“Hey, Avi, I’m… okay, I guess.”
My brow furrowed, and I set my paintbrush down so I could concentrate on my little brother. He sounded so upset. “What’s wrong?”
He let out a long, sad-sounding sigh.“It’s just…”He sighed heavily again, and my worry amped up a notch.“My big brother hasn’t brought his viramore over to meet me yet.”
I huffed out a sigh of my own, half annoyed, half amused. “Ass. I thought something was really wrong.”
“Something is wrong, buttface. You haven’t let me meet Dain.”Now he sounded like he was whining like he used to whenhe was a little kid… not like the two-hundred-fifty-year-old he was.
“He’s not ready for that yet.”
He let out a small growl.“Avi, it’s just me, your little brother, your best friend. Surely, you can bring him over here for dinner or something? I mean, I get not meeting the parents yet, but why not me?”
I winced a little, admitting to myself that he maybe had a point. Yes, Dain wasn’t ready to meet my parents. Of that I had no doubt. But Glacier was a huge part of my life, and he was right that he was my best friend. Not hanging out with him as much these past few weeks had been hell. Maybe… maybe I could bring it up to Dain tonight. It wasn’t really fair of me to assume he wasn’t ready or didn’t want to meet Glacier if I hadn’t even asked him about it. Right?
“Okay, Dain and I have a date tonight, so I’ll bring it up to him.”
Glacier let out a squeal that could’ve rivaled a twelve-year-old’s screech.“Yes! Woohoooo! Okay. Um… why don’t we do a game night? I can invite Flurry so I’m not the third wheel, and we’ll have enough people to play pretty much anything. We can order pizza—does he like pizza?”
I sighed, resigning myself to… whatever the hell this was turning into. I supposed if Dain was okay with meeting one of my siblings, having one of my sisters tag along wouldn’t be that big a deal. “Yes, he likes pizza. He’s not a picky eater.”
“Awesome. Okay. What if we do it tomorrow night?”
Glacier kept blabbering on and on about plans, and I just rolled my eyes, put my phone on speaker, and picked my paintbrush back up so I could work while he planned. He was talking so much that I only needed to add a word or acknowledgement every once in a while.
“Avi?”
“Hm?”
“Are you sure this is okay? I do really want to meet him because I’m so damn excited for you, but I don’t want to cause any problems. I can wait if I need to.”
That made my heart happy, and I couldn’t help but smile down at my phone. “I’m sure. I think it’ll be nice for him to meet you. You’ll like him.”
“If he’s making you as happy as you sound, I have no doubt that I will.”
My smile grew. My little brother was such a softie. I loved it. “Thanks, Glaych. I—”
I cut myself off when something lurched in my chest, knocking the wind out of me. What the hell?
“Avi? You okay? You made a weird noise there for a second.”
“Gl-Glaych…”
“Avi? What’s wrong?”
“Some…thing… fuck… hurts…”
“Avalanche! Shit. Where are you?”
My chest lurched again, and I couldn’t catch my breath as my magic surged.
“Avi? Avalanche!”
My body lit with my power, my head going dizzy with the immensity of it. I never summoned so much power so fast… ever. I’d never needed to.
As my magic lurched again, making my vision go black around the edges, my body stood of its own accord, heading for the door. I tried to stop myself, tried to dig my heels in, but it was like I’d been pushed back inside my own head and someone else was driving me. I could see everything around me, but I couldn’t react to it. I couldn’t move.
I was stuck inside my own head.Fuck!
