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A gentle caress down my arm had me jumping and shaking my head to clear my thoughts. Why was my head so fuzzy?
I blinked stupidly at Simon as he knelt before me. The dagger was nowhere to be seen and I was glad for it.
Simon's hands went to the hem of my skirt that I'd forgotten was now embarrassingly up around my hips, exposing my panties for all to see. His eyes never left mine as he pulled on the hem of my skirt, dragging it back into place and covering up my privates. Simon wrapped his arms around my middle and hefted me up to my feet.
I swayed a little, leaning on him and allowing him to take on most of my weight. I didn't know why I felt so comfortable with him touching me. Normally I wouldn't allow anyone outside of my guys to put their hands on me for any reason. But with Simon touching me right now I felt... absolutely nothing. Almost like I was currently empty on the inside, there was nothing left to me because I'd used up all the emotions I was capable of feeling at the moment, and it had left me empty inside.
Insanely, I wondered if this was how Rain felt most days.
Simon turned me away from the fight and back toward the cottage that was now blazing brightly in the darkness, its loss a devastation so extreme, that even in my empty state of mind tears still trailed silently down my face.
Quinton had the hose on and aimed at the blaze, not looking to be making any progress whatsoever. Tyson stepped beside his uncle with the fire extinguisher in his hands. He was sweeping it from left to right and then back again, all the while spraying out a white cloud toward the fire. I highly doubted one fire extinguisher was going to do much good, and with the fight still raging on around us, I could understand the need for discretion, which meant no fire trucks to put the monster out of its misery.
Julian knelt in the grass beside Dash. He had his big, black bag of tricks open at his side and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Dash would be perfectly fine, because he was about to get the best medical care a witch could grant him.
Physically, Dash would be fine. Emotionally, I didn't even want to know how he'd feel when he woke up to find his home destroyed.
I shrugged off Simon's support and slowly, weaving around like a drunken fool with the shadow of my new bodyguard, walked back toward the burning cottage. I stopped about fifteen feet behind the Alexander's, not wanting them to realize I was there with them. They'd both frown on what I was about to do and would try and stop me from doing it.
Simon's heat crept up behind me as he moved into my side. The heat was the only thing I felt coming from him, I was still too numb for anything to penetrate my senses except for the destruction of the cottage.
His lips brushed against my ear as he whispered, "Whatever this is that you're thinking of doing, I want you to rethink it. You have this dead look to your eyes that's downright frightening to look at. I've only known you for a day and I know that's not your version of normal. And you can barely stand on your own. I suggest you turn around and walk your pretty ass back to your redheaded friend and stay with him until he heals."
He thought I was pretty and that now was a good time to share that with me? For the life of me I would never understand males.
Blessedly, I didn't let his words penetrate and didn't end up blushing like a fool.
"Aren't bodyguards supposed to be mostly silent?" I asked snottily. I knew as soon as the words left my mouth that I'd regret them later, maybe tomorrow when I felt better, and end up apologizing to him. For now I just didn't have it in me to care.
His face shut down as he stepped back out of my line of sight, giving me my space.
I bowed my head and closed my eyes. Blanking my mind came easier than it ever had before, and I felt like I should have been alarmed at that given what was going on around me, but still, I couldn't find it in me to care.
There was a peacefulness to the emptiness currently inside my head, and it was far easier this way to reach out to the natural magic floating in the air around me. I pulled from the air, from the ground below my bare feet, from my very own body, sucking as much water out as I could get.
Pressure built and built around me, pressing in on me until it was almost too painful to breathe. My skin began to crack and all the hair on my body rose, sticking up straight. I barely opened my eyes to slits, they refused to open any farther.
The world around me seemed frozen in time, all except for Simon who was no longer the silent bodyguard I'd asked him to be. He stood at the edge of my invisible bubble, banging his fists against the air and screaming my name uselessly over and over again.
I had a feeling he was going to regret ever having met me when this day was all said and done. And we were only on day one of having just met, the poor sucker.
Focusing on the flames licking their way up the outside of the kitchen, I pushed out with everything I had. The bubble I'd created made a loud popping noise as it exploded, rushing toward the cottage.
I blinked and watched as in slow motion Quinton and Tyson dropped to their stomachs on the ground, both wearing identical looks of horror and awe on their faces. They barely missed the storm that blasted into the side of the house.
I missed whether or not all that water did what it was supposed to and put out the fire, because from one slow blink to the next, my body careened to the side and I went down face first toward the grass.
Strong arms caught me before I could bounce my face off the grass. Simon had my back and was looking out for me, even after I had been such an A-hole to him.
My last thought before the darkness swallowed me whole was that he'd make a mighty fine bodyguard if I actually allowed him to do his job instead of taking things into my own hands.
I opened my mouth to tell him as much but my mouth refused to open. My body sagged in exhaustion and I blacked out.
Chapter Thirteen
Ifloated, seemingly weightless, as my body came back online with a vengeance. My skin felt as if it was on fire, the burning an unbearable agony that sent me spiraling back into the nothingness, swallowing me whole. My mind’s way of protecting me from the pain my body was in.
The next time I came out of the darkness was different. There was no more pain, but instead some kind of wetness covered my entire body from head to foot. I knew without a doubt that whatever had been spread all over my naked body was the cause for my skin feeling like it was no longer on fire. It was healing me and I knew Julian was behind this.
