It won’t be like with Bethany, where all of us let it slide until it was too late. I won’t let that happen this time.”
Energy charged my skin as I stared at him. Realization slipped in and it left me cold. “Her name is Kat,” I heard myself say as I stepped toward him, my chin dipping down. “And I will handle her.”
“You know I would do anything to protect you all.” Matthew planted his hands on the table and took a deep breath. “All of you—you’re my family.”
Thrusting my hand through my hair, I struggled with my patience. “I know that. We feel the same way, but you do not need to step in here. I will make sure she isn’t a risk to us.”
His eyes met mine and a moment passed. “You’re one of the strongest, if not the strongest, Luxen right now. The Elders know that and so does the DOD, and that means someone is always watching you. You have to be more careful than any of us.”
I lowered my hand as the weight of my race settled on my shoulders. There was nothing I could say to that. I was faster and stronger than most Luxen and I could wield more of the Source than any of my kind we knew about. But I didn’t take these gifts for granted. I trained harder than anyone. Patrolled more often. And I was determined to stay focused on my duty. Not get lost and vulnerable like my brother had…
Matthew watched me and must have seen something in my eyes. “Your brother wasn’t weak.”
My head cocked to the side. “He—”
“He wasn’t,” he interrupted. “He was kinder and he was more laid back, but he was just as strong as you and you need to remember that. Dawson wasn’t weak. He wasn’t foolish, and yet, because of a girl, he’s gone. Don’t follow in your brother’s footsteps.”
Message received, loud and clear.
Don’t follow in your brother’s footsteps.
That statement was actually laughable.
Just because I wasn’t actively trying to run her out of town didn’t mean I was going to end up like Dawson. For one thing, Kat and I didn’t even like each other. Yeah, there was something physical brewing, but it didn’t run deeper than that. Dawson had fallen in love with Bethany. Big difference there.
And my brother—he had been weaker.
Maybe not physically, but when it came to everything else, he was.
It was early evening on Saturday when I saw Kat’s mom drive off. Knowing Kat was alone and that Dee would be coming home tomorrow, I knew the last thing I should be doing was what I was doing.
Which was walking my ass over to her house.
After knocking on her door, I ambled to the porch railing and looked up. The sun had a couple of more hours before setting, but a few stars were starting to appear. Shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans, I waited to see if she’d even answer the door. If I were her, I’d probably never want to see my face again. I couldn’t explain my hot-and-cold behavior either. I knew she was bad for Dee, bad for the colony, and especially bad for me. But there was something about her spunk I couldn’t shake.
I was a little surprised when the door opened and Kat stepped out onto the porch. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Having no idea how to answer that, I was quiet for a moment and then cleared my throat. “I like staring at the sky. There’s something about it. It’s endless, you know.” Lame.
She stepped closer to me, her movements almost tentative. “Is some crazy dude going to run out of your house and yell at you for talking to me?”
I grinned at that. “Not right now, but there is always later.”
Her nose wrinkled. “I’m okay missing ‘later.’”
“Yeah.” I twisted at the waist, facing her. “Busy?”
“Other than messing with my blog, no.”
“You have a blog?” I had to force myself not to laugh. Blogging always seemed like something middle-age moms did, not above-average high school girls.
She folded her arms across her chest, her stance widening as if she were preparing for a battle. “Yeah, I have a blog.”
“What’s your blog’s name?”
“None of your business.” Her smile was too sweet.
“Interesting name.” One corner of my lips rose when annoyance flashed across her face. Getting her angry was too easy. “So what do you blog about? Knitting? Puzzles? Being lonely?”
“Ha ha, smartass.” She sighed. “I review books.”
Huh. Books. Should’ve guessed that. “Do you get paid for them?”
She laughed out loud at that. “No. Not at all.”
I frowned. “So you review books and you don’t get paid if someone buys a book based on your review?”
“I don’t review books to get paid or anything.” Her arms unfolded as she seemed to grow more comfortable talking about her blog. “I do it because I like it. I love reading, and I enjoy talking about books.”
“What kind of books do you read?”
“All different kinds.” She leaned against the railing and looked up, meeting my gaze. “Mainly I prefer the paranormal stuff.”
“Vampires and werewolves?” I guessed.
“Yeah.”
“Ghosts and aliens?”
“Ghost stories are cool, but I don’t know about aliens. ET really doesn’t do it for me and a lot of readers.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “What does it for you?”
“Not slimy green space creatures,” she replied, and I swallowed a laugh. “Anyway, I also appreciate graphic novels, history stuff—”
“You read graphic novels?” Disbelief flooded me. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yeah, so what? Are girls not supposed to like graphic novels and comics?”
