Page 100 of A Dance With Fire
She walked towards them with reluctant steps, feeling their gazes like a heavy weight on her shoulders.
She’d failed. Epically. And had likely put Prince Valerio’s life in danger with her uncontrollable magic.
Shula stepped onto the riverbank in front of Valerio, her feet squishing into the mud. She took a breath. “The last time I used my magic,” she explained, “was when Orna died. And before that, the day you found me, the day I got these scars on my back. Beforethat,I’d been twelve.” She owed them no explanation, no deeper part of herself than they already had, but the words came out anyway. Not because she trusted them, but because she wanted them tounderstand.
She was desperate to prove herself to them so they would look at her as something other than the pathetic Fae who altered her ears. So they understood why she’d done what she did, why she suppressed her magic and why she lived in fear.
Deep inside, shewantedsomeone to understand. Validation was what she sought. Someone to accept that she’d done what she had to do because there’d been no other choice. So they’d stop looking at her with the same expression Fanny wore when she discovered Shula was Fae.
“I’ve neverreallyused my magic before.” She turned from Valerio and, like she couldn’t help herself, her eyes found Ryker’s.
He was propped on the very edge of the boulder, his hands warped into tight knuckled fists on his knees. His jaw was clenched, like he was angry, though if it was at her, Shula couldn’t be sure.
“Then we will train you.” Valerio drew her attention back to him with those words. “You do not have to hide who you are, and you do not have to suppress your powers anymore.”
Instead of answering, Shula walked past him up the slope to where her clothes lay. She fought back her shivers and methodically got dressed. Her tunic clung to her curves and pressed to the wounds on her back. Their gazes felt heavy on that specific part of her body.
Don’t ask,she pleaded silently.Don’t ask, because I don’t have the answers.
“You panic and you run away.” The growling voice had Shula snapping up, turning to face Ryker. He’d pushed himself off of the boulder and was close to her. She hadn’t even heard his footsteps. “At the first sign of trouble, yourun.You’ll never control your magic that way.”
It was the first time he’d spoken to her in days, since the night before they’d left Castle Aileach and he’d basically told her she was a Fae betrayer. The fact that he was talking to her now, after ignoring her and pretending she didn’t exist for days, really pissed her off.
“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?”
“Don’t be petulant,” he dismissed. “You need to control your fear. Your magic reacts to it. Next time you just might kill one of us because you’re too afraid of an illusion, and you’d let yourself explode rather than face the battle.”
Fed up with him, Shula threw her pack to the ground and stomped barefoot over to face him. Her hands collided against his shoulders on impulse, shoving him backwards. Something happened to her body when she touched him, starting at her palms. Something that spread and electrified her system, or maybe that was just her fire sparking to life. But Ryker staggered back too, and it was like he’d felt it as well.
“I am so sick of you!” she shouted, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths. “You’ve no idea how difficult it is!”
He stomped a step forward, their chests kissing intimately. The brief contact made her breath hitch and awareness spread through her veins. He bent so their faces all but touched and growled, warm breath fanning across her lips. “All I hear are fucking excuses. It’s difficult? Thentry harder.You train until you’re bruised and bleeding, but when it comes to magic, your fucking fear makes you shy away every single time. You’re a Fae. Start acting like one.”
Seconds passed, then dragged on into minutes and neither one of them moved save for the rapid rise and fall of their chests, pressing together with each harsh breath. She could feel his heart beating like a steady, pounding drum, completely contrasting her own nervous patter. Yet they fit. Somehow, their heartbeats fit. Like jagged puzzle pieces among a pile of smooth edges, it was like finding a match. Another broken piece.
The thought was startling enough to almost have her jerking away from his proximity.Almost.She couldn’t quite bring herself to move away from him, as if they were tethered together by a stronger force.
Her tongue darted out and swiped across her bottom lip, and Ryker’s eyes flared, following the movement before letting out a low growl. Then he was storming away, shoulder ramming into hers as he passed.
That jolt through her body snapped her out of those strange feelings, and she gritted her teeth together. She whirled and opened her mouth to snap at him again, not wanting to accept his word as final, even if a small part of her knew he wasright,she didn’t want to accept it. That meant he won a battle in whatever little war they had going on.
But she never got the words out, because a speeding arrow tore from the trees beyond and landed straight into Shula’s shoulder.
As her body flew back and hit the ground, she cursed.
It looked like Ryker would get the last word after all.
35
Fire and Blood
The pain didn’t come till later. Thirty seconds later, to be exact.
Shula groaned and stared down at the arrow sticking out of her shoulder. For a moment everything else disappeared as she took in the sight of it. At the fire pooling out of it. Fire and blood. Tendrils flickered from the opened wound, from between the spaces of her grasping fingers. Her magic responded, protecting.
She closed her fingers into her palms and was slammed back into the moment. She heard her name being shouted. It was a growl, torn from the deepest depths of a soul, vulnerable and foreign.
It took only a moment for her to realize it was Ryker calling to her.
