Part of me wants to resist—on some levels, this sharing of our magic is a million times more intimate than sex. And while I’ve felt Declan’s magic inside me before, it’s never been like this. Never been so much a part of me that I feel it in my every nerve ending, my every cell. Never been so overwhelming that I can’t tell where his power leaves off and mine begins.
There’s a part of my brain screaming for me to shut this down. That it’s too intimate, too dangerous. That it will only speed up everything that comes with being soulbound—the bad parts as well as the good.
I ignore the warning. There’s no way I’m giving this up. Not when I have a direct pathway to the fiery beauty of Declan’s soul. For once, the darkness that seethes between us is nowhere around and I’m grateful. I want to relish every second.
Time passes and still he doesn’t withdraw. Neither do I. Instead, I savor the heat rippling through me, touching me in places I never imagined another human being would ever be able to reach.
My headache—nearly blinding in its intensity just a little while ago—is all but gone. My eyes feel much less swollen and gritty. Even the pressure in my chest, partly from crying and partly from grief, feels lighter.
I’m not sure how I feel about that last one—my sorrow over Hannah’s death is an intensely personal thing, one I’m not yet ready to share with anyone else. And yet I can’t deny that I feel more able to see clearly, more capable of moving beyond my own emotions to see the big picture.
Feeling a little drunk on all the power that’s still bouncing around inside me, I open my eyes slowly. And stare in wonder at Declan’s face.
In just the last few minutes, his skin has lost most of the red burns. I glance down at his hands, realize the blisters are gone as well. “Did you . . . ?” My voice trails off, as I don’t even know what it is I want to ask.
“Actually, you did,” he tells me.
“I don’t understand.”
“It works both ways. I can heal you, partly because I have some talent for it and you can heal me—at least partially—because of the binding. The stronger your magic gets, the more you’ll be able to do. It’s how I got out of that inferno with only second-degree burns. Once you started pumping your magic into me, the flames couldn’t do that much damage.”
Astonished, I touch his face with soft fingertips. Trace the wicked curve of his lips and the tiny little dimple to the left of his mouth that few people ever get a chance to see. It took me forever to get a glimpse of that dimple—smiling is not something Declan does on a regular basis—but now that I have, it’s become one of my favorite places to kiss and touch and lick. Partly because it makes him look sexy as hell, but mostly because that dimple means Declan trusts me in a way he trusts almost no one. He opens up to me when normally he goes out of his way to be as closed off as possible.
Because I can’t help myself, I lean forward and press a light kiss directly over that dimple. And think about just how much my life has changed since this man found his way back into it.
Long minutes pass in silence, both of us locked in thought. But eventually the corners of my mind start to crumble in on themselves and I know that I’ve tackled too much. Hannah. Declan. The ACW. A concussion. The pain comes back, as agonizing as ever.
Declan shifts, stretching out on the bed before pulling me into the curve of his arm. His hand tangles in my hair, his fingers massaging my scalp until my eyes drift closed despite myself.
Before I go under completely, I force myself to ask, “What’s our next move?” I need to be prepared.
He kisses my shoulder, lingering on the gold seba tattoo that sprang up a few days ago—and that marks me as his as surely as his new tattoo marks him as mine. Then, in a dark, hard voice I haven’t heard since our first days together, he answers, “We find the people who did this to you and then we set their world on fire.”
Exhausted or not, headache or not, after that revelation, it takes me a long time to fall back asleep.
Thirty-one
Xandra! The scream rips through my sleeping psyche like an explosion.
“Shelby!” I sit straight up in bed, shoving the strands of my still-mutilated hair out of my eyes. Beside me, Declan stirs and wraps an arm around my waist. He doesn’t wake up, though—my first clue that Shelby’s scream was all in my head.
For long seconds I wait in the dark, heart pounding and terror coursing through my bloodstream. Come on, Shelby, I urge her mentally. Give me something to go on here.
Silence is my only answer.
I glance at the bedside clock. It’s four in the morning and though I should probably try to get some more sleep, I know that’s not going to happen. After disentangling myself from Declan, I push out of bed. I grab my robe and Declan’s tablet, then quietly slip out of my room and head down the hallway. I don’t want to take a chance on disturbing him. Though he’s definitely recovering, he needs as much rest as he can get to help speed the healing process along.
I’m almost to the sitting room at the end of the hall when the shout comes. No! No! No! Xandra!
I freeze, terrified of losing the nebulous connection between us. I’m here, Shelby.
Make it stop!
Is the woman hurting you again?
An image of Shelby burying her face in a stained sheet, sobs wracking her little body.
Talk to me, Shelby. Tell me what’s going on.
The man. She’s going to kill the man.
Who?
I don’t know. He’s screaming and it’s scaring me. Make it stop.
I want to, honey. But I can’t sense anyone else there with you.
They’re here. In the next room. She’s cutting him.
Damn it. You can hear what’s going on?
I can feel it. Inside me. I can feel what he feels. It hurts. Xandra, it hurts.
Impotence burns inside me as I realize what she’s suffering. This poor baby, this poor little girl, can somehow connect to the victims in much the same way I can. That’s why they want her blood, why they need her. Because in connecting to the dead, especially the Councilors, she’s capable of amassing great knowledge. Knowledge that they need.
The thought of her suffering nauseates me. I’m a grown woman and can barely take it—how horrible, how utterly vile, must it be for Shelby to have to experience something like this without understanding any part of what’s going on.
Xandra! Another panicked scream. Are you still there?
I’m right here, baby. Do me a favor. I know you said you couldn’t see anything before, that there were no windows in your room.
There aren’t.
I know. But can you look around anyway? See what’s in the room with you? Maybe describe it to me?
Whatever she tells me won’t be much, but maybe it’ll give Nate something to go on anyway.
It’s dark.
I know, Shelby. If you can’t see anything, that’s fine. But if you can, you need to tell me what it is. Maybe it will help me find out. Maybe—
The walls are blue. Dark blue. And there are funny pictures on them.
Funny pictures?
Yes. Some look like birds. Or cows. And there’s a cross with a kind of circle on top of it—
Hieroglyphics? My heart starts beating double time. Are there hieroglyphics on the wall?