Page 61 of Kingdom of Chaos
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Becks.
Cold dread shoots through me, and with Talon’s mouth only inches from mine, I shove against him.
My gaze snaps to Talon’s eyes and I see confusion there a second before his features go blank and his arm disappears from around me. I stumble back. The shadows that isolated us dissipate, scattering into the dark night as the threads of magic that connected us shatter and then dissolve like mist.
The space between us is all at once too wide and not wide enough.
Adrenaline rushes through me, leaving my body trembling. What I’d almost given in to—what I’d almostdone—would have been unforgivable.
I love Becks. I always have. And he deserves better than this.
But I can’t pretend what just happened with Talon didn’t mean something. That it didn’t shake me.
I open my mouth, fumbling for an explanation I haven’t even formed yet, but Talon lifts a hand to stop me.
“It’s late. Dawn’s coming. We should get back before anyone notices we’re gone.”
I search his face, hoping to read something, anything, but as usual his expression is carefully composed, so neutral it makes me question if the last few minutes even happened at all.
Then, just before he looks away, a trace of emotion slips through.
And I know he felt it too.
He didn’t mean for me to see it, I’m sure of that. But it was there. As skilled as Talon is at hiding his emotions, I caught a glimpse of his truth for the briefest moment. Longing and pain, tangled together.
And I have no idea what to do with it.
I nod, not knowing what else to say, and we start back toward the house, moving silently through the sparse trees and over soggy ground. The quiet between us isn’t easy. It hangs heavy, thick and suffocating like the humid air pressing in around us.
I want to break the tension, but the words won’t come. So instead, I shove thoughts of Talon and Becks into the back of my mind and force myself to focus on the one thing I can’t ignore.
What I learned tonight.
I have magic.
It may be borrowed. Or technicallystolen? I don’t really know. But it’s real. And it’s mine. At least for now.
Now that I know it’s there, I can feel it, buried beneath my rib cage, right where I imagined the raveled ball of silver and gold threads.
I start to experiment reaching for it when Talon stops, going stock still. His head is tilted in a way that makes me think he’s listening for something. There’s a frown on his face and his brows are pinched.
“Talon, what?—?”
When he looks at me, he’s alarmed. He puts a finger up to his lips, gesturing for me to be quiet. Seconds pass and he doesn’t move. He just stands there. Listening. It starts to freak me out.
I’m a heartbeat away from breaking the silence when a low, muffled rumble of an engine reaches my ears. I tilt my head, straining to catch more. This place is isolated, and the house is at least a mile from the main road. It’s too far for us to be hearing just a passing car. The engine cuts off abruptly, followed by the unmistakablethunkof car doors opening and then slamming shut.
Without warning, Talon takes off sprinting in the direction of the house. I chase after him, pumping my arms and legs as fast as I can, but Talon is impossibly fast and I can’t keep up. He’s almost to the front steps by the time I break through the trees to get a clear view of the house. Spotting an unfamiliar vehicle parked off to the side, my stomach jumps into my throat.
Talon takes the stairs up to the porch two at a time, stopping before going through the front door. Instead, he presses against the side of the house, and leans over to peek in the living room window. I can just barely see the outline of dark forms moving in the living room where our friends are sleeping. I can’t make out any of their features, but I can tell from their builds that at least three of the four figures are large males.
The drumming of my own heartbeat fills my ears as I reach the house and carefully ascend the stairs, plastering myself against the exterior of the house next to Talon. I look over at him, my gaze asking him what we should do.
Taking my hand, he tugs me down and we crawl under the windows and around the porch to the kitchen entrance on the other side of the house. The kitchen door is actually already cracked open, possibly because this was the way the intruders got in the house.
“Stay here,” Talon whispers. “I’m going to go in and assess the situation.”
