seemed to be worse than the first. Then I zero in on my magic and stare down at my hands.
I closed my connection to magic tonight after having checked the area. I need my body to rest after everything that happened. Everything crazy, that is.
The magic that came from me today shouldn’t have been possible, and I can’t shake the dread of what I’ve done, what Ragnar told me about the tree goddesses. I lose my breath, and a coldness sweeps through me at the thought. So I push it aside with the rest of my messed-up life, refusing to think about it when I have no answers.
I hate not knowing anything about myself or thinking that maybe whatever is inside my veins is something other than witch powers. And if that is the case, why wouldn’t my mother have told me about it?
Ragnar’s expression back in the river was one of terror, and I’m too scared to ask him what he thinks I am. Whoever said ignorance was bliss was onto something, because sometimes not dealing with a problem is the best way to make it through another day.
I’m stuck out here with these Alphas, and I can’t fall apart. I won’t fall apart when I’m doing this for my sisters and our freedom.
I set my empty plate on the ground near my feet and tuck my hands into my lap. My fingers curl, knuckles whitening with how hard I tighten my fists. A jolt of power shoots right into my bones, then instantaneously fades to nothing once more. Heat flares over me and goes just as quickly. My ability simmers just below the surface, so much wilder than before, as if these woods call to my magic.
It’s just power, I say to myself. I can’t fear what’s inside me or what’s waiting for me. I shouldn’t, yet the uncertainty seizes me, melts into me.
I feel broken, and for an instant, I ponder just walking away from this all, telling Ragnar I can’t do it. I can’t deal with what’s inside me.
It’s a foolish, fearful thought that comes and goes just as quick, leaving me unnerved.
“Trust in yourself,” Nikos whispers, leaning in closer, his warm breath brushing my cheek just as it did back in the woods when he kissed me.
My body pulses with an instant need, my mouth parting as I picture him against me, his lips on mine. His masculine and woodsy smell swirls around me as his gaze pierces into me, sending a shooting throb to the pit of my stomach, to the apex between my thighs.
I try to focus on his words. Trust. The same word Stone had said to me earlier, yet that’s something I find the hardest to do.
Nikos’s fingers are on my neck, and he strokes down the curve of my collarbone.
My heart beats in my ears louder and louder.
“You shiver so beautifully under my touch,” he says, giving a dark laugh from deep in his chest. He pulls his hand away too soon, and I look over to see Ragnar watching us from across the fire. There’s darkness in his expression, and I’m no fool to know the way he stares at me is that of an Alpha wanting to claim me all for himself. Two days ago, I would have hated the idea. Now? I’m lost in confusion about what I am, who these men are, and how they bring out something in me I’ve never experienced before.
“If you can’t trust anyone else around you,” Nikos says, “at least have the faith of trusting yourself.”
His words close in around me, and I’m trembling at the thought that I don’t even have that.
“Those are wise words,” I respond. “Are they yours?”
He shakes his head. “My brother is much older than me, and every now and then he used to surprise me with such sayings.”
“Do you miss your family?”
“Yes and no. My family aren’t exactly the loving kind, but they were all I had growing up.”
My chest clenches at hearing of his loss, at remembering how much I miss my parents. There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t think of them.
“At least your parents are alive,” I say, regretting my words. His parents may be alive, but if he can’t visit them, what good is that? Nikos and I are nothing alike, our futures unaligned, even if I do have to admit that I am beginning to enjoy his company a bit too much.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“How long