“I can’t just leave them.” The words slipped out, choked with grief, when she knew it was silly to say it. To think it. Who would be stupid enough to go back into a burning building that might blow up any moment to retrieve two dead bodies?
“You’re in shock, Dahlia. Let me get us to safe ground.”
There was no safe ground. He didn’t understand that. No one was safe, least of all the man trying to save her life. She clung to his back, a dizzying ride as he raced across the bog to save their lives.
Nicolas counted to himself, judging the time they had, knowing it couldn’t be long, but wanting to use every second to put distance between them and the blast. Dahlia was making the most heartbreaking noise he’d ever heard and it was twisting his insides and tearing at his heart, a first for him. He wanted to hold her in his arms and comfort her as he would a child. Worse, he was certain she wasn’t even aware she was making the noise. Her fingers were clutched in his jacket, and she didn’t fight him at all. The Dahlia he had seen in the tapes had been a fighter all the way and that told him how shocked she really was.
Well into the tree line, he dragged her from his shoulder and pushed her into the waterlogged ground, following her down, pinning her there with his much heavier body. Almost at once the ground shook and the force of the explosion rocked the entire island.
CHAPTER THREE
Dahlia lay trapped beneath the large stranger, water soaking her clothes, her chest tight and burning while the ground trembled with the force of the horrendous explosion. The stranger’s body helped muffle the sound, but she knew her home, her only sanctuary, was gone from her. Overhead birds shrieked in protest and the world was filled with chaos, but deep inside her, she felt absolute stillness. The eye of the hurricane. Dahlia sucked in her breath and began to struggle, pushing at his heavier body. It was like trying to move a large tree trunk.
“You’re in danger, you have to get away from me.” Desperation edged her voice. He was immovable and there was no way to make him understand. She still didn’t understand and she lived with it every day of her life. The energy from the explosion swamped her, filled her, mixed with her grief and her own wild rage. She couldn’t contain it much longer, and anything and everything in close proximity to her was in deadly peril.
“We’re fine,” he said, his voice soothing, calm even.
There was a cadence to his voice that caught at her—touched her. For a brief second the energy seemed to pause, to stop its swirling madness, but then the pressure surged. “We are not fine. Get away from me before I hurt you.” She pushed at the wall of his chest, trying to get him off of her. Already the heat was flowing out of her, washing over both of them, filling the air around them with something unnatural. Something wrong. Dahlia struggled to contain it.
His chest shook, and it took a moment to realize he was amused at her concern. Dahlia hissed at him. “You are an utter idiot. Get off of me right now.” He was laughing. Damn the man, she was desperately trying to save his worthless life and he was laughing at her. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but he didn’t deserve her concern. She drove her thumbs hard into the pressure points just above his groin. He sucked in his breath and his hands caught her wrists like a vise.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Dahlia, I’m trying to save your life.” There was no laughter in his voice. None at all. His voice made her shiver. Maybe she’d been mistaken about his amusement. He didn’t look like the kind of man who ever laughed.
“I’m trying to save your life,” she countered in a low tone. She could hear the note of desperation she couldn’t quite stifle. “I can’t explain to you what’s going to happen, but you have to believe me. If you don’t get away from me immediately, you’ll be in terrible danger.”
He had been looking away from her, back toward the collapsed building, his gaze moving constantly, taking in their surroundings, the flight of the birds and bats, everything but her. He looked down at her for the first time, his black eyes meeting hers. Dahlia felt the impact like a blow. Hard. Penetrating. Deep. She couldn’t read anything at all in his expression, but his gaze seemed to burn her as it moved over her face. He eased his body from hers, getting to his feet in one lithe movement, pulling her up with him. “You’re afraid of the energy you create, aren’t you?”
It wasn’t that she created energy, but how to explain the unexplainable? She didn’t create the energy—it found her.
It craved her. Raced to her. Dahlia had never experienced grief or rage at such an unrestrained level. That alone would have been enough of a danger to anyone close to her, but with the violence of death, with the explosion and fire, the energy was far beyond her capabilities to contain it. It was volatile. Unstable. And any moment it would explode in a fiery ball, destroying everything near her.
Dahlia stepped away from him, putting as much distance between them as she could manage while the energy raged and swirled and demanded to be used. The moment she did, the vortex of heat consumed her, burning her from the inside out, robbing her of her ability to speak, to breathe, to even function. The raw heat shimmered in the air, crackling with electricity. She wanted to cry out to him to run, to save himself. She couldn’t bear to be responsible for another death, but he just stood there looking down at her with his ice-cold eyes.
He deliberately stepped close to her, so close their skin nearly touched. “Look at me, Dahlia. Don’t be afraid of what will happen to me. Just keep looking at me.” His tone hadn’t changed. It was still as calm and as tranquil as a pool of water.
The moment he closed the distance between them, the temperature went down. The energy ceased roiling. Her lungs worked properly. She found herself staring into the black depths of his eyes. Cold eyes—cooling her skin, cooling the energy. Dahlia sucked in her breath. “Who are you?”
“Nicolas Trevane. I’m a GhostWalker, the same as you are.”
She wanted to step away from him, but she didn’t dare. He was trapping the energy, or more precisely, he was cooling the raging aftereffects of violence. She’d never been able to do it, no matter how hard she tried. She could channel it, aim it, and send it, but she couldn’t defuse it. His words caught at her, she wanted, no needed, to know more. “I’ve never heard of a GhostWalker.”
“I know you haven’t. Keep looking at me. Breathe with me. Find your center. Think of it as a pool of water. Don’t try to control it; let the water take the brunt of the energy. The waves can rage and reach higher and higher, but the walls will contain it for you. Visualize it, Dahlia.”