Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [798]
Just as he himself had known it would, from the moment the very first spark had lit within him in that godforsaken field in Hamburg.
If he let go now—if he gave one fraction of his will to keep Claire safe from the heat—the curse that had plagued him for so long would own him. And it would destroy Claire in the process. He felt the fires searching for her, flames hissing and flicking like serpents’ tongues, hungry for a taste of the treasure he was denying them.
“No,” he heard himself growl. “Goddamn it. No.”
With his arms and body wrapped around her to shield her, Reichen turned all of his rage inward. He focused on the heat that lived in the deepest core of his being. He reached for it with his mind, with every measure of his will, feeling the pyro try to slither out of his grasp as he seized on it and yanked it tight in the fist of his determination.
He couldn’t let it win.
He had to finally take control of the beast.
He had to master it, here and now.
Forever.
He strengthened his mental chokehold on the twisting coil of fire inside him. All around him, he heard the hiss of flames, the sputter of struggling heat that was slowly being beaten down, extinguished. In the periphery of his gaze, he saw the writhing columns of flame drawing back from the stone ledge, back into the deep abyss that had borne them.
And still he didn’t let go.
He turned his face toward the rolling, gnashing fires that were still seeking to leap out of the pit, his teeth and fangs bared in a tight sneer as he roared with power and furious intent.
“No!” he bellowed. “I own you. You will bow to me now!”
It was his love for Claire that gave him the resolve he needed in this moment. His need to protect her, to keep her safe above all else, was the driving force that made him certain he could defeat the curse of his destructive power.
It was the love she’d given him in return—the love he could feel beating inside him, in his veins, in the blood bond that linked him to her now and always—that made him reach for the hope that one day he might not only master his hellish ability but maybe even come to view it as something more than a curse. He knew a sudden certainty that the curse he had dreaded for so long might one day become a talent that would serve him, instead of destroying him.
Reichen clung to hope, and to his love for Claire, as he commanded the fires to quell. He sent them back down into the abyss below, not out of fear or self-contempt but out of strength. Out of a burgeoning sense of unshakable control.
A triumphant cry broke out of him as the last bright flame began to gasp its death.
The fires went dark in the pit.
The choking ash and smoke cleared away.
His eyes blinking open, Reichen lifted his head and found himself no longer isolated on the narrow bridge of cold black stone, but in the center of a large bed. He was curled over the small form of Claire’s body, still shielding her, even though the dark dream had finally released them.
He stroked her cheek. “Claire, are you all right? Open your eyes for me, sweetheart.”
No response.
Panic twisted in his gut. He said her name again, more choked this time for the alarming look of her as she lay motionless across his lap, her silky black hair falling loosely over her cold, sallow brow. He took her slender shoulders in his hands and gave her listless body a firm shake.
“Claire. Wake up now.”
An icy pain stabbed him as he leaned down and pressed his mouth to her parched, cracked lips. She was so weak… starving. The piercing jab he was feeling now belonged to her. He felt the severity of her hunger echoing in his blood, keening in his veins.
He thought back to the endless dream, and the swamping, unrelenting weight of it. How long had it been since he was last awake? He remembered storming Dragos’s vacated lair with the Order. He remembered