long ago?
“Call the fire.”
Her thoughts splintered. “What?”
“Call on your fire, Shea,” Torin told her. “As you did on the day we met, when you stopped the attacker.”
“When I killed him, you mean.”
“Shea—”
Shaking her head, she pulled free of Torin’s grip and ignored the iciness crawling through her without his touch to ground her.
“I don’t need that power, Torin,” she said firmly. “I don’t want it. I don’t ever want to risk losing control again.”
“If you fear losing control,” he said quietly, “then there’s a reason for that fear. It means only that you don’t trust yourself.”
“Damn straight I don’t,” she countered. “I killed that guy, Torin.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her middle to offset the shivers racking her body. “God, sometimes in my dreams, I can still hear him screaming.”
He huffed out an impatient breath. “The man was not worth one moment of your guilt or misery. He would have killed you, Shea.”
“Instead I killed him.” She looked at him. “I don’t want to use the fire, Torin. I don’t want to open that door again.”
God, she thought with a wincing inner laugh. Opening doors. Wasn’t that what had gotten her into trouble centuries ago? The coven had opened doors and nearly ended the world.
“Pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t tame the ability. You can’t claim some of your power and not the rest, Shea. This gift is yours. The magic is in you. You decide how and when to use it.”
She stabbed her index finger at him. “Exactly. And I choose not to use it.”
She tried to walk away from him, but he snaked out a hand and held her fast. Whipping her head around, she glared at him, but his grip only tightened.
“And if you need that power to defend yourself or an innocent?”
Good question. She didn’t know.
“Shea,” he said, his voice dipping so low she nearly didn’t hear it over the hum of the great ship’s engines and the slap of the waves against her hull. “You must trust me. I can show you how to use the fire. To contain it. Your fear, your inexperience, drove you before when that man attacked you. It wouldn’t be the same now.”
Was he right? Shea wanted him to be. She never wanted to lose control of her powers again. She had come a long way in a few short weeks, mastering abilities, channeling her energies. She’d learned so much, but there was still so much she didn’t know.
And there wasn’t much time left to cram for her upcoming test. Only another thousand or so years of things to study up on.
Could she really afford not to learn?
“All right,” she said softly, before she could change her mind. “Show me, Torin.”
He smiled then and something inside her fisted. Those rare, beautiful smiles of his never failed to stir her. But then, he had been right when he told her that once the mating had begun, the feelings between them would only intensify.
Her body burned for his constantly. Her soul cried out for him. He really was the other half of her soul. But still, there was something holding her back, keeping her from admitting even to herself how much she loved him, and she couldn’t confess to him what it was.
She was afraid.
Not of Torin.
Of herself.
A seed of doubt lingered inside her. The worry that she wouldn’t be strong enough to vanquish the darkness. That she would instead get sucked into it all over again. That the power raging through her would overwhelm who she was and turn her into something she didn’t even want to think about.
But Torin couldn’t hear her thoughts, thank God, so he didn’t know about those night terrors that brought her up out of sleep, shaking. He didn’t hear the sly whispers in her mind, reminding her of what she had once been—what she could be again.
He stood there, holding her, smiling at her, and Shea wanted to tell him what she was feeling, thinking, dreading. But she didn’t want to risk seeing disgust on his features. Didn’t want to see him turn from her, or stop believing in her.
She wasn’t at all sure that she would be able to go on if she didn’t have her Eternal at her side.
“We’ll do this now, then,” he said and released her.
The night was all around them, the moon drifting in a star-splashed sky. At the rear of the ship, with only the sweep of sky and sea surrounding them, they were as isolated as