This time is no different.
With my hands out by my sides, I let my volation awaken. Currents of bright electricity crackle down my arm, sending sparking tingles all the way to my fingertips There’s so much energy in the room… almost too much… but it’s here and it’s mine for the taking. With a deep breath, I let everything drift away from me. The sounds, the screams, the pain… all of it. I am a beacon of hope. A vessel meant to absorb all that is wrong so I can give the world a sliver of what’s right.
The energy in the room is so vibrant, so powerful, that I can see it. It shimmers around each and every person like an aura. A life force that is mine for the taking. I slam my fists closed and yank on the energy. The power strikes me hard. It fills up every nook and cranny of my receptive soul, and something inside of me breaks open. A floodgate that can never be shut. I tug harder, feeling the very essence of every soul around me weakening, filling me with strength.
My eyes flick open.
No one is moving anymore. They’ve all taken to their knees, gasping for air. And they’re all watching me… begging me to stop with pleading gazes.
Control it, I tell myself. I search for Jaxen’s face. He’s right in front of me, fighting back against each and every one of my tugs. Just like the night in front of the warehouse, I envision everyone around me tethered to my drain by a bright string. One by one, as I pull and pull, I release those I do not want to harm.
Jaxen stands first, then Weldon, then Jezi, then Gavin and Cassie. Sterling, Tillman, and Elite after Elite find their footing and make quick work of apprehending the Darkyns around me whose lives are slowly slipping away into my body.
The shivers begin in my fingers. A small, itching twitch spreads up my arms like a rash. It’s too much—too, too much—and I suddenly feel like a bloated fish engorged on food. A cold sweat breaks out across my brow as Jaxen makes his way over to me. He reaches for me, but then yanks back as if I’ve burnt him.
“Faye,” he says sharply.
The command in his voice pulls me from the power I’m locked in. My eyes meet his.
“Don’t let it control you.”
I want to tell him that I’m trying not to. That I want to stop now, but my words won’t form. The vacuum won’t end. When I’ve severed the last tie to my people, I know that this is it. I won’t be able to stop, and I feel death’s door looming close by. I have to expel what I’ve taken in. I have to get rid of it… or it’s going to be rid of me.
“Get…them…out,” I force out. It’s all I can do not to sway to my knees. Not to hurl out all the darkness I’ve inhaled.
His jaw clenches. His eyes narrow. “Get out while you can,” he says, low at first, never moving his eyes from mine. When no one moves, he spins around and yells, “Get everyone out!”
Tillman and Sterling look over at me. I can only imagine how monstrous I must appear. Darkyns are beginning to boil from the inside out, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s like I was made to kill. Like my ability has a mind of its own and won’t stop until its thirst is quenched.
Until Darkyn blood has been spilled.
“She has to purge what she’s absorbed,” Weldon says for me. He’s right next to me, touching me despite my skin searing with heat. “She could level this place.”
“Apprehend those that you can. The rest of you, to the roof,” Tillman orders. He stalks over to me as some Elites grab Darkyns, haul them over their shoulders, and head out. I use the last of my strength to sever the ties to the Darkyns they take. The rest rush out. Part of the roof caves in across the room, sending dust and rubble flying through the air.
“Aim it at the Darkyn portal. Too many humans are at risk if you level this place,” Tillman orders me. He turns back to the Darkyns who have lost the battle against my drain. I make the mistake of following his gaze. My knees buckle the moment I see what I’ve done. The blood. The shriveled, decaying bodies. The horror in their eyes.
The look in Tillman’s eyes when he turns back around to face me is one I’ll never forget. He wears his mortality in his gaze like a prison uniform he can’t strip out of. He feels every bit of his weakness. But most of all, it’s the fear and the disgust at who I really am… what I’m really capable of, that makes me look away. That ends the awful tugging of my vacuum power.
“Get her out of here when she’s done,” he says, his voice so low I can barely make out the words.
