Tessa Adams: Flamebound

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t so much as pause in the intricately difficult body movements that are part martial arts and part ancient Egyptian magic as he answers, “Preparing.”

I take a moment to study him—I can’t help it. He’s so beautiful standing there, dressed in loose black pants and nothing else, his heavily muscled back gleaming beneath the sweat-slicked bronze of his skin. His long black hair is tied neatly at the nape of his neck and a series of black Seba tattoos dance across his shoulders with each movement that he makes. Directly in the middle of the ancient Egyptian stars is a gold circlet of Isis—proof that even the goddess knows he belongs to me . . . just as I belong to him.

Still a little uncomfortable with the thought—we’ve been an official couple for just over a week now—I focus on my end of the conversation.

“For what? World War Three?”

But even as I ask the question, I know the answer. It’s been eight days since Declan found me onstage at the Paramount Theatre, eight days since the core of darkness I’d always sensed in him had been unleashed. He’s barely slept since then. Barely worked, barely eaten. Every ounce of power he has is focused on revenge.

Not that I blame him. I understand his soul-deep anger. I even feel it myself. It’s hard not to when the Arcadian Council of Witches, Wizards and Warlocks spent the first half of January tormenting, torturing and doing their best to kill me, all while framing Declan for my attempted murder and the murder of four other women—women whose only crime was that they looked like me. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they were also so afraid of the strength of Declan’s magic, and the prophecy of my own, that they’d soulbound us without consent on the day I was born.

It’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions, one I’ve spent nearly every waking moment thinking about these past few days. I’ve spent so much time on it, in fact, that my best friend and roommate, Lily, reminds me on a daily basis that Declan and I can’t actually pit ourselves against the Council while they’re at the height of their power—at least not without going up against charges of treason.

But it’s not the fear of being labeled a traitor that stops me. It’s the fact that I need peace even more than I need vengeance. I’ve spent my entire life latent, without magic, without power of any kind. Now not only do I wield more power than I ever imagined possible, but I also have access to the darkest emotions, the darkest deeds, known to man. Thanks to my magic, I see things, feel things, that shake me to the very marrow of my bones.

Perhaps if I’d grown up with these powers—if I’d learned from an early age how to live with them—I wouldn’t be so shaken now. But I didn’t and since it’s been only a few days since a maniac tried to chop me into little pieces, and only a little longer than that since I lived through three separate psychic rapes, I think it’s fair that I need a little time to recover. A little time to just get used to who I am now—and who Declan and I are together.

Declan doesn’t see it that way, though. His rage is white-hot and deadly; his commitment to seeing the Council pay, absolute. I know it’s because of me, because of what I suffered and what I still have to suffer by being soulbound to him, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. Especially when he already lives in the shadows, already crosses the line between good and evil more than anyone should.

Oh, I know that his desire to take on the ACW stems from more than just a need for revenge. He wants to protect me, wants to keep me safe, and to hell with the consequences. And if I’d gone through what he had, maybe I’d feel the same way. Even though I had to suffer through the pain of the injuries inflicted upon me, at least I’d known that Declan was safe. That Kyle couldn’t touch him. But he’d had to stand by while that lunatic tortured me.

Helpless to stop him.

Helpless to reach me in time.

Helpless to do anything but live through the pain with me.

For a man like Declan, who has controlled every aspect of his existence and his power for centuries, there is no worse blow.

But knowing that, understanding that, doesn’t make it any easier to look into his fury-filled eyes. Especially when the dark is riding him like it is tonight.

So I don’t.

Instead, as I take my first steps into his makeshift study, I do my best to look at anything but him.

I’m instantly awed by the power crackling in the air. Whenever Heka is performed, the ancient Egyptian magic usually leaves a stamp of its presence. In most cases, it’s nothing more than a faint echo of the magic practiced there. But in Declan’s case, that echo is a live wire of power that pulses in every molecule of the air around me.

I suck in a breath, and with it, just a touch of that magic. It zigzags inside me, lighting up my insides like a bonfire and bonding with my own magic, drawing it forth. It’s still a strange feeling for me, this electricity inside me. I’ve spent so many years without it, and now that it’s here, I’m not really sure what to do with it.

So, like so many other things in my life lately, I ignore it. Focus on the mundane instead. “Everything okay in here?”

He isn’t even breathing hard from his exertions when he answers, “Everything’s fine, Xandra.”

“Good.” I nod, but I’m not sure I believe him. The room is lit up like a beacon even though it’s only four in the morning. I’ve had a difficult time being in the dark since my less-than-conventional magic kicked in. I wonder whether it’s been the same for him. If every time he closes his eyes he remembers how close we came to losing each other.

Or maybe my fears are influencing him. I don’t know if that’s even possible, but it seems it could be. Some days I feel a grimness hanging over me, one that could come only from him. If that can happen, then it seems reasonable to think that my issues could become his as well.

I really hope that’s not the case. Declan’s existence is already so turbulent that I hate to think that I’m adding to it. But this soulbound thing is new for me, new for us, and I don’t know if either of us is exactly certain of what it means. Of how it will change us. Or how we’ll change each other.

Uncomfortable with the direction my thoughts are taking, I glance self-consciously around the room. It’s huge, the largest in the lake house Declan bought three days ago—with cash—because he wanted to be near me. Which is why I’m here now, standing in the middle of what for most people would be the great room, but for Declan is a place of sweat and ceremony.

He hasn’t done much to furnish it yet, just thrown down some mats for his rituals and brought in some of the magical objects that accompany him when he tours as a magician. He’s known as the greatest illusionist of our time, but that’s only because most of his audience doesn’t realize that what they’re seeing aren’t illusions at all. Instead, they are magic in its most potent form.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I tell him flippantly, wandering over to the twenty-foot-long credenza that stretches the length of the back wall. Yesterday I didn’t have time to explore the changes he made while I was at work. He was too busy rushing me into the bedroom the minute I walked through the door.

“It’s not much, but it’s home,” he deadpans as he does a particularly difficult combination. I watch him and try to keep my tongue from hanging out of my mouth at the way his muscles bunch and flow. He really is one incredibly gorgeous specimen of manhood.