I didn’t think she wanted me to answer that. Damn, she was always a surprise. “Want to go on a hike?”
“Uh, you know I’m not good with the whole hiking thing.” She reached up, tucking a loose strand of hair from her ponytail behind her ear. Did she ever wear her hair down?
Why in the hell was I thinking about her hair?
My gaze followed the movement. “I’m not taking you up on the Rocks. Just a harmless little trail. I’m sure you can handle it.”
She pushed off the railing but hesitated. “Did Dee not tell you where your keys were?”
Hell, I’d forgotten all about that. “Yeah, she did.”
“Then why are you here?”
How could I possibly explain it to her when I couldn’t to myself? I fumbled in my head for an excuse she’d buy and realized I really wasn’t that creative. This was probably a sign I should get my ass home and forget all about whatever this was. “I don’t have a reason. I thought I would just stop over, but if you’re going to question everything, then you can forget it.” Pivoting around, I headed down the porch steps, totally realizing I was yet again acting like an ass. What could I say? I was good at it.
A moment passed and then, “All right, let’s do this.”
Surprised, I stopped. “Are you sure?”
She didn’t look 100 percent certain when I glanced over my shoulder at her, but she hurried down the steps and followed me. “Why are we going behind my house?” She paused, pointing to the west, at the sandstone mountain still glittering in the fading sunlight. “The Seneca Rocks are that way. I thought most trails started over there.”
“Yeah, but there are trails back here that will take you around, and it’s quicker,” I explained. “Most people here know all the main trails that are crowded. There used to be a lot of boring days out here, and I found a couple of them off the beaten trail.”
Her eyes widened. “How far off the beaten track are we talking?”
Cute. I chuckled. “Not that far.”
“So it’s a baby trail? I bet this is going to be boring for you.”
“Any time I get to go out and walk around is good.” That was true. Luxen naturally had more energy in them, and any physical activity helped. “Besides, it’s not as if we’ll hike all the way to Smoke Hole Canyon. That’s a pretty big hike from here, so no worries,
okay?”
She relaxed. “All right, lead the way.”
Kat waited outside as I stepped into my house, grabbing two water bottles, and then she followed me across the backyard and into the heavily shaded forest. Something about the fact that she was actually willing to do this struck me wrong. I hadn’t been nice to her. That was a big no shit there. I wondered if she would do this if Andrew befriended her, just roam right the hell off.
If so, that wouldn’t be good.
Andrew would totally be in the Matthew camp, as in he’d have no problem with the idea of preemptively “taking care of her.”
“You’re very trusting, Kitten,” I said quietly.
“Stop calling me that.”
I glanced over my shoulder. She was trailing a few steps behind me. “No one has ever called you that before?”
Stepping around a thorny bush, she shot me a bland look. “Yeah, people call me Kitten all the time. But you make it sound so…”
I waited. “Sound so what?”
“I don’t know, like it’s an insult,” she said, and I slowed my longer-legged pace so she was walking beside me now. “Or something sexually deviant.”
That knocked a laugh out of me, right along with some of the tension that had carved its way into my neck and shoulders.
“Why are you always laughing at me?”
I shook my head as I grinned. “I don’t know, you just kind of make me laugh.”
“Whatever.” She kicked a rock, apparently deciding that wasn’t a good thing. “So what was up with that Matthew dude? He acted as if he hated me or something.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t trust you,” I muttered.
Her ponytail bounced as she shook her head. “Trust me with what? Your virtue?”
Another laugh burst out of me. “Yeah. He’s not a fan of beautiful girls who have the hots for me.”
“What?” she blurted out, and then, within a second, she tripped.
I caught her easily, with my arm around her waist, and quickly let go, but I felt the jolt of the brief contact, and my skin hummed.
“You’re joking, right?” she asked.
Amused by her inability to watch out for whatever was on the ground, I felt my grin grow even bigger. “Which part?”
“Any of that!”
“Come on. Please don’t tell me you don’t think you’re pretty.” When she didn’t answer, I sighed. “No guy has ever said you’re pretty?”
Her gaze met mine and then skittered away. She shrugged. “Of course.”
Huh. “Or…maybe you’re not aware of it?”
She shrugged again, and I couldn’t believe she didn’t see what I… Wait a second. She didn’t see what I saw? When had what I saw changed? Because I’d been thinking she was plain as hell. Sometimes above average when she was mad. Or smiling. Or blushing. But, well, mainly she was just average.
