Page 45 of From the Edge

He sighed. “You don’t know how to mention it.”

“It is complicated. If I tell them about the curses, I get the question about what I was doing at the time, and why I didn’t stop it, and it is not something I am comfortable discussing with my parents.”

He froze. “I had forgotten.”

“Yes, well, I can’t because, instead of helping them, I was helpless, and my family doesn’t believe I have ever been helpless.” She looked at him with fat tears falling.

Ren carefully wrapped her in his arms. He held her while the tears fell. After a few silent moments, she said, “It doesn’t hurt.”

He smoothed a hand over her hair. “It isn’t supposed to hurt.”

“I know, but this is the first time it hasn’t.”

“What about Mell’s hug earlier?”

“She’s a determined hugger. It was like leaning on a bruise.”

“Ah. So when do you want to contact your elders?”

She sighed. “When Aspen is awake and we can get Avor and Regis here.”

She didn’t mention that she had been trickling power into her grandparents for weeks. When the first mages got up and moved around, she had started trickling the power through. The plants around them were giving energy to the glass coffin that they rested in. They were currently at seventy-five percent strength. A few more days would be good for them.

He offered her his arm, and they walked back to the house. She yawned and headed for her room. She wasn’t surprised when Renyet walked with her. His room was next to hers and had a charming sign on the door with his name on it.

“May I see your room, Rowan?”

She sighed. “Sure. Why not. We are neighbours, after all.”

He smiled, and she opened her door.

“You don’t lock it?”

“No. Why would I? This is my home, and it knows me.” She opened the door. Soft lights warmed the huge space, and she listened to his intake of breath. “Yeah, sorry. It smells like me before the shield.”

She glanced at him, and his pupils were huge. “Did you just get high?”

He laughed softly. “Yeah, that’s what it feels like. I... you have a powerful scent.”

She laughed. “Are you saying that I stink?”

“No. I can smell your power in the scent. This is not a timid omega scent; this is a get the fuck out of my way, I am going to burn you down and then pat your head kind of scent.”

She chuckled. “That was what I was going for.”

He smiled. “This looks like a cross between a nest and a war room.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That was also what I was going for. Oh, these are my parents, and these are my grandparents.”

She walked into her study, and there were the small portraits. “The big portraits are in the grand hall.”

He looked and blinked. “There he is. The executioner. Your grandmother... she’s like you.”

“She was sweeter. Nicer. With a spine of steel. Her parents originally owned this property, and my grandfather bought it when they married. They just kept it as a family home for my father and then my mother, and they signed it over to me because since it was a historic building, I could get a pass from the Omega Centre if I was the caretaker of this building, so that is what my grandparents gave me. Freedom to choose my life as long as I maintained the property.”

“You didn’t flinch when I mentioned the executioner.”

“Ah. My first skill was turning an attacking boar into pink mist. Grandpa was so proud.”