Panicked, I stepped away from Rafe at once. My mouth went dry.

Rafe followed me instinctively, maybe in a mistaken need to protect, but I shoved him away. The touched erupted sensation through my palms. It felt like spiders were crawling under my flesh, and they were making their way up my arms and to my chest. Squeezing, squeezing a web so tight around my lungs I could hardly breathe.

"Nothing," I croaked out, half-delirious. My insides were growing more and more prickly under my skin “There's nothing."

“Who are you?” Even beside me, Rafe’s voice sounded like it was coming out from a tunnel, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from her eyes. My weight teetered as Rafe growled his next words. “Do we have a problem here?”

The day Anshal took me in, I made an oath all warlocks must make. I agreed that my soul was currency, my flesh was conduit, and my blood was connection. I swore new bindings under the new moon and dawn sky as Anshal carved our agreement of mutuality into my skin. I promised that the bloody roots would never reach my heart, and my magic would be guided by good faith and service. And in return, Anshal's magic was mine.

But that magic, I felt, was flooding my veins too soon, too early, without call. It swam into my lungs and squeezed out my breath under her gaze. The script scraped against the inside of my flesh as her chest rose and fell. Howling, it churned desperately in the way it only should've when I was in danger.

She was still looking at me. At me, then at Rafe, and her face--once fearful--began to dawn in realization. Understanding. And then...disgust.

Blood rushed into my ears. My skin burned of fire. "It's not like that--"

"Tai!"

Too late, Rafe tackled me down to break my line of sight. He wrapped me into his arms, pressing my face into his chest. The roar of his heartbeat, the blast and the shrieks, the shuddering of the earth around us--I felt everything too much. The way that the structure croaked above us, the way that I instinctively knew I had to get away or I would end up accidentally killing someone again.

“Get out of here!” Rafe was shouting, but he held me so tightly I couldn’t have run even if I’d wanted to. Instead, all I could do was look back up.

Inches beside where the girl was now stumbling away, the metal aisle and all its contents behind it had blasted apart in a fury. Had it been alive, it would have screamed, wretched, before becoming pieces.

Just like she had, this girl, before she had been taken out of existence that day.

She stumbled back onto her heel, and fell, and our eyes met again. She screamed. Hands shooting up to shield herself, curling up into a sob, begging.

A sob erupted from my own chest. I ripped Rafe's arms off me. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t stay. I absolutely couldn’t.

Rafe caught me quickly. One arm after another rewrapped around me so tightly they were a straight jacket.

Let go--let go let go let go.

“—leaving first.” He had my face cradled in his hands the next moment, and his eyes flashed red. A growl came from his throat, as I tried to twist out.

“—let go—”

Rafe half-shifted before me, his teeth bared. “Settle!”

My heartbeat stopped. I dropped to my knees. Rafe broke our line of sight and I fell upon my hands, shivering onto coffee stained tile. Cold sweat stained my forehead as my stomach churned, as if I was standing at the edge of a cliff looking downwards into a bloodsea. My vision blurred as tears rolled down my face.

I gasped out the magic of the ancients with my sobs. It returned to the earth, leeched away from my limbs, and left me limp in shock.

"I'm sorry." Rafe was talking to the clerk. His grip had readjusted to my upper arm, holding me at a distance impossible to pull away from. "Here's my business card. Tell your supervisor to file a claim—I’ll pay for any damages."

Rafe was not kind in how fast he pulled me away and out the store. The air hit my face and my lungs still struggled to breathe.

"Tai,” Rafe said, “you want to tell me what that was about?”

I tried to drag my heels in. “Let go.” My face was wet and I kept trying to wipe it with my shoulder. Rafe was holding too tightly for it to be easy.

He gripped tighter, enough that I flinched. It was quiet, restrained, but I could tell he was nearing the end of his patience. “Tai…I really want to understand.”

"Please, let go." I was half-pleading, but Rafe wasn't having it. He spun me around to the side of the jeep door, pressing me against it. The wind knocked out of me.

"Tell me what just happened. Do I need to be concerned?" I barely opened my mouth before his pupils shrunk. "No," he said, voice harder. "Is this--is this what you were talking about, earlier?"

"Rafe," I whispered, "you're hurting me." You’re scaring me, I didn’t say. You threatened me, I thought.

He released me, body quivering. I slid down a little, and placed my hands where his had been, trying to rub circulation back in. "You--" He shut himself up once I had fallen to a crouch, and buried my face into my knees. “Tai…I’m sorry. I was—I’m just really worried.” He scuffed the heel of his foot against the concrete.

It was a very visible, very audible way of self-control.

I didn’t say anything, head dipping down. I grit my teeth and squeezed my wet eyes closed.

"Tai. Do you need to see someone? Like...a tune-up?"

Maybe I should’ve been happy. He'd been half paying attention all those times I'd been explaining magic to him. About why I needed to isolate so often. But now all I could remember was the expression, the way his command had settled, laced into my bones and ripped straight into my core.

The ground was too solid beneath my feet. I wanted water. I wanted to be back with Anshal, where mistakes didn’t matter. I gave a ragged exhale. “I’m fine.”

He heard me, for how quiet that was. "You’re not fine. You lost control. I’ve never seen you—last time I was in town, I—Tai, what triggered this?" He crouched beside me, and I shrunk away. I knew this hurt him. I didn’t want to. He hesitated. “Tai,” he begged. He sounded like I’d made him swallow silver. “Look at me, please.”

"It happened, so it doesn’t matter about how anymore," I said. I pressed my chin to my chest, hunching up my shoulders before he could get the idea to draw closer, try to wolf nudge me there. "This is why I wanted to make the trip alone."

"Tai, if I hadn’t been here--"

"I wouldn’t have stopped here," I snapped. I lifted my head up. "And you’d be with your Pack.”

I caught Rafe’s face from a mixture of emotions, none of which I could read before it slipped into neutrality. "You read my phone.”

"I’m sorry,” I said. “It just woke me up." At least, I figured that was why. I could barely remember anymore. "And. I saw you--with the others. they came to try to bring you back home, right?” With each explanation, with each word, Rafe’s clenched jaw grew tighter and tighter. “You're an Alpha, Rafe. You have to be accessible. They need you—"

Rafe’s eyes bore into me. He didn’t blink. “That’s