Page 32 of Unbearable Attraction
"I'm not having a breakdown," Leenah protested weakly.
"Honey, you've been avoiding the man who clearly adores you for three days, you smell like dangerous magic, and your aura looks like a thunderstorm." Twyla settled herself at the kitchen table with the kind of maternal authority that brooked no argument. "If that's not breakdown territory, it's certainly in the neighborhood."
Despite everything, Leenah felt her lips twitch upward. "My aura looks like a thunderstorm?"
"Dark, chaotic, and probably about to produce lightning." Twyla poured steaming hot chocolate into two mugs and pushed one across the table. "The question is whether you're planning to weather this storm alone or if you're going to let someone help you through it."
"It's complicated."
"The best things usually are." Twyla's expression grew serious. "But complications don't disappear just because you refuse to deal with them. They just get worse while you're pretending they don't exist."
"I don't know how to trust someone with something this important," Leenah admitted. "Every time I've cared about someone, every time I've let them matter, they've either tried to control me or they've left when my supernatural nature became inconvenient."
"And you think Luka's going to do the same?"
"I think he's going to try to protect me even if it means overriding my choices. And I think I'm going to resent him for it, and then we'll both end up hurt when everything falls apart."
Twyla was quiet for a moment, studying Leenah's face with ancient eyes that had seen too many people make the same mistakes. "You know what I think?"
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway."
"I think you're so afraid of being controlled that you've forgotten the difference between someone trying to cage you andsomeone trying to catch you when you fall." Twyla's voice held gentle understanding. "I think you've confused independence with isolation, and now you don't know how to accept help without feeling like you're giving up something essential about yourself."
"What if I'm right? What if letting him matter just sets us both up for disappointment?"
"Then you'll deal with disappointment when it comes," Twyla replied pragmatically. "But at least you'll have tried for something real instead of settling for the safety of being alone."
After Twyla left, armed with promises that Leenah would at least consider reaching out to Luka before doing anything irreversibly stupid, the cottage felt even emptier than before. But even as she sat there trying to focus on magical theory, her mind kept circling back to the same uncomfortable truth: Luka had been right. She was planning something dangerous and stupid, and she was doing it alone because accepting help felt too much like admitting weakness.
The problem was, recognizing the truth and being ready to act on it were two very different things. Her pride stung from his accusations, from the way he'd pushed past her boundaries and demanded answers she wasn't ready to give. Part of her wanted to march over to his workshop and prove that she could handle this crisis without his interference.
But a larger part, the part that had felt safer in his arms than anywhere else in years, whispered that maybe he'd earned the right to be included in decisions that could affect them both.
"Damn him for being right," she muttered, earning a sympathetic purr from Minerva.
The ritual components sat on her kitchen table, carefully arranged and ready for tomorrow’s ceremony. Everything she needed to contact the trapped spirits directly and offer herself as their willing sacrifice.
Her grandmother's journals painted a clear picture of the costs involved in serving as a spiritual bridge, but they also hinted at alternatives. Modified rituals that distributed the magical burden across multiple participants. Protective techniques that might shield the primary practitioner from the worst effects of channeling otherworldly forces.
Options that would require trusting someone else with her safety. Someone who cared more about her wellbeing than the success of the mission.
Someone like Luka, who'd seen through her defensive walls and called her out on behavior she'd been hiding behind for years.
The thought of facing him again, of admitting that his concerns had merit while still being angry about the way he'd confronted her, made her stomach twist with conflicting emotions. She wanted to apologize for the harsh things she'd said, but she also wanted to make him understand why his protective instincts felt so much like the control she'd spent years escaping.
"I need to talk to him, don't I?" she asked Minerva, who was watching her with the kind of patient attention that suggested the cat was waiting for her human to make the right decision.
Minerva's answering purr suggested that conversations were definitely in order, though not necessarily the apologetic kind.
"And I need to tell him about the ritual. Even if I'm still mad about the way he handled things."
Another purr, this one carrying what sounded suspiciously like approval mixed with feline amusement at human emotional complications.
"All right," Leenah said, closing her grandmother's journal and reaching for her jacket. "Let's go find out if I'm brave enough to have this fight properly."
She was still furious with him for pushing past her boundaries, still resentful of the way he'd demanded trust she wasn't sure how to give. But she was also tired of carrying the weight of this crisis alone, tired of pretending that her fierce independence wasn't sometimes just another word for loneliness.
As she approached the warm light spilling from his workshop windows, she realized this wasn't about apologizing or admitting defeat. This was about proving to herself that she could be angry with someone and still care about them, that she could fight for what mattered without walking away when things got complicated.
