“Thad.”
I spun around to the voice behind me. “
Propellit
,” I uttered with a wave of my hand. Aiden flew backward six feet. He landed hard on his back with a loud grunt. The current of anger ebbed once I realized what I had done.
I dashed over to his side and kneeled next to him as he lay among the colorful blooms. “Are you okay?”
He nodded but didn’t respond. He’d had the air knocked out of his lungs and needed a moment. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and took several deep breaths. When he had recovered, he stared up at me, his bottle-green eyes slits of concern. “What happened?”
I couldn’t answer because I had no idea. What the hell
was
wrong with me? It wasn’t like me to shoot first and ask questions later, but it also wasn’t like me to stand around and watch someone die. I had done nothing to save Ben, though his eyes had begged me for help. I’d just stood there, statue-still, until that damned vampyre beheaded him with her tongue.
“Thad,” he whispered. He sat up and rubbed my cheeks. “You’re crying.”
I was? I wiped the tears I hadn’t even realized I wept from my cheeks and sat back on the cool grass. More emotions than I knew what to do with churned within me like a whirlpool. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. If I tried to stand, I’d likely fall on my ass.
Was this the result of finally letting myself feel? Was I now at the mercy of my emotions?
“Thad?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I finally mumbled. “I stood there while Ben was killed. And my brothers?” I swallowed hard. “I did nothing to save them.”
The ferocity I’d unleashed earlier bubbled up from my soul. It slithered around inside me, looking for a place to gain purchase before springing out of me once again.
Aiden scooted closer to me in the grass and wrapped his arms around me. The coiled rattlesnake within me shook its tail in warning. It wanted out. It needed release. Nothing was going to stop it.
But Aiden wasn’t nothing.
He nuzzled my neck and delivered gentle kisses that eased the anger and pain, but they couldn’t erase my guilt. Nothing would be able to do that.
“First of all, we don’t know what happened to your family,” he said. “The vampyren might have taken them hostage.”
I snorted. “Yeah, because that’s what those bloodsuckers do. Take hostages.” The idea was ridiculous, and my anger coiled tightly inside my gut.
“Don’t give up hope,” he said. He squinted his eyes and looked deep into my soul. If I’d been a book, he would have opened me up and started reading. “I can sense the fury in you. It’s overwhelming.”
“And why wouldn’t it be?” I asked. “I wish I could be all fairy optimistic like you, but I can’t. I’m a realist, and your hostage idea is laughable at best.”
Aiden’s gaze sharpened, and his lips cut into a thin line. I was being an ass. I knew it, but all my buttons seemed to have been pressed at once. I was too angry to be reasonable. He pulled away from me and stood. “Your tone and your attitude need to change,” he said in a low warning.
“Why? Because you say so?” I asked as I rose to stand toe-to-toe with him. It was like I’d boarded a crazy train and couldn’t hop off. My emotions barreled full steam ahead. “Chances are Pierce, Mason, and Drake are dead. Just like Ben.”
The mention of Ben’s name sent my wrath into overdrive. My chest heaved, and I clenched my hands at my side. If a vampyre showed up now, it would be dead in ten seconds flat.
“You need to calm down,” Aiden said. He grasped my shoulders and shook me.
A snarl curled my upper lip, and I growled. If Aiden wanted a fight, I was ready.
But instead of throwing a fist, he pulled me into his arms and crushed his lips to mine. His tongue dove inside my mouth, and the kick of his cinnamon kisses acted like a dam against the rising tide of anger. His hands on my shoulders, clutching my back and sliding down to my ass, massaged the tension from my muscles.
“Think of me,” he whispered. The soothing aroma of honeysuckle and cedar filled the air between us, quickly displacing the rage that still swelled within. “Let me be your anchor. Don’t get swept away.”
Even though I had no fucking clue what he was talking about, I latched on to him. I clutched his waist, sliding my fingers up his smooth sides. I wrapped my arms around him, pressing his hard body against mine. I inhaled the sweetness that followed him wherever he went. His scent filled my lungs, exorcizing the demon that still wailed inside, refusing to be defeated.
