Chapter 17 - Hector

It was horrifying to see a thunderstorm right in the middle of my living room. Though it was logical because Faye was going through a lot, I was concerned about the water damage—and the damage to Faye herself. These two people from her past had appeared out of nowhere and were basically threatening to break us up. That must have felt scary for her.

A tornado touched down on the carpet and started to spin. Photographs were torn from the wall. Pillows were tossed around. Cushions from the couch launched in a spiral, spinning around in a way that was so dizzying I had to look away. Faye was just standing in the doorway, her eyes wide, her irises whited out.

I knew I had to make things right with her.

Kylie and Fred were standing on the other side of the table, staring in horror at their friend. I took that as a sign that they didn't know that she had powers. She had managed to keep it under wraps for so long that she had probably stifled a lot of her skills.

Now, she was exploding with an unmatched potency—and absolutely no limits.

Kylie pressed her palms to her cheeks. "Is she doing that?" She had to shout to be heard over the racket.

As much as I wanted to explain things to them, I knew now wasn't the right time. I had to get Faye under control. I had to get her to calm down so she didn't destroy the house. The Spears had already indicated their alarming recollections with their own child. And it made me wonder how many times she had done this before.

Was it just the one time the tornado ruined her family home, or had there been other times when the storms that came were because of Faye? The tiniest sliver of fear appeared in my core, making me doubt exactly what I had done by mating with her, exactly who I had just mated with.

I gritted my teeth. No, I must make things right. I must fix this.

Now wasn't the time to start doubting. If I got too confused, then I would ruin my chance of getting her to calm down—or worse, I wouldn't be able to protect her if the demons decided to attack right this second. The wind whirled through the kitchen, creating another pool of spirals that knocked things off the counter and threw the mail around. Paper fluttered into the windows, some smacking me in the face. At this point, the living room was leveled.

Fred caught Kylie's shoulder. "Somebody has to stop her."

I reached for Faye and tried to grab her shoulder, but there was a force field around her that prevented me from touching her. "Damn it." I shook my hand, feeling the leftover burn from being zapped.

This wasn't good. I desperately swung at the force field, getting thwarted and burned at every turn. The harder I struck, the harder the bounce back. Faye seemed to be caught in her own meltdown, an invisible forest that kept anyone from touching or reaching her. I stood just outside the force field that was about six inches thick over her whole body.

It was like a protective egg made of something thick and invisible at the same time.

I held up a hand to it. "Faye, it's me. You have to stop."

She didn't hear me—or she didn't want to hear me. Her face was blank, and her eyes were still white. Tiny bolts of electricity fluttered over her skin, her bare legs, her feet. The mark on her neck glowed with an eerie lime-colored light. I didn't like that. It felt foreboding—it felt threatening .

"Faye, it's me. You need to get back to earth. You need to get back here!" I reached for her again, frustrated by what stood between us. "Son of a—" I grunted as I slammed the field again.

There weren't many things in this world I was afraid of but losing her was at the top of the list. Just the thought of never being able to communicate with her again made my entire body shudder with anguish. How desperate it made me. How jittery I became at the sudden possibility of forfeiting our bond.

Kylie and Fred ran up on either side of me.

"How do we get her out?" Fred reached for the egg-shaped field, rubbing his fingers together when it zapped him. "It feels like a different kind of magic."

Kylie worriedly reached out. I could see her fingers shaking as she tried to make sense of the forcefield. "I just don't understand. I never knew that she had this kind of power. What's going on?"

I shook my head as they both looked to me for answers. "I don't know. All I can say is that when her emotions get out of control, she starts to make a storm." I worriedly looked at my mate, her hair floating ethereally around her face. "I've never seen it to this extent, though."

The tornado intensified, swirling around the room and picking up everything in its path, destroying things, launching them in different directions. The thunder that growled through the house made the walls shake. It threatened to burst the windows. I half-expected glass to rain down from the ceiling. Every time I thought it was going to start raining, the wind picked up and made the tornado accelerate.

Everything seemed to come to a great crescendo, and another thunderous banging persisted in the background. This storm was about to destroy the house. It would probably destroy everything that I had built with her as well. If I couldn't reach her now, then what was I supposed to do in the future? How were we supposed to have children if she had power that got out of control like this every time?

Leave her .

I tossed the thought away. That was a terrible thing to think at the moment. How could I leave her when she needed me the most?

There was no sense of regulation with her. It was hot or cold. It was all power. No power. Had I done this? Had I caused so much chaos in her life that I turned her into this remarkably eccentric magician?

The drumbeat of thunder beyond everything came crashing through, and then the front door ripped right off the hinges, flailing around in a tailspin that came right toward us. I rushed Kylie and Fred out of the way, telling them to duck behind the kitchen table.

"Faye, watch out!"

The door swung right through Faye and flew over the kitchen table into the wall. Wood splintered in all directions, spattering the table and walls.

