At the reminder, I scowl. “Like when he knocked me out so I wouldn’t interrupt your time with Carina.”
She snorts, and it takes away my remaining annoyance over the incident. “I was just giving you a hard time, anyway. So, you dug Zeus’ necklace out of your secret treasure hoard. Go on.”
Even Raiden breathes a laugh, finally calming his pacing enough to lean against a boulder with his arms crossed. Originally, we’d planned on measuring Amara’s electric output in varying conditions, testing what got spikes, and how much she could maintain for any duration of time. Then, Stone would give her the necklace and we’d repeat the process until she could comfortably control higher levels of voltage so she’d be able to protect herself more effectively. After her statement, though? All that has been chucked out the window to go back to the basics she should’ve been taught as a toddler.
Her parents sucked ass, and I can’t believe I didn’t consider it after learning she didn’t know we could taste spikes in emotion. But shewasusing her abilities, so it never crossed my mind that she was pulling from the wrong source.
Stone keeps the necklace on, sidling up next to her. “Since you were sleeping anyway, I spent some time familiarizing myself with your affinity so I could help you adjust without being overloaded.”
Amara scowls. “Awesome, you’ve been a lightning dragon for two days and already are better at it than I am.”
“It’s not like that, love,” he consoles. “Manipulating other people’s abilitiesismy ability. And I’ve had hundreds of thousands of experiments to compare each one to, which offers me a unique opportunity to search for similarities and bypass the majority of the learning curve.” Tossing a wink her way, he adds, “Who do you think taught Kodiak he was capable of more than being a blacksmith’s apprentice? Reforming metal only once and calling the job done? I was the one that helped him see that he could breathe life into his creations.”
She turns to me, questions burning in her eyes, and I try to ignore the gnawing pit in my stomach. “I’ll make you a deal, firefly. As soon as you knock one of us on our asses, the two of us will spend an entire afternoon day drinking, and I’ll fill you in on the titillating tale of young Kodiak and his rise to power. Spoiler alert, the best part of the story is when he meets the love of his life, and together, they get into all sorts of debauchery while Raiden McCockblock follows behind putting out their fires and crying himself to sleep at night.”
A soft whistling of wind has my hand flying up, catching the rock Raiden threw before it could hit me in the face. Grinning, I drop it at my feet, tucking my hands in my pockets and casually rocking back on my heels to disguise the way I’m rubbing my sore palm against my thigh. Amara’s soft smile and sad look of understanding threatens to be my undoing, but this woman is the other half of my soul and understands me better than even my legion brothers despite not knowing the details.
She seesme,and that’s all that matters.
“Deal,” she says. “But only if we drink in one of our bedrooms. I love Carina, but if I’m getting drunk for the first time, I want to be three thousand percent sure that absolutely no one but the four of us have access to the room.”
“It’s a date.”
Stone clears his throat, getting us back on track.Right, teaching our lovely mate the proper way to blow people up.“While I was playing around with it, I struggled a bit until I started approaching it from a new angle-”liar“-and I want to see if it’s the same way you go about things before we proceed any further.” Stealing her hand, he lays it palm-up on top of his, lightly skimming his fingertips over the skin. “When you conjure electricity, where are you pulling it from?”
She looks between him and me with confusion. “I just... do it? Will some sparks to appear, and with enough effort, they do. What do you mean, fromwhere?”
I meet Raiden’s equally hopeful gaze, both of us holding our breath.Please. Please, please, please let this be the answer we’ve been searching for.
Stone gives her a reassuring smile, sprinkling in little white lies to downplay things to spare her feelings. “See, that’s what I was doing too. It was more difficult than I’m used to dealing with, so I started trying to figure out why, and if there was an easier way.”
She interrupts with a scoff. “Because you’re a dirty rotten cheater.”
He shrugs. “Work smarter, not harder, I say. No use killing myself for pride when I gave it up long ago. Saves time.”
I fake cough into my fist. “Says the man that doesn’t even know what decade it is.”
Iridescent eyes narrow on my face, and for a brief moment that I’ll never admit aloud, my balls try to climb back inside my body.
Stone made me the man that I am today, saved me when I was at my lowest, and gave me a family. He saw me through the worst of it as I made peace with the demon inhabiting my body, and is more of a father figure to me than a brother, so I tend to give him shit just to get a rise out of him out of habit. It’s easy to forget that he reshaped humanity once, and absolutely could do it again.
If that calm façade he clings to like a second skin were ever to shatter, I don’t think the world would survive the Hell Stone could unleash upon it.
Thankfully, his attention turns back to our mate, immediately softening. “Anyway,I think I figured out why it’s so much harder to wield electricity; it shares a lot of similar properties with fire.” He traces her lifeline on her palm, coaxing blue static to jump from her skin to his. “It’s alive. Water needs direction, but flows naturally without effort, and earth sits there patiently waiting for someone to sculpt it. But just as fire is a living entity that needs fuel to continue burning, electricity is a finicky beast to conquer as well.”
He meets her eye, infusing his words with a distinctive weight. “Fire dragons don’t so much create flames as they learn to manipulate them. Sure, they add the spark, but without something to burn, there’s only so long they can produce a flame because it’s physically draining, using their body as that fuel source. It’s why Raiden favors working with smoke; easier to create and manipulate. You have an advantage that the rest of us don’t. Raiden can’t start a fire on the ocean, Kodiak needs existing metal to create anything, and without a gemstone or another demon, my talents are useless.”
He kisses her forehead. “But you,solas mo shaol,have the world at your fingertips. Electricity flows through every living thing. You don’t need to wipe yourself out being the fuel source,you can pull it from the trees, the air of a building storm, the outlets in nearby houses. Hell, pull it from your enemies before you turn their own energy back on them.”
Settling his hands on her shoulders, he holds her gaze, desperately trying to make sure she understands. “Stop sacrificing pieces of yourself for a world that’s done nothing but fuck you over. You’ve given more than enough already; take what you’re owed.”
Seconds pass, then minutes as she absorbs his words. All the while, she stands stoic under his grip, golden eyes glazed over as she sifts through the information, putting it somewhere she can cope with. Stone did well, and it’s why Raiden and I let him take point on the sensitive subject, but Amara’s a quick study. I’ve no doubt she’s replaying the conversation in her head, reading between the lines.
All of this time, her minimal access to her abilities was just because she wasn’t taught any better, was pulling energy from herself instead of elsewhere. If her parents had actually parented, she could have defended herself against her tormentor and escaped sooner. She could have avoided the last nine years on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder and living in fear if she’d figured it out sooner.
Her voice is carefully devoid of emotion. “If it’s a living entity, then how do they control it? Fire dragons, I mean.”
Stone dips his head slowly, picking up on her real question she can’t bring herself to ask. “By understanding how it operates. So, electricity? It’s seeking the closest and easiest way to release the charge. It’s why natural lightning strikes metal rods and tall trees. Yours? It just wants somewhere to go, and you’re its guide.”
