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“Everything.”
My heart pounded harder. Poor little thing never could keep up with my erratic emotions.
“Defineeverything.”
He held my gaze, throwing my own sassy remarks back at me. I stared back, trying to appear like an open book, while turmoil swirled inside.
“I felt heat. I felt as if the music were beating inside my chest, almost to bursting. I saw you. I heard metal on metal. I felt…everything. But it’s gone now.”
He stared a moment longer. Finally, his rigid shoulders slackened ever so slightly.
“Yes. You’re becoming aware. It may happen more often than you like from here on out. When you’re fully awakened, you will be able to see the Flamma no matter if they try to hide behind illusion or not. You’ll even be able to foresee them, perhaps, depending on your gift with the Sight.”
Foresee them. Like psychic?
“I don’t mean to sound dense, but what does heightened sense have to do with being a Vessel? What good does that do?”
“A Vessel needs her own weapons against the enemy. And she has many. Your heightened senses are a warning that you are near one or more of the Flamma. Ninety percent of the time, that will be a demon.”
“But you’re not a demon.”
His eyes sharpened, sending a cold shiver up my spine.
“When you feel your senses heightening,” he continued, ignoring my comment, “observe who is around you and what they are doing. You’ll feel all your senses, all six.”
“Six?” Was he kidding me? “Um, I know I didn’t do very well in biology, but as far as I know, there are five senses.”
“There are six.”
“Of course there are.”
In true Jude fashion, he ignored my attitude and barreled ahead. All business.
“The sixth encompasses intuition, which comes in many forms—sensing their signature, or you may have a vision, what we call the Sight.”
“What’s a signature?”
“All Flamma have a distinct signature that you can either feel, see, sometimes even taste or smell.”
“What’s your signature?”
His granite features didn’t crack. “If you don’t know yet, you will.” Electricity prickled in the air. I remembered the aura of flame, the constant heat rippling off him, wondering if I’d already felt his signature but hadn’t recognized it.
I was completely overwhelmed—visions, becoming aware, signatures, Sight, Flamma, more crazy Latin terms. He was withholding all kinds of information I needed.
“So why didn’t you tell me any of this about being a Vessel before?”
“And when would that have been? In the dark alley where I first met you? On campus, in front of a dozen coeds, after you refused to go somewhere private to discuss these events?” His voice remained eerily steady, so calm, yet the flash in his dark eyes made me want to retreat. Fast. He stepped even closer. Of course. “Or when the last three demons were trying to assault you? Or perhaps when I was stitching up your injury? How is it, by the way?”
I scowled back at him. “Fine,” I snapped, realizing I sounded like a petulant child.
Silence again. There seemed to be many of these moments between Jude and me, where we said nothing but the quiet was heavy, weighted.
I had an English teacher once who called this a pregnant pause, a stillness filled with thoughts growing rapidly that would at some point give birth. I wondered when that time would come between Jude and me, when we’d stop withholding information and spill it all.
His phone buzzed with an incoming call. He answered it, eyes lingering on me.
“Yes.”
