She pushed open the nearest door, noticing a lone, shadowy figure on the stage at one end sitting at a grand piano. His fingers flew over the keys with practiced ease. The music shifted from Beethoven to something that sounded like Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu piece with its impossibly fast finger-work that made her breathless, and then jerked yet again to a simpler refrain that sounded oddly familiar. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as the pianist's raw emotion flowed through the music, his keystrokes forceful and heated. As he gentled his movement and lowered the key, spacing out each note of the last few bars, Victoria recognized the music. It was Michael Nyman's score from The Piano, a piece of music that was as dark as it was sweet, and one that had always moved her. She closed her eyes.
The music faded into silence as the sounds of a stool scraping back filled the void and her eyes shot open. Christian Devereux was staring at her from across the dark room, his gaze impaling her to the wall. In the dim light, she knew he probably couldn't see who she was, but she guessed he knew that someone was there, and had been listening.
"You play very well," she said, then fled, the door swinging shut behind her.
In the hallway, Victoria pretended to stare at the floor as the door swung open, crashing on its hinges as Christian strode out. His brows were drawn together in a scowl and his lips were pressed into a thin, grim, white line. Annoyance emanated from every inch of him, yet even angry, he was as striking as she'd remembered. No doubt she was the cause of his anger, spying on him as she'd done. He looked furious ... and attractive in a way that shouldn't be attractive at all.
Her heart raced, jumping into her throat as his strange colorless eyes met hers for an instant, the beginnings of a smile on her mouth faltering and then disappearing altogether from the intensity of his flinty glare. His nostrils flared, his brow snapping together even more tightly, and he looked right through her as if she were not even there.
"Miss?" The assistant's voice was sharp as if it were the second or third time she'd asked, and Victoria turned distractedly. "Student identification card, please!"
"Um, yes sorry." She fumbled in her bag and handed over her ID.
"Fill these out." The girl thrust a pile of papers across the desk, which Victoria took mumbling her thanks.
Christian had gone without so much as a word, and his burning, ominous glare had left her shell-shocked. Swallowing the clogged knot from her throat, Victoria sighed and filled out the paperwork.
"Superb start," she said to herself, as she made her way out of the building and across the quad. She'd managed to somehow alienate two people in the space of three hours and it was only the first day. She couldn't begin to imagine what the rest of the day would bring.
Her history class was interesting enough though, and she met a few more people at the library prior to the class. Before she knew it, she was heading back to the parking lot utterly exhausted. Not really looking where she was going, and more than a little glad that the first day was finally over, she almost tripped over the pair of long denim-clad legs leaning against the side of her car. Her heart double-tapped as her brain drank in the way his gray rugby shirt clung to his shoulders and matched his eyes. His tousled blond hair shone gold in the fading sunlight.
Victoria berated herself for feeling any degree of pleasure upon seeing him after the way he'd treated her earlier but she couldn't disregard the sudden increased tempo of her heart or the sudden trill of her blood. Nonetheless, she tried to project a look of distracted boredom, as she stepped over his legs and unlocked her car.
"Oh, hello. Christian, was it? Are you lost?"
"I guess I deserve that," he said without rancor. "Here, let me help you with those books." Before she could protest, he'd placed her things in the backseat of the car, and then stood up to face her. "I really want to apologize for what happened in the music hall earlier today. I was upset and taking it out on the piano, and then you arrived. I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with you. I was just ... frustrated."
"Why?" she said, distracted by his absurdly luxurious lashes as she tilted her head to look up into his face. She was five foot eight inches and still had to arch her neck to look at him properly.
"There's been a change in the funding for my program, and there's a chance that it will be revoked completely," he said. "I'm a student here," he added helpfully.
"In music?" she asked before she could help herself. "I mean, I saw ... I heard you playing. You're not bad."
A smile. "Thank you. No, not music, cultural studies."
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry about your program."
"It's one of those wait and see situations."
"I hope it works out then," Victoria said politely, wanting nothing more than to escape his nearness as she reached back to close the passenger door of the car. He reached forward at the same time and their hands met. A jolt of electricity passed between them that made her want to wrench her hand away. Her blood raced as tiny pins and needles surged across her entire body from the one single touch. For a second, she forgot how to breathe.
Christian stared fiercely into her eyes, the warring emotions in hers reflected in his, and she swallowed, hypnotized by something completely outside of herself. She felt her body sway toward him. He took a deep, steadying breath and released her fingers, stepping back at the same time. A practiced, shuttered mask fell into place.
Victoria jerked back, mortified at her body's heated response. She swallowed, her distressed gaze drawn by an imperceptible movement of his mouth. A fleeting vision of what it would feel like to be kissed by him ran through her head and heat ballooned in her chest. Unbearably warm, she too stepped back, staring at his impassive, granite face. Every part of her wanted to read his mind, as she'd done so easily with others earlier in the summer.
What are you thinking?
As if the thought magically translated into action, a part of her subconscious leapt forward to obey the instinctive command. It was like hitting a brick wall head on.