When I returned Aiden’s kisses, when my lips molded to his and I slipped my tongue into the warmth of his mouth, the screaming became a dull roar.
“Stay with me, Thad,” he pleaded.
“Where else would I go?” I asked.
Aiden smiled, placed his forehead against my cheek, and sighed. After that, the rage that had gained brief control turned into a whisper before falling completely silent.
“That was close.”
I didn’t understand. “What was?”
He stepped back and eyed me apprehensively. “Really?”
“What?”
“Look around,” he said.
I shifted my gaze from his gorgeous green eyes to the ground and gasped. We stood at the center of a twelve-foot ice patch. “What the hell?”
Aiden hooked my chin with his thumb and brought my gaze back to him. “You really didn’t know you did that?”
I shook my head. It was news to me. I didn’t even remember summoning my powers. How the hell was this even possible?
“You were caught up in a rage I’ve never experienced before,” he said. He held on to me tightly as if he was terrified if he let me go, the angry waters might return in a flash flood and reclaim me. “It came on so suddenly, I didn’t know what else to do but hold you and get you to focus on me.”
I exhaled. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me, and it was why I’d done my best to control my emotions. “This is what I was afraid of,” I admitted.
“Is that what you were telling me about at your house?” he asked. “About why emotions are dangerous for you?”
I nodded.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
I’d long since blocked that afternoon out. It had been so terrifying and traumatic I’d promised myself I would never experience such a loss of control again. I’d failed. “My brothers and I were never really close, especially as children. Pierce was Dad’s favorite. The golden boy who’d tapped into his active power before he even became a teenager.”
“That’s pretty early,” Aiden added. “I’ve heard most of your kind inherit their powers around sixteen.”
“But not Pierce,” I said with a shake of my head. “When he let loose his first electrical burst, I pretty much disappeared in my father’s eyes. It became all about teaching Pierce the ways of a warlock. My father spent hours with him practicing magic and reading the Grimoire to him. Whenever I asked to join in, he told me I was too young. That I wasn’t ready.”
“Well, you weren’t, right?”
“No, I wasn’t. But it was his attention I wanted. I never really got that again.”
Aiden ran his fingertips across my lips, urging me with his eyes to continue.
“Then Mason came. I got even less attention after he was born, and I was pissed. I was born first. I deserved some recognition for existing before him, but no. My dad either practiced magic with Pierce or took care of Mason. The only one who gave me the time of day was my mother.” I rested my forehead against Aiden’s and closed my eyes. Memories of our play dates and mother-son outings filled my mind. It had been the only time I’d ever felt special.
“I can sense how much you love her,” he said. “And how much your heart breaks in her absence.”
I nodded, a stray tear slipping down my cheek. Aiden brushed it away with his thumb before I continued. “She would teach me spells in secret, and she was the first one to talk to me about magic. I remember watching her levitate or using her mist powers. The things she could do with vapor astounded me. Although my parents never discussed it, I think my mother was far more powerful than my father.”
“Did she help you tap into your power?”
“She tried,” I said. “Especially when I turned sixteen. That whole year we worked together to turn my powers on, but it never worked. And then one summer afternoon, Pierce was teasing me about it. Calling me a loser and a momma’s boy. Saying I’d never be as good or as powerful as him. The bastard.”
“What did you do?”
“What I always did,” I answered with a shrug. “I ignored him. If you give Pierce attention, he never drops it. It’s best to pretend he doesn’t exist because he tends to go away. But on that day, Mason started in on me. He copied everything Pierce did because Pierce was his favorite. And it pissed me off. I was used to being teased by Pierce. He was my older brother, and that’s what they do. But when my younger brother started taunting me, I lost it. I got so angry, I shook and started screaming, and the next thing I remember, Mason was encased in solid ice, and it grew thicker by the moment. Pierce yelled at me, trying to get me to stop, but I didn’t even hear him.”
Aiden kissed my trembling lips. Reliving that day brought back all the guilt I’d held on to since that moment.
