“You don’t scare me.” The words are out before I even know I’m going to say them.
I meant to reassure him with the words, but if possible, he only grows more tense. What did I say wrong? “I…” I want to fix this, but I don’t know how. Don’t know what to say. I have a brief mental debate and decide to confess a secret of my own. At this point, it’s only fair. “My immunity is wearing off.”
He scowls. “What do you mean wearing off ?”
I lift up my sleeve and show him the burn on my arm. It’s the first time that I’m getting a look at it myself. It looks as bad as it feels. A patch of skin from above my elbow to halfway to my shoulder is bright red and covered with a web of tiny blisters.
“Nitro,” I say with an awkward laugh. “Besides, how do you think Rebel and Dante were able to use their powers on me? If I still had immunity—”
“I thought you could choose to be immune. Like, if you wanted someone to use their powers on you it would be fine, and otherwise you had immunity. Or like, maybe you could block powers at will or something.”
“No. That’s not how it works. Either I’m immune to everything, or I’m immune to nothing.
“But immunity is your power.” He looks from the tender burn on my arm to my face. His eyes are soft and sweet and sorry. “How can it wear off?”
I have to tell him everything. It’s only fair after all he’s shared with me. Still, it had been nice to have someone think that I had an actual power for a while.
“Not a power,” I explain. “Mom developed a serum.”
His brows twist with confusion, like what I’m saying doesn’t make sense.
“I get weekly shots.” Memory intrudes, and I correct, “Well, I got weekly shots. Mom keeps the formula top secret. She was making another batch, but…”
I stop, figuring I won’t have to spell it out for him. Draven is still. He doesn’t seem to be impressed or freaked out, relieved or concerned. He’s just…blank.
I close my eyes and my head droops. I’ve just confessed to the biggest crime in the super world. I’ve admitted that I’m a useless, powerless ordinary.
I should have expected this response. After all, superheroes turn down their noses at me for not inheriting my father’s amazing powers. But I wanted to believe that Draven was different. Wanted to believe he wouldn’t care.
I don’t know why it matters so much—to him or to me. I’m still the same person I’ve always been.
But it does matter. Another glance at Draven proves that.
Fine. Whatever. I’m not waiting around for his disappointment or—worse—his disgust to surface. I push out of my seat.
A warm hand wraps around my wrist and pulls me back.
Our eyes meet for a split second before his mouth is on mine.
I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but feel.
The pressure of his lips.
The sparks along my nerve endings.
The sizzle of his touch.
His right hand cups my cheek, his fingers tangling in my hair as he sweeps his tongue along the seam of my lips. The stress I’ve been bottling up releases, and I sink into him. All I want is to stay right here with Draven, forever.
I stroke my hands up his arms, over his neck, across the rough stubble along his jaw. Then my fingers tangle in the cool silk of his hair, tugging at him. Closer, closer, closer.
He slips his right arm around my waist and presses his hand on my lower back until we’re flush against one another. All I can feel is the heat and strength of his body against my own.
We’re chest to chest, hip to hip, skin to skin, and still I want to be closer. Still I want to fall deeper into him—all the way into him.
Draven growls low in his throat and nips at my lower lip. He shifts against me. I hold tight, but he pushes me away, holding me at arm’s length when all I want is to burrow into him again. We stare at each other. I can’t catch my breath.
I want to lift my fingers to my lips, to see if they are as hot as they feel, but Draven has my arm in his iron grip. When I look down, he’s holding the spot that got burned by Nitro’s fireball.
Only it’s not burned. The pale skin looks perfect.
My gaze flies back to Draven. “What—?”
“Biomanipulation.” He releases my arm, dropping his hand to his thigh.
I look from him to my miraculously healed arm and back again. “Your second power,” I say, pointing out the obvious. “You can heal?”
He nods. “Among other things.”
Right. Other things. Like whatever he did to the guards in the lab tonight. He was doing something to their bodies from the inside out.