A pang of panic hit me when I heard his weak and lethargic tone. My eyes flew open. Across the mat, the hunter’s face was pale, his complexion waxy.

“Shit!” I quickly reversed course, nearly losing control of my awakening power in the process. My heart hammered, but I forced myself to take deep breaths and relax my tentacles’ grip upon the hunter’s essence. Sweat beaded along my forehead, but my claws slowly retracted, sheathing back inside my body as I stuffed my awakening power back into its cave.

My new power slowly drifted downward, like snakes slithering into their burrow.

Kaillen took another breath, but his eyes were still closed, his pallor now ashen. Pulse leaping, I called upon my forbidden magic, pushing all of the hunter’s power back into him, reversing the surge so quickly that it felt as if my insides were being ripped out.

But my panic eased when his shallow breathing became deep and even. He slowly opened his eyes, and in the next instant, color appeared in his cheeks. He sat up straighter, rolling his shoulders, and a cloud of magic grew in the air around him, the scent so potent my nose scrunched up. His healing magic erased his sickly complexion and in seconds the hunter appeared healthy and alert again.

“Sorry,” I said quietly. “I didn’t know I’d drawn so much.”

His jaw locked. “It’s fine. It’s necessary for you to learn how to control it and for you to understand what it feels like to drain a life.”

“Were you . . . close to dying?”

“I had a few more minutes.”

My throat worked a swallow, and I gave a swift nod as a horrible twisting sensation began in my stomach. I needed to learn better control, and I needed to learn to recognize when I was pulling too much.

When I glanced back at the hunter, he was watching me, but he quickly looked away. “Do you want to do another round?” he asked, his expression locked and guarded.

“Um, sure.” And with a start, I realized the exchange we’d just shared was the most we’d spoken to each other all day.

“Give me a minute,” he said.

I nodded swiftly, and even though my guts churned more at the thought of leeching his life again, I knew he was right. This kind of training was needed even if it took a toll on him. Because the more I worked with my awakening power, the more I recognized not only its feel but its purpose. It was the yin to my forbidden power’s yang. The black to the white. The dark to the light. Like most things in nature, they were opposites that kept one another in check.

As for why it had taken so long for my new power to awaken, I didn’t know.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?” I asked, concern lacing my tone when he made no move to continue and instead hunched forward, placing his forearms on his knees.

“Yeah, it’s just that you’re getting quite good at that. It takes me a minute to recover.”

A feeling of pride filled me, until I saw the huge erection pressing against the hunter’s pants when he straightened again. Yep, the dude still got a boner every time we trained, even when I was sucking the life from him.

I couldn’t blame him. It was impossible not to be affected by the intimate feel of sharing and connecting our powers. Every time it happened, tingles shot to my core and unquenched need filtered through my senses. Unlike the other times when my awakening power had yanked on another’s magic, I was careful with the hunter. I wielded my power gently with him, always stroking and caressing his insides so I didn’t tear into him. Of course, that care was also a double-edged sword.

Because every day, our training proved to be more intimate than sex, although it was sex without release. Yep, training was like blue balls on a daily basis.

A yearning ache filled me when I once again saw the evidence of the hunter’s desire, but I pressed my lips into a thin line. Not real. His feelings for you aren’t real.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I pressed when he made no move to begin another session.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. He rolled to his feet in one liquid movement and then stalked away, his shoulders tensed. As he’d begun doing lately, he put distance between us every time we took a break.

Since I’d refused to touch him, and had put an end to our bantering, and since I jumped away every time he prowled near, it was almost as though he was beginning to accept that nothing would ever happen between us. Because true to his word, he never forced himself on me. Every time I withdrew, he would growl but he would maintain his distance, which should have made me feel relieved, yet . . .

I watched him depart as he strode through the door at the end of the training room. A flush of disappointment hit me.

“Get a grip,” I whispered to myself.

Since I knew that I’d have a few minutes alone before he returned, I headed to the training room’s opposite corner where the water fountain waited.

Bending over, I began to lap at the arc of water streaming from the nozzle when the door opened behind me.

A newcomer’s energy pulsed into my back. I straightened and whirled around to see Cameron. I wiped at the water dribbling down my chin, my eyes narrowing. “What are you doing here?”

Cameron took a step closer to me, his aura filled with menace. “Just came to check on what you two were up to. I hear you’ve been training here every day.”

“What’s it to you?”

He placed his hands on his hips, eyeing me up.

I looked over his shoulder into the hall but didn’t see Gavin. “No sidekick today?”

Cameron scoffed, then crossed his arms as an air of arrogant nonchalance fell over him.

My magic whirled inside me, begging me to use it. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me. Even before I’d been able to access my awakening power, I could have beaten him, but now Kaillen was right. I was a force to be reckoned with.

“So you’re fucking that scumbag?” Cameron drawled as he leaned against the wall. A scent drifted toward me of earth and pine, underneath Cameron’s cologne. Weird. “My pack tells me you sleep in the same bed every night, and this room reeks of sex.”

I figured he’d detected all of the unquenched desire that flowed between me and the hunter, because we definitely weren’t having sex in here. “Is this how you normally initiate conversations, by asking people who they’re sleeping with? I’m guessing you were dropped on your head a few too many times as a baby.”

His mouth tightened. “I’d be careful with your tone. I don’t tolerate insolence.”

“Really, what will you do? Bite me?”

He bared his teeth and made a snapping motion toward my neck. “Possibly.”

I rolled my eyes. “Again, what do you want, Cameron?”

He reached into his pocket and extracted a letter. Holding it up, he waved it in the air. “Something came in the mail for you.”

My eyes widened when I recognized the familiar SF envelope. Either Prisha or Tessa had written back. “Give me that.” I moved forward and snatched for it, but his hand whipped back too quickly for me to grab it.

Cameron tsked. “Such manners.”

“That’s mine, and you know it. Hand it over.”

He held it higher, like a schoolyard bully dangling something over a little kid. “Come and get it.”

My nostrils flared. Well, if he wanted to play that game . . .

I called upon my magic, letting it rise to the surface, then whispered a maximizer spell so when my binding spell hit him, it would feel like a wall of concrete.

I unleashed my spells, and Cameron’s eyes widened as his entire body grew rigid. I then did an old-fashioned punch to the gut, and he tipped right over like a falling tree.

He landed in a stiff plank position, only his body was supine.

“Whoops.” I snatched the letter from his frozen fingers as he teetered horizontally on the floor.

Rage shone in his eyes, and even though his muscles quivered, vibrating slightly beneath my spells, I still held him.