He sets a hand beside my thigh, almost as if offering it for me to take, but I only curl in tighter. No one can get close, not untilI know exactly what happened to me, and the paradox is, at the same time, I’mnot readyto delve into this.
I’ve only glimpsed the fact that I was subjected to violence, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Was I also… raped?
What if there’s trauma buried just beneath the surface, waiting to explode?
The touch of a virile alpha could be too much for me now, and Snow seems to understand. He doesn’t press. His eyes simply search my face, his expression pensive, and he says quietly in his deep voice,
"Did you test your power yet?"
Oh.
Definitely not what I expected to hear, but I’m grateful for the change of subject. What a relief.
I shake my head.
Snow glances aside, giving me a perfect view of his profile, his straight nose, the sensual outline of his lips, and lashes darker than you’d expect on someone with naturally pale blond hair. Watching him is oddly… hypnotic.
He reaches back to the coffee table, picks up a small scented candle, and sets it on the back of my hand that rests on my thigh.
He tilts his head in a subtle, encouraging gesture and gives a soft smile.
My eyes fix obsessively on the small item.
Does he really want me to try it right here?
The problem is, on some level, I already know how to use it. It’s just under the surface, waiting to be tapped. But there’s this barrier inside me, a recoil. My power is the reason I was taken, hurt, ripped from my family.
So do I claim it again? Do I let myself feel that strange energy I’ve been half-aware of the whole time but kept quietly pushing down?
Violet eyes stay on me, offering no judgment, just a presence.
Snow gives me space to try; a small test.
My gaze stays on the candle, almost like it's glued to it. Really? Should I? Just jump into it, flood my body with the sensation so familiar from the time I was innocent and just… experimenting? The memories are not within my conscious reach, they’re there, buried, an yet still pulling at me. Maybe here, with him watching, would be a good time to rediscover it safely?
Perhaps I could even… well. Show off a bit? While being watched by a handsome guy… sure, I could. Just a bit?
And just like that I’m in.
Fighting through the pain, I push the brain fog away and let my mind reach for the very essence of the candle’s structure.
With my special sense, I feel the vibrating web of particles that form the wax: diglycerides of fatty acids, palmitate, n-alkanes, a tight lattice of molecules.
And then, in a split second, I shatter their bonds.
The candle bursts into a pale powder that scatters across my thighs and knees, some of it settling on Snow’s hand.
Wow. That’s all it takes. My will.
So I really am ahylomancer. I can push atoms wherever I want them to be.
Snow lifts the powder closer to his eyes and studies it with some satisfaction.
Then he glances at me and gives a wink.
I blush. For real, I can reduce matter to dust in a heartbeat, so easily, yet I’m embarrassed. I guess I’m not used to showing it to anyone. It always has to involve some bit of fear, the uncertainty that somebody would notice and that would be it. My tiny, insignificant existence would be cut short.