He stalks off as I face the portal where more and more of the Darkyn Coven’s army pours in from. I can’t fight the urge to hold the magic in any longer. I keel over and it explodes past my lips, bursting out from my pores. Everybody in the line of fire flies backward before disintegrating into ash. The portal crashes in on itself, ending the army from advancing any further on us.
I fall to my side when the last of the magic is gone. Darkness circles the edges of my vision. My throat’s a burning, fiery desert. My stomach has shriveled into nothing. I barely have the energy to blink… so I don’t. I just drift in between nothingness and consciousness as my body slowly takes to repairing itself.
I don’t know how long I lay there for before someone grabs my hand and slides an arm under my back. I feel myself lifted up and tucked close to a warm, beating heart. The comforting, electric scent stirs me back to the present.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Jaxen says so softly, gently, and then my eyes finally drift shut.
IWAKE TO THE SCENT of electricity and leather, inhaling, savoring every second of it.
It’s a scent I’ve grown to need. A scent that could find me even in my darkest hours. I roll into Jaxen, curling up against the warmth of his bare chest, and nestle my face in the hollow of his neck.
“You’re awake,” his husky voice says. I can hear the smile swimming in his voice, bathing in the light that only true love could provide.
Nodding against his neck, I move closer, cradled in the darkness of night. I graze my fingers along his spine rippled with muscles, all the way down to the top of his basketball shorts. The throaty sound he makes awakens heat deep inside my belly. His feet rub against mine as he pulls me harder against him. His fingers find my chin. He gently pushes it up until he has full access to my throat, and then presses his lips against my skin. The kiss is so soft, yet so scorching.
My skin is alive.
I moan in his ear. Too long have I been without him. Too often have I feared I’d never be with him again. He slides his hand down my waist and past the top of my pants, until he’s cupping my bottom and pulling me on top of him, urging me to be with him.
My hair fans around his face as I lean in and take his lips with mine. The kiss is soft at first, tender almost, until his teeth lovingly tug on my bottom lip and his hands grab my hips and squeeze, pulling me harder against him.
“I want you so bad right now,” he says, his voice dangerously low and sexy. I feel it all the way to my toes as every nerve ending in my body responds, almost propelling me forward. “Just… just the thought of touching you… of tasting you… drives me past the point of insanity.”
He pulls my lips down to his and kiss me so deeply, so thoroughly, that everything else disappears and all I can think… all I can feel… is his lips, his tongue, and the way his hands touch me like they’ve memorized every curve, every plane, yet can’t wait to retrace their steps.
He rolls me over and rests himself between my legs, still kissing, touching, and taking me further into the heavens.
I am the moon, he is the stars, and together, we dance in an infinity of weightlessness where only he and I exist.
His hands find the hem of my sports bra. He starts to tug when the screen on my nightstand goes off, brightening the darkness of our tiny room. I move from under him, pulling the covers up to my chest.
“It’s Gavin,” I groan, rubbing my eyes as they try to adjust to the light.
Jaxen reaches over me and pushes the screen.
“Yo,” Gavin says. His scruffy face fills the screen, and t
he expression he’s wearing stops my heart in its tracks. It dumps icy water over the flame left by Jaxen.
“You do realize it’s past midnight?” Jaxen says, his voice even as he blinks and blinks to adjust to the light.
Midnight?
“Look, I realize you’ve been locked up in that room with her since we got back yesterday, but life does exist outside of that room,” Gavin says with a light laugh. He’s sitting upright in his bed, fully dressed.
My cheeks burn as I’m dipped in scalding-hot embarrassment. “I’ve been asleep that long?”
Jaxen looks over at me. “Your body needed time to heal after yesterday’s success with the seal. After we returned, one of the Witches healed you, and then put you under with a spell to make sure you had enough time.”
“Is everyone okay?” My voice hitches with every word.
He swallows. Brushes a strand of hair from my face. “You did good, Faye. That’s all you need to worry about,” he says softly.
Gavin clears his throat. “Listen, I know it’s late, but I just got a weird message from Mack,” Gavin continues, shifting in his seat. I don’t like how pale he looks. How the creases form across his forehead and his lips are held tight.
