keeping his eyes glued to Lucca’s face. I can’t help but watch him while he’s distracted. His jaw is set in a hard line and his lips are nothing but a slash on his handsome face. It never occurred to me how difficult it must be for him and the others to wait decades for their friend to rise. Lucca’s curse must weigh heavily on his mind.
“Do you think he will ever wake up?” Saxon asks in a tight voice.
“I don’t know. I can’t predict the future,” my mother replies in her blunt way.
Is she dense? Can’t she see how hard this situation is for Lucca’s inner circle? She has the empathy capacity of a teaspoon.
He crosses his arms, still frowning at his friend. “What does that big-ass crystal do? You didn’t use it the last time.”
“Sax, quit asking questions and let the High Witch do her thing,” Ronan, the towering vampire, says.
Saxon crosses his arms, rewarding his friend with a displeased look. I’m still watching him, which I’m sure he can sense, but he doesn’t make eye contact with me. I swear he wasn’t indifferent to me when I came in the room, but now, it’s like I’m not even here. I should be glad that he’s not trying to get into my pants again, but a part of me feels dejected.
“Aurora, please stand by Lucca’s head.”
My mother’s stern voice snaps me out of my inner musings. I take a step forward, but Saxon is standing in my way. He glances at me for a fleeting moment, which is long enough for me to catch a myriad of different emotions swirling in his eyes. He seems conflicted, but about what?
Without a word and still sporting his somber expression, he takes a step back to let me through. As much as I’d like to know what’s going on with him, I force my attention to the task at hand. This is a big deal for me. I’ve never participated in an awakening attempt before.
“Place your right hand above his head and focus all your en—”
“Wait,” Manu cuts in. “Does she know what she’s doing?”
“My daughter is training to take my place one day. I’m showing her what has to be done.”
“That’s unbelievable. You’re training her on Lucca?” Manu’s voice rises to a shrill.
Ronan moves in front of the female when she takes a menacing step toward my mother. Pity. I’d like to see her go head-to-head with my mother. That’d be entertaining.
“If you can’t act like a civilized person, you have no business being here,” Mom retorts.
“Come on, Manu. I’m sure Aurora knows what she’s doing.”
I’m surprised by his remark. I didn’t expect the brooding Blueblood to come to my defense. We’ve never spoken before. The idiotic schoolgirl living in my head immediately assumes Saxon talked about me to his friend. The idea is absolutely ludicrous, so I shove the dumb girl in the trunk of a car, gagged and bound. I don’t have time for high school nonsense. I’m a grown woman on the verge of getting hitched.
God, I had to go and think about that jackass.
“What are we doing? Creating a shield of energy around Lucca?” I ask to get myself back on track.
“Precisely. I want his body covered from head to toe while I recite the spell.”
Determined to prove to the bitchy vampire that I’m not an amateur, I eliminate all distractions from my mind and concentrate solely on the blessed power of Mother Earth that resides deep in my center. My skin becomes warmer, and my ears buzz with crackling electricity. A burst of scintillant power unfurls in my chest, like I just opened a jar filled with colorful butterflies and they’re now fluttering their wings inside the confines of my rib cage.
It would be too easy to lose control and allow the energy to flow freely through my body. But I must divert everything toward the palm of my hand, hovering over Lucca’s head. When I’m sure I have plenty of juice to create an energy field to cover his entire body, I unleash the strands of glowing light. Quickly, they form a mesh, and then, as the light becomes blinding, the mesh closes, turning into a shield.
The world ceases to exist. My body has become a vessel, a conduit for the planet’s energy. My gift comes from everything surrounding me. Witches are born with the ability to harness the primal power from Earth.
There’s a low humming in the background, but it’s not until it