Page 57 of Cast in Shadow
I scoffed. “You’re not really sayingI’mthe reason she’s here, are you?”
He eyed me. “That depends. How powerful are you, Senna?”
I clenched my jaw and lifted my chin. That was one question I definitely wasn’t ready to answer.
He shook his head slowly, and when he spoke again, his voice was eerily calm. “I need to know.”
But did he? Really?
Silence stretched for a few beats. When it was clear I wasn’t answering, a muscle in his jaw jumped. He stepped forward and pressed his palm to the center of my chest, moving with a deliberate slowness.
Pain flickered, starting as an ember buried deep inside me that grew exponentially with each quickening beat of my heart.
Fear trickled down my spine.
“Stop,” I demanded, trying to twist away from him.
“You can heal yourself now, right?” He slammed me back against the Jeep with that one hand, rocking it with the impact of my body.
My breath leaked out of me as the pain burned brighter. And hotter. Until it felt like my chest was on fire.
“Emerson, stop!” I knew what he was doing. It was an asshole move, but in the back of my mind, through the searing pain, I knew it would remove any doubt about the power I wielded.
Gritting my teeth, I refused to give him what he wanted. I tightened the leash on my magic and sank into the agony. Tiny white sparks shot across my vision.
“Tell me, and I’ll stop.” His handsome face was twisted with misery. “I don’t want to hurt you, Senna. I never wanted to hurt you, but I need to know.”
Because if I was too powerful, if I could send the Brethren back to the hell they came from, then that would mean I really was a threat.
When I lowered my mental barrier to let him see just how much pain he was causing me, he pinched his eyes shut.
“Emerson, please,”I pleaded through our connection. I didn’t want to show him the truth. The depth of my power was my secret to keep.
But he didn’t stop, because this wasn’t some harmless game we were playing anymore.
Screams filled the air around us, tearing up my throat until it was as raw as my battered emotions. I felt like I was being burned from the inside out. I was shaking as much from the sheer torture of his magic coursing through me as I was from the monumental effort it took to keep my grip on my power. It was like trying to wrestle a wild horse into submission. But as I fought for control, the ribbon rushed in around me, responding to the panic eating away at my resolve as it fed me more and more power.
I writhed beneath his relentless assault.
So much pain.
There wasn’t even a single point anymore. It was coming from everywhere. Every drop of blood. Every inch of skin.
“Emerson!”I screamed his name in my head, a plea for him to stop but also a warning.
A second later, my hold slipped. Bright, searing magic pulsed from every cell inside me, and no matter how desperately I might want to, I couldn’t claw it back. Everything went white, and when it cleared, Emerson was gone.
A suffocating dread overwhelmed me as I collapsed to the ground. Panting, I dragged myself onto all fours, feeling the drain of the energy pulse even as I took in the effect it had on the world around me. Nothing made sense at first. My Jeep was thirty feet away but sitting at a strange angle, with four distinct black marks stretching sideways across several parking spaces leading to it. Trash cans rolled at the far end of the parking area,scattering what little rubbish they’d collected over the previous day.
“Fuck,” I wheezed. Everything hurt. My head, my lungs, my back. Even my damned toes ached. But it was nothing compared to the way my heart was seizing in my chest.
“Emerson?”I whispered through our connection.
I didn’t know what a blast like that would do to him, or how it would change how he saw me. In the grand scheme of things, it really shouldn’t matter, but despite the dickhead stunt he’d just pulled, it did. Despite our whole twisted history, he still mattered to me.
“Come on,” I pleaded quietly.
“Tell me you’re still here,”I said through the link.
