Page 80 of Awry
“I know,” he whispers.“I’m sorry.I wasn’t —”
“There is no excuse.Get off my property.”
He slowly straightens, hands held slightly forward as if I’m a rabid animal.As if I’m the problem.
I already know I’ll have bruises on my arms from his grip.I’ve never had someone — someone who knows me, at least — touch me with violent intent.Even most strangers fear the color of my eyes, fear even drawing my attention.
And those who know me?They know what I can do.
Rath’s chest is still heaving.Not as much as before, but he’s clearly only just hanging on to his control.“Zaya … please, just listen.”
My clenched hands, my clenched jaw, all ache.“Get the fuck off my property.Don’t come back without an invitation.”I can feel the energy embedded in the craggy rock under my feet stir, then rise at my words.It doesn’t do anything as dramatic as physically eject the biker shifter from the estate, but it’s there.As if it’s waiting to be utilized.
I glare at Rath.
The weird anguish drains from his expression, from his hunched shoulders.His eyes narrow in anger.His jaw looks as clenched as mine as he curls his hands into fists.His back stiffens and straightens until he’s once again looming over me, not curling forward … protectively?
I’m not interested in whatever his damage is.Not interested in learning what him seeing me on the ground triggered for him.This is my property.I follow my own path, and I don’t owe him an explanation.
He also doesn’t deserve my fear.
He has no right to lay hands on me.Not in anger.Not even for the sake of his own fear.
Shoving away as much of the residual terror that overwrote all my senses as I can, I raise my hands in response to his own aggressive posturing, fingers splayed.
I reach for his life force, for the threads of his destiny.He’s now forcing me to look for what I instinctively did not want to know before.
Rath’s nostrils flare, as if maybe he can smell my power.His chest starts to heave again.In disbelief?
He knows what I can do.
“Don’t make me,” I say.His life force is robust.Without looking at all closely, I can already feel the fierceness of it, the intertwined layers.“You might be able to hurt me physically —”
He makes a noise of protest, trying to cut me off or counter me.
I ignore it.“But I can ruin your life.”
Rage, still mixed with that odd aching anguish, suddenly radiates from him.I swear I can feel it, experience it, even though I’m not empathic in the least.All of that emotion is etched across his face as he speaks.
“Not any more than you already have.”
Then he turns and walks away.
The energy I’ve called forth in my pathetic attempt to bar him from the property ghosts his footprints in an odd way, as if it can’t actually grab hold of him.As if he has permission to walk here that I can’t revoke.That doesn’t make sense, though, because I am the Conduit.I am the intersection point now.My will — all the energy of which I’m composed, and by which I’m fueled — is the preemptive power here.
He also shouldn’t have been able to grab me so harshly … though perhaps his intent was key in that moment.
Confused, I call out, “Don’t come back without an invitation,” to his retreating back.Repeating myself, utterly childishly.
He half-turns to look at me, snorting derisively.“I never want to set eyes on you again, Zaya Gage.Unfortunately, I also never get what I truly want in this world.”
I can feel the falseness in his words as they thread between us.Perhaps because I deliberately reached for his essence, perhaps because we’re somehow connected through the energy of the intersection point.But one of his two statements is a lie.
“Don’t worry,” I say, speaking without conscious thought … or maybe that’s what the universe feels like when it speaks through me now.“You’ll get what you deserve.”
“Fuck you.”
“No.”
