Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [792]
When she let up, Andreas was panting and shuddering. But the glow still enveloped him. And as he lifted his head, the roar that ripped out of his mouth shook the entire forest with feral, deadly fury.
CHAPTER
Thirty-three
The fire owned him.
He knew this, knew it from the moment the bunker had exploded all around him but didn’t take him down with it. He knew he was too far gone, even as he’d crawled out of the ashes and rubble intact, his body protected by the furious heat that only seemed to grow stronger, brighter, more uncontrollable by the second. He had lost the battle with his terrible ability, with himself, just as he’d feared would happen.
The others gaping at him in the flame-drenched darkness of the woods knew it, too. Especially her, the female whose welling, dark brown eyes tore at something deep within him. He loved her. Not even the madness of the unrelenting heat could burn away that fact.
She lived in his heart, this female.
His female.
His mate, something primal and anguished howled from inside him.
He loved her deeply, completely, but knew he could not have her. Not now.
Not ever again.
He threw his head back and roared at the thought, and his voice turned loose a ball of white flames. The orb pitched high, then smashed into the ground a half-dozen feet from him, showering the area in sparks and clumps of upheaved loam.
“Andreas, please,” his woman cried. “Let us help you.”
Fire danced all around her. Tears filled her eyes, her hands trembling as she held them out to him through the smoke and pale, floating ash that was raining down like snowflakes from the canopy of trees above.
“Andre, look at me. Hear me. I know you can.” She stepped toward him, ignoring the sober warnings of more than one of the males in her company. “I’m not ready to let you go,” she said fiercely, words that seemed to echo back at him like a memory.
Had he heard them in this very spot earlier tonight? Had he been the one to say them to her?
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t let it matter. She and the others with her—friends, his instinct called them—were not safe around him now. They had to go.
Except she wasn’t about to leave him there. He could see that plainly enough in the stubborn tilt of her jaw. He growled with fury, and felt the swell of another ball of heat building in his gut.
Incredibly, she moved even closer to him.
A vision flashed through his mind as he watched her take yet another step toward him. He saw a little girl with sandy pigtails and a gentle smile holding her hand out to him in a gesture of kindness. He saw a bright, innocent face offering him help and compassion…just before the fire that lived within him leapt out to consume her.
He’d killed something precious and pure once before. He would not do it again.
Bellowing his self-contempt, he sent a small volley of fireballs at the ground in front of him. A low barrier of flames twisted and crackled, driving her back. It wasn’t enough. He needed her gone—needed to know that she was far away from his destructive power.
He needed all of them gone now.
He threw more fire, forcing the entire group to pull back. As they gradually retreated, he saw the tear-streaked, beautiful face of the woman—his woman—fixed on him through the climbing wall of flames that separated them.
“No, Andre,” she mouthed. “No. I’m not going to let you do this.”
Heat gusted from the dancing flames in front of Claire and the others. Behind the wall of undulating fire, she watched Andreas’s face. His eyes were filled with torment and pain. With madness, too. Heartbreaking, bleak resolve smoldered in his gaze.
He was giving up.
He was trying to drive her away from him, so he could deal with his suffering—most likely his death as well—alone.
No, Claire thought, firmly rejecting the idea. No goddamn way was she going to accept