Page 63 of Fated By Fire
I’m shaking when I swing my feet from the bed and stumble across the room to the kitchenette for a glass of water. I’ve barely swallowed a mouthful when the front door swings open.
I shriek, dropping the glass. It bounces on the wooden floorboards, water splashing everywhere.
“Fuck. You’re okay!” Caleb is standing near the door, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
“Dammit, Caleb! You scared the shit out of me.”
He looks at me, frowning. “You’re sure you’re okay? I thought—” He stops, looking unconvinced. His hand moves to his chest. I realize that my own palm is pressed over my left breast, where my heart is beating a frantic rhythm.
“I’m fine. Seriously,” I reassure him. “Just…”
“A bad dream?” he says softly.
I nod, stepping over the splashed water and heading back to the bed. My legs are shaking. “Yes. Nothing to panic about.”
He moves closer, the floorboards creaking under his weight. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I hesitate, then shake my head. “Just… memories. And some weird stuff.” I look up at him. “Did you find out anything?”
“A few things.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a black velvet pouch. “But first, I have something to show you.”
“What’s that?” I ask, though I already know.
He sits on the edge of the bed. “I thought it might help you understand your heritage.”
“My heritage?” I snort. “You mean the whole witch-bloodline thing?”
Instead of answering, he opens the pouch and carefully slides out the glowing red crystal I saw in the vault. It catches the faint light, glimmering with that same otherworldly pulse.
My breath hikes. “Is that…?”
“The Heartstone,” he confirms.
He holds it out to me, the crystal resting in his palm. Its light casts shifting patterns across his skin, illuminating the serious set of his features.
I reach out, hesitant, my fingers trembling as they near the crystal’s surface. “Are you sure about this?”
“Trust me.”
The moment my skin touches the stone, everything changes. It’s not just light—it’s like being struck by lightning while drowning in fire. Every nerve ending ignites, and I hear myself scream, but the sound is lost in the roar that fills my head.
And then I feel him.
Caleb’s presence floods my consciousness—not just his physical form beside me, but something deeper, more instinctive. His heartbeat thunders through my body as if it’s my own, his breath matching mine in perfect time. The sensation is overwhelming, intimate in a way that makes my skin flush and my pulse race.
But before I can process this strange connection, other images flash through my mind: My mother, standing in a dark room, her hand pressed against something that pulses with familiar red light. Her voice, though I can’t make out the words, urgent and afraid. Her sitting at our old kitchen table, writing frantically in her journal. Blood on stone…
The vision shifts, and now she’s looking directly at me, her eyes full of warning. Her lips move, forming words I somehow understand:“Don’t tell them everything. Not yet.”
I snatch my hand away. “What the hell was that?” I demand, scrambling back. “What did you do?”
“I… I didn’t expect that,” he admits, looking as shaken as I feel. “The stone has never reacted this way before.”
“So what, I’m your guinea pig?” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to stop shaking. “Just another experiment in your dragon drama?”
“No, Elena, it’s not like that.” He reaches for me, then thinks better of it. “I wouldn’t put you in danger.”
“Really? Because from where I’m standing, that’s exactly what you did.” But even as I say it, I can feel that new awareness of him humming under my skin, making it hard to focus.
