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  “Zoe Helios,” he says and my heart embraces his voice, the smoky warmth of it, the way it counters the coolness of his white-blonde hair and pale skin, the clear gray of his eyes. He might look like an ice prince on the outside, but a fire burns inside him. “Told you I’d see you soon.”

  I draw a final steadying breath and exhale deeply. “Sorry I had to go yesterday,” I say. “My grandmother was calling.”

  “I figured,” he says, frown softening, smile growing. He looks me up and down, though not in a creepy way. “Are you all right?” Did he witness my exodus? Not that he hasn’t seen me travel on the flame before. The fire must have released me in his presence since it was his face that saved me from the draw of heat. Still, I’m usually much more careful.

  “I’m fine.” I slip my lighter into my pocket, now wondering how I’m going to get home.

  If the flames are betraying me now… fear ripples through me. What if this devouring energy comes from Gaia herself? From my doubt? Is this some means she has to punish those who move against her gifts? Panic like I’ve never felt drives stakes of fear through me, and I stagger back against the wall again, a wash of tears escaping before I can stop them.

  Piers lunges for me, catches me in his hands, holds me up as my knees crumple. Why did I never consider this possibility? I’ve been so arrogant, pushing the boundaries of my gifts, doubting everything I’ve been taught. If I’m wrong, I deserve to be consumed.

  “Zoe, it’s all right.” He holds me against his chest, partially inside his floor-length coat. I feel the heat of his body through his thin dress shirt, the lean muscles pressing to me and I hug him on impulse, just wanting something normal to cling to. Though, he’s far from normal. His darkness pools at his feet, more powerful than any sorcery I’ve ever felt.

  “Sorry,” I whisper into his chest, pulling away after a moment. While I’ve longed for this kind of contact, it feels weak to lean on him. No matter the visions I’ve had of the two of us together, the emotions I feel for him, they aren’t real. At least, not yet. And maybe never if I’ve destroyed my true connection to my Goddess through doubt and distrust.

  “Any time.” He lets me go without a fight, though he remains where he is. Kayden’s close proximity only a short time ago felt nothing like this. I’m not threatened by Piers, never have been. In fact, I have a powerful urge to reach up and grasp Piers around the neck, to pull his lips down to mine and enact one of the powerful foreseeings I’ve experienced right here and now. Instead, I run a shaking hand over my mouth and do my best to still the fear in my heart. “Want to talk about it?

  “I can’t.” Why do I still resist him so much? We’ve been sharing these stolen moments for two years, and yet I haven’t been able to bring myself to betray my family, to tell him anything no matter how I feel about him. He’s been good enough not to ask in the past, beyond soft offers like this one. He has far more patience than I do. “I’m sorry.”

  Piers shakes his head, frown returning, hands held up to ward off my words. “You know I’m here for you if you need anything,” he says. “No strings attached. I always have been, Zoe.”

  Can I believe him? My heart begs me to, but my new fear I’ve somehow damaged my connection to my Goddess is at war now with the resolve I felt talking with the twins and Ash.

  “Why?” It’s not fair of me to challenge his kindness. He’s been good to me, gentle and friendly. And though I know it has to be driving him mad, not knowing who and what I really am, he’s never shown me anything but sweet patience. I guess I’m just in a confrontational mood after everything I’ve been through the last day and a half. And I’m taking it out on the one person who has never judged or pushed me. “Why do you care?”

  Piers shrugs, smiles one of his long, sultry grins, gray eyes sparkling. “You’re a mystery to me,” he says. “I like that, I suppose.”

  He likes not knowing? I catch myself laughing, just a short burst of it, feeling slightly hysterical.

  “I’m no stranger to women of power,” he says, leaning against the wall, looking down at me with his hands back in his pockets, the epitome of non-threatening though he has no idea the scent of him alone is distraction beyond measure. “But they are open books, for the most part. I understand them, their motivations. Why they do what they do. You, Zoe Helios, on the other hand…” He winks slowly. “You are another matter entirely. And though I wish I could convince you to trust me, I’m rather enjoying our time together, as brief as it is.”

