Bound by Duty

Chapter Twelve

Aidan left the office and it took a moment for Cole to turn around to face me. I could tell from his stance that he was trying to control his temper. Finally, he turned and simply said, "Sit."

His tone had said enough. I sat.

"Would you like to tell me what in the hell is going on?" Cole's tone was patronizing as he leaned against his desk, his arms crossed.

"Well. The funny part about all of this is that I don't actually know." I wanted to play it off, but thoughts were bouncing around inside my head like someone had let every pinball loose in the machine. Every day just brought more information. More to think about. More questions. I had done an okay job of compartmentalizing everything up until now, but it all came crashing into me at once. Being the last Elder. Making friends with a Mage. Lying to my best friend and the guy I liked. Being attacked. Being attacked.

I looked up at Cole, my eyes filled with barely restrained hysteria, expecting to see anger. Instead, I saw empathy, frustration... sadness.

He sighed and sat down next to me. "Talk to me, Ame. We both know you've been avoiding me for weeks. Did I dump too much on you too fast? You know we can't just wait around for you to get comfortable, right? You're too far behind."

Anger replaced fear as he once again resorted to big brother behaviors. I stood, this time looking down at him. The emotion filling my chest choked my words, making them feel thick and hard to push out.

"Comfortable? You think I've just been hiding out in my room waiting until I can handle all of this, do you? You don't get it, Cole. You've been running around the country for last ten years. Granted, it was for me, but for you, too. Don't deny it. And, all the while, I've been dealing with Dad. With this."

I intentionally allowed my power to flood my system in a huge tidal wave that dropped my head back and sent crackling fever to my fingertips. I looked back down at him knowing my eyes were glowing, the iridescent purple likely giving me my own demonic quality. I held my hands up, watching the energy pulsing around them and losing myself for just a moment in the heady feeling of it all. I wanted to blow something up. Now.

I felt Cole coming toward me and before I could pull away he locked each of his hands around my wrists. "Calm down, Amelia. Don't do this." He stood nose to nose with me, looking more controlled than he probably should have. I'm sure I looked like a wild woman — wide-eyed and crazy. But, his energy immediately sapped away the hard edge of my power, placing layer after layer of smothering tranquility on top of the feral fire I had started.

The longer he held my wrists, the more I came back to myself. Instead of a powerful being, I was a scared girl who had just been attacked. All of the facade I had showed Aidan and the calm my power presented to Cole dropped away and I collapsed into him, sobbing into his chest as he hugged me and told me it would be okay. I pulled away, realizing we hadn't even had the worst part of the conversation yet.

Sniffling, I pushed back and sat back in my own chair. "I look like this because Micah and I were attacked. We were working on the beach and suddenly someone just started throwing bolts at us. Blue ones. None of our people have blue power! Mages have shades of green and red, and we talk about violet but few actually realize that's only Elders. What does that mean, Cole? Who are they?"

Cole was pale and quiet. He should have been ranting and raving at me for how stupid it was of us to be out in the open, or questioning the how's and why's of what had happened, but he just sat there with a glazed look, taking short, quick breaths.

"What aren't you telling me, Cole?" More secrets. More information I deserved to know but didn't.

He finally looked at me, saying, "I don't know yet. There were rumors but no one ever believed them. It's probably nothing. What about Micah? Does he know what happened? I think we need to get him in here. We need to talk about what happened and see if he saw something different from what you did."