Jennifer Armentrout - Onyx

The obsidian flared under my sweater without any warning at the same moment Blake swerved the truck off the road and into a ditch.

Swinging toward him, my heart raced as the heat from the obsidian seared my skin. “There’s an Arum nearby.”

“I know.” He killed the engine, jaw tight. “Get out of the truck, Katy.”

“What?” I shrieked.

“Get out of the truck!” He reached over, unhooking my seat belt. “We’re training.”

Realization set in, hard and frightening. I let out a shaky breath as the obsidian continued to increase in heat. “You brought me out of the safety of the beta quartz on purpose!”

“If your strongest abilities are attached to your emotions, then we need to find out how to tap into them when you’re feeling all emotional to see what you can do, then practice with less excitement. Like we did with the knife and then pillows.” He stretched over farther and opened my car door. “Arum can sense us better than they can the Luxen. It’s the DNA thing. Luxen have a built-in cloaking in their DNA. We don’t.”

My chest rose and fell quickly. “You never told me that before.”

“You were safe within the beta quartz. It wasn’t an issue.”

I stared at him, horrified. What if I had left with my mom to go shopping out of the radius without knowing this? We would’ve been attacked. Did Blake even care about my safety?

“Now get out,” he said.

Obviously not. “No! No way am I going out there with an Arum! You’re a crazy—”

“You’re going to be okay.” He sounded as if he were telling me to give a speech in front of a class and not face a murderous alien. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Then he got out of the car, disappearing into the thick tree line and leaving me alone in the truck. Too stunned to move, I stared at the encroaching darkness. I couldn’t believe he’d done this.

If I survived tonight, I was going to kill Blake.

An inky shadow glided over the road and followed the trail Blake has walked into the woods. A burst of light exploded, filling up the sky, but was quickly snuffed out as I heard Blake’s pained scream.

Scrambling out of the truck, I slammed the door shut and squinted into the darkness. “Blake?” After several moments of no answer, panic clawed up my throat. “Blake!”

I stopped at the edge of the woods, wary to enter them. Clutching my sweater close, I shivered as an unnatural silence settled around me. Screw this. Turning around, I headed back to the truck. I’d call my mom. I’d even call Daemon. There was no—

A shadow pooled in front of the passenger door before I could take another step. Dark and oily, it built onto itself until an outline of a man blocked my path.

“Crap,” I whispered.

It took the form of a human male, a startling resemblance to the one we’d seen outside of Vaughn’s house. “Hello, little one. Aren’t you something...special?”

Spinning around, my sweater flapped like wings behind me as I took off. I ran fast—faster than I’d ever run before. So fast that the little flakes of snow the biting wind pelted against my cheeks felt like tiny pebbles. I wasn’t even sure my feet were touching the ground.

But no matter how fast I ran, the Arum was faster.

A dark, murky shade appeared beside me and then in front of me. Sliding across snow and ice, I grabbed for my obsidian. Ready to shove the point into whatever part my hand landed on.

Anticipating the move, an arm took form and swung out. It caught me in the stomach. Up in the air I went, landing on my side. Jarring pain shot through my bones. I rolled onto my back, blinking snow from my lashes.

Now I knew why Daemon was so adamant against me running out and fighting the Arum. I’d just got my ass kicked and the fight hadn’t even started.

A dark, insidious shadow crept into my vision. Out of human form, when he spoke his voice was a menacing murmur among my own thoughts. You’re not a Luxen, but you’re sssomething unique. What powersss do you have?

Powers? The powers Daemon had given me when he mutated me. The Arum would take them by killing me. But I’d killed an Arum before by tapping into Daemon and Dee. Blake believed that ability—that Source—still existed in me. It had to, and if it didn’t, I would die.

And I wanted to be able to defend myself. Not lay here. Not wait on someone to save me.

What had Blake said to picture? Lightning in the veins and cells surrounded in light?

The Arum leaned over me; the tendrils of black smoke were thick and colder than the hard ground. A smoky, transparent smile appeared. Easssier than I thought.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured every weird cell I’d ever seen in bio class surrounded by light, and I thought about that one moment—that first time I’d ever felt lightning in my veins. I held onto the image as the first brush of the Arum’s cold fingers swept over my cheek. I latched onto the swamping, red-hot lava coursing through my veins.

It started with a crackle—a small light burned behind my eyelids. A strange feeling spread down my arm, scalding hot. The light behind my eyes was red-white; the source of the power was utterly destructive, shattering in its complexity.

I could feel it burning through my veins, whispering a hundred promises. It called to me, welcomed me home. It had been waiting, wondering when I would heed its call.

Wind whipped the snow out from underneath me as I rose. When I opened my eyes, the Arum was gliding back, shifting between human and Arum.

I was on my feet now, barely breathing. I could feel it , and it was exciting and terrifying. Every nerve in my body came alive and tingled in anticipation. It wanted to be used, this power. It seemed like the most natural of all things. My fingers curved inward. The world around me was lit in red and white.

Destroy .

The Arum shifted back into its true form, spreading out and endless like the night sky.

There was a snapping sound coming from inside me, and the Source rushed from my fingertips, slamming into the Arum at an alarming speed.

He spun into the air, but the Source followed him. Or I made it follow him. But he was shifting forms so quickly it was dizzying. He froze and then shattered into a million thin shreds of glassy shadows.

The obsidian cooled against my skin.

“Perfect,” Blake said, clapping his hands together. “That was freaking unbelievable. You killed an Arum with one shot!”

Waves of electricity returned to me, and the red-white haze faded away. When the Source left, so did most of my energy. I turned to Blake, feeling something else replace the void the Source had left behind. “You…you left me alone with an Arum.”

“Yeah, but look at what you did.” He strode forward, grinning at me like I was the prized pupil. “You killed an Arum, Katy. You did it all by yourself.”

I took a breath and it hurt . Everything hurt. “What if I hadn’t been able to kill the Arum?”

Confusion marked his expression. “But you did.”

I stepped back, winced, and realized my pants were soaked and clinging to my chilled, chafed skin. “What if I couldn’t do it?”

Blake shook his head. “Then...”

“Then I would’ve died.” My hand shook as I placed it on my hip. My entire backside throbbed from the fall. “Do you even care?”

“Of course I do!” He moved forward, placing his hand on my shoulder.

I yelped as sparks of pain shot straight down my arm. “Don’t…don’t touch me.”

In a flash, the confusion was gone and replaced by anger. “You’re overreacting when you should be celebrating. You did something…amazing. Don’t you understand that? No one kills an Arum in one blast.”