“It was Mother who stopped me,” I said after regaining my composure. “She appeared in front of me, her eyes calm and filled with love. She kissed my forehead and called me her Thaddy. That was her nickname for me, and when she held me and stroked my hair, I stopped encasing Mason in ice while my father saved my little brother.”
I nuzzled my head into the crook of Aiden’s neck, sobbing. I hadn’t spoken about that day since it happened. It had been one of the worst days of my life, and it was because of what I’d almost done that I had sworn to never feel anything again.
“You need to stop beating yourself up about it,” he said as he ran his long fingers through my hair. “It happened long before you knew how to control your powers. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“But I just did the same thing to you,” I said. I pulled myself out of his embrace and took a step back. “I could have killed you, and there would have been no one here to stop me.”
He spanned the distance between us. He grabbed my hands and wrapped them around his waist before settling the weight of his body against mine. “No one had to stop you,” he said. “You stopped yourself.”
“Only with your help,” I said, staring back into green eyes that smiled back at me.
“There’s nothing wrong with getting a little bit of help every now and then,” he said. His gaze locked on mine, and his face turned serious. “But this
isn’t
your fault.”
I rolled my eyes. “Who else is there to blame? The vampyren?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
I didn’t like assigning blame that was mine to others. “I’m not some puppet dancing to the strings of some puppeteer. I’m a big enough warlock to accept when I’ve screwed up, and I screwed up.”
Aiden crossed his arms and sighed. I’d come to know him just enough to realize this was his pissy stance. “Will you shut up and listen to me?”
I zipped my mouth.
“I’m a fire fae, remember? Emotions are what I do. We help stir passion in humans, and anger is one of our stocks in trade.”
I arched my eyebrows. It was my way of asking “And?” without speaking.
“What I sensed from you wasn’t natural,” he said. “It was magical.”
“A spell?”
“Not quite,” he replied with a shake of his head. “More powerful.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Like blood magic?” I asked.
Aiden shuffled back a step. He’d obviously not considered that possibility, but now that he had, it was clear to both of us that was potentially what we were dealing with.
TRYING TO
wrap my mind around this latest revelation was impossible. From what I knew about these types of spells, my blood would be needed during the casting. When had the shadow weaver gotten my blood?
“How did this happen?” Aiden asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. Had he stolen some of it during my battle with the vampyre shortly after Mabon? That damned thing had beaten the hell out of and almost killed me. It would have succeeded if Mason hadn’t intervened. Perhaps that was when the shadow weaver had taken it, and he’d been plotting to use it against me ever since. That would explain why the pumpkin-headed shade had said
you will be mine
after it killed the banshees in the library. “But he obviously has plans for me.”
Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “They will fail,” he said with the certainty he was used to inspiring as a prince in this realm. I appreciated his protective nature, but the situation required logic, not emotion, if we were going to make it out of this alive.
“I can’t guarantee that,” I said. “And neither can you.”
My answer didn’t sit well. Aiden wrapped his arms around me and rested his head against mine. “We will fight it. Together.”
I liked the sound of that. It meant there was more potential for the two of us than Aiden had led me to believe. “And I’ll fight it like hell,” I said. I rubbed my hands up and down his bare back before I settled my grip on his shoulders. I moved us out of the embrace far enough for our eyes to meet. “But we have to prepare for the worst. I’m obviously a liability. That shadow weaver could cast another spell and attempt to force me to do something I don’t want to do. Like hurt you.”
“He can try,” he replied. Complete trust was in his emerald eyes. “But I know you would never hurt me.”
Aiden was right. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t, but these were as far beyond normal circumstances as we could get. I cupped his fair cheeks. It was important he accept the truth. “But we have to be ready if the moment ever comes when I try. You have to do everything and anything to stop me. Can you promise me you will?”
His nostrils flared. “I will not,” he replied before breaking contact. He crossed his arms and gave me his back. The fire fae who’d been swayed by his passions gave way to the royal prince who was not accustomed to acting against his will.
“You have to,” I said, sidling over to where he stood. I embraced him from behind, molding his back to my chest, and I marveled at how perfectly we fit together. “I’m not important in the grand scheme of things. We both know that.”