Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,68

hips. The sharp angle of his hipbones dug into her thighs, a drilling pain she shut from her mind. She needed him to react. If she had to hurt him, then so be it.

What Pestilence planned to do to him was far worse.

He squirmed beneath her, digging his fingers into her hips, his eyes flat. He still resisted moving her with his mind. She could see the dogged determination to shift her physically etched in his face, along with a bleak contempt she knew was directed at himself.

Whatever Patrick was, he loathed it.

She needed him to embrace it. For his sake and the sake of mankind.

If he didn’t, Pestilence would achieve the unthinkable.

She crushed his hips harder still, drawing perverse resolve from the unnatural light flickering in his angry glare. He was close. Even as he shoved at her hips with his hands, the force within him surged to the fore.

She hoped.

“What are you, weak?” she goaded, fighting his physical strength. It took all her considerable power to remain planted on his hips and groin. He was strong. Very strong. The muscles in his chest and shoulders bulged, growing ropey and hard before her eyes. At another time, such an undeniable display of his might and vigor would have made her sex constrict and her pulse leap away from her, but at this moment it infuriated her. He didn’t need to use his body.

He needed to use his—

Crushing heat gripped her arms. There was a split second where she knew she was about to be torn in two by inescapable, unseen hands and then, with a sudden invisible shove on her chest, belly and face, she flew backward. Flung across the room by nothing she could see.

She smashed into the wall, her teeth clicking shut, the breath forced out of her lungs in a loud oof, and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

“Fred!”

He was on his knees before her, his hands on her bowed shoulders, his eyes flooded with horror before she had time to comprehend her new position or the dull red agony coursing through her body.

She grimaced, struggling into a semi-sitting position and gave him a wobbly grin. “Okay, that kinda went to plan.”

“Bloody hell, woman.” He dropped back to his heels, his glare returning. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

She pressed a hand to her shoulder and worked the joint a few times. Nope. Not dislocated. Just damn sore. “I was thinking to get you pissed off enough to do just what you did. Didn’t expect you to throw me into a wall, however.”

His eyes widened and he stared at her, jaw bunched. “That wasn’t smart, Death.”

She grinned, and then grimaced again. Crap, even her face hurt. “It worked though, didn’t it? So what we need to do now is teach you how to control it. Manipulate it at will.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did.” She twisted a little, biting back a hiss of pain as she looked at the wall behind her. “And there’s a great big dent in the drywall to prove it.”

His stare slid to the cracked indent, his nostrils flaring as he pulled in a quick breath.

“You know you did that, Patrick,” she said, moving—albeit, with considerable care—onto her knees to take his hands in hers. “In the exact same way you destroyed the nikor at the beach. In the same way you started to crush me earlier today when you were questioning me about Pestilence.”

“And what way is that?”

She shrugged, inching closer to him until their knees touched. “Telekinesis, I would think, but no form of telekinesis I know. Moving something with your mind is one thing, tearing things apart with it, like aqueous demons for example, is another thing all together.”

A look of disgust crossed his face and he dragged his hands through his hair. “I feel like I’ve been thrown in the deep end here.”

“No, you haven’t, Patrick.” She gazed into his eyes, wanting him to see her belief, her absolute confidence in him. That he was finally admitting he’d done it without looking like he wanted to kill someone was a step forward. Now she just needed him to burst into a sprint. “You may not have even realized it, but I’d wage a millennium of picking up Cerberus’s poo you’ve been using your…power, for want of a better word, your whole life.”

He chuckled at the extent of her bet, a wry sound that made her heart soar. He might have said he