Page 34 of Her Dreadful Will
Achan’s fingers curled around hers, a gentle tug as he helped her out of the crack onto the rocky path beyond. “You’re here. I wasn’t sure you would come.”
“Thought I would chicken out?”
“I thought you might decide I wasn’t worth your time.” He still held the tips of her fingers in his. She drew them away.
“I’m here. Now what?” She glanced around, at the narrow trail twisting away into the forest, at the trees rising like dark spires on every side. “Where’s this coven of yours?”
“Just a little further. I’ll show you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you luring me out into the forest for despicable reasons?”
He met her gaze. Moonlight glimmered on his skin, highlighting the angles of his face. His hair wasn’t combed at all tonight; it tumbled in messy waves around his temples. And he was wearing two tiny, glittering studs in his left ear. She hadn’t even known it was pierced.
“I am definitely luring you into the forest for despicable reasons,” he said. “But I won’t hurt you.”
“You couldn’t if you tried.”
His teeth flashed in a fierce smile. “You haven’t seen me in action yet.”
“True, but I know that most men have an inflated opinion of their own skills.”
“Oh, mine isn’t inflated. It’s pure fact.”
Eagerness flared in Soleil’s heart, a craving to see his power, to gauge it for herself. “We’ll see about that.”
He was still looking at her, a penetrating stare that made Soleil’s skin heat under her jacket. She glanced down at his hands, bared to the air, and caught a glimpse of the sigils marked above his leaf tattoos. On the left hand were the symbols for darkness, freedom, and ascendancy. She couldn’t quite make out the other two on that hand.
His fingers twitched at his side, and Soleil snapped her gaze back up to his face.
“Like what you see?” he asked.
“If you’d let me have a closer look at those sigils—”
“Maybe later.” Achan spun on his heel and plunged into the forest.
As Soleil followed him along the nearly invisible track through the gloomy undergrowth, she tried to picture what his magic might look like. His leaf tattoos seemed to indicate a strong nature affinity. Witches without special affinities—the Ungifted, as some ungraciously called them—focused on growth magic, cleansing magic, even some minor healing. They typically had magic levels in the lower third of the Radiant Scale. But occasionally a nature witch manifested a much higher radiance level, capable of dramatic demonstrations of power. Maybe Achan was such a witch.
Tangled in her thoughts, Soleil tripped over a root and caught herself with a hand on a nearby tree. Something quick and multi-legged skittered over her fingers, and she squealed.
“What happened?” Achan turned back, a slender ghost in the dark.
“A bug crawled on my hand,” she admitted reluctantly.
She couldn’t see his expression, but she imagined one of pure disdain.
“You must not be into nature magic,” he said.
Odd how he had nearly guessed what she was thinking about. “I know enough for what I need.”
“Watch.” He backed into a silver beam of light, where the glow of the moon slanted through an opening in the trees.
“Watch what?” Soleil batted away a mosquito.
Achan’s body began to darken as countless tiny insects flocked to him, mosquitoes clustering along his sleeves, moths landing in his hair. Spiders picked their way up his legs, and beetles with shiny carapaces swarmed across his chest until he was a shifting, shimmering mass of insects. A centipede scuttled over his lips as he said, “When you can control them, you don’t have to fear them.”
Soleil clapped a hand over her mouth, shuddering. She was going to have nightmares tonight, for sure. This was something out of a horror movie.
Achan shook himself, and the bugs fluttered away or dropped from him, returning to their places in the forest.