Jaxen stiffens. “Mack’s at the Academy. How could you have—?”
“Not anymore. He’s here.” He scratches the top of his head. Runs his hand down the length of his face. “He just called me a minute ago. Said we needed to meet up immediately on the rooftop. He sounded… I don’t know.” He looks away, scratches at the stubble on his face, and then looks back at us. “I just don’t know… upset. Scared even.”
“Okay,” Jaxen says, his voice hardened now. I feel his heart slamming against his chest. “Meet you there in ten.”
The screen goes blank. Jaxen kisses the top of my head, and then crawls out of bed. The lights flick on. He slides his shorts off, and I have to look away to hide my blush. I’ll never get sick of looking at him. Never tired of the way his presence always steals my breath.
I move the covers off me, sliding my pants on.
“I hate you have to cover yourself back up,” he says. I turn to face him, reaching for a shirt. He’s already dressed and ready, his eyes drinking me in. “I want you back in that bed, locked underneath me, giving me everything you have.”
My heart flips once, my stomach clenching with want. “Jaxen,” I say, my voice alone carrying a suitcase with everything I feel and want, handing it over to him.
He plunges a hand through his hair and looks down at the floor, biting his lip. “All you have to do is look at me and my control slips out of my fingers. All you have to do is say my name and the walls I’ve worked so hard to construct crumble away. I’m yours, totally and completely. Forever and always.”
I move into his arms and press my head against his chest, listening to the rapid sound of his beating heart. “And all you have to do is exist,” I admit.
Hugging me tighter, he pulls me in closer. He rests his chin on top of my head, and I love how my body molds with his. How his arms feel so secure. How his heart is so open and venerable and finally letting me completely in.
“You know, I never believed in saying I love you,” he says, his voice shaking a little.
“Never?” I say against his chest. Against his heart.
“No. My mother said it from time to time, but other than that… it wasn’t an expression I found necessary. It’s just words. There are so many other ways to say it without having to take the easy way out and speak it. And that’s how I want to love.”
“Like how?” I ask, pulling back so I can look up into his beautiful eyes. My heart keeps skipping, keeps threatening to break free so that it can finally be with his.
He moves forward, slowly, filling the air between us. His eyes tangle with mine, holding me with his brilliant, tender gaze, and then he kisses me.
The kiss is so consuming, so filled with the very words he doesn’t believe in, and I think I’ve finally discovered the secret to the world. To him. He’s letting me in—completely and utterly—and all I can do is feel every inch of every bit that he’s offering me and pray that I remember how to breathe when we come up for air.
He slows the kiss, and I don’t understand why.
“Open your eyes,” he says, his lips so dangerously close. His chest quivering against mine.
I open my eyes.
“I want you to see my love. I want you to taste it. To feel it all the way to your soul, so you’ll never ever doubt it. Never question what I feel for you. Never lean on three words that can’t even touch what I feel for you.”
I stop breathing. My lungs can’t hold my ever-expanding heart. My legs can’t support the molten love he’s poured into me, melting away everything I thought I knew about life—about love.
He kisses my top lip, my bottom lip, then my cheek, my forehead, and the very tip of my nose. His eyes are still on me, like they never want to leave. Like in my gaze, he’s found a safe haven.
“This is how I will always tell you I love you,” he says, cupping my face in his hands. “This, right here. Every kiss. Every touch. No matter how this curse pans out, or whatever happens with the Coven. That’s how you’ll know.”
I know in that moment that I’ll never be another’s. I’ll never know a love the way I know Jaxen’s, and I’m so thankful for it, no matter how much time is left. I’ll never want anything else because Jaxen is the only thing in this world that I could ever want. And it doesn’t scare me to admit that to myself anymore. It doesn’t scare me to know that I’ve so thoroughly given myself to this man who desperately deserves to be loved. It doesn’t scare me that by loving him, I am giving not only myself, but also my life as well, because I’m the lucky one who gets to love him.
And that makes my soul smile.
“IT”S BEEN LONGER THAN TEN minutes,” Gavin says when we step out of the elevator on the top floor. “Are you guys really that hard up on sex?”
