Imurderedmy father.
Every hint of the fire I had so painstakingly summoned vanished in an instant, his words like ice water crashing over my soul. I dropped to my knees, ignoring the pain as they smashed into the hard stone.
I focused on my father’s body then, really seeing what I had done. The blood congealing around the pin I had stabbed into his neck. The bits of his chest that flaked and blew away on thewind. The charred bit of sternum that showed through the burnt mess of blood and gore.
I had done that. I had plunged my flaming hands into his chest because I had wanted him to suffer like my mother suffered. And his last words to me were that he loved me.
He was innocent, and I tortured him to death.
I was the real monster.
My fire tried to flare to life around me once more, but my anger was smothered under the torment of what I’d done. I was an empty vessel, lacking fuel for my rage. The only thing that poured into me now was despair.
My mother sacrificed herself for nothing.
My father was dead at my hand.
I viciously attacked Sin, the only male I might have ever loved because I wasn’t smart enough to see that he was being compelled.
I had nothing and no one left. Nobody was coming to save me. Not this time.
I collapsed forward, lying naked on the cold stone. Deeper and deeper, I sank into the abyss of my pain. It surrounded me. Burrowed into my very soul, and I didn’t even try to fight back because I deserved it.
I deserved all of it.
The poverty growing up. The abuse, physical and emotional. The anxiety attacks that prevented me from ever becoming anything more than a fast food cashier.
It slammed into me—this knowledge that I was a complete waste of space in this universe or any other. I was born for the sole purpose of dying to fulfill a prophecy. My death was all I had to offer.
When I felt like I could sink no lower, when the depths of my suffering could go no further, something caressed my mind.
It was gentle at first—a light questioning touch, asking for permission to enter. I had nothing left to lose so I opened myself up and let it flood into me.
Power. Magic.
It didn’t burn this time—the manifestation. Didn’t consume me the way the fire had. It just coated my mind and body in a soothing harmony, nestling under my skin like a sleeping cat’s soft purr.
My mental power.
I instantly knew what it did, as if it had always been a part of me waiting to be awoken. I knew now what I was capable of.
I would not be controlled and compelled like a puppet. I was Rain Motherfucking Solis. I survived more in my twenty-five years than any person should have to endure in a lifetime, and I was still here.
I rose to my feet, summoning back all the rage and fury I thought I had lost. My flames exploded across my skin in a flash of brilliant red-gold light. A slight prickling on my arms drew my attention, and I watched as elegant new black and purple swirls weaved themselves into the edges of my ramentum then spread across my skin from my elbows up to my shoulders.
I faced the male responsible for nearly every bad thing that happened to me.
And I smiled.
He scoffed in response. “Oh, Raynella, what exactly do you think you can do against me?”
“You’re about to find out,” I growled as my flaming talons burst out once more, demanding that I rake and claw his flesh. I would tear him apart for what he did to my family.
“You do not understand, do you?” he said smugly, then focused on my eyes. His voice rich and full of bravado, he commanded, “Drop your fire.”
The flames flared brighter, and my smile morphed into something that felt almost evil.
His eyes flicked around, confused, before he focused on me once more. “Stop where you are.”