Christian raised an eyebrow. He had felt it! He'd felt her trying to read him! Emboldened, Victoria accepted the unspoken challenge and pushed harder. The wall didn't budge. His mouth twitched, and for some reason, his amused arrogance infuriated her so much that without thinking, she gathered the already agitated energy swirling within her and hurled it toward him.
Christian went flying back three feet before crashing to the hard asphalt. He was on his feet in seconds.
"What the hell was that?" he said. She was frozen in shock.
"I have no idea," she said, then immediately contrite, she asked, "I'm so sorry. Are you hurt?"
"No." His voice was flat, cold.
"Well, you're the one who asked for it," she said, hiding her horror and remorse behind a show of bravado. She wasn't sure whether to kick him or apologize. And now, blast it, he knew that she could do things—strange, freakish things that would no doubt have him running in the opposite direction.
Only he wasn't running ... he was staring at her with an odd, appraising expression. He stepped forward, his face relaxed but wary, his fingers barely brushing a tendril of hair that curled into her face.
"Don't worry, Tori, your secret is safe with me." He paused, as if considering his next move. "I'll forgive you on one condition."
"What's that?" she asked, stunned into silence by his gentle caress.
"Dinner. Saturday night."
"You're asking me on a date?"
"I would say tomorrow but my back just isn't up to it," he said, deliberately misunderstanding her question and pressing his hands into his lower back. He grimaced. Almost immediately, he saw the guilty flush steal up to her cheeks and he knew she would agree, if only out of misplaced remorse.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because we got off on the wrong foot, and I'd like to make amends."
The velvety tone of his voice was back and Victoria could feel herself melting in response to it. His reflective eyes were intense, compelling. She'd never wanted to say yes so bad
ly to anything in her life! She tore her eyes away. A date, or anything that required proximity, would be disastrous! It wasn't that she didn't trust him, she didn't trust herself. Already her legs felt like water.
"I don't think it's such a good idea ..." she began.
"Why not?"
"I barely know you."
"So this is a way for us to get to know each other."
"I don't—"
Christian didn't hesitate. "Don't you think you owe me just a little?" She stared at him hard. The expression in his eyes didn't flicker for an instant.
"Fine, Saturday then!" she said, capitulating not at all gracefully, flouncing into her car and slamming the door. As she drove off, she didn't deign to look back but could hear his laughter in her head all the way down to the end of the drive. Damn him!
CHRISTIAN WATCHED THE car's retreating lights and smiled. She'd resisted his compulsion easily but he didn't mind doing whatever it took to get what he wanted. In more than a hundred and fifty years no one had been able to catch him off-guard, far less knock him off his feet. If it were as instinctive as he had initially thought, then he had seriously misjudged her abilities. The thought of Lucian rose unbidden in his mind, and he shoved it away. He knew exactly what Lucian would do with her.
He took out his cell phone and turned it between his fingers, his face brooding. Christian remembered the touch of her fingers on his own and the electricity that had coursed between them. He'd barely been able to contain himself, and all he could think about was placing his lips in the delicate curve of her neck, taking and taking until he couldn't take any more. The thought of it had almost driven him to his knees. Very deliberately, Christian placed the cell phone back into his pocket.
Everything in him knew that it was a mistake. He should call Lucian, and let him assess the threat, because now he knew without a doubt that there was one. Her power was too raw ... too dangerous.
He should walk away before he was pulled any deeper or jeopardized far more than just himself. But still, even as he thought the words, a part of him recognized that it was too late. Far too late.
They would already know.
SHE SHOULD HAVE said no. But if she was really being honest with herself, she had wanted to say yes. When they touched, she'd been shocked by the connection between them. Victoria had known there was something there—she'd felt that spark from the moment they had first met that day in the Admissions Office.
Yet, despite the fact that Christian Devereux was so charismatic and made her heart race, something felt wrong. When he looked at her with those eerie light eyes of his, she felt rattled and on edge. Not to mention what she'd done to him just by thinking about it. Her throat tightened at the memory. Her palms tingled and she felt a familiar heaviness stir in the pit of the belly, the same sensations she'd fought months ago, the ones she'd thought were dead and gone.
Embrace it.
Victoria almost jumped out of her skin as the phantom thought invaded her head. Exhaustion was making her remember things that she'd prefer remain ancient history. She shook it off and sighed, leaning back against the sofa and watching Leto lying on the top edge of the cushions. She stroked his ears as he watched her intently out of one eye, and resorted to her familiar means of making sense of her feelings.
"I don't know why I said yes," she murmured to him. "He's arrogant, and rude, and irritating." She sighed, a soft smile on her lips turning onto her side to face Leto. "But you should hear him on the piano, he's amazing. Reminded me of New York." Leto curled his head into her palm. "Mom would have loved hearing him." Her words slowed. "Maybe that's why I said yes. Anyone who plays like that can't be all bad, right?"
Victoria stared out the window behind the sofa and curled her legs beneath her, her fingers still lingering in Leto's fur. She wrestled with her thoughts.
