Элисон Ноэль - Dark Flame

And even though he's made plenty of mention of his "before picture" of his former, narcissistic, power-hungry self-it's one thing to hear about it, it's quite another to see it so clearly displayed.

But even though there are three more portraits attached, I only give them the most cursory glance. Miles is only interested in the fact that Damen and Drina were captured on canvas hundreds of years ago, and that in each passing portrait, some of them painted centuries apart according to their plaques, they somehow manage to remain young, beautiful, and eerily unchanged. He could care less about Damen's demeanor, the way he carried himself, the look in his eyes-no, that was my surprise.

I hand the phone to Damen, seeing the way his fingers tremble ever so slightly when he takes it from me, glancing quickly through the pictures before handing it right back. His voice low and steady as he says, "I've already lived it once, I really don't need to see it again."

I nod, dropping the phone back in my bag, taking too long to place it, obviously avoiding his gaze.

"So, now you've seen him. The monster I used to be," he says, his words going straight to the heart of me.

I swallow hard, dropping my bag onto the thickly woven rug, a priceless antique that should be in a museum somewhere, not used for this sort of daily wear. His strange choice of words reminding me of my conversation with Ava-everyone has a monster, a dark side, no exceptions whatsoever. And even though most people spend their whole lives determined to bury it, force it down deep, I guess if you've lived as long as Damen, you're bound to confront it from time to time.

"I'm sorry," I say, suddenly realizing I am. It hardly matters where we've been. It's where we are now that counts. "I–I guess I wasn't expecting it and I was a little taken aback. I've never really seen you like that."

"Not even in Summerland?" He looks at me. "Not even in the Great Halls of Learning?"

I shake my head. "No, I mostly fast-forwarded through all of those parts. I couldn't bear to watch you with Drina."

"And now?"

"And now-" I sigh. "I'm no longer bothered by Drina-just you." I try to laugh, try to lighten my mood, but it doesn't quite work.

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, I think that's what you'd call progress." He smiles, pulling me into his arms and holding me tightly to his chest.

"And Miles?" My eyes graze over his face, the slant of his brow, the square of his jaw, my fingers scratching at the swath of stubble that grows there. "What are we going to tell him?

How do we ever explain this?" My hesitation, my fleeting rejection of the old him, now vanished for good. Our past may shape us, but it doesn't define who we become.

"We're going to tell him the truth." He nods, voice firm, as though he really does mean it. "When the time comes, we'll tell him the truth. And with the way things are going, it won't be much longer now."

"Okay, so now, what I want you to do is to focus on feeding your energy. Cleansing it, lifting it, accelerating it to greater and greater speeds. Think you can do that?"

I squinch my eyes shut and concentrate. The accelerating part's always been the hardest for me. Remembering when Jude tried to coach me to do the same thing so I could see Riley again. But no matter how hard I tried, my energy remained just stagnant enough, just bogged down enough, just muddled enough, to pick up on the thoughts and images of a smattering of earthbound entities, and not the ones who've crossed over, the ones I wanted to see.

"With every intake of breath I want you to imagine a beautiful, healing, shimmering white light filling you up, starting at your crown and drifting all the way down to your toes. And then, with each exhale, I want you to imagine all that leftover negativity, any doubts, anything that serves the word can't leaving you for good. Imagine it as a thick, mucky, clumpy, clotted stream of gray drudge if you want-that always seems to work for me." She laughs, her voice like a smile.

I nod, and since my eyes are closed, I can only imagine the twins are nodding too. Their approach to Ava is pretty much the same as their approach to Damen-complete and total idolization, willing to do whatever she says. And while they weren't too thrilled about The Book of Shadows being banished from their lesson plan, even after I shared my own cautionary tale of magick gone wrong, showing them just how astray things can go when the intent gets a bit clouded and good judgment is overruled by obsession, they wasted no time in pointing out that they'd never be as stupid as me.

Would never practice any kind of ritual on a dark moon.

Would only try to manipulate matter and never the actions of another human being. But Ava held firm, which is why we're all back to energy cleansing and meditating again.

And even though I'm going along with the plan, picturing the white light streaming all the way through me, while banishing the negative crud that tends to build up inside-even though in just a few weeks of doing this I've already seen a tremendous difference in the way that I look, feel, and, almost more important, in the way I can manifest and communicate telepathically with Damen again-even though I know that taking part in this group meditation only serves my own best interests and will help steer me toward the ultimate destination I want to reach-even despite all that, my mind keeps wandering back to yesterday at the beach, when I took the day off from work to hang out with Damen.

We spread our towels out next to each other, so close the edges overlapped. Adding a mountain of unread magazines by my side, a customized, newly manifested surfboard by his (since the old one broke to pieces in the unfortunate cave collapse from a few weeks back), along with some chilled bottles of elixir, and an iPod we passed back and forth but mostly I listened to. The two of us determined to enjoy the summer we had both anticipated but had yet to experience.

The two of us looking forward to a long, relaxing day at the beach, just like any other couple.

"Surf?" he said, rising from his towel and grabbing hold of his board.

But I just shook my head. As far as surfing goes, it's better for everyone if I just stay put and watch from afar.

So I did. Watching as he headed off toward the water, raising my shoulders and shifting my weight onto my elbows as he moved across the sand so swiftly and effortlessly, I wondered if anyone else was as mesmerized by the sight of it as I was.

My gaze still focused on him as he dropped his board into the ocean and began to paddle out, turning what was once a series of pretty ho-hum, semi-flat waves into a succession of near perfect barrels. Fully content to ignore my magazines and iPod in favor of watching him, until Stacia came up beside me, tucked her long, newly highlighted hair back behind her ear, hitched her designer beach bag higher up on her shoulder, and lowered her sunglasses onto her face as she said, "Jeez, Ever, white much?"

I swallowed hard, breathed in and out, blinked a few times, but that's it. I gave no indication of having seen or heard her. I was determined to ignore her, determined to act as though she was invisible to me, and keep Damen in focus.

She stood beside me, making little tsking sounds of disgust as she harshly looked me over, but it wasn't long before she tired of the game and moved on, shuffling down the sand and settling in somewhere near the water but still within perfect viewing distance of me.

And that's when I let myself do it. That's when I went against everything Ava has taught me about empowering myself by tuning her, and everyone else like her, out, in favor of my own, more positive, upbeat soundtrack. That's when I let her words replay in my head as my eyes raked over my body and agreed she was right. Even though just a few minutes before I'd felt good about the way I looked, thrilled that my formerly unhealthy, emaciated body was now nicely filled out again, there's no getting around the fact that I was white-glaringly white-a white that definitely required the wearing of sunglasses and that could only be described as pasty. And when you factor in the light blond hair and the white bikini-the truth is, it wasn't pretty. I may as well have been a ghost.