Bee. The nickname he gave me all those years ago. Just hearing it makes flames lick across my skin, it’s so infuriating. What makes Devlin think that he has the right to call me by a name given out of love?
I step forward defiantly. “You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to pretend like you care.” It’s all so maddening. I plow my fingers up the sides of my hair, pulling it out of the comb and no doubt ruining it. “Gods, all of this is ridiculous. My power. All of it is because of my power. What I wouldn’t give to not have it.”
“Your power?” he growls. “You don’t know anything about having a power that’s a curse.”
“Like you do. All you care about is getting laid.”
“Stop. It.”
Devlin’s eyes are brimming with rage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry. He’s always annoyingly charming.
Oops. Perhaps I have pushed him too far.
But I don’t care. “Why should I stop it? You’re the one who shows up to social engagements with two dates.”
“I didn’t tonight.”
“Wow. One time. Big deal. Is that the worst problem you have? Try living life as a magical freak.”
He shakes his head in disgust. “You think your power is so bad?” he grinds out. “You can do what? Some mind trick on your unsuspecting victims? Usethe forceon them?”
“How dare you?—”
“Yes, I will dare, Blair. I will dare, because you don’t know what being cursed with power is.”
“And you do?”
“Yes.” Pain flares in his eyes before he quickly looks away. “I do.”
During this time we’ve been stepping closer to one another, like we’re tugged into the other’s gravitational pull. I don’t notice it until now, when I’m only a few inches from Devlin and am staring at his bow tie.
It’s silk, perfectly tied. He probably used magic to do that. Wouldn’t it be nice to waste magic on things other than getting your sister to deliver a plate of dessert? To have so much power that using it for something as simple as tying a bow is okay, instead of feeling like every time you burn up magic, you’re being irresponsible and pushing your family closer to the brink of extinction?
He clears his throat, and I look up at him. Moonlight cuts his face into all sharp angles and high cheekbones. The urge to touch his cheek and let my fingers brush over the coarse stubble makes my fingers twitch.
He stares down at me, and I’ve forgotten where I am, what day it is, what we were even talking about.
That’s what Devlin Ross does to me. He makes me forget my own name, makes me forget what I was about to say. His good looks steal my breath.
His throat bobs and my gaze tracks up to his eyes. There is pain in them, something that I don’t understand.
Right. We were talking about his power.
I want to speak, but my throat’s thick. I lick my lips, and his eyes flick to them. My words are barely more than a whisper when I say, “What could be so bad, Devlin, that you seem to think you’ve got it worse than me?”
He rips his gaze away, giving me a view of his amazing profile. “Let’s just say that you don’t have the monopoly on magic that harms more than it helps.”
Did this have something to do with his parents? They’d died when he was young, a plane crash. But that’s all I know about them.
Either way, the air on the balcony has shifted, changed, become more intimate, and I don’t like it.
“There are things you could do with your power, Blair.”
I scoff. “Hilarious. Like what?”
“You see the bad in it. But there’s so much good you could do.” He glances back through the window into the ballroom. “See that wizard over there? The one who’s staring at that little blonde?”
“No,” I tell him, not bothering to look.
