Flamebound A Lone Star Witch No(35)

His eyes narrow with sudden concentration. “This isn’t what, Xandra?”

Just then, a new wave of compulsion slams into me. It bows my back, sizzles along my spine. Then wraps itself around me like an invisible cord. For all of its invisibility, this compulsion is the worst one yet. It feels like the sharpest razors are cutting into me wherever the cord touches—my arms, my upper torso, even my neck.

It must look like that, too, because Lily suddenly gasps. “Xan, you’re bleeding!”

I don’t answer her, I can’t. Not when I’m nearly jerked off my feet by the force of this magic. Knowing it’s no use, I give up trying to fight it and simply let it pull me along—out of this huge room and down a dark and winding hallway.

Declan moves swiftly, positions himself in front of me. He doesn’t try to touch me—he knows how dangerous it is at times like these. But he’s determined to be in front. Determined to face whatever threat might be waiting for us around the next bend first.

In some distant part of my mind I’m aware of Lily following us, her phone the only thing illuminating the path in front of me. Though to be honest, I kind of wish she’d turn the damn thing off. This place is creepy enough in the dark. Being able to see the magic carvings in the ceiling—not to mention the cobwebs hanging from wall sconces that don’t look like they’ve been lit in a hundred years—is not exactly making this any easier. Especially when there’s a new, uncomfortable facet to this compulsion that I’ve never felt before. And it is really freaking me out.

I’m always cold at times like this, on a physical and soul-deep level that just adds to the misery of the experience. Tonight, that chill is still there, but with a little something extra. Frigid air blowing against my left ear and the back of my neck like the iciest of breaths. With every step I take, it gets more noticeable, more overwhelming, until the hair at my nape is standing straight up.

Every ghost story I’ve ever heard is running through my head, but I refuse to go there right now. If I do, I’m afraid I really will lose it and that’s just not an option. Not now, when I’ve just fought Declan for my right to do this without his interference. And certainly not when losing it will get me nothing but a one-way trip to the local mental hospital. I can’t leave—there’s no way the compulsion will let me go until I find what it wants me to find—and if I let my imagination get the best of me, I’ll never be able to do what needs to be done.

Locking everything down deep inside me—the fear, the pain, my evolving magic—I force myself to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other. Whatever is down here can’t be as bad as what will happen to me if I don’t keep going. I just need to remember that.

We come to a fork in the passageway and Declan steps to the side, where he waits. I know he thinks it will take me some time to figure out which way to go, but I don’t even hesitate. The body at the end of this trail is practically screaming for me to find it, the compulsion so great that I take off running.

Behind me, both Lily and Declan curse, but I have no time to explain—and no words to give them anyway. Everything I am, everything I have, is focused on getting to the end of this trail.

The floor is slanting downward now, and it’s rougher than it was up above—as if I’m sprinting along barely paved rocks. Somewhere close by I can hear the sound of rushing water, like a waterfall, but that makes no sense, so I don’t bother worrying about it. Not now, when I’m so close. So close . . .

We meet a dead end, with the choice to go left or right. I go left, then make an immediate right followed by another left. And then I’m there, right there.

It’s dark, so dark that I can’t see three feet in front of my face, but I know that I’ve found him. And it is a him. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.

I stop short so suddenly that Declan and Lily, who were hot on my heels, end up slamming into me. The impact knocks me forward and I start to fall. Declan snags me and pulls me up against his chest.

Lily’s flashlight app is doing its best to light up the room, but the place is huge, cavernous, and her little iPhone can only do so much. I want to keep moving forward—the compulsion is pushing at me even though I know how stupid it is to go any farther until I can see—but Declan keeps a tight arm around my waist, refusing to let me move so much as an inch away from him.

Then, his breath hot against my ear, he mutters one of the most basic Hekan incantations there is—the one for fire that most children master before they’re a decade old. I was twenty-seven before I could use it to create so much as a spark, and then I nearly burned my entire house down. Just one of the many, many reasons this Heka thing is not for me.