My eyes drift shut as he commanded, and the weight of his finger keeps me grounded. It stays there for a second, then he moves it down, laying it against my tingling lips.
They twitch with the desire to apply pressure, but he moves once again before I can.
His entire palm rests against my throat, and his fingers grip my pounding pulse. His hand flinches in rhythm with my thuds, then he slides it down until it rests underneath my breast.
A sharp exhale escapes me as he moves lower. He stops an inch below my pants button, and I throb with need for him to go lower.
He does, but he travels right past where I want him.
He grips my right knee, then my left ankle.
Each place he’s laid his hand, he’s left behind a weight. My blood rushes to those spots spread across my body.
“Spread your power everywhere I just touched.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t say you don’t know how or you can’t. You can. You are a goddess. You can do whatever the fuck you want. Tell your power to spread. It’ll listen.”
I want to shake my body out, but fear that doing that will erase his lingering touch halts me.
So I stand statue-still.
With my eyes closed, facing the darkness, I exhale.
A desperate desire for this to work overwhelms me.
“Spread.”
It’s not a request or a command. I beg.
A sob works its way up my throat, but it vanishes as part of my power takes its place.
A stream connects through my body from my head to my lips, throat, stomach, pelvic area, knee, and ankle.
Everywhere he touched, my power finds its place.
“Good. Now you’re going to starshoot.”
“What?” My eyes fly open, but I slam them back shut and refocus as my power twitches.
“V isn’t coming back for us. I told him if we didn’t succeed, we’d trek through the woods until we found our way. He’s not going to tell the others where we are. So unless you want to spend hours, possibly days finding our way back home, delaying our trip, you’re going to starshoot. Right now.
“Your power is spread. Now make it surround you. Imagine you rolling yourself up in a blanket. If that doesn’t work, picture my brothers and me crowding around you. Feel our bodies pressed against yours from all sides. Once you do that, think about the sacred hot spring and tell your power to take you there.”
My breathing becomes erratic as nerves take hold. Doubt, fear, and a little anger ambush me. I can’t believe he and my Vedarya are ganging up on me like this, but at the same time, I realize, nothing has worked so far.
My time to learn, grow, understand is taking far longer than I have patience for.
If scaring me with the possibility of being lost in the woods is the push I need to figure this out, then figuring it out is what I’m going to do.
I don’t want to worry the others or potentially mess up our quest that everyone has worked so hard on.
I release a long, slow breath as I open my palms beside me. I spend a second focusing on the tingling spots on my body. Each power point responds to me in a way it never has. The buzz doesn’t feel chaotic, out of control, or ready to take over.
With my heart pounding in my ears, I don’t picture a blanket wrapping around me. I think about my Valtrue.
How they surround me protectively.
