leapt from my hand—and in the back of my mind, a crackling darkness emerged.
Part of me was seeing the car, and part a sapling crumpling over as its branches drooped, grass blackening, mold spreading. The impression of rot I’d tasted when I’d ripened the apple tree laced my mouth again.
I hadn’t seen any indication that actual rot was spreading anywhere around the estate since then. Neither Rose nor the guys nor the staff had mentioned anything like that. It had to be a demonic attempt to screw with my head, to try to stop me from using their power for my ends. I gritted my teeth and pushed onward.
The metal lifted and evened out beneath my fingers. A giddy shiver raced through me. I shifted my focus to the scrape marks in the paint, willing the pale blue color to extend over them again.
Gabriel probably would have enjoyed getting to repaint the entire car for Rose to show just how devoted he was, how quickly he could handle any problem. Well, he wasn’t the only one—
The edges of blue that had been seeping over the darker metal shuddered and jerked back. In an instant, the scratches stretched twice as wide as before. I bit down on a yelp and yanked my hand away as if the surface had burned me.
The scar was burning now, searing away at my muscles the way it did each time I delved into this power. What the hell had gone wrong? It’d been working perfectly, and then…
And then I’d let that old resentment toward our ringleader rise up. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead before raking my fingers into my hair. For fuck’s sake. I should be better than that by now. I should have gotten over it way back when we were kids.
Maybe I had some pieces of my past I needed to face as much as the other guys did. My own hostile feelings had obviously skewed this power away from my intentions. The demonic influence must feed off those kinds of emotions.
Fine. I could buck up and be a man. Chances were Gabriel was hanging out in his apartment upstairs right now.
I tramped up the steps grappling with a new resentment that was trying to bud over the fact that I needed to make this overture at all. By the time Gabriel answered the door, I’d just about tamped down on it.
He blinked at me, a beer bottle dangling from his hand by his side. “Hey. What brings you out here?”
How the hell did I explain this? “I felt like we needed to talk,” I said.
If that suggestion bothered Gabriel, he didn’t show it. He waved me in. “Sure. Can I get you a beer or anything?”
Yeah, a little alcohol sounded appealing right now. Take the edge off. Especially because my chest was already clenching up at his easy-going welcome and immediate hospitality, both offered so freely in spite of the distance I’d kept from him over the months.
“I could go for a beer.” I sank down on the sofa while he went into the kitchen to grab a bottle for me. My hands clasped together in my lap.
Gabriel hadn’t been anything other than friendly toward me, not since he’d come back and not when we were kids either, had he? Honestly, that was one of the things that had always annoyed me—that he could be so warm with all of us no matter how we treated him, no matter the shitty hand life had dealt him. Gabriel the Great, always knowing the right thing to say, the best way to handle any situation.
As if that were a bad thing.
He handed me the beer and sat down at the other end of the sofa, tipping his own bottle to his lips. “What did you need to talk about, Damon?”
I looked at my drink. For the first several seconds, words escaped me. I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t even want to think about it.
But I had to—for me and for Rose. To be able to master the power I’d been granted so I could transform it into something good.
“I’ve been kind of a prick to you since you got back to town,” I said without raising my head.
Gabriel let out a low laugh. “Maybe a bit. It’s okay. I was gone for a long time, and I didn’t keep up with what was going on with the rest of you all that well the last few