Breakaway - Sadie Jacks Page 0,35

was weak. But I’d found more acceptance from these three strangers than I ever had in thirty years in the Oaks. I was going to stay. But that meant I needed to be strong enough to protect them. Strong enough to leave if it came to that.

“Sweetcheeks?” he called softly. “You still in there?”

“I haven’t left, Grumpy. You’re still holding me.” Sometimes these men said the strangest things.

His arms tightened. “Damn right I am,” he said, almost under his breath. “Well, then come on back to the living room. We’ve got some more things to talk about it seems.”

I turned in his arms, looked up into his eyes. The dark stormy grays of his eyes were lit with spikes of lightning. I felt an answering slice of fire spear through my body the longer I watched him.

My connection to them was so real. Probably realer than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I was more at ease with them than with the village of people I’d grown up with for the last thirty years.

“How are you doing this?” I whispered as I looked up at him. “Can you feel it?” I laid a hand against my belly. “Or is it just me?” The last couldn’t be dismissed, since most of my life I’ve been the abnormal one.

The skin around his eyes tightened. “It’s not just you. And it’s also not just me. Thane and Tove feel it too.” He spun us around so my back was to his chest. “Look at them, sweetcheeks. Look below the pretty exterior and really see them.”

I had no idea what his last statement meant, but I was willing to try just about anything to understand what was going on with me. I hated not being in control of my own body, my own mind. Hell, I’d run away from the only home I knew just so I could be in charge of myself.

Thane and Tove had risen to their feet. Standing next to each other it was hard not to be overwhelmed with their masculine beauty. Their bronze skin glowed with health. Their dark hair was the same in color, but different in length. Eyes of deepest brown and glowing blue green.

The same height, but slightly different builds. Thane’s was just a smidge thicker through the chest while Tove looked like his legs went on for days. Muscles showed under their clothes, a teasing game of hide and seek that taunted me to unwrap them.

That thought, more than the others, clicked something in my brain. Like a flower opening for the moon, that odd part of my brain that was the cause of so much of the anguish in my life bloomed like jasmine under the night sky.

Tagan growled from behind me, his lips against the skin of my neck. “Whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it.”

I pressed into the spot in my mind instead of shuddering away in fear and grief. I stepped fully into the sparkling void that was lit only by moonlight. I threw my arms open and pulled that starshine and moonlight into my body, let it fill the empty caverns of my soul.

“Eternal shit,” Thane breathed. He came and stood in front of me. His dark brown eyes lit fully with the yellow orange flames. “Your eyes are sparkling with stars, Stretch.”

I smiled. “Your eyes are fully engulfed in flames once more, Thane.”

He shook his head slightly. “I don’t know why you keep saying that, but—”

“Because it’s true,” Tagan said from behind me. “You look like your hosting bonfires in your eyes. They’re no longer dark brown.”

Thane looked back down at me, his brow furrowed. “That can’t possibly be true. Mom and Charlie were the last two.” He leaned down until his face was even with mine. “Do you trust me?”

I nodded immediately.

The flames in his eyes burned hotter for a brief moment. “Tag, move your hands.”

Tagan snarled low in his throat. The sound thrummed through my body, leaving pulsing waves of heat behind. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to do it, but he ended up moving his hands. “You better be fucking careful, or it comes out of your flesh.”

Thane caught my chin before I could look back at Grumpy. “He’s just protecting you. All good, Stretch.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip.

That single touch slid over me and started a fire deep in my belly.

“What kind of magic do you have?” Thane asked.

“I told you. I’m a