After we were done, Hayes stood and approached Selene. She rose to her feet and extended her hand; he kissed it and then gave her a deep bow.
Selene turned to me and lifted her brow in expectation. I followed Hayes’ example, kissed the hand offered to me and bowed. I felt like an idiot, but I valued my life enough to do what was needed to get through this. Touching my lips to anotherwoman’s skin made me nauseous, but coming home to my Nexi was more important than dying if I offended this demon.
We left the apartment, but both remained silent. I was digesting what had just happened, and Hayes was a morose bastard who didn’t talk much.
When we approached the practice field, Hayes stopped and turned to me. “Be on time for our meeting tonight.” He narrowed his eyes, “And make sure you’re not followed.”
I nodded, and he left without saying another word.
This world was fucked. I’m so thankful my Nexi’s parents escaped this place. The thought of her growing up here was more than I could bear.
Chapter 6
Nathan
The minute I stepped onto the training field, Taylor ran over to me.
“How did your meeting with Hayes go? Do you have any strategies you need to share with your partner?”
I stared for a moment. This was getting ridiculous. Was she mental? I suppose I’d remained quiet longer than was acceptable to her.
“What?”
It was apparent my lack of response was annoying her. I was well past annoyed, so I’m glad I could share the wealth. “If there’s anything I think you need to know, I’ll fill you in. Everything we discussed had to do with my new ability and how I can fast-track my training to use it in the coliseum tomorrow,” I turned my back to her, ending the conversation and walked to an area where the people with fire abilities practiced.
The most common ability related to fire was the conjuring of fireballs. Usually, they were uniform and could pack quite a punch, but nothing like the one I displayed yesterday. In our classes at Emberhold, we learned about common abilities, those that were rare and those thought to be extinct.
My new ability was rare.
The power behind the flames shooting from my hands felt infinite. There was no lag in energy or fatigue of any kind. If anything, I felt as if I had consumed a six-pack of energy drinks after using it. I’d kept that to myself because even though I hadn’t been a part of this world for long, I knew how unusual that was.
I don’t know if Reverie bonded with Zeke and Zane or only one of them, but this ability was strong. If she did bond with them both, then I could probably expect another ability to pop up. Hopefully, not while I was in the middle of my battle in the coliseum.
Right now, I needed to see if I could call up my new ability and then try to figure out how to use it. The blast I shot yesterday could have incinerated someone. I needed to find out if I could vary the strength of the stream from completely charring that ass to a precision burn.
I’d fucked people up before, but I’ll admit to never being in a situation where killing was called for. Make no mistake, if I needed to kill to defend my Nexi, then I absolutely would. I’d kill to return to her, too. It might be considered selfish, but ask me if I gave a damn. I was selfish. She was my world, and I’d fuck up anyone or anything that threatened that. It was a bitch when your heart lived outside your chest.
I settled on a spot at the very end of the field. There, targets made of fireproof material native to this world were set up.
The targets varied in size and distance, with some even moving to increase the difficulty level. There was no grass on the field, only gravel and rock. It truly was the perfect setup for fire welders.
I spread my legs and bent my knees slightly. Squinting at the target, I held my palms out, straining so deeply I grunted to will the fire to shoot out.
“Are you trying to take a shit or recreate your ability from yesterday?” Razor had shown up at some point, but I’d been concentrating so hard I didn’t hear him.
I narrowed my eyes, “If you’re not here to help, you can fuck right off.”
He laughed, “I’m here to help. I was going to stand back and assess what you needed before I jumped in. But I realized in the first sixty seconds, you didn’t know dick. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to slowly ease you into this ability. So, you’re going to get a crash course.”
“Fuck!” I’d burnt through another target completely. That shouldn’t be possible, but apparently for me, it was.
“Watch me.” Razor put two fingers on my neck briefly, then turned to the targets in his lane. He held his palm up and a small stream of fire shot out, hitting all three targets in quick succession.
“Damn it! How are you so good at that when it isn’t even your ability?” I was frustrated by the ease with which he was welding my ability.
I had discovered a little about Razor’s power, and it was amazing. He could literally take another’s ability for a brief time and wield it like an expert. The only problem I could see with this was that he had to touch bare skin somewhere on a person’s body to make it work. If you had this information, it would be fairly easy to take away his advantage in a fight. But for training purposes, it was invaluable.
“You’re forcing it,” Razor smirked.