As I watched her cheeks pink up even more, I knew I’d been wrong.
Kat wasn’t plain. Maybe at first glance, but once you got up close to her, once you spent any amount of time around her, those heather gray eyes, the full lips, and the shape of her face were anything but plain. It ran deeper than the skin, though.
“You know what I’ve always believed?” I asked, stopping in the middle of the path.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide but not wary. “No.”
For a moment, I didn’t speak, and the only sound between us was the chirping of nearby birds as my gaze searched hers. “I’ve always found that the most beautiful people, truly beautiful inside and out, are the ones who are quietly unaware of their effect. The ones who throw their beauty around, waste what they have? Their beauty is only passing. It’s just a shell hiding nothing but shadows and emptiness.”
Her lips parted, and then she laughed.
Kat laughed.
What in the hell?
“I’m sorry,” she said, blinking back tears as a giggle snuck free. “But that was the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever heard you say. What alien ship took the Daemon I know away, and can I ask them to keep him?”
I scowled. “I was being honest.”
“I know, but it’s just that was really…wow.”
Eyeing her, I shrugged and then started down the trail again. Whatever. “We won’t go too far.” I paused. “So you’re interested in history?”
“Yeah, I know that makes me a nerd.” She caught up to me, an extra bounce in her steps.
“Did you know this land was once traveled by the Seneca Indians?”
“Please tell me we aren’t walking on any burial grounds?”
“Well…I’m sure there are burial grounds around here somewhere. Even though they just traveled through this area, it’s not a stretch that some died on this very spot and—”
“Daemon, I don’t need to know that part.” She lightly pushed my arm.
The ease with which she touched me was unnerving. It took me a moment to get past that.
“Okay, I’ll tell you the story and I’ll leave some of the more creepy but natural facts out.” I grabbed a long branch, holding it back for Kat to duck under. Her shoulder brushed my chest, kicking around my sense of awareness.
“What story?” she asked, thick lashes lowered, shielding her eyes.
“You’ll see. Now pay attention… A long time ago, this land was forest and hills, which isn’t too different than today with the exception of a few small towns.” I pushed the lower branches out of the way for her. At this point, she might impale herself; she was so obscenely unaware of how to walk in the woods. “But imagine this place so sparsely populated that it could take days, even weeks, before you reached your nearest neighbor.”
She shivered. “That seems so lonely.”
“But you have to understand that was the way of life hundreds of years ago. Farmers and mountain men lived a few miles away from one another, but the distance was all traveled by foot or horse. It wasn’t usually the safest way to travel.”
“I can imagine.” Her response was faint.
“The Seneca Indian tribe traveled through the eastern part of the United States, and at some point, they walked this very path toward the Seneca Rocks.” Our gazes glanced off each other. “Did you know that this very small path behind your house leads right to the base of them?”
“No. They always seem so far off in the distance, I never thought of them as being that close.”
“If you stayed on this path for a couple of miles, you’d find yourself at the base of them. It’s a pretty rocky patch even the most experienced rock climbers stay away from. See, the Seneca Rocks spread from Grant to Pendleton County, with the highest point being Spruce Knob and an outcropping near Seneca called Champe Rocks. Now they are kind of hard to get to, since it usually involves invading someone’s property, but it can be worth it if you can scale way beyond nine hundred feet in the sky.”
Man, I loved getting up there. Hadn’t done it in a while.
“That sounds like fun.” Her smile was pained.
I laughed. “It is if you’re not afraid of slipping. Anyway, the Seneca Rocks are made out of quartzite, which is part sandstone. That’s why it sometimes has a pinkish tint to it. Quartzite is considered a beta quartz. People who believe in…” Hmm, had to proceed carefully. “Abnormal powers or powers in…nature, as a lot of Indian tribes did at one time, believe that any form of beta quartz allows energy to be stored and transformed, even manipulated by it. It can throw off electronics and other stuff, too—hide things.”
“Ooo-kay.”
I shot her a look and she quieted. “Possibly the beta quartz drew the Seneca Tribe to this area. No one knows, since they weren’t native to West Virginia. No one knows how long any of them camped here, traded, or made war.” I slowed my steps, nearing the small stream. “But they do have a very romantic legend.”
“Romantic?” She followed me around the stream, her ponytail bouncing with each step. It was sort of distracting.
“See, there was this b
eautiful Indian princess called Snowbird, who had asked seven of the tribe’s strongest warriors to prove their love by doing something only she had been able to do. Many men wanted to be with her for her beauty and her rank. But she