Bragden’s face furrows in concentration. The palms of his hands brighten until they’re shining a bright yellow orange, similar to heating metal. “Keep picturing it,” she encourages. “You’re doing it,” she smiles as she watches his hands. They’re getting brighter and brighter. Bragden looks up from his hands and looks over at Incendia again.
When their eyes meet, two flames ignite in his hands. His swift intake of breath tells me that he’s slightly afraid. Incendia takes a step forward and extinguishes the flames with her hands. I can’t take my eyes away from the two of them. When she removes her hands from his palms, the flames return. “Wow, you have a lot of magic in you,” she whispers as she places her hands under his. How does she know that? “Now, imagine water cascading down your arms and pooling in the palms of your hands, extinguishing the flames.”
As Bragden heeds her instructions, Incendia studies him. I briefly tear my eyes away from them and look over at James. He glances at me at the same time and gives me a subtle nod. Bragden and Incendia are meant to be together. I bite my lip to keep my elated giggle in.
Hearing a sizzling sound, I look back to Bragden. The flames in his hands are slowly dwindling. Smoke is rising up toward the ceiling as the flames are dissipating. When the flames are gone, Incendia steps back. “Thank you,” Bragden says. She nods, but doesn’t look at him.
“Not cool. Now it’s just me!” Emma complains.
“Your time will come, babe,” David says as he pulls her to him.
“Yeah, well it better be freaking amazing for making me wait so long.”
“Hey, I had to wait twenty three years,” Bragden says. “In four years, you can complain.”
“Can we talk about Ryanne’s new fan club now?” Larkin says. I turn and glare at him.
“You just had to bring that up didn’t you?”
“Yep,” he says as he casually leans against the wall.
“Fan club?” Colton asks.
“I recruited some more people just now,” I tell him.
“You mean the group of guys who obviously had the hots for ya?” Larkin says. If we weren’t cramped in such a small area, he would be soaking wet by now.
“What?” Colton straightens up and looks between Larkin and me.
“You always have to go there don’t you. They did not have the hots for me. They were just impressed that I was able to help them fight. That’s all.”
“Yeah, because the look on Lucas’s face after you mentioned your soulmate was the look of someone impressed.”
I laugh. “You saw that too?”
“I see everything, tiny. Everything.”
“That’s creepy, Larkin. Real creepy,” I mimic.
“So if you two are done, can someone explain to us what happened?” Logan asks.
I shrug. I don’t really know what just happened. As I open my mouth to tell everyone that, Incendia raises her hand. “I can.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“So do you want the long version or the short version?”
“Might as well give us the long version. We’ll probably be here for a while anyway,” Tom says. I crawl up onto the bed and lean against Colton while everyone gets comfy and waits for Incendia to start. I look around the room for Olive. I haven’t seen her in a while. I hope someone has been taking care of her.
“Where’s Olive?” I whisper to Colton. Colton points over to Kyril who has Olive in his lap. Aww, they look so cute together. She seems happy enough, so I let her be.
“Ok, well both of my parents were killed when I was a baby, so I never knew them. Apparently, they were both elementals. My dad could affect the earth. He could control plants, speak with animals, manifest some weather elements, etc. My mom controlled water. She could bend water to her every whim. I hear it was pretty impressive. I don’t know much about their deaths. I just know that Gadramicks did it. They were looking for you even back then. They thought my parents had information about the girl from the prophecy.
“Anyway, they were killed because they proved to be worthless. My mom hid me before they took her, so they wouldn’t find me. That’s the only reason I’m alive right now. I was found by a human a day later and was put into the foster care system. The only indication of who I was was my name stitched onto the blanket I was wrapped in. I’ve never stayed in one place for more than a couple of months, so I’ve never really had a home. Most of the families couldn’t handle my fiery personality. I didn’t know I was a mage at this point. I didn’t know that there was anything special about me until I turned eighteen. I got into an argument with Mr. Garrowen. He was completely drunk and started yelling at me for no reason, calling me a good for nothing orphan, telling me that I’ll be homeless forever, and that I’ll never have a proper family.