“Gavin!” Jaxen barks. He pulls me against him, as if he wants to shield me from the embarrassment I can’t seem to escape.
Gavin smirks. He’s consumed too much pleasure in my squirm. It’s written in his smile.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s just jealous,” Cassie says from behind me. She struts past us and plants a kiss on Gavin’s cheek.
“Jealous?” he snorts, sliding his arm around her shoulder. He pulls her into him, brushes the wild, curly hair from her face, and says, “How can I be jealous when I’ve got this?” He kisses her hard. She squeals at first, but then relaxes into him.
“Okay… eww,” Jezi says from beside me, frozen in disgust.
“You’ve stolen the very words from my mind,” Weldon says as he walks up next to her. A light blush creeps across her cheeks. His eyes are pinned on her, studying her, waiting for any sign of a cue that could steer him in the direction of where he stands with her.
She licks her lips. Fidgets with the hem of her shirt.
He ruffles the hair on the back of his head. Shuffles his feet.
Together, they seem so… so cute. So simple. So desperately in need of someone who can give them exactly what they deserve. And I think they can find that in one another. I just hope they’ll let their guard down enough for it to happen.
Jaxen releases a pent-up groan. Gavin releases Cassie. She turns and says, “Can we go now? I’d like to get some sleep before we meet with Seamus in the morning.”
“I bet you do,” Gavin says, throwing in a forced wink.
I roll my eyes.
“After you,” Gavin says as he turns and pushes the door open to the stairwell leading to the roof.
Cassie’s smile beams up at him as she walks past him. Jezi and Weldon go next. Jaxen and I follow, and before I know it, the late night chill has wrapped her arms around me and squeezed so hard—too hard—until she’s nestled in my bones. We find Mack standing with his back to us, overlooking the entire city.
“It’s so peaceful. So… unassumingly
pleasant, isn’t it?” he says, staring out at the faint lights veiling the city in what seems like shimmering glitter.
“What is?” Jaxen asks as we take our place behind him, forming the very same line we formed the day we said goodbye to him and left for this very city.
He turns to us, and my heart reaches out for him. His face is so alarmingly pale. His blue eyes that once held the strength of steel are now hollow, empty, drowning in the lies and betrayals that only love has to offer. The dark circles under his eyes are so purple that I fear they’ll never go away. He runs a shaky hand through his disheveled hair, but the movement has no purpose, as if he’s moving on mechanics and not human emotion.
We didn’t leave on perfect terms. I didn’t appreciate the full scope of what he tried to do for me. How he tried to protect me. And now he’s been stripped of everything. He’s been lied to, abandoned, left to rot in an Academy that once stood for everything, and now stands as a web for the Darkyns to pick flies from.
“Ethryeal City,” he says, sounding so tired, so drained. “The meaning behind it. The cause it stands for. This city was built on lies. She’s like a siren, luring us in with her beautiful song. Her appearance. And like the monster she is, she snaps your neck when you’re least expecting it and tosses your body back into the sea to rot as a forgotten memory of what once was.”
A lump forms in my throat. I don’t know if he’s talking about the city anymore.
“Mack?” Jaxen says questioningly, stepping closer to him. His steps are soundless, careful, and his hands are flexed, ready should Mack need him.
Mack takes a step closer to the edge. Throws a glance back over his shoulder to the city below, and it’s then that fear punches me in the jaw. Clenches its grimy hands against my throat. Squeezes the very breath from my lungs.
“Mack, no,” I say, reacting before thinking.
His head whips back around, and his eyes settle on me. Pain and conflict play a game of hot potato in his gaze, tossing back and forth his ability to think rationally. “She’s empty. She has no end, no bottom. Don’t you see? Can’t you see how far her claws are sunk into this Coven? You can’t win. You won’t. She’s five steps ahead. She’s one threat from winning. She’s one greedy demon and one exiled Witch away from bringing down the face of this Coven and building up a new, gutless world. A world none of us has the stomach to survive.”