Page 49 of I Am the Storm

It's Cole.

"Bonsoir, Eve," he says, with a gallant bow. "I hope I'm not disturbing you." He glances behind me and frowns. "I thought I heard you talking to someone."

I try to look as innocent as possible. "No. I mean, I sometimes talk aloud to myself." I shrug as if this is totally normal.

He grins. "Did you know one of the gifts of working with the darkness is the ability to tell if someone is lying?"

Well, shit. "No, I didn't. But I thought you were a light Druid?"

I hold the door open, letting him in, and we both sit in front of the fire, where Adam and I had just been sitting.

"I was. But I found that light without darkness is an imbalance of nature. I wasn't utilizing my power to its fullest potential, limiting myself to just the one element. Once I opened myself to darkness, I grew more than you can imagine."

I frown. "So now you're a lie detector?"

He nods.

"That would be handy," I say, thinking of the ways I could make good use of that skill. With clients. With witnesses. With my personal life.

And then I wonder, is this his way of telling me he heard me and my brother talking? Should I ask? Ignore it? I'm not good at this subterfuge shit.

"I am not my brothers," he says. "Yes, I heard you and your brother talking. I heard what he did. And I do not judge. I believe we have to do the wrong things for the right reasons sometimes."

"Like killing an evil priest and his followers?" I ask softly.

He gazes at the fire and nods slowly. "Yes, like that. But that wasn't the first time I killed," he says.

I wait to see if he wants to share more.

"When I lived in France, my master, he was indeed a great teacher. I learned a lot from him." Cole pauses, and I feel his energy shift. "He was also a rapist. And I was his preferred target."

Oh god. No.

Cole looks at me, his dark eyes so intense. "I killed him with my magic one night when I couldn't take it anymore. That's how I found the darkness. That night."

He pauses, searching my face.

His story tears me apart, and I can only imagine the vast pain he's suffered, first as a child, then as a man when his brothers imprisoned him. What horror he has been dealt. What tragedy.

"I had to go to great lengths to acquire my power," he says, studying me. "But you have only to tap into what is already within you." He leans forward. "I can teach you."

My heart skips a beat and my palms become slick with sweat. I can feel the darkness below the other elements, lurking like a hungry beast waiting for its moment to strike. I pull back, looking away. "I can't. It's too risky."

"You have been so afraid of your darkness that you're stifling your light," Cole says, his dark gaze probing into me until I can't help but look back at him.

I wonder…is this why my brother is so much stronger than me? He's tapping into his darkness in ways I have been unwilling to? But at what cost?

"Isn't it reasonable to be scared of what I'm capable of?" I ask. "To fear hurting others? To be wary of this dark cancer that's in danger of consuming me?"

He brushes a lock of hair off my face, his fingers creating a trail of fire over my skin. "Only if you believe in the lie of duality. In the falsehood of either/or. I don't," he says frankly. "There's a verse in a religious text that says, 'The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.' And that is true. But what they don't say is that the light hasn't overcome the darkness either." He holds up his hand, palm facing me, and takes mine, placing it against his. His skin is warm and reassuring. "We are the light and the darkness. The two seeming dualities that need each other to be in balance. It is light, after all, that creates life's shadows. And it is the embrace of darkness that makes the light shine brightest."

Tears burn my eyes as I look at our hands pressed against each other. I can feel his power pulsing under his skin. I can see it in his black eyes, in the shadows that move within them. It is a dark magic, a magic practiced under the cover of night, but it is not evil. He is not evil. And maybe, neither am I. Despite what I've done, and what I might still do.

"Eve," he says softly. "You are the light to my darkness and I am the darkness to your light. We have pieces of each other within ourselves, and that is what makes us stronger together. If you can surrender to that, there's nothing you can't do."

He twines his fingers through mine and pulls us both to standing position, then bridges the gap between us. He dips his head and leans in, his lips brushing against my ear. "I need you," he says. "More than I've ever needed anything."

"You have me," I say. Because I'm done fighting this. I'm done fighting myself and my own nature. I'm done fighting him.