I gaped at the mess. That was impossible. I'd never seen things materialize right through her. She was starting to reach a level of magic that I couldn't understand or define.

Maybe it's not her , I thought frightfully. Maybe something else is doing this to her .

Someone shouted over the tornado. I peered through the doorway to see Cliff fighting his way through the swirling wind with his arms up over his head. How he was managing to get through the living room was a wonder to me. I tried to get past Faye to get to my best friend, but she raised her fist and sent me reeling back into the wall.

Cliff cupped his hands over his mouth. "Faye, it's me! It's Cliff!"

Faye perked up. Her chin pointed in his direction. From my vantage point, I watched the back of her hair raised up around her like an electric spark. She seemed to understand that someone was trying to make contact.

Cliff stumbled forward. "This is not who you are. You're not a destroyer." He jumped forward a few inches, ducking to avoid a pillow. "You're a lover, you're a creative. You're a builder…"

He fought the wind with his elbows, struggling to keep his head covered while fighting to keep his feet on the ground at the same time. The tornado slowed. And then broke in half, one part dissipating into the ground and the other retracting into the ceiling. The clouds there continued to coil and swirl, but none of them came down and contacted the carpet.

Gasping, he ran the rest of the way, just a few feet, and managed to grab Faye's shoulders. The protective egg of energy around her disappeared. We could contact her again. Jealousy consumed me as my stomach turned. I tried to recover myself, rubbing the back of my head that had already been smacked twice with a fist or a piece of debris. And now, with back pain coursing through my body, I watched as Cliff held his sister's face and got her hair to stop flying around her head.

He pressed his forehead to hers. "This is not who you are. I know who you are."

Faye managed to raise her hands and grabbed her brother's wrists. She crumbled forward and fell into him. He caught her with practiced ease, making it seem like he had done this so many times. Like a script, they followed the motions. They whispered to each other. They clung to each other.

I tried to hide my disdain as I watched my best friend pull my mate out of a horrible temper tantrum.

How was it that he could do this? I needed to know. After all, she was my mate and I needed to know the things that would make her feel better. I thought I intuitively knew. I thought the mate bond would be enough to keep her from going off the deep end.

Apparently, I was wrong about that.

Cliff and Faye collapsed to the ground. He held his sister like a child. As she cried quietly in his arms, she lifted her head. Her lower lip trembled. "How did you know?"

Cliff closed his eyes. His hair, which was usually tucked back into a bun, was messy around his face. "I can always tell when my sister is upset."

She gripped his shirt. "You don't hate me for having powers?"

He hugged her tighter. "I could never hate you."

My chest burst with a desire to run to them. Even as I felt like I'd been one-upped by my best friend, I dropped to my knees beside them both and yanked Faye into my arms. Cliff patted my back as he held the back of his sister's neck. He encouraged her to lean into me. He whispered things to her that I couldn't make out. Maybe they were things that would calm her or that would continue to assure her the damage she'd done could be cleaned up. And she had done so much damage. The fact that the house was still standing was amazing to me.

Fred and Kylie appeared. Each of them bent to see if Faye was okay. A new feeling rumbled in my core, something that made me want to hold on to Faye even harder. It was a protective spirit that I'd never sensed until now, authoritative and dominating in nature. A wolf that yearned to be with his wolf.

I may have failed her this time. But I won't fail her in the future , I thought.

I looked at Cliff, squaring my gaze right at him. "Get everyone out."

Cliff jumped to his feet and ushered Kylie and Fred out of the sacked living room.

"Wait," Kylie argued.

Fred pushed Cliff aside. "We're not leaving without—"

"You can stay with Cliff," I snapped. "But you need to leave now ."

They wanted to comfort Faye as well. They wanted to make sure she was okay. I understood their desire—and I also needed them to understand mine.

Cliff followed my instructions as obediently as ever. Faye didn't seem to know what was going on. Her head lolled as she looked up at me. Her eyes were puffy. Her irises were finally back to their original hazel-brown. The clouds above dissipated, leaving the air thick with humidity like it had just rained.

As soon as everything cleared up, Faye shuddered and clutched my neck. She cradled my face into her throat, whimpering as she tried to wrap her legs around me. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" She kept saying it. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Won't you ever forgive me? Don't hate me."

My chest crackled with the beginning sobs of grief. I nuzzled the skin just beneath her earlobe. "I could never hate you for this. Stop apologizing."

She trembled. "You wanted to hate me."

"I said I could never ." I grabbed her chin. "Why don't you believe me when I say these things?"

Her features twisted as another round of tears came. "I don't know."

Frustration clouded my thoughts. "What do I have to do to prove my dedication to you? That I'm dedicated to this bond?"

Her lower lip trembled. "You'll do anything I ask?"

I held her chin firmly, using my thumb to prod her mouth open, to expose her tongue, to allow me a view of one of her most vulnerable parts. " Anything ."

Her pupils dilated as she met my gaze and said, "Take me right now."

Who was I to deny my mate what she wanted?