Lightning Kissed

  THE PROPHETS ARE NO LONGER ACKNOWLEDGED AS MESSENGERS OF THE ALMIGHTY.

  I had a cool temperament most of the time, but Colby needed to learn a lesson. There just weren’t negotiating terms for some situations.

  And this was one of them.

  She was that bull-headed. She would’ve stood there and agreed to bonding with me just to make sure she could come with me.

  If Colby was going to bond with me, I’d be damned if it was going to be under duress.

  Forget the Resin and the Synod and our parents—I was gonna kill the beauty myself and then chase her around eternity until she folded.

  The door that linked my parents’ room to mine was open. I figured it was now or never. They needed to know every facet of the situation in case something happened to me.

  I splashed water on my face in the adjoining bathroom before knocking on the frame of the door that led to their room. They both turned their attentions toward me. My parents knew most of the situation with my new gifts, but I hadn’t told them everything—not even close.

  “Colby,” my mother questioned. She claimed there was a particular expression I got after my encounters with Colby. It used to be one of utter and complete joy. But since things had, on the surface, ended between us, it had evolved into total and complete pain.

  “It’s fine, Mom. We do need to talk though. I have a feeling she will tell you if I don’t.”

  “Sit, son,” my dad commanded.

  I recounted the whole story. Everything I’d found out about Eivan, all my gifts, and all my suspicions. My mom began to cry halfway through, and we stopped several times in order for her to compose herself. It was hard to watch. It was grating on my heart, knowing I was the one bringing her pain.

  “What is the plan? How can we help you?”

  My father was all business. He supported all that the Lucent culture was. His mother was a Lucent and now his wife was one as well. He worshipped my mom.

  I felt movement somewhere in my psyche and knew it was Colby. She was flashing, and I concentrated on her so that I could know exactly where she was going.

  The tiniest of jolts resonated in my chest as she landed. Involuntarily, I closed my eyes and pictured her in my head, as I grasped at ways to pinpoint her location.

  Rebekah—she’d gone to see her Grandmother. To seek her counsel, no doubt.

  “She’s gone to Rebekah,” I relayed the information to my parents.

  “You two try so hard to escape each other. The world itself will turn on its axis when you finally give in. And I, for one, can’t wait.” My father chuckled and kissed the temple of my still weary mother’s head.

  “What do I do, Dad?”

  My father and I had a decent relationship. He’d reared me to be calm and patient, yet headstrong, just like him. It had caused a rift between us when I was a teenager. But by the time I was eighteen and needed him after Colby had left me, the tension fizzled.

  My head hung and then plopped into my palms. She aggravated the fire out of me. This was the problem and the glory of Lucent women. You couldn’t hold them down. Any man in love with a Lucent female was doomed and blessed to eternally chase her lightning. You couldn’t anchor them. You couldn’t guarantee they would be in your bed the next morning or anytime at all.

  But when I had Colby—I had her heart and soul.

  I smelled the cologne that was uniquely my father’s as he kneeled down in front of me. He didn’t force my hand. Instead, he waited for me to look at him. When I met his eyes, I expected to see pity. I wasn’t in the most predictable situation. There was only hope.

  “Theodore, we will work through this. And you may hate me for saying this, but I think Colby accompanying you is the best option. She has bravery where you would rather fall back and remain safe. She has an ability to see the details the rest of us miss. But she needs you to ground her—she can be a bit—boisterous in all things.”

  I saw his point. “I won’t tarnish her reputation with the Synod. The Almighty knows she’s already in trouble with them every time she turns around. I know we’re in the modern world, but the Synod is still in the nineteenth century.”

  He chuckled, causing him to fall right on his ass. “So, we have a job to do—convince Colby to bond with you.”