ended up on the floor beside the female. She stared down at him with sharp blue eyes filled with the agony he felt inside.
How was she doing this to him? Crippling him beneath this wave of unknown pain?
Deep voices boomed overhead, their presence flaying the skin right off of Gabriel’s prone form. He’d never experienced such brutality, nor did he comprehend the source.
What was this power? It reminded him of Alik’s ability to mentally torture his victims. But Gabriel was immune to those gifts. Unless Clara’s blood was somehow connected, but he doubted it.
Her blood, he thought to himself, trying to regain his focus. This is her blood.
No, not her blood.
Her power.
He was feeling the results of her empathy. Emotions.
His eyes widened at the realization that he was experiencing her emotions through empathy. And all the emotions surrounding them. At once. Something he’d never been exposed to in his entire existence.
He’d only meant to test his own levels of humanistic sensibilities. He hadn’t considered what turning on this ability would mean for him in regard to others.
All their emotions became his own.
And Gabriel had no training in how to handle this forced sensation. He never had a practical reason to learn it.
Yet it was the anguish emanating from Clara that startled him more, and the fact that he wanted to help her. Because no one should ever endure that kind of agony.
Except, no, she’d earned that pain.
But did she? he wondered, conflicted by what he sensed in her emotional aura.
He shook his head, attempting to clear it. The words of the others started to infiltrate his mind, Balthazar commenting that it seemed Gabriel had more than just borrowed Clara’s ability—he’d consumed it.
Which was an obvious statement.
What they should be paying attention to was Clara’s pain. Did they not sense it? Couldn’t Balthazar hear it? Could no one else feel it? The emotions burned against Gabriel’s conscience, forcing him to act. He needed it to stop so he could concentrate! To find himself again and wait out these negative consequences of her ability.
One thing was astutely obvious to him—he was not at emotional risk levels.
However, he might be after this. Because fuck.
“Help her,” he managed through a dry throat. “Fuck. Make it stop!”
Silence met his words.
An unacceptable reaction.
“She’s in agony.” Gabriel’s jaw clenched around the words, his hands curling into fists. “Fix. It.” As soon as he finished speaking, he realized the solution, his Seraphim mind taking over and misting him as far away from Hydria as possible.
Only, it took him to the one place he shouldn’t have gone—home.
Where two messenger Seraphim were waiting for him in his living room.
Apparently, there was a deadline after all.
Of right fucking now.
“What the hell just happened?” Lucian demanded, entering the room about five minutes too late. He’d been so focused on that Eliza chick that he hadn’t witnessed Gabriel’s intense reaction to Clara’s power.
It seemed experiencing emotions after a lifetime of disregarding them had been a bit too much for the Seraphim to bear. Or, more specifically, it’d been the “agony” he’d felt from the blonde Ichorian in the corner.
Sethios studied her while Balthazar brought Lucian up to speed with a quick summary of the events. “Gabriel imbibed some of Clara’s blood, thereby inheriting her empathetic abilities. He didn’t seem to enjoy it.”
“He said he needed an empath to test his emotional levels. I assumed that meant he wanted someone who could read him, not someone he could literally drink power from.” Lucian turned thoughtful. “I wonder if all Seraphim can do that.”
“Caro couldn’t,” Sethios murmured as he went to his haunches before Clara, a strand of familiar energy catching his eye.
“Stas can’t manipulate vision, yet she has obviously bitten Wakefield,” Balthazar added, his words painting an unwelcome picture in Sethios’s mind. He chose to ignore it and follow the enchanted lines weaving an invisible trail across Clara’s svelte form. It wasn’t an essence many would recognize or even be able to identify, but he had a lot of experience playing with spells such as these.
They were his father’s favorite creations, after all.
This one was crudely done, as though he’d thrown this compulsion on her in a hurry or perhaps without much care. Maybe he’d anticipated someone seeing it and undoing the persuasion. “Has Astasiya seen Clara since you imprisoned her?” Sethios wondered out loud, his focus on those loose strands around her.
“No, why?” Lucian asked.
“Because I think my father left her a present to unravel.” It would be just like him to compel