The Brightest Night (Origin 3)

Grayson said nothing, not for several moments. “I wouldn’t let you do it again. I’d probably end up dead in the process, and if not, definitely dead afterward, but I won’t let it come to that.”

What he said wasn’t a threat. At least I didn’t take it that way, so I nodded. I don’t know why, but I suddenly wondered if I’d misjudged the source of Grayson’s loyalty. I thought about what Grayson had done for Luc after he’d healed me, and how shocked he’d been when he’d learned I was Nadia. There were other instances that now appeared in a different light to me, and I thought that maybe I now knew why he seemed to dislike me.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked.

How he knew that I was doing just that since he was still looking at the bedroom was beyond me, and I told myself not to ask the question that was rolling to the tip of my tongue, but neither my brain nor mouth listened. “Do you love him?”

Grayson looked over at me then. “You think that’s why I don’t like you?”

Well, that was a blunt response, so I gave him an answer equally matter-of-fact. “Yes.”

He dipped his chin, chuckling. My brows lifted as he slowly shook his head. “Would it bother you if I said yes?”

I mulled that over. “No. It wouldn’t.”

“Because he loves you?”

“Yes,” I answered. “And he has to know that you love him. He knows almost everything. It doesn’t bother him.”

“I’m sure he does know.” There was a pause. “But you’re wrong about one thing. I don’t hate you.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could even figure out what to say, Grayson had stepped back and disappeared around the side of the house. He didn’t hate me? A strangled laugh escaped me as I turned back to the door. I saw no reason why Grayson would lie. Wasn’t like he ever worried about my feelings before. I picked up the bag and then hurried over to the firepit, thinking that Grayson had to be the most complicated person I’d ever met.

And boy, wasn’t that saying something.* * *The bag was gone by the following afternoon, no note left behind. I tried not to be disappointed about that and just relieved that Nate was still out there, surviving whatever way he could.

I didn’t tell Luc about my conversation with Grayson, and if he’d picked up on it at any point, he didn’t mention it.

And neither did Grayson over the next three days, while I’d become very good at using the Source to stop objects and even people. Grayson had been the test dummy for that round of training, much to his displeasure. Since he acted as if he and I never had that conversation, I decided I’d follow his lead. What he sort of admitted to didn’t bother me. Luc was, well, he was lovable when he wanted to be, and I was just sort of relieved Grayson was capable of feeling any emotion instead of distaste or hate.

But even Luc had been impressed by how good I was getting with the Source. And it wasn’t the empty, supportive kind of impressed, because I virtually froze Grayson and then later Zoe. Neither of them could break my hold on them.

It even had taken Luc quite a bit of time to snap free of my hold, and it had required me to use even more of the Source. By the time we were done, there was a tension to the set of his shoulders, and the lines around his mouth reminded me of the other time we’d worked on the Source. I’d worried it had to do with my feeding, but he assured me he was fine.

So, I was feeling pretty good about all of that, but when the classroom with wall-to-wall windows we’d commandeered that afternoon was pitched into sudden, complete darkness and the temperatures dropped to near freezing, I couldn’t suppress the shiver that spun its way down my spine. I couldn’t see anything, and based on Zoe’s soft curse, she couldn’t, either.

“Show-off,” Luc muttered from somewhere inside the classroom. He’d been sitting on the desk. Now, he could literally be anywhere.

Somehow, Luc had wrangled Hunter into working on the non-Luxen variety of my abilities, which apparently included turning day to night. Part of me thought that Hunter might’ve been secretly relieved to be doing something. There was a haunting sadness that settled on his features every so often, and I knew he was thinking of his brother then.

I lifted my hand, unable to see it. “How did you do that?”

“Ssskill,” Hunter replied, and since he was in his true form, his voice sounded like shadows and smoke. It sounded just like the voice of Sarah, and mine when we had spoken telepathically to one another. “I’m usssing the Sssource to obssscure my presssence.”