by Abigail Owen
She pulled Lila’s light into herself, ice blue this time, and explored for a few minutes. There were definitely two separate abilities, both very subtle with lots of potential uses and applications.
“Woo! Lila, you will have some fun mastering these skills,” Ellie assured her friend with a conspiratorial grin. Ellie concentrated on the one part that she was most interested in at the moment.
“Oh!” She suddenly realized that she and Griffin together would be more effective showing anyone how to use their power. She could tap in, and Griffin could show them what he saw her doing with it, a much more effective method.
Griffin was already walking toward her when she looked up to call him over. Everyone else had apparently decided to join him.
“It seemed like everyone was coming over, so we figured we might as well get front row seats,” Hugh said.
“That was quite an impressive display,” Lucy added, giving Ramsey a hug.
Alex moved to stand beside her. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Did I say amazing? You are so incredible you take my breath away, Miss Aubrey.”
Ellie shivered with pleasure at his words and the nearness of his body.
Griffin moved and took both her and Lila’s hands, making a little circle. Between the two of them, they showed Lila how to start manipulating her ability to heal people’s emotions. In Ramsey’s case, she could help him find the peace that would take away his anger and his anxiety, giving him the control he required. The peace already resided there inside him. She just directed him to it to help it grow and overpower the anger and fear.
It would take a long time before Lila would master it. But today, at least, they could help her learn enough of it to help Ramsey.
Lila was glowing with her newly discovered abilities by the time they were done.
“Sensing other people’s emotions always came in handy, but not in any active way,” she enthused. “It’s going to be awesome to be able to do something.”
Ellie shared her pride. “Don’t discount your other gift,” she encouraged. “There’s a lot more to it than you even realize yet. We can work more on it later if you want.” Looking to Ramsey, she added, “You ready?”
Ramsey shot an indecipherable look at Lila and then nodded.
Ellie and Griffin took Ramsey’s hands, while Lila took Ellie’s other hand just in case she needed her help.
Coordinating every one of their four powers in such a way that allowed Ellie to teach Ramsey was quite a test. He started off slowly.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed as what was supposed to be a six inch flame leapt six feet up into the air.
Ellie touched the red glow inside him. “Feel that?” she asked, as she controlled the flame, keeping it from going higher.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, hold onto that. It’s almost like you’re instructing the flame on what to do.”
“Uh-huh,” Ramsey grunted.
“Okay, I’m giving you back control. Got it?”
“Got it…” Ellie could practically feel the excitement explode through Ramsey, his grip tightening almost painfully. “Oh my God! I do! I have it.” The flame shrank down to six inches and then seemed to do a little dance.
“Excellent!” Ellie enthused. “Now let’s try projecting it…”
At the end of about an hour of concentrated effort, Ramsey could regulate his emotions, though still with Lila’s help, and bring out a small flame in his hand for an extended period of time without its going wild.
“It’s going to take a lot more work to expand your control and make it a mastered skill,” Ellie warned Ramsey at the end of the session.
Ramsey nodded his understanding.
“I also suspect that you’ll need Lila close by for several more years before being able to master the emotional side of your ability on your own,” Ellie added.
Ramsey appeared visibly pleased, and certainly more relaxed than Ellie had ever seen him. Griffin mentally told her, “Until today, he’d thought his gift would consume him and possibly someone he loved. He thought he might have to stay away from people for the rest of his life. That he might have to leave his family if he didn’t get a grip sometime soon. And now, all of that had changed in the space of an evening.” It explained a lot about Ramsey’s personality.
Exhaustion washed over Ellie, but she powered through. With Griffin’s help, she showed Charlotte how to teleport without the popping sound. Ellie would’ve gone on to work on teleporting groups of people with Charlotte, but Alex shook his head at her.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” he told her privately. Ellie agreed.
As soon as they got home, Alex murmured something to Lucy, who then shooed them all out of the kitchen as she started on dinner.
Alex grabbed Ellie’s hand and led her up to her bedroom. Once he got her there, he said, “You’re dead on your feet.” He pulled her onto the bed and tried to get her to lie down. She pulled away slightly and shot him a half-impressed, half-irritated look.
“I’m going to have to get used to how well you seem to read me,” she grumbled good -naturedly. “Usually only Griffin can figure me out, and he’s cheating,” she smiled as she tapped her temple.
“Mmmm…” He tugged her down to snuggle with him. “It seems like we both have a lot to get used to.” He placed a tender kiss to the back of her neck. “You can work on being harder to read later. For now, let’s sleep until dinner. I’ve wanted to hold you in my arms for a long time you know,” he whispered.
“Mmmm… feels better than I dreamt,” Ellie breathed as she slipped into blissful sleep.
“Me too, baby.” Alex closed his eyes.
After dinner, Alex moved Ramsey into Ellie’s bedroom with Griffin and brought her into his room. Both were still somewhat old-fashioned from their upbringing, and by unspoken mutual agreement, knew that they would spend the time in the room simply getting to know one another and growing their relationship.
“Tell me about yourself.” Ellie prompted, as she finished stuffing the last of her clothes into a dresser drawer.
