I look down and freeze. Because silver electricity is dancing along my skin in visible arcs, crackling between my fingers like tiny storms. The magic is crawling along my arms, and the way Logan’s looking at me is making it travel more and more, until I swear my entire body’s lit up with it.
“Breathe.” He moves closer, the air crackling between us. “Identify your emotion, then contain it in the sphere.”
What I’m feeling? Where do I even start?
Fear about Margot’s suspicions? Paranoia about what happened to Miles? Frustration at all these secrets? Or this overwhelming need to be closer to Logan—a need that has nothing to do with how good he makes me physically feel, and everything to do with the emotions that have been simmering inside me for gods know how long and are about to explode to the surface?
“I can’t.” The words come out strained. “There’s too much. It’s all tangled up inside me, and I can’t?—“
“Yes, you can. Just think of the sphere.” His hand hovers near my cheek, not quite touching, and slowly, painfully, I pull my magic back and force it inside myself again.
It’s not gone. It’s just... controlled. Contained in that mental glass sphere where it can buzz around without hurting anyone.
His thumb finally brushes across my cheekbone, the touch so gentle it makes my chest ache. “I brought you here because this place makes everything too much.” His other hand frames my face, tilting it up toward his. “But you controlled it anyway.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” The words come out more honest than I intended. “Without you, I’d be long gone from this place, being studied or experimented on or whatever the hell the Council would do to me if they knew the truth. You saved me, you keep saving me, and I owe you my life. I owe youeverything.”
The look in his eyes shifts to something so raw and unguarded it makes me forget how to breathe again. And as his hands tremble against my face, time seems to slow as I gaze into those beautiful gray eyes I’ve seen every night while we train together.
Something deeper swirls in them now—something darker. Something that makes me feel like I’m seeing into Logan’s soul.
“Fuck it,” he mutters, and suddenly he’s lifting me, and my legs are wrapping around his waist as he pins me between his body and the cold stone wall.
JADE
Logan’s mouthfinds that spot where my neck meets my shoulder, his tongue pressing against my skin in a way that makes me gasp. My hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, needing more. Always more.
“I’ve been thinking about this every day. Every night.” His confession vibrates against my throat. “Every damn moment since?—”
He cuts himself off, his jaw clenching like he’s said too much. But his hands tell a different story, one gripping my thigh to hold me closer, the other tangled in my hair like he can’t bear to let go.
When he rocks his hips into mine, electricity races through my veins, literal sparks dancing between us.
“Sorry,” I gasp. “The electricity thing happens when I’m?—“
“I know,” he says, and then he’s kissing me again like it’s the end of the world, like we’re running out of time, like he’s trying to say everything he can’t put into words.
Silver electricity shoots upward into the glass dome, creating our own personal light show. Wind rushes around us, probablyviolating several laws of physics. But for once, he doesn’t stop kissing me, doesn’t pull away.
When we eventually break apart, he’s watching me with an expression that makes my chest feel too tight. Wonder mixed with something deeper, something that looks dangerously close to?—
“You’re incredible.” His voice is rough and wrecked, so different from the Logan I’ve been training with each night. “You have no idea how you’ve become everything to me, how I’d rewrite time itself just to have more moments like?—”
His face tightens with panic. It’s subtle—a flash in his eyes, a slight tension in his jaw—but after so much time together, I’ve gotten good at reading the tiny cracks in Logan Ashford’s armor.
“Pull it back.” He sets me down, his hands gripping my shoulders so hard it hurts.“Now.”
“What?” I can barely focus, dizzy from the way he was kissing me seconds ago. “Pull what back? Because if you’re about to do that thing where you push me away again, I swear to the gods?—”
“Your electricity.” His voice is steady, but his eyes betray real concern. “You’re going to overload the observatory’s protective enchantments if you don’t pull it back now.”
“Oh.” I look up at the light show I’m creating, silver webs of electricity crackling across the dome. “Yeah, that’s... probably not great.”
I close my eyes, fighting to contain the storm raging under my skin, but the Double Cluster is making everything feel more amplified than ever. Trying to shove all these feelings—want, need, and something terrifyingly close to a thing I don’t want to name—back into my imaginary glass sphere feels like trying to stuff a hurricane into a jewelry box.
“Find your center. Picture the sphere. Keep it contained.” Logan’s hands move to frame my face again, grounding me. “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re too much. But you’re nottoo much for me. And I’ve never wanted anything the way I want all of you.”
All of you.
