Sherrilyn Kenyon - Invincible

It was useless. Grim’s lessons were more aggravating than helpful. Frustrated, he started to lower his hand, only to feel a warm presence next to him. The room was bathed with a soft, glowing light that seemed to emanate the sensation of a mother’s love and acceptance. It was so comforting, he wanted to lose himself in it.

Kody appeared by his side with her feet tucked up under her. “You can do this, Nick.” She smiled at him, and his insides danced. Dog, if she wasn’t the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. She always looked so sweet and inviting.

“Hi,” he whispered, half-afraid he was dreaming and that she’d vanish on him.

Her smile widened. “Hi.”

Kody knew what her job was. Keep Nick straight or deliver his head on a platter to the powers who commanded her. But every time she looked into those dark blue eyes of his, she lost a part of herself to them.

A part of herself to him.

He was a hard man not to love. All that power wrapped in the body of someone who was still unsure and vulnerable. Someone who always put others’ needs above his own. He wouldn’t teach himself his powers to serve his own interests. It was to protect others that he sat here in utter frustration.

She closed her hands around his. “You’re trying to force it.”

“I need it to work. Don’t have time for bull crap.”

She gave him a chiding glance. Her brothers had always been like him, too, blindly forcing their way whenever they ran into opposition.

You see where that got them.

She forced her pain aside. This wasn’t about them and the stupidity that had damned them both and ruined all their lives. A stupidity that had almost ended the world.

This was about Nick and his current idiocy. “And if you’re building a bookcase and you break the nail in half because it won’t obey you, what do you have?”

“Splinters.”

She smiled. “Indeed.”

Nick shivered as she leaned against him and held his hand in hers. She had the softest skin he’d ever felt. Like warm velvet.

“Close your eyes.”

Her breath tickled his skin as he obeyed her.

“Now, picture in your mind what you want to know and then listen to the universe as it speaks to you.”

He tried, but right now all he could really focus on was how good she felt against him. Oh yeah, I’m twisted .

“Are you getting anything?”

Um, yeah, but he wasn’t about to go there. “I’m never going to make this work.”

She dropped their entwined hands, then took the hematite into her palm as if to test its heft. “Maybe the pendulum isn’t your thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone’s different. What works for one doesn’t always work for another.” She held her hands out in front of her and cupped them so that they formed a ball in her lap. She whispered in a beautiful language he couldn’t decipher. But it was one he could listen to all day. Especially with the sweet musical cadence of her voice.

As he watched, a strange blue light emanated from her hands. It pulsed like electricity, then swirled around until it began to form a shape. After a minute, the mist became a dark gray, almost black mirror. But the surface wasn’t glass. It appeared more iridescent and fluid.

She held it out to him. “It’s a scrying mirror. Try it.”

Still skeptical, he took it into his hands. “What do I do with it?”

“It’s a window to the universe. Empty your mind and look into it. It’ll show you everything you need to know and everything you seek.”

His luck, the only thing it’d show him was that he had something stuck between his teeth.

Or worse. Something hanging out of his nose.

Cringing at the mere thought of that horror, he did as she said. The moment he did, he immediately saw the mirror begin to smoke. He started to drop it, but Kody wouldn’t let him.

“It’s okay, Nick. Watch it.”

His skepticism faded as shapes began to take form and move. At first, he couldn’t identify them, but one by one they clarified until he could hear voices in his head. Wow, it was like watching TV or a closed-circuit camera. He saw people he knew and some he didn’t. One scene quickly blended into another, shifting and changing so fast, it was dizzying. “What am I looking at?”

“Your device.” She put her hands over the images. “This is the one you’ll be strongest with. The one that spoke to you the moment you touched it. Your divination gift is scrying not dowsing.”

Finally, he had something he could actually do. Grim’s lessons had begun to make him feel defective and inadequate. But this …

This he understood. It was just like when he’d looked into Kyrian’s car window.

The light in the room grew brighter.

Scowling, he met Kody’s gaze. “Why is the room alive?”

“It’s my shield around us. Since you’re unused to your powers, every time you really tap them and they flow through you, you send out a homing beacon to others of our ilk. It’s why Caleb threw you into the locker. Because you’re so strong, preternatural beings are drawn to you. But you don’t have the skills to protect yourself or fight them yet. Which means for now you’re their yummy treat. If they kill you while you’re weak, they can absorb those powers and use them for themselves.”

Oh, goody. “That would be bad.”

“Extremely bad, depending on who kills you.”

Those words stabbed him again as his insecurities swallowed him whole. I’m not ready for this. … He looked at her and admitted to her the one thing he’d never admitted to another living soul. “I’m scared, Kody.”

“You should be. But at the same time, you have me and Caleb and Simi, who will do anything to help you. We’re not going to let you get hurt.”

If only he had the same faith in himself. More than that, he didn’t know whom he could really trust. Everyone told him to trust someone else. His gut had its own opinion.

And all of it confused him.

“How do you handle all of this?” he asked her, needing to know how long it would take for him to feel normal again.

“I was born knowing who and what I am. You’re like an infant who just became self-aware. While you’re talking and walking, you still don’t know that the hot burner will scar you or that knives will cut you. You have to be taught the dangers of our world. The predators and serpents who lie in wait, hoping for a chance to sink their fangs into you.” She put both his hands on the mirror. “You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known, Nick. And I believe in you.”

When she talked like that, he could almost believe in himself, too.

Squeezing her hand, he took the mirror from her and studied it again. He saw his own reflection at first, and then the images returned. They appeared shadowy and ambiguous. Then more focused. With more clarity.

It took him a full minute to realize he was staring at the past. As Kody had said, it was as if he were watching through a window or like the proverbial fly on the wall.

He saw Devus in an old Victorian suit sitting at a large round table in what appeared to be an office of some sort with several men who were laughing at him.

“Second best is all you’ll ever be, Walter. You might as well accept it.”

Devus raked him with a sneer. “I assure you, Theodore, we’ll win the game. You can bet your millions on it.”

Theodore flicked his cigar ash toward Devus as he cast a scoffing glance at the others. “You were ever a dreamer, my boy. Ever a dreamer.” The older man got up and motioned for the others to follow. Which they did. Their actions reminded him of a group of puppies following their leader.

Devus was so upset, he appeared on the verge of tears. All of a sudden, he began to throw things and overturn the furniture in the room. He ripped leather-bound books from their shelves and tore at his own hair. “I will win,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “If I have to kill every player on the team to do it … I will win.”