Alex chuckled. “What do you want to know?” he asked, watching her from the bed as she flitted around the room like a little pixie.
Ellie bounced over beside him. Sitting cross-legged, she took his hand, unable to resist touching him. “Let’s start with where you come from.”
“I was born in Louisiana in the late 1800s, shortly after the Civil War ended,” Alex said.
“You don’t have an accent though!” Ellie exclaimed.
Alex laughed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken with any discernible accent,” he drawled in a thick southern twang. “Or if you prefer, I can bring out my bayou roots, chere,” he continued in an even thicker Cajun drawl.
Ellie giggled. “That one’s kinda sexy,” she teased. “Who were your parents?”
Alex gathered his memories for a second before speaking. “My mother was the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. My father was a poor sharecropper who rented land from her family. I never knew my father. He was killed, not in battle, but by a band of thieves as he was making his way home after fighting bravely for the South.”
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said softly.
Alex shrugged. Turning her hand over in his, he started tracing the delicate veins in her wrists. “Like I said, I never knew him.” He looked up into her eyes. He hadn’t shared this part of himself with anyone in a very long time. His new adoptive family knew bits and pieces, but he rarely talked about his early life.
“I was raised by my mother and her parents until I was ten,” he continued.
Ellie tipped her head to the side, considering his last statement. “Until you started coming into your powers?”
Alex nodded. “I couldn’t control them at first. And it scared her. Scared them all. So one day my mother packed a bag and took me to my grandfather. My father’s dad, who was still a sharecropper on a plantation a few counties over.”
“She just dumped
you on someone else?” Ellie was shocked. Nothing but death could ever have separated her own mother from her children. She couldn’t understand any woman doing something like that.
Alex shrugged, solemn. “Don’t be too hard on her, Ellie. She was heartbroken about it. I was very young, but I still remember that. But she was just a normal person. My power must have been terrifying to her.”
Ellie just shook her head.
Alex continued, “In hindsight, it was the best thing she ever could’ve done for me. I had inherited my powers through Grandfather, although my mother hadn’t been aware of that when she took me there. Sharecropping was a very difficult life. Although my mother left me her inheritance when she died many years later, we didn’t benefit from that for quite some time. But I had Grandfather, who taught me everything I know about my power, tutored me in it. He was a wonderful man, strong, dependable, and very funny. He died fighting in World War I. I’m very proud to have known him, to have been related to him.”
Ellie’s heart swelled. Alex had been loved, just like her. And just like her he had lost all of his family. But maybe even worse, since she’d had Griffin at least. Alex had been alone.
“That must’ve been so hard. When did Lucy find you?” she asked.
Alex grinned. “You know about that habit of hers, huh?”
It was Ellie’s turn to shrug. “Yeah, Griffin heard about it one night when we were just keeping tabs on you all from a distance.”
“Mmmm, well, Lucy found me not long after I returned to Louisiana after the Great War.” Alex paused for a second, a small half smile on his lips. He brushed a stray hair back from her face. “I’m lucky to have had three families in my lifetime.”
“But your mother deserted you,” Ellie said, confused.
“Yes, but I was very loved and happy those first ten years of my life. And I’ve long since forgiven her for her fear and ignorance.”
Ellie leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Alex in a tight hug. “How did I get so lucky to find you?” she murmured.
Ellie squeaked as Alex tumbled her onto her back. Leaning over her, he placed a sweet kiss on her mouth. “Not nearly as much as I am to have found you,” he breathed against her softly parted lips.
They spent the rest of the night talking, getting to know their other halves, their te’sorthene, and eventually falling asleep in each other’s arms until morning. Both feeling blessed by what they had discovered together.
Chapter 30
Ellie awoke to the sensation of a sweet, lingering kiss. She opened her eyes to Alex’s smoldering gaze.
“Hi, sleepyhead,” he greeted her with a tender smile. He softly cupped her face with one hand.
“Hi.” She returned a shy smile and leaned into his caress. As consciousness returned, she sat up with a gasp.
Alex put a finger to her lips. “Everything’s fine… I have a surprise for you. Come on. Get dressed. I have something I want to show you.”
She tipped her head to the side. He looked so pleased with himself. It would’ve been cute, if he hadn’t been so ruggedly handsome. Cute just wasn’t a word you’d readily apply to Alex…more like drop dead, gobsmackingly, hunkalicious…
“I’ll wait for you downstairs. Dress warmly,” he instructed and left the room, softly closing the door behind him.
Ellie hurriedly got dressed, brushed her teeth and hair, and headed downstairs.
“What’s up?” she whispered as she met Alex in the living room.
He gave her a fast, hard kiss and handed her a jacket. Taking her hand, he led her outside.
“It’s snowing!” Ellie exclaimed. It seemed way too late in the season for it to still be snowing. Smiling, Alex led her into the woods and up to the middle of the clearing where they had practiced earlier. Facing her, he took both her hands in his.
“You’re not using your power on me, right?” he asked.
“I told you I don’t do that to friends without asking permission first,” she confirmed, head tilted slightly sideways, still trying to figure out what he was up to.
“Then close your eyes.”
