mad at me forever.

Only it’s not Az on my front porch.

“Jacinda.” A corner of Cassian’s mouth lifts as he says my name. It’s one of those rare smiles of his and it affects me as it shouldn’t. I fidget, shifting on my feet. I don’t want this. Don’t want him. Maybe if my sister wasn’t totally in love with him. Maybe before Will came back I was weak enough to embrace Cassian and all his half smiles. Not now. Now I want more.

I want Will.

I shake my head as Cassian walks inside my house. So much for catching Az alone. I look out the door and see her figure, small in the distance. Shutting the door, I cross my arms and face him.

His shadow falls over me, encroaching, close. I’m rooted to the spot. Despite everything I can’t seem to move. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t speak. Just stands so close, his eyes scouring, delving so deeply into me, tricking me again into thinking he sees me. The real me beneath everything. Beneath the girl. Beneath the draki. Past the bones and flesh and smolder. And yet if he really did see me, then he would have known I couldn’t have said good-bye to Will. He would know I lied to him. He would know I struggle with facing him now, my deceit an ugly thing between us.

My gaze stops on his mouth, the lips that kissed mine. My stare lingers there until my chest grows tight, breath constricted. He lifts his hand and I flinch.

Feeling foolish, I hold my ground as his thumb grazes my cheek.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“Touching you.”

The pads of his fingers slide across my jaw, over my bottom lip, so soft, coaxing, and I know what he wants. I feel it in his touch. See it in the way his dark eyes devour me. He breathes my name.

For one second, I lean in, and then suddenly I’m springing away from Cassian.

It’s not a sudden surge of conscience that tears us apart.

It’s a gasp. And I know we’re not alone.





Chapter 14

I spin and lock gazes with my sister. Her face is flushed, her cheeks a ruddy color that looks almost obscene on her alabaster skin.

My skin goes cold then hot. “Tamra.” I barely hear myself say her name, just feel it rise up in my throat in a pained whimper. Her frosty pale eyes flit back and forth between me and Cassian.

“What?” she challenges, her voice hard, cruel, so at odds with the way she looks—shaken and fragile, even more unearthly pale than usual. “What is it? What’s so damn special about her?” She looks only at Cassian as she demands this. “Tell me!”

“Nothing,” I start to say. “Nothing, Tam—”

She swings on me. “I’m talking to Cassian, Jacinda!” Her attention returns to him. “I mean, I really want to know. We have the same face!” She bites off these words with a snarl. “Well, mostly.” She tosses back a lock of silvery hair. “And now I’m not only a true draki, but I have a talent that rivals Jacinda’s. So what is it?” Her pale gaze glimmers with hot emotion, searching his face, desperate and hungry for an answer.

Cassian stands there for a long moment. I suffer in silence, wait for him to tell her there’s nothing special about me, that it’s just habit that keeps him coming back to me.

Tamra shakes her head slowly. “Just tell me.” Her next question comes out small, a weak whisper that makes my heart twist in pain. “Why not me?”

Cassian replies finally, his voice low and anguished. “I don’t know. I’ve tried . . . since we’ve come back, I’ve tried. . . . But you’re just not her.”

His words do something inside me that I wished they didn’t. For a moment I let warmth curl around my heart. Let myself believe that I’m special to him. That I’m more than the fire-breather he was taught to prefer.

Tamra looks as if she suffered a blow. Faint splotches of red stain the pale curve of her throat. “Yeah? Too bad she doesn’t feel the same way. It will never be you, you know. Not for her. Think about that. When she’s with you it will be him she’s missing.”

Then she’s gone. Out the door fast.

I stare at the spot where she stood a moment ago. “Why did you do that?”

“Spoke the truth, you mean?”

“The truth? I thought the two of you—”

“No,” he says simply, bluntly, shaking his dark head. “I tried . . . but I can’t.”

I close my eyes in a long-suffering blink. Opening them, I face him. “She’s right. It will always be Will.”