“I’m guessing the other night scared the shit out of you.” I got a brief snort at that. “Scared me too. We rushed in, again. Did something stupid, again. Someone got hurt, again.”
A crack of lightning had me jumping, my eyes sliding sideways to see if it was Sky Daddy or Luc making that happen, and when I did, I saw him watching me.
“I fucked up, again.”
He gave me no fucking quarter, just stared me down, those pale eyes not relenting for a second.
“I’ll do it again, you know. If you stick around me, it’ll happen again. I’ve seen Aen and Billy motionless on the ground, and it hasn’t even been a week. I’m dangerous to be around, I know that.” My eyes dropped down. He might not want to look away, but I did. “All I can do is say I’m sorry. That I thought I was doing the right thing, some of the time. That other times, I was being reckless and rash, and I shouldn’t have. In some ways, that’s why I wanted everyone together. If we do this, if we make this commitment, then we’re going to have to work as a team. We’ll have to talk shit through and try and identify and plan for risk better. So that the sole responsibility won’t be on my shoulders, it’ll be on ours. Because otherwise, it’s just me, out there on my own, making the decisions that I think are best for us.”
I saw two Lucs right now—the one sitting on the rock as the sky rioted around his head, and the other that had led me deep into the forest. I heard bird calls, but were they here now or then? I remembered the sounds of our feet crunching through the dead leaves and the hush of the breeze in the trees as he led me farther and farther away from his band.
“Because that’s what you do, when you care, don’t you? You try to do the best you can for them. Protect them from what you see as dangers.” Duke appearing in the forest, strumming his guitar, hand snatching out, catching a bird. “It doesn’t always work. Sometimes, you just hurt them more. Because you thought you knew, thought you had it all sorted, and then…”
Lightning stabbed down onto the earth, an explosion of sparks the result, but Luc didn’t look away. Something changed though, those eyes shifting a little from mine to my mouth and back again. I watched the muscle in his jaw tense, then release, I watched those lips press together, then part slightly as I heard a crackle, lightning playing over his skin. The sparks snapped louder, shifted faster over his hands, right as I reached out.
“If you care about someone, there’s no way to avoid hurting them at least some of the time. All you can do is own up to your mistakes and do your best to make it up to them.”
The sky erupted the moment my hand touched his, rain coming down in a massive torrent, his lightning arcing from him to me.
My teeth clamped down, partly due to the electrical impulses radiating through me, partly due to the bite of pain. This wasn’t the exciting prickle of the time we’d had sex. His power was out of control, striking out, forcing my muscles to twitch and jump on my bones. He blazed into me, reordering my body and my mind with his power, filling my head with a bright white light that just seemed to swell and swell until…
“Jesus fucking Christ, Kira!”
I gasped as he swept me into his arms, my body still twitching with the residual force of his lightning. My heart careened inside my chest, from slow, sporadic beats to staccato rapid ones, but it didn’t seem to matter. He held me close, stilling my limbs when they jerked, forcing me up hard against his chest until my heart rate stabilised in response to his.
I could feel it now, just as I had Billy’s that night, even over the din of the storm, my eyes filling with water, my hair dripping, my clothes plastered close to my skin. You have to follow the beat inside you, Jake kept saying. Well now I did. I raised a shaking hand up to drag it through his long wet hair, but he snatched it up and put it to his lips, still frowning as thunder and lightning rattled the world around us.
“You’re the one I get to choose,” I said. “I’m still choosing you. Now you’ve gotta decide if you want the same of me.”
“You couldn’t just let me brood in here, could you?”
“No.”
“Sometimes I need time.”
“So do I.”
“What happened…” He shook his head, but when he looked at me, I saw it—all that naked pain and fear. “I hate this shit, the connection. I hated feeling Billy’s fucking life drain away. I hated feeling how much I fucking hurt you.”
“Then don’t. Be alone, because that’s your only option. Human beings need others, Luc. I need you.”
“Why? I’m the instrument of your doom! He wants you, Kira, so fucking much. I keep the connection between him and me open, thinking he’ll slip up and let me know, but all I get is everything’s going to plan. You’re gonna… I’m gonna…”
“I’m done living my life dictated by those fucks, and I think you are too. Fuck Rutherglen. Fuck Sky Daddy. Fuck all of them!”
It seemed a whole lot cooler in my head, turning around and sticking my finger up at the sky. Unfortunately, in real life, it just came across as kinda middle school. I was feeling a little sheepish when I turned back to Luc, but he just burst out laughing.
“It’s as simple as that, is it?”
The rain softened as he smiled, dropping away to just drizzle.
“No, but I’m going to live my life as if it is.”
He brushed the raindrops from my cheek, but they were replaced quickly enough, so he gave up and moved in. There was a question in his eyes. Was this OK? Did we need to talk further? The answer was probably, but right now, I needed this. I kissed my guy as the rain fell around us and listened to the storm as it slowly cleared away.
Chapter 21
I was first out of bed, dressed and waiting outside the same conference room I’d met the delegates of the Sisterhood at the day before. I settled down against the wall, no one here yet. Of course they weren’t. It was blindingly early, most people still asleep. I bumped my head against the wall, feeling full of nervous energy.
“Thought you’d be here.”
Liam strolled around the corner, a study of nonchalance. Yet if that were true, what the hell was he doing awake? He looked down at me, a wry smile appearing and disappearing before he slid down the wall opposite me. I almost flinched when his eyes landed on mine. We didn’t look at or speak to each other unless we had to, not since… I forced myself to meet his gaze.
“You gotta go in there like you don’t give a shit either way,” he said.
I snorted at that.
“That’s how you get through life, is it? And how’s that working out for you, Liam?”
We’d all slept in my room last night, in the spirit of togetherness or some bullshit. He’d been on the outer end though.
“I’ve been where you’ve been. I know the thoughts and the worries and the frustrations.” His lips thinned down. “The responsibility. Heavy lies the crown and all that. You’ll want to keep everyone happy. No one can help that, but especially you.”
Something foreign shifted in his eyes, something…soft. It was such an odd sight, it took me some minutes to decipher.