I swallow and force my head to believe him even if my heart doesn’t. “Because I’ll be able to control it.”
“More than control it, you’ll be able to control others with it. Like Draewulf.”
“That witch said Draewulf needs me to achieve something. Will this stop it?”
“It’ll do more than stop it. It’ll kill him if you want.”
Something in the way he says it curls my spine. “By interrupting the blood of kings,” I whisper.
His answer is to slide his hand from my hair he’s been toying with down to the fifteen owner circles on my right arm. And squeeze.
The old familiar energy comes, but instantly it’s not familiar. This one is slicker, cooler, oozing into my veins where my Elemental strength would’ve surged. With it comes an utter sense of hopelessness, of emptiness, as if everything in me is being poured into that vortex in my chest and is flowing, fading inside it, draining everything that is me into an entity that is pure energy.
I begin to yank away but pause.
There’s a quickening in my veins even as the shaking slows and the teeth chattering ceases. The rush is sick and nauseating and thrilling, and for the first time in days I feel a fleeting sense of normal.
Because I feel physical.
Powerful.
Myles’s words are quick, stirring the atmosphere and confusing my vision as he conjures up the scene of the little redheaded girl at the auction stand. The one I accidentally killed trying to defend her from her new owner just before Adora purchased me.
I start to pull back, to yell at him, but his voice is swift. “Don’t resist the power this time. Follow it. What is the ability wanting to do?”
It wants to destroy the man all over again.
“Do you feel it?”
I nod.
“Good. Now act on it.”
I can’t.
I won’t.
I flatten my good palm against my curled fingers and hold them stiff.
He lessens his grip on my owner circles. “What you’re seeing—the little girl, her owner—they’re not real, but in order to release this new energy, you have to act on what it wantsss. Act and watch what happensss.”
I reach one hand toward the mirage of the man and, crumpling my gimpy fingers into a fist, allow the energy to increase. Instead of bringing down lightning on him, the energy in me is seeking to deplete his. I can’t curb it. It lets loose and I immediately see a darkening mass accumulating in his chest. I hear his heartpulse slow. It doesn’t stop though.
Even when he slumps over and his skin has gone gray, it keeps thumping, but something tells me his ability to torment others has been drained from him forever. The bloodlust has faded, and the little girl is left. Unharmed.
The vision dissipates until it’s just Myles and me standing in his room. Surprisingly, confusingly, the cold in my bones has lessened. I smile. Because as terrified as that scenario was, it also felt safe. And I haven’t felt safe since the last time Eogan held me.
“Again,” I mutter.
The air ripples like before and this time Draewulf’s standing before us in Eogan’s body. He reaches for me like he did yesterday on the airship, going for my throat, black eyes burning. His claws sink into my skin, but instead of evoking fear, it unleashes a vortex of hunger, a craving to draw out his power and destroy it. Destroy him. I lift a hand to his and feel the cold in my lungs start to surface.
It erupts and fades in one clench of my fist as Draewulf clamps down on my owner circles. I tug away but he’s too strong. He keeps pressing down, until what felt so powerful a moment ago now settles limp and small in my veins.
His ability is too great.
I sag and the vision fades. Myles is standing there with his arms crossed and an eerily pleased smile.
I cough and wheeze. I nod, and we run through the scene again.
And again.
The fourth time my shoulders and chest grow feeble as Draewulf leans in closer, smelling of wolf and metal and sundrop skies on Eogan’s skin. His gaze flickers and abruptly it is Eogan, his touch, his warmth, his hand on my neck that is taking over, accessing the ability in me and bringing it to the surface. I gasp. My chest cracks and crumbles until it’s disintegrating and falling, falling, falling into nothingness. A faint cry pushes up my throat, and I fear my aching heart might burst open to bleed all over this room.
The vortex inside me begins tugging, lashing up from my chest and out through my arms and fingertips. I reach for him, pressing my palms against him as my lips spill forth mutterings that make no sense. The gaping black inside me grows wider as does the hunger, and suddenly my hands are drawing the breath and life and energy from Eogan’s body. His eyes flicker between wolf black and emerald green until all at once they’re gray. His entire face is gray and he’s slumping, falling, as his life energy becomes mine.
I gasp and pull away.
The air ripples and Myles is standing two feet away. His pale complexion has turned the color of ash, but he’s grinning.
I slap at him. “What was that? What just happened?”