Page 86 of Touched By Moonlight
Chapter 24
I’d spentthree years leashing my magick and in the space of three minutes, released it simply to type up data. I’d let my emotions take over.Again.
Damn.
The time I’d spent at the Timber Wolf pack had stirred something deep inside me. I knew how destructive my magick was, what I was capableof.
I could destroy people with a snap of my manicured fingers, but I refused to let power consume me. Absolute power doesn’t make a personformidable.
It doesn’t make a person indestructible orinvincible.
It makes you miserable, even when you try to use it forgood.
I would rather live in shadow than be forced into making decisions on who lives and who dies based on my damn emotions or if someone stole my parking spot on a busy day at the shoppingmall.
Everyone needs something to live for, and someone to die for, and I had no one left. No one to keep me balanced. Grayson, Stephan and Nicolas might have provided that balance, but their pack didn’t wantme.
Being this isolated meant I could slide into a downward depression, destroying everything and everyone the moment I got angry or upset with a jerk likeRandall.
Two cubicles away came the rasping sound of cellophane crinkling. Lavender, slurping her way through another Twinkie. She went through them like locusts went through a field of grass. My nerves stretched tight, I put on myheadphones.
The numbers on the pages began to blur into each other. Rolling back from the desk, I stretched and blinked, taking abreak.
Maybe a cup of tea would help my restlessness. But minutes later, sipping hot tea at my desk, I knew it wasfutile.
Focusing on electronics and grounding myself in the ordinary world of tech always helped keep the magick at bay before. I began playing a game on my phone. Yet magick burned inside me. Teasing me like a lover, whispering how easy it would be to finish that stack of papers piled higher and deeper on mydesk.
I took a break and went to the restroom to splash cold water on my face. What I saw in the mirror ground me to an abrupthalt.
Three years ago, I dyed my hair from its natural pale blond to dark brown to disguise myself. Only last week had I touched up theroots.
Now, a streak of pure white blond showed in my dyed hair, like a beacon in the darkness. I touched the streak, my naturalcolor.
Using magick had changed me. It wasn’t a big change, but the change itself was significant. The more magick I used, the more my disguise would fallaway.
And then any paranormal could see who I was. What Iwas.
Including my enemies – those who huntedme.
No more magick. It was too risky. Back at my desk, I found a hair tie and bound it back in a way to cover the telltale blond streak. Then I resumed playing the game on myphone.
I’d barely started the game when I felt an odd prickling down myspine.
A nice one. Anticipation. The magick inside me tingled, and responded to the warmth surging throughme.
Voices sounded near my cube. A high-pitched, giggling female voice I recognized as Stephanie, a 19-year-old Instagram influencer we used to sponsor products. The offspring of two celebrity designers, Stephanie had more than a million followers on Instagram and YouTube, and vlogged about sexy lingerie and women’s items. It sounded like a tour of ouroffice.
I tended to ignore her, and she seldom came to the working area of the cube farm. I was the rank and file and no one ever paid attention tome.
But the other, deeper male voice alarmedme.
Arousedme.
Angeredme.
Heat in my body began stoking up to a slow boil. I glanceddown.
My hands glowedred.
