Элисон Ноэль - Dark Flame

"How'd you. .?" I look at her, eyes wide, jaw dropped.

But she just smiles. "Everything you can do in Summerland you can do here too, you know? Aren't you the one who told me that? But it wasn't instant manifestation like you think, it was merely telekinesis-I summoned it from my bookshelf in the other room."

"Yeah, but still. ." I gape at the book, amazed by how quickly she was able to retrieve it. Amazed by how she's mastered so many things, and yet she still chooses to live like this-nice, comfortable, but still pretty simple by the usual, opulent, coastal Orange County standards. Narrowing my gaze as I look her over again, seeing how she's stuck with the chunk of raw citrine on the simple silver chain over the elaborate gold and jewels she always wore in Summerland, despite the fact that she can now have whatever she wants.

And I can't help but wonder if she really has changed. If maybe she's not that same old Ava I once knew.

She shifts in her seat, setting the book down before her and skipping to just the right page, her finger tracing the line as she reads, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. . The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.

forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions. . and so on." She snaps it shut and looks at me when she adds, "Or so says Dr. Carl G. Jung, and who are we to refute him?" She smiles. "Ever, whether or not we reach our full potential and fulfill our true destinies is up to us. It's completely of our own making. Remember what I said earlier-as within, so without? What we think about, what we concentrate on, will always, always, be reflected on the outside. So I ask you, what do you want to concentrate on?

Who do you want to become from this point forward? How do you want your destiny to unfold? You've got a path, a purpose, and though I've no idea what that is, I've got this uncanny feeling it's something powerful and big. And though you've wandered a bit off course, if you'll let me, I can lead you back to the trail, all you have to do is say the word."

I gaze down at my teacup, the broken pieces of cookie, knowing that everything I've done so far, every ingloriously illadvised move, has led me back here. Back to Ava's kitchen.

The last place I ever thought I'd return to.

Tracing my finger around and around the rim of the saucer, weighing my choices, which are admittedly few, and lifting my gaze to meet hers as I smile and say, "Word."

Before I can knock, Damen is there. But then, he's always been there. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. He's been there the last four hundred years just as he's there now, feet bare, robe hanging open, hair tousled in an insanely appealing way, peering at me from a heavily lidded, sleepy gaze.

"Hey," he says, his voice thick, rough, new to the day.

"Hey yourself." I smile, moving right past him and starting for his stairs, grasping his hand in mine as I pull him along. "You really weren't kidding about always being able to sense me when I'm near, were you?"

He tightens his fingers around mine, using the ones on his free hand to push through his glossy tangle of hair, trying to tame it, make sense of it, but I just smile and urge him to keep it that way. It's so rare I see him like that, drowsy, scruffy, a little disheveled, and I have to say, I kind of like it.

"So what gives?" He follows me into his special room, scratching his chin as he watches me fawn over his collection of very old things.

"Well, for starters, I'm better." I turn my back on the very serious Picasso version of him in favor of the much cuter, way sexier, real version of him. My gaze meeting his when I add, "I mean, I may not be totally and completely there yet, but I'm definitely headed in the right direction. If I stick with the program, it shouldn't take long."

"Program?" He leans against the old velvet settee as his gaze sails over me, studying me so closely, I can't help but run my hands over my dress, quickly, self-consciously, thinking I should've at least taken the time to manifest something less rumpled, something new and cute, before rushing over like I did.

But I was so pumped from my talk with Ava, and the series of healing and cleansing meditations she put me through, well, I couldn't wait. Couldn't wait to tell him-to be with him again.

"Ava's got me on a sort of-cleansing fast." I laugh. "Only it's the mental kind, not the green tea and twigs kind. She says it'll make me-well-" I shrug. "Better, whole again, new and improved."

"But-I thought you were better yesterday? Or at least that's what you told me in Summerland." He cocks his head.

I nod, determined to focus on my earlier trip with him, and not the one that followed that horrible scene with Roman when I ran into Jude. "Yeah, but-now I feel even better-stronger-just like my old self." I look at him, knowing I have to admit this next part, it's part of the cleansing ritual-coming clean, making amends, not so different from your typical twelve-step program, but then, I wasn't so different from any other addict struggling with a horrible addiction.

"Ava says I was addicted to negativity." I swallow hard and look at him, forcing myself to keep his gaze. "It wasn't just the magick or Roman. According to her, I was addicted to thinking about my fears, about all the bad things in my life, like-you know, like my bad decisions, and our inability to really be together, and, well, stuff like that. And that by doing that, by focusing on all that, I actually ended up attracting-um, all kinds of darkness and sadness and-well-Roman, which resulted in me cutting off the people I love most. Like you, for instance."

I swallow hard and move toward him, part of my brain shouting: Tell him! Tell him what really led you to this conclusion. What happened with Roman-just how dark and twisted you got!

While the other part, the part I choose to listen to, says: You've said plenty enough already-time to move on! The last thing he wants are the disgusting details.

He moves toward me, reaches for my hands and pulls me close to him, answering the question in my gaze when he says, "I forgive you, Ever. I'll always forgive you. I know your admitting to all this wasn't easy, but I really do appreciate it."

I swallow hard, knowing that now is my chance, my very last chance, that it's far better he hear it from me than from Roman. But just as I'm about to, he runs his hand down my back and the thought melts away, until all I can focus on is the feel of him, the warmth of his breath on my cheek, the soft almost feel of his lips at my ear, the amazing sensation of tingle and heat that courses all the way from my head to my toes. His lips finding mine, pushing, pressing, as that everpresent shield hovers between us. But I'm done with resenting it, done with paying it any notice at all. I'm determined to celebrate things just as they are.

"Wanna go make out in Summerland?" he whispers, only half joking. "You can be the muse and I can be the artist, and-" "And you can kiss me so much you never actually finish that painting?" I pull away and laugh, but he just pulls me back to him.

"But-I've already painted you." He smiles. "The only painting of mine that truly matters." Then seeing my quizzical look, he adds, "You know, the one that's somewhere in the Getty as we speak?"

"Ah yes." I laugh, remembering that magical night, when he painted a version of me so beautiful, so angelic, I was sure I didn't deserve it. But I'm done thinking like that. If what Ava says is right, if like attracts like and water really does seek its own level and all that, then I'd much rather reach for Damen's level than Roman's, and here's where I start. "It's probably in some underground lab, in some high-security, windowless basement, where hundreds of art historians are gathered for the sole purpose of studying it, trying to determine who painted it, and where it could've possibly come from."