  “So am I.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them—

  —his lips are soft, but eager, his hands hot on your skin as he slips his long, lean body over yours, the fire of his spirit linking to you—

  Piers is holding my arm again as I lurch from the vision. I can’t help the creeping blush heating my cheeks, though I miss his touch when he releases me. Does he guess what I saw just then? He is aware I’m an Oracle, after all, though in the dark as to how my power works. If so, he doesn’t comment, simply waits for me to pull myself together.

  I hug my ribs with both hands, heart pounding, before nodding to him. “Sorry,” I say. “You were saying?”

  If he was speaking, I missed it, but he seems willing to go on. “This might not be the best place to talk.” He looks around, hands slipping back into the pockets of his longcoat. I shrug, now chilled as sometimes happens after a vision takes me. “Feel like a little sand and surf?”

  A black tunnel forms beside him and I smile, body relaxing. It’s our favorite thing to do, aside from walking the streets together. And we have our own personal quiet stretch of beach we found a few months ago.

  Piers holds out one hand to me. “After you, Zoe.”

  The moment I pass through the black, the fire in me wakes, pushing back the sucking drain on my power. My own sorcery forms black flames and holds ground for the three heartbeats it takes to exit the other side. There is no pressure to remain in the fire, and the experience actually cools the need of the flame inside me. Piers stares at me as we step out onto an empty stretch of beach, the surf pounding against the sand and the cry of seabirds making me sad for some reason.

  “Something’s different.” He shakes his head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I’m not cold anymore. If anything, I’m too warm, the sun overhead beating down on the two of us, the simmering fire inside me adding to the heat. I shrug out of my sweater, tank-top much better suited to our location. “Better now.”

  Piers shakes his head, blond hair swinging around his shoulders. It’s so long and looks like strands of colorless silk. I wonder how it will feel against my bare skin and have to throw sorcery at the flames to keep a vision from rising.

  “I’ve never felt anything like your magic before,” he says, taking a step away from me, looking poised and aristocratic against the backdrop of the ocean. “You have access to the fire elemental power, but it’s somehow tied directly to your sorcery, not outside it.” He looks at me like I’m a puzzle he’d like to decipher before grinning. “Sorry,” he says. “I told you I like a mystery.”

  I’m half tempted to explain, the words rising to my lips. Wouldn’t he love to know that unlike other magic users, our power is fed directly through our sorcery, not detached as other races. But before I can answer, a distant expression comes over his face, and I can only guess his mind is far away. After only a moment, he relaxes and smiles at me, though he looks oddly sad.

  “I have to go.” Piers offers one hand and I take it, though I don’t expect him to bend over it and kiss the back. Just the brush of his lips on my skin is almost too much and I’m fighting the visions again. He watches with careful eyes, but doesn’t ask me what’s wrong, thankfully. I have no desire to tell him of the things I’ve seen the two of us do. At least not until I’m ready to do something about it.

  I have to trust the visions know perfect timing.

  “I don’t want to leave you.” He releases my hand despite his words. “It gets harder and harder
every time, Zoe, no matter how few moments we spend together.”

  I shrug, lick my lips. “I know,” I say, surprised when my lips keep moving. “One of these days, we need to do something about that.” Did I really just proposition him so blatantly? Piers’s grin tells me he’s happy about it. And I am, too, Gaia forgive me. I want to know him, really know him, not just through the sexualized prequels of my visions.

  “I’ll meet you here,” he says. “From now on. Just come to this spot and call my name with your very unusual power.” Piers takes a step back, another, a tunnel of black forming behind him. “Consider me yours, Zoe Helios.” And then, he’s gone.

  I’m tingling all over from the meeting, from fighting the visions and sink to the sand to fall into them—

  —his lips burn on yours, his power engulfing you, naked skin hot against your flesh, long hair winding around your quivering body as you both moan your need into the night—

  I emerge a short time later, blushing furiously, but eager to see him again, for real, in the flesh.

