“What’s in you is a part of you, Evie. It’s not a thing or an it. It’s the Source, and it’s you. Even when you don’t remember me, it’s still you,” he said, dragging his thumbs over my cheeks. “You’re just not familiar with how it feels or how to control it, just like when Luxen or Origins are young. They have some hellish tantrums. Dawson and Beth’s baby girl? Ash? She once blew out all the windows in a room because Beth wouldn’t let her climb the railings on a spiral staircase. This other time, she threw a plate of peas at the wall, and the plate and peas went through the wall.”
“You think I’m having a tantrum? Like Ashley, who is a toddler?”
“Ashley, who is a toddler, has more control than you do.”
I blinked. The blunt statement had knocked some of the pressure out of me. “Wow.”
“When I was young—a baby Origin—I had trouble controlling the Source, too. All of us did at some point.”
“A baby Origin?” I whispered, finding it difficult to picture him as a small, confused child, but what formed in my thoughts was an adorable, full-cheeked little face with mischievous purple eyes.
“Yes, I was that cute.” He’d picked up on my thoughts. “What? You know I wasn’t hatched from an egg or a test tube.”
All I could do was stare at him.
“You’re not having a tantrum. I think the nightmare—the memories that nightmare woke up in you—caused you to have an emotional reaction, one strong enough to call the Source to the surface.”
I thought back to the dream, how it had felt like locks had been broken and doors thrown open. “In my nightmare—or the memory; I don’t know what it was—but he called me Nadia, and that’s when I really felt it.”
A tremor coursed through the hands that held my cheeks so gently. “I’m going to have you tell me all about the nightmare and what you remember, but right now, I just want you to focus on me.”
How he could sound so calm when the house trembled, when anytime a nightmare seized me, I could lose it?
“Look at me, Peaches, and feel this.”
Not even realizing I’d closed my eyes, I opened them. I saw where he’d placed one of my hands on his chest, above his heart. “Feel each breath I’m taking? It’s slow and deep, right?”
I focused through the haze of panic and lingering fear. He was breathing deep and even, nice and slow. “Yes.”
“Good.” He stepped into me, and what was inside me stretched at the closeness. Our chests brushed with his next breath. “I want you to focus on each breath I’m taking, and I want you to slow down your breathing to match mine.”
I started to do just that, but I saw the thick tendrils of moonlight and darkness slithering from my hand, licking out over his chest as something heavy toppled over in the house. I started to draw my hand back. “Luc!”
“It’s okay,” he said, keeping my hand in place. The tendons of his neck begin to stand out. “Just focus on my breathing.”
My gaze darted from my hand to his neck. Even in the low light, I could see the skin around the collar of his shirt turn pink. Understanding dawned. “I’m hurting you.”
“I’ll survive. Just don’t let go. Focus on my breathing—”
“No!” Breaking his grip on my wrists, I tore my hands away from him, but I saw the pulsing, twisting mass of the Source wash over his chest in a wave.
Horror punched through me as I stared at him.
“Listen to me.” Faint white lines started to appear under Luc’s cheeks, forming a network of veins, but he reached out, grasping me once more by the shoulders. “The way the Source builds in a Luxen or a hybrid is different from how it does in an Origin. When we start to tap into it, summoning it but not using it, we have what is like a critical breaking point. It’s like a pressure cooker—” He sucked in a sharp breath. “If you can get it under control, you’re going to have to let it out.”
Use it, or it will swallow you whole …
I zeroed in on the energy coming to the surface of his skin as wetness trickled out of my nose. The power in me? Luc said it was a part of me, but it felt like a separate entity, and it was waking up. It wasn’t the Source, that much I could tell. It was tied to it, though, and it was stretching and stretching, curling itself around organs and invading my limbs. It …
It wanted.
Shaking, I shoved it—whatever part of me it was—back as white dotted Luc’s skin. “Let go of me, Luc. I’m hurting you.”
White lines bracketed Luc’s mouth as he slid a hand around to the back of my head. His fingers curled into my hair. “You’re hurting yourself.” He trembled—his tall, strong body trembled. “You’re bleeding.”
Pain flared along the back of my skull. The energy inside me felt like a bomb. These frail walls and old floors weren’t going to withstand it, and neither would Luc. It was possible that the houses nearby would be knocked down. That was how big the power felt, and if I let it out, it would destroy everything. I didn’t want that to happen—
“Then don’t let it take control of you.” He leaned in then, past the aura surrounding my body, and tipped his forehead against mine. I shuddered at the contact, at the way this foreign, new part in me yearned, not just to be let out but for him. That didn’t make sense, but that was how it felt.
If I couldn’t let it out and I couldn’t get it under control, what would happen if I let it swallow me? Instinct or perhaps hidden knowledge told me that all this power would go inward, and I had a feeling that wouldn’t end well for me.
But others would be safe.
Luc would be safe.
“You can’t do that.”
He was wrong. How I knew that, I didn’t know, but I could suck it back in, pull it into me until it had nowhere to go.
“I won’t let you do that, Evie.” His hips pressed into mine, and there was nothing separating us. “You’re not going to turn this back on yourself.”
“You have to let go of me.” An icy burn pricked along my skin.
“Never,” he swore, brushing his lips over the curve of my cheek.
Another shiver whipped through me. Two reactions happened simultaneously. One was familiar. That warm, tight buzz of attraction that threatened to turn my body to liquid, even right then, when things were falling apart. The other was … different. The new part Luc claimed was me shivered with anticipation, too, but a different kind I had no experience with before.
It wanted …
And it hungered.
“Let go,” I begged as this thing poured into my chest. “Please. I love you, and I can’t hurt you like this. Let go.”
“Evie.” Luc’s voice barely rose above the thundering of my pulse. “I will never let you go. Not again.”
Muscles coiled tight to the point of fiery pain, jerking my arms. The pressure kept building and building—
“You can do this.” His nose slid along mine as he said, “You just need time to learn how.”
Before I could respond, Luc kissed me.
The feel of his mouth on mine was a shock to the system. It was a brush of the lips. Once. Twice. A soft caress that sent a rush of hot, shivery sensation from the roots of my hair all the way to the tips of my toes. I tensed, and it was nothing like the bitter burning anger, the icy fear or the slippery otherness that had been spreading inside me. Everything—everything—stopped out of shock, and all I felt was the sweetest burst of agony and wanting, and all of me went soft. My lips parted on a breath, and he shuddered against me, his hand fisting in my hair as the kiss deepened. His kiss was a demand, and I sank into him, my hands returning to his chest. The kiss ended on a ragged groan.