"But that's not the whole reason. I don't know how but"—she hesitated again, a shiver passing through her—"it happened again. And it's just strange that he didn't react like I thought he would ... like the others."
Leto's head turned toward her and for a second, she felt a strange sensation as if he'd heard her. She could feel a sense of concern that wasn't her own. She frowned dismissing it, and continued her monologue.
"I mean, he's not stupid. It's unnatural to be able to move whole people around without touching them." She studied her hands as if they held the answer, frowning. "It was like invisible hands just reached out of my chest and shoved him backward."
This time there was no mistaking the response. Leto stared at her so hard that every hair on the back of her neck stood at nervous attention.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" she blurted without thinking.
Leto growled, holding her gaze disconcertingly, once again compelling her to grasp at something that was just beyond her reach. Given the last few months, she shouldn't have been surprised by anything, and after the existentialist episode with Christian, it didn't seem that farfetched to have an animal stare at her as if he understood her every word. She could do things, unnatural things. A cognitive cat was hardly a stretch.
Victoria bit her lips as a rush of unexpected hysteria filled her, brought on by Leto's stare. She glared at him.
"If you have something to say, just say it already," she snapped.
Her anger faded as abruptly as it had appeared and without waiting for the response that couldn't possibly come, she slumped back on the couch bursting into laughter at her own absurdity. What was she thinking?
Embrace it.
She almost fell off the sofa. That time, the voice had not been a figment of her imagination—it'd been real. But there was no one else in the apartment apart from Leto. She looked at him warily.
"You're imagining things again, Tori," Victoria muttered, closing her eyes.
You know what you are. You've known all along. Embrace it.
She sealed her lips shut against the hysterical panic bubbling behind them. She'd fallen down the rabbit hole into a crazy world where she could topple people over just by thinking about it and where animals could talk. She could feel Leto's glower as if in response to the tune of her thoughts, and she opened her eyes.
He flattened his ears and hissed, staring directly at her. But that was impossible! Cats didn't understand people and they certainly couldn't talk back, unless ... he was like her, something else ... something not entirely natural, not of this world.
"I don't know what you want me to do," she whispered, feeling like a lunatic.
The music box.
The music box? It was a rhetorical question, and in that instant, somehow she understood immediately that the music box held all the answers; it always had.
Victoria rummaged through the cardboard box marked "junk" and found it. It felt the same as it had the first time she'd held it, warm and welcoming. Hers. She removed the amulet from the box, mesmerized by its light. It was undeniably beautiful.
And undeniably terrifying.
Victoria shook her head. "I can't," she said, her hand trembling.
To embrace who you are, you must.
The words were simple but powerful. Victoria understood that she had to know who or what she was even if it meant "embracing" the mad energy that she'd tried to bury inside her. Not knowing was far worse than knowing. She couldn't risk what had happened with Brett ever happening again, or repeating what she'd done with Christian without understanding her strange power. The voice was right—she needed to embrace who she was, but even more, she needed to learn to control this thing inside of her.
Pulling herself together, she took a deep breath and focused inward, finding the sphere of energy, the strange force that she'd used against Christian. Her grandmother's words echoed in her head as she clicked the clasp into place around her neck. "Don't fear it. You are a Warrick."
Victoria closed her eyes, imagining that she was pulling the energy toward her heart near where the amulet rested. To her disbelief, she sensed it follow her bidding. It felt like she h
ad been doing it all her life. The energy responded fluidly, pliant and receptive to her every thought. It was astonishing, and humbling. Victoria breathed out carefully, knowing what she had to do.
With a long indrawn breath, she pulled it into her center and felt it fill every cell in her body. She'd never felt so tall, so full, so whole. She feared that she would burst with it until her breath rushed past her lips and the energy rippled inward, resonating into blood and bone and tissue.
She opened her eyes.
The diamond burned the color of blood.
Leto's eyes glittered.
Yes.
"I don't know how to—" Victoria faltered for a moment.
You've talked to me your whole life.
She stared at him. "I didn't exactly ... expect a response."
Open yourself. Your power is an extension of you. Push outward, and imagine your mind connecting with mine.
She hesitated, but Leto's eyes compelled her to finish what she had started. Tentatively, Victoria envisioned her mind as a ball of energy and imagined a silver thread linking her mind to his.
Leto ...
Victoria.
Curious, she slid alongside his consciousness, exploring it gently. Although he felt catlike, warm and comforting and like family, he didn't quite feel like a cat. She sensed great intelligence, sensitivity, and even humor. In a way, he reminded her of her English teacher in second grade, a twinkly-eyed but bar-no-nonsense kind of person. As an onslaught of memories flooded her mind, she felt Leto cringe and block her out completely.
Shape your thoughts, Leto thought to her. Then give them form with words. Guard your mind always, even against me.
Mindful of not hurling a barrage of thoughts and feelings his way, Victoria formed her mental words carefully, releasing them one by one. It felt strange, enunciating each thought as if she were learning to speak a foreign language.
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