Ellie raised her eyebrows but complied. She felt him lean in and brush her lips with a feather-light kiss. The cold no longer bothered Ellie as lovely warmth washed over her.
“Now open them,” Alex said.
Ellie opened her eyes and let out an astonished gasp. All of the falling snow around them was frozen in place, mid-fall. It looked exquisite...magical…miraculous. Like glitter hanging on invisible strings all around her. She threw her head back and laughed with delight as she reached out to touch one of the snowflakes. Then, like a child, she put her arms out and twirled, her hair and clothes, catching bits and pieces of snow as she did. Alex chuckled beside her and she stilled, came back to him and linked her arms around his neck. She pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
“May I?”
“Be my guest.” He clasped his arms behind her waist, pulling her in closer.
Ellie laid her hand on his cheek. Closing her eyes, she concentrated. There it was... that light glowing inside Alex, a bright golden light. She could almost feel its warmth. She pulled it inside her, under her control.
She opened her eyes, a soft smile playing around her lips. “Wow! So you can freeze anything you want with your mind?”
“With a few limitations, yes.” He frowned. “I struggled with slowing the bleeding in your leg without blocking the blood flow that night. And apparently, holding a pack of metamorph wolves still in mid-fight might take some more practice. And I can’t reverse a course of events usually. Every once in a while, like when you drove into that tree…” he gave her a hard look, “I can nudge things in a different direction.”
“Hmmm…” she murmured, fascinated. “Let’s see… you don’t seem to have limits of size. It looks as though you could freeze everything on an entire mountain if you wanted to. And you could freeze things down to tiny increments. Cells within bodies. You could be very dangerous if you weren’t such a good person,” she teased.
“Anything else?” He was clearly amused at her clinical assessment of his skills.
“Looking…” She concentrated harder. “You can pick and choose what you freeze. Like the snow and wind but not us. And…” She grimaced and snapped open her eyes. “You said you were born shortly after the Civil War, right?”
Alex looked vaguely confused. “Right. I’m not that much younger than you. Closing in on a century and a half. Why?”
Ellie’s frown deepened. “You said your grandfather taught you to use your skill. Did he spend much time working with you on it?”
“Yes,” he said. “My power’s pretty much an exact clone of his. We spent most evenings practicing. How’d you know?”
“It seems like you’ve mastered your abilities to the fullest extent of the possibilities, at least the ones I can see…I’m impressed!”
“Is there something strange about that?”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Ego-alert, darlin’,” she drawled. “Only you would be unimpressed with this.” She looked at him with loving amusement.
“You know that when I touch Svatura, I can see the full extent of their capabilities. You’ve seen me do it, right? And because I’m still learning and perfecting my own abilities, I still miss things sometimes. Or, a better way to put that is that I still discover the uses and extent to others’ powers in stages, like they would, but it’s speeded up a bit.”
He nodded.
“You are the only person, and granted my experience with this is limited, but you’re the only one ever who’s mastered the nuances by your age.”
Alex took a moment to think about this. Looking at her with stunned eyes, he pulled a hand from behind her back to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Shrugging casually, he said, “What can I tell you? I’m sure it’s because of my grandfather’s tutelage.”
Ellie felt almost irritated by his seemingly casual acceptance of what, to her, seemed inconceivable.
�
�I don’t think you’re getting exactly what a big deal this is,” she insisted. “I haven’t even mastered my skills yet, although I can see what the potential is. Which, by the way, is highly frustrating for me.”
Alex looked down into her earnest expression. Wrapping his arms around her, he gave her a gentle hug. “I can’t explain it, baby. But maybe I’ll be able to pass it on to our children one day.”
Ellie froze. Everything. Her breath, her thoughts, her heart. All frozen. And not due to Alex manipulating her. This feeling was just her reaction to his statement. Alex pulled back and looked down into her eyes, slightly worried by her lack of any reaction or movement.
“Children?” she finally croaked, a little shell-shocked.
Alex nodded. And then, with a heart-wrenchingly earnest expression he said, “I love you, Ellie. You are my te’sorthene. You are the center of my life now. We can take things slow. We have all the time in the world. But you should know all of this.” He watched her reaction closely, and breathed a huge sigh of relief as she started to smile and then caught it again as that smile became so beautiful it was breathtaking.
Her smile turned mischievous. “I hope you’re planning on making an honest woman of me before the kiddos come along.”
“Mmmm… that would be the plan,” he agreed.
Ellie looked deep into his eyes. “I love you with everything I have in me. My life is wherever you are from now on.”
Almost before she’d even finished speaking, Alex’s mouth covered hers, stealing her breath. His arms pulled her tight against the length of his body. The world melted away in the heat of the kiss. As his tongue snaked out and touched the seam of her lips, Ellie willingly parted them, allowing him more intimate access. Alex released a groan as their tongues intertwined.
Suddenly he moved, and Ellie found herself lying on a pile of soft snow, Alex’s length covering hers. He pinned her beneath him, and Ellie reveled in the feel of his hard body above her. Kissing his way down the column of her throat, Alex nibbled back up to her ear, taking the lobe between his teeth and tugging gently. Shivers of ecstasy raced through her body.
