Her chest rose with a deep breath, and then she lifted her hand. She brushed back the strand of hair that had fallen across my forehead. Her fingers grazed my skin, and I stilled, closed my eyes briefly. Such a soft, innocent touch, but it hit me hard.
“Depends on how you answer the question,” she said.
When I opened my eyes, her features were tinged in white. She pulled her hand back, exhaling softly. I eased onto my back, my arm against hers. “Next question?”
Kat folded her hands together over her stomach, and she didn’t pull away. “Why does using your powers leave a trace?”
Much safer ground. “Humans are like glow-in-the-dark T-shirts to us. When we use our abilities around you, you can’t help but absorb our light. Eventually, the glow will fade, but the more we do, the more energy we use, the brighter the trace. Dee blurring out doesn’t leave much of anything. The truck incident and when I scared the bear, that leaves a visible mark. Something more powerful, like healing someone, leaves a longer trace. A faint one, nothing big so I’m told, but it lingers longer for some reason.
“I should’ve been more careful around you,” I continued. “When I scared the bear, I used a blast of light, which is kind of like a laser. It left a large enough trace on you for the Arum to see you.”
“You mean the night I was attacked?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Yes.” I scrubbed my hand down my face. “Arum don’t come here a lot, because they don’t think any Luxen are here. The beta quartz in the Rocks throws off our energy signature, hides us. That’s one of the reasons why there are a lot of us here. But there must have been one coming through. He saw your trace and knew there had to be one of us nearby. It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t the one who attacked me.”
“But I basically led him to you,” I pointed out.
As my words sank in, she paled. Fear filled her gaze. I hated that, and like earlier, I was concerned with how much of this information she could handle.
“Where is he now? Is he still around?” she asked. “Is he going to come back? What—”
Reaching between us, I found her hand and squeezed gently. “Kitten, calm down. You’re going to have a heart attack.”
Her lips parted slowly. “I’m not going to have a heart attack.”
“Are you sure?” Her hand felt warm and small inside mine.
“Yes.” That earned me another epic eye roll.
“He isn’t a problem anymore,” I explained.
She turned her head more fully toward me. “You…you killed him?”
“Yeah, I kind of did.” I wasn’t trying to scare her, but she needed to know I would kill anyone who threatened my family…and now her.
“You kind of did? I didn’t know there was any ‘kind of’ in killing someone.”
“Okay, yes, I did kill him.” I heard the startled catch in her breath. “We’re enemies, Kitten. He would’ve killed me and my family after absorbing our abilities if I didn’t stop him. Not only that, he would’ve brought more here. Others like us would’ve been in danger. You would’ve been in danger.”
“What about the truck? I’m glowing brighter now,” she said. “Will there be another?”
When there was one Arum, there were usually three more. Maybe we’d get lucky this time. “Hopefully there are none nearby. If not, the traces on you should fade. You’ll be safe.”
“And if not?”
“Then I’ll kill them, too.” And that was the truth. “For a while, you’re going to need to stay around me, until the trace fades.”
“Dee said something like that.” She bit down on her lip. “So you don’t want me to stay away from you guys anymore?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.” I glanced down at our hands. It struck me then that I’d been tracing the alphabet on her hand. I had no idea. “But if I had my way, you wouldn’t be anywhere near us.”
Kat yanked her hand free. “Gee, don’t be honest or anything.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. I was determined that she understand the danger not staying away from us originally had put us all in. I didn’t want to be cruel, but she had to know what was at stake. “Right now, you can lead an Arum right to my sister. And I have to protect her. She’s all I have left. And I have to protect the others here. I’m the strongest. That is what I do. And while you’re carrying the trace on you, I don’t want you going anywhere with Dee if I’m not with you.”
Sitting up, she turned toward the shore. “I think it’s time I head back.”
Aw hell, she really wasn’t getting it. When she started to stand, I caught her arm. Her skin immediately warmed under my palm. “Right now, you can’t be out there by yourself. I need to be with you until the trace fades.”
“I don’t need you to play babysitter.” Her jaw jutted out stubbornly. “I’ll stay away from Dee until it fades.”
“You’re still not getting it.” God, I wanted to shake her. “If an Arum gets a hold of you, they aren’t going to kill you. The one at the library—he was playing with you. He was going to get you to the point that you’d beg for your life and then force you to take him back to one of us.”