They rip through me like a hurricane, tearing out my lungs and replacing them with a heaving flood. Eleven years I’ve kept them in, and now they erupt, wave after wave.
Over the mess I hear Eogan’s voice right next to me, but the wind is picking up too loud. I can’t understand him. The storm is too fierce . . .
The storm.
I open my eyes as Eogan’s words click through my head. “Nym, you have to stop.”
Around us roars a blizzard of my creation. Lightning bolts splice the ground beside our bodies. Pine needles and branches whip above our heads. I try to stop. To tell my curse to listen to his fingertips and calm down. But I don’t know how to stop anymore. I can’t. I only know how to weep and crumble and break as the fissure in my chest opens wide to swallow us.
And then Eogan’s lips are on mine. Pressing. Calming. One hand slides to my waist while his other tangles its way through my hair, pulling me in, forcing his heated mouth harder to mine. The shock wave ripples down my back, and I respond to his touch, his taste, his heartbeat that’s pounding out of his chest. His fingers grip tighter and his mouth is thirst and need, and I’m a begging pile of bones, cracking open, liquefying to be absorbed into him.
Until the calmness comes and my body sags into his.
The storm inside and out stills.
“Stop and let us handle it,” Eogan whispers in my ear.
His gaze switches to Colin, who’s erecting blockade after blockade of mountainside with more power than I’ve ever seen him capable of in an effort to stop the avalanche. Eogan shoves me aside, and the next thing I know he’s rushing head on into the massive landslide. Which shouldn’t even be possible. Oh hulls. No.
He’s going to get himself killed. I start running, but it’s too late. The rocks and snow are bearing down on him, and then he’s gone.
Except the avalanche veers off to the side, and I catch glimpses of Eogan’s black body standing there. Blocking. His ability acts as an invisible shield, expanding to interrupt the surge, shifting it to Colin, who opens the earth in a crevice for the devastation to slide into, leading it away from the town.
Hours go by.
At least that’s what it seems like, although it’s only a matter of minutes before the rumbling stops and the danger is over. Colin collapses from the effort and Eogan sloshes over to pant with him and pat him on the back before checking the hillside to ensure the earth is sealed all the way.
When he returns, he strides directly through the snow to me.
Untouched.
Unharmed.
“Nym . . .”
I hit him.
For bringing me to this mountain. For endangering us and the town and the little boy by pressing me into something I cannot do. I will not do. For making me desire him. And then for scaring the litches out of me by making me think he was dead. It suddenly occurs to me that I might actually hate him more than anyone I’ve ever known.
Except, it also occurs to me that I’m in love with him.
CHAPTER 20
WE BREAK CAMP WITHIN THE HOUR. I PREPARE supplies while Eogan cleans a shallow gash on Colin’s arm and works to cool the boy’s suddenly spiking fever. His red-flushed skin is so hot, it’s thawing ice off the pine trees three paces away.
“His body overheated,” Eogan says, “from the stress of using his ability at that magnitude. It’s a Terrene thing—it’ll fade over the next few days.”
As our horses clip down the mountain pass, the snow on the trees continues to melt in a forest of raindrops around Colin. The bald boy is riding with Eogan, slumped against his back, with his mount roped behind. He doesn’t groan, but the pain and exhaustion written on his face are enough. I can barely look at him.
Clearing my throat, I open my mouth. Hesitate.
“Don’t,” Colin says. “You’ve already apologized like two ’undred times. I told you I’m fine. It’s not yer fault. You shoulda seen the trouble I caused in my first big disaster.”
“But your arm—”
“Will be ’ealed by tomorrow. Although”—a hint of slyness creeps into his tone—“if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll play sick longer so you can nurse me back to health. Because holy-mother-of-kracken, did you see how fantastic I was? The way I had yer avalanche in the palm of my hand—caressin’ her like a baby? Just think of what I coulda done to Bron’s armada!”
“More than fantastic,” I say for the eleventieth time.
“As if I wasn’t already irresistible enough.” He grins, then winces before leaning in to whisper loudly, “Just try to resist droolin’ over me in front of Eogan, yeah?”
I gulp. Clearly he’d not seen Eogan kiss me. “Right. Got it. Although I think my horse is drooling over you, too, so you might want to move your face back.”