Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,59
eyebrows shot up. “In what way?”
I could tell Omen was reluctant to get into that subject, but it wasn’t as if we could bring our returned allies on board without giving them the full picture. He dragged in a rough breath. “There’s a former associate of mine, a shadowkind of great strength, who’s been pulling their strings behind the scenes. We almost had them beaten, but she intervened in their defense. It seems she cares very little what shadowkind get hurt along the way.”
The fiery fury that had risen inside me when he’d talked about the Highest’s dismissal stirred again. As he went on with his report of everything we’d heard from and experienced with Tempest, the flames danced higher despite my best efforts.
A searing sensation spread across the small of my back. Was that a whiff of burnt leather?
I couldn’t let the sphinx get the better of me—especially when she wasn’t even in the goddamned vicinity. I set my teeth, but every time I managed to settle my inner fire, Omen mentioned some other detail that set it sparking violently again.
He hadn’t mentioned anything about my difficulties with my powers or what I was to the equines. Presumably he was going to keep the most damning aspects on the down low like he had with Antic and Flint. I’d rather not make a vivid demonstration of my habit of setting myself on fire. It wasn’t as if I needed to hear this rundown anyway, considering I’d been there for most of it.
I gave Snap a kiss on the cheek so he wouldn’t worry and got up. The bedroom I’d claimed as my own felt like the safest spot right now. If I moved to leave the RV completely, that would inevitably raise questions.
I might have singed the covers a tad when I flopped down on them, but without Omen’s voice and Tempest’s name in my ears, the heat inside me started to dwindle. It wasn’t much more than glowing embers when a knock sounded on the door.
I weighed my options and decided I was better off inviting him in than turning him away. For all his carefree airs, the incubus had proven he could worry plenty too, given the right provocation.
“What’s up?” I asked, pushing myself into a sitting position.
He slipped right in through the shadows without further prompting, as I’d figured he would. Shadowkind and their very lax concept of privacy. Snap wouldn’t even have knocked.
When he saw me on the bed, empty-handed, Ruse paused. “Were you resting? I didn’t mean to wake you up. I got the sense you might have left because something had irked you. Not because I looked inside your head,” he added quickly, with a flash of a smile. “I have gotten to know you rather well in many other ways.”
I had to smile back at that remark. A surge of affection filled my chest, drowning out the last of the prickling flames. The incubus did take certain requests for privacy very seriously, knowing how important they were to me, even now that I’d already given him permission to read my mental state once.
He’d wanted so badly to be there for me, to protect me. I didn’t know if it was possible for any of my shadowkind lovers to really do the latter, but maybe I should give him the chance to do the former.
I motioned for him to sit beside me. “Not irked. Well, okay, Tempest as a whole is pretty irksome. But I’m totally okay with feeling that way about her. It’s just, when I think about what she’s doing—all the awfulness she’s caused and still wants to—my powers get pretty, ah, heated up.”
Ruse brushed a few strands of hair back from my cheek, offering so much tenderness in that simple gesture. “I’d have thought that was a good thing. Plenty of fire to rain down on her when the time comes.”
“Well, yeah, but the time isn’t now, and—” Something in me balked at admitting the rest. Sweet simpering sycamores, when had I become a coward of all things?
I forced the words out. “The Highest think I might end up destroying even more than Tempest will. I know Omen’s decided it won’t happen—I know none of you want to believe I could be capable of it—but when all that fire builds up inside me, sometimes I’m not sure they’re wrong. I’m not in control, not completely.”