  I might burn in a hell of my own making, but the visions I’ve seen tell me he, at least, is my destiny and I won’t fight Gaia on that truth.

  ***

  Chapter Nine

  I walk the beach for a half hour, finally heading into the city. It’s all the time I can risk being away from the sanctuary. Any second now, my grandmother could come looking for me and after finally agreeing to further my relationship with Piers, I can’t have her interfering.

  My sandals slap on the pavement as I duck into an alley and risk riding the fire. I have to try it, can’t believe the flames will turn on me after all this time. Terror rises despite my attempt at reassurance, though when I reach for the flame with hesitant power, it welcomes me like it always does and carries me without incident to the entry portal at the sanctuary.

  I stand there in the cool of the underground for a long moment, shaking and sending gratitude to Gaia. Surely if she wanted to punish me, if my questioning and rebellion against what I’ve been taught were against my Goddess, she would have taken this time to devour me completely. The fact I stand here in the quiet of the sanctuary tells me my fears were just that.

  At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe for the moment.

  “Zoe.” I look up with a soft gasp, into angry, pale amber eyes. Liander’s thin mouth frowns at me, slicked back hair from his sharp widow’s peak shining with gel in the light. The portal room is a fair size, but it feels tiny with him standing there, staring at me with anger in his gaze.

  “Liander.” I dip a quick bow of my head. “Excuse me.”

  His hand snaps out, grabs my elbow as I try to slip past him. He’s barely my height, dressed in a pinstriped suit and bright red tie, but he feels like a poser, someone to whom appearances are everything. I have an irrational thought his height must give him a complex when he shakes me with his hand and his power.

  “You were to meet me in your grandmother’s chambers last night.” His fingers tighten further, grinding the bones of my elbow enough a soft cry escapes me. “Where have you been?”

  How could I have forgotten? And it’s not like him to fail to remind me of my transgressions loudly and with contempt.

  I do my best to appear contrite. “Forgive me,” I say, bowing my head again, assuming my submissive role though I hate myself for giving in so easily. “The oversight wasn’t intentional.”

  I keep my eyes firmly on the tips of his shiny dress shoes, the seconds ticking by. I almost look up just to see his expression when he speaks.

  “You’ve been absent minded and rebellious to orders of late,” he says, turning and pulling me along with him. “Perhaps it’s time we curtailed your freedom in order to remind you just how generous we’ve been.”

  My stomach clenches as I hurry along beside him, feeling a wash of his anger sizzle against me. There’s nothing I can say in response. Experience has taught me I’m better off pleading my case to Sibyl.

  He falls silent as well, though his temper only seems to grow in heat as he stomps his way past a few of my cousins who stare a moment before averting their eyes. What are they afraid of? That same rebellion Liander accused me of a moment ago wakes in a rush and begs to push back against him, clearly showing me his weakness. How pitiful his power compared to mine. How sad and pathetic this little tantrum of his. I remember being terrified of the sorcery he commanded when I was a little girl. But this man beside me feels more petulant and bitter than formidable.

  By the time he slams open my grandmother’s ornately carved wooden door and shoves me inside her equally elaborate quarters, my anger is crackling inside me and ready to explode.

  “Zoe.” Sibyl rises from her chair, a heavy, throne-like seat near her fireplace. Her rooms are grand, the ceilings towering, antique furniture and a colorful Persian rug making it feel like ancient Greece. She’s no exception, her coil of gray hair falling from its usual knot to hang almost to her feet, brushing against the hem of her gold-belted white robe. Though most of us have adopted more trendy apparel, my grandmother clings yet to the old country. Even her soft accent makes her feel like a true child of Delphi and always arouses awe in me.

  “Grandmother.” I ignore Liander’s lingering anger and step to her side, kissing both of her cheeks. Her lips are as cold and dry as always, hands too as they gently grip my shoulders.

