“Because I’m supposed to be here.”
“It just doesn’t seem to be adding up. You said he was your bully—” She pointed at Hector. “But now he’s your mate—”She pointed at me. “And now you’re just going to live together? Because he kidnapped you and then went on a high-speed chase with a demon—to allegedly save you?”
My heart felt like it was lurching in my chest. How did I explain to one of my best friends that this was the right path when I hadn’t been honest with her about who I was or where I came from? How did I assure her mate, who's overly protective of everybody in Kylie's life, that I wasn't in any danger?
How didIknow that I wasn't in any kind of danger?
See? They’re already turning against you.
The bizarre voice returned, sounding funky and screwy now like a garbled piece of music coming through an old speaker. I tried to sort it out, but Kylie and Fred were now talking erratically to Hector. Their voices were on the rise. Hector was clutching my shoulder like he was about to yank me into another dimension. Was he going to kidnap me again? Was he going to take me away from everything? Panic bubbled inside me, making the hair on my arms stand up and slamming my heart against my sternum.
Agitation filled up Kylie's face. That apprehensiveness alone was enough to inspire the rest of my feelings to flare up. Though Fred wasn't as expressive, I could sense his nervousness that slid through the room. It stuck in the air like the humidity that crackled with electricity before a storm.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The storm clouds were rolling in. I could already feel the electrons in the air shaking, shivering, quivering. The whole house was charging up. A bolt of lightning would probably strike us right this second. I stood up and pressed my palms to the table.
“Look, she’s sick. What have you been feeding her?”
“We should really get in touch with our alphas. This doesn’t seem right.”
Hector slammed his fist on the table. “You’re not taking my mate away from me!”
I had to go outside and calm down. I had to get the clouds to go away. But as I took a step to the right, the room spun. I halted with my hands on the table, noticing that the living room was growing darker and darker. Black cotton clouds covered the living room ceiling. Lightning flashed over the furniture. A thread of mist came down in a slow spiral at first, turning in on itself, twisting about into a perfect vortex.
Not this again, I thought, mortified.Anything but this. I can’t control this. Please, make it stop…
I walked around the table, standing with my back to the argument happening behind me that I knew was about whether I was safe and sane in this household. I raised my hands to the storm forming in the living room. I needed to stop this before it became another disaster on my record before I ruined everything that I had worked so hard to achieve.
I charged my fingers. I pressed them together. I held them out to the living room, and then—
Another thought occurred to me, a disturbance so great that it made me tremble inside. It blotted out the sound of my friends shouting at my mate and my mate roaring in response. It blocked out everything with a modest truth:
You could just destroy it all.
I shuddered as I held my stomach, trying to figure out if it was my thought or not. And if that was the case, was it stress? Was it the fact that I had missed so much of my routine? Maybe the Virginia air was getting to me, and I had to sit down.
Simultaneously, I realized that the origination of the thought wasn’t the problem at all. No, this was worse. This was so much worse than I could comprehend.
The real problem was my terrifying desire todo it.
Chapter 17 - Hector
It was horrifying to see a thunderstorm right in the middle of my living room. Though it was logical because Faye was going through a lot, I was concerned about the water damage—and the damage to Faye herself. These two people from her past had appeared out of nowhere and were basically threatening to break us up. That must have felt scary for her.
A tornado touched down on the carpet and started to spin. Photographs were torn from the wall. Pillows were tossed around. Cushions from the couch launched in a spiral, spinning around in a way that was so dizzying I had to look away. Faye was just standing in the doorway, her eyes wide, her irises whited out.
I knew I had to make things right with her.
Kylie and Fred were standing on the other side of the table, staring in horror at their friend. I took that as a sign that they didn't know that she had powers. She had managed to keep it under wraps for so long that she had probably stifled a lot of her skills.
Now, she was exploding with an unmatched potency—and absolutely no limits.
Kylie pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Is she doing that?” She had to shout to be heard over the racket.
As much as I wanted to explain things to them, I knew now wasn't the right time. I had to get Faye under control. I had to get her to calm down so she didn't destroy the house. The Spears had already indicated their alarming recollections with their own child. And it made me wonder how many times she had done this before.
Was it just the one time the tornado ruined her family home, or had there been other times when the storms that came were because of Faye? The tiniest sliver of fear appeared in my core, making me doubt exactly what I had done by mating with her, exactlywhoI had just mated with.
I gritted my teeth.No, I must make things right. I must fix this.