Flamebound A Lone Star Witch No
Tessa Adams
One
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t so much as pause in the intricately difficult body movements that are part martial arts and part ancient Egyptian magic as he answers, “Preparing.”
I take a moment to study him—I can’t help it. He’s so beautiful standing there, dressed in loose black pants and nothing else, his heavily muscled back gleaming beneath the sweat-slicked bronze of his skin. His long black hair is tied neatly at the nape of his neck and a series of black Seba tattoos dance across his shoulders with each movement that he makes. Directly in the middle of the ancient Egyptian stars is a gold circlet of Isis—proof that even the goddess knows he belongs to me . . . just as I belong to him.
Still a little uncomfortable with the thought—we’ve been an official couple for just over a week now—I focus on my end of the conversation.
“For what? World War Three?”
But even as I ask the question, I know the answer. It’s been eight days since Declan found me onstage at the Paramount Theatre, eight days since the core of darkness I’d always sensed in him had been unleashed. He’s barely slept since then. Barely worked, barely eaten. Every ounce of power he has is focused on revenge.
Not that I blame him. I understand his soul-deep anger. I even feel it myself. It’s hard not to when the Arcadian Council of Witches, Wizards and Warlocks spent the first half of January tormenting, torturing and doing their best to kill me, all while framing Declan for my attempted murder and the murder of four other women—women whose only crime was that they looked like me. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they were also so afraid of the strength of Declan’s magic, and the prophecy of my own, that they’d soulbound us without consent on the day I was born.
It’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions, one I’ve spent nearly every waking moment thinking about these past few days. I’ve spent so much time on it, in fact, that my best friend and roommate, Lily, reminds me on a daily basis that Declan and I can’t actually pit ourselves against the Council while they’re at the height of their power—at least not without going up against charges of treason.
But it’s not the fear of being labeled a traitor that stops me. It’s the fact that I need peace even more than I need vengeance. I’ve spent my entire life latent, without magic, without power of any kind. Now not only do I wield more power than I ever imagined possible, but I also have access to the darkest emotions, the darkest deeds, known to man. Thanks to my magic, I see things, feel things, that shake me to the very marrow of my bones.
Perhaps if I’d grown up with these powers—if I’d learned from an early age how to live with them—I wouldn’t be so shaken now. But I didn’t and since it’s been only a few days since a maniac tried to chop me into little pieces, and only a little longer than that since I lived through three separate psychic rapes, I think it’s fair that I need a little time to recover. A little time to just get used to who I am now—and who Declan and I are together.
Declan doesn’t see it that way, though. His rage is white-hot and deadly; his commitment to seeing the Council pay, absolute. I know it’s because of me, because of what I suffered and what I still have to suffer by being soulbound to him, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. Especially when he already lives in the shadows, already crosses the line between good and evil more than anyone should.
Oh, I know that his desire to take on the ACW stems from more than just a need for revenge. He wants to protect me, wants to keep me safe, and to hell with the consequences. And if I’d gone through what he had, maybe I’d feel the same way. Even though I had to suffer through the pain of the injuries inflicted upon me, at least I’d known that Declan was safe. That Kyle couldn’t touch him. But he’d had to stand by while that lunatic tortured me.
Helpless to stop him.
Helpless to reach me in time.
Helpless to do anything but live through the pain with me.
For a man like Declan, who has controlled every aspect of his existence and his power for centuries, there is no worse blow.
But knowing that, understanding that, doesn’t make it any easier to look into his fury-filled eyes. Especially when the dark is riding him like it is tonight.
So I don’t.
Instead, as I take my first steps into his makeshift study, I do my best to look at anything but him.
I’m instantly awed by the power crackling in the air. Whenever Heka is performed, the ancient Egyptian magic usually leaves a stamp of its presence. In most cases, it’s nothing more than a faint echo of the magic practiced there. But in Declan’s case, that echo is a live wire of power that pulses in every molecule of the air around me.