  “You failed to come to us last night.” There is no accusation in her face or voice, but I am well aware she is a master of guilt. This time, I accept my subtle punishment and nod.

  “As I told him,” I say, still not looking at her sorcerer mate, “I am truly sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Of course it won’t.” She rewards me with a cool smile before raising an eyebrow to Liander who fumes as he pours himself a large goblet of dark wine. “It’s just concerning when you fail to obey, Zoe. It worries me.”

  More than ever, I feel like a prisoner here. There have been times I’ve wriggled against her controls, but never before have I experienced this powerful surge of nervousness, like I’m in a cage I will never escape, my wings clipped.

  “What did you want to see me about?” Better to change the subject and get to the point. The quicker I escape the better.

  Liander’s fist slams down on the table, the decanter of wine jumping under the blow. “First you will tell us where you’ve been.”

  It’s hard not to show contempt, but I know doing so will only make things worse. They can’t know my feelings have shifted. I focus on Sibyl who, at least, I respect. “Am I no longer allowed to come and go, Grandmother? Am I to consider myself chained to the sanctuary?”

  Irritation flickers over her face. “Of course not, Zoe,” she says, the smoothness leaving her voice, words taking on a bite. “But you have responsibilities, and I’ve been observing a rise in disobedience from you.”

  I am that obvious. “I like walking the distant halls,” I say, telling at least enough of the truth she won’t suspect there is more to it. “The center of the sanctuary is my home, but there are times the visions are too much and I need to breathe.” Also true, though the extended network of maze-like halls and corridors of the underground city, long abandoned by whomever created it, no longer offer me the true escape I need. Though Sibyl would never understand that. When was the last time she even left the core?

  She comes to me in a rush, embracing me with a sympathetic sigh. “My dear,” she says. “You only need to tell me. I can help you adapt as the visions become stronger.” She smiles, though it feels plastic to me in my present state of mind and I suddenly feel she only cares for the things I see, not for me. Ridiculous, of course. She’s taken personal responsibility for me since my mother died and I’m grateful for her love and attention.

  I nod, smile back though I don’t feel like it. “I know, thank you.”

  She releases me, patting my cheek with cold finger tips. “I hope your head has been sufficiently cleared by your time above,” she says, tu
rning away from me to retake her seat. “Tonight, we do a seeking, and I want you to lead it.”

  I bow my head to her and don’t comment. It used to be her job to lead vision seekings, but she’s been placing me in that role for the last few months. I’ve begun to wonder if she’s grooming me to take her place, though I can’t see Sibyl ever relinquishing her role as our leader.

  “My honor,” I say. And then my traitor mind blurts a question. “Is this seeking for ourselves or clients?” Sibyl’s brow furrows as I rush on. “Grandmother, I don’t mean to question your leadership. But there are times I wonder at our loss of purpose.”

  Something hits me from behind, sending me staggering forward. I turn when I retain my balance to find Liander standing behind me, one fist raised, the same one he just struck me with between the shoulders.

  “Your purpose,” he snarls at me while I stare at him in shock, “is to serve the Light.” He thumps his chest with that same fist. “Through me.” So much rage and frustration in him, it oozes out like pus from a wound. My rebellious snap is gone in the face of his fury. He’s never struck me before, and when I turn to meet my grandmother’s eyes, I know I’ll find no protector in her. She stares down her nose at me, cold and judging.

  “Liander might be right,” she says. “I may give you too much latitude, too much responsibility.”

  I shiver as I stand there, silent and contrite. I just want this to be over. And then what, Zoe Helios? What will you do? I don’t have an answer to that question as my grandmother speaks again.

  “You’ve disappointed us, Zoe,” she says. “See to it that never happens again.”

  I bow a hasty retreat, dodging Liander and spinning to run out the door, not caring it’s obvious I’m fleeing out of upset. Let them know they’ve hurt me, made me fear again.

  They’ve only strengthened my resolve to find out the truth.