Page 58 of Heiress of Fire

“You know what I’m going to say,” Ron muttered as he rubbed his eyes.

No joke. No flirty comment. Nothing. She’d never seen him like this before. He seemed weird, different.

“What has your family ever done except treat you like the dirt under their shoes?” he asked.

“My siblings need me to do this,” Davina said, then he began to shake his head. “I have to protect them. I need to do this for them.”

“Who has protected you?” Ron’s gray-flecked eyes bore into her soul. Flashes of her memories rushed back to her.

“While you begged Nico and Mae to stop fighting. Who held onto you while you hugged your siblings when your parents fought? Who was there? No one. No one, Davina, so I will never understand why you always put your own life on the line for people who have always treated you like garbage.”

Her family was complicated, but it was her family nonetheless. She loved her parents despite everything they’d done. She didn’t understand why she loved them, yet she did, and she couldn’t deny it.

He stood and paced around the living room.

“Do you not believe me capable of making it out alive?” Davina stood as well.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you’re capable,” Ron said.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m afraid that I won’t be able to protect you!” he yelled.

“I told you already, I know how to protect myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life,” Davina argued.

“This is different!”

“Why?” She raised her tone.

“Because!”

“Because what, Ron?” Davina questioned.

“My fear is to find you dead.”

“Then let me die!” Davina shouted.

Ron’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Let me die if need be,” she said more calmly.

His pale face reddened while his fingers curled in. A bolt of lightning ripped through his hands, landing on a vase above a table near Davina. Davina looked, with widened eyes, at the shattered porcelain that lay over the wooden floor.

“Do not say that ever again. Your life is precious to me, do not belittle yourself as if you were nothing,” he muttered.

Davina would’ve given more credit to his words had she not been so surprised at the power that escaped from his hands.

Lightning. He had lightning as his ability. The King gave him an entirely new power.

“When did you find out that lightning was your power?” Davina asked.

“Yesterday, when you left.”

That was why she heard the thunder when she was flying to Basalt.

“Why are you fighting me right now, if you have this power inside of you?”

“Because I’m a freak, Davina.” He sat down and set his hands over his face. “I don’t know how to control it. What is the point of having this power if it won’t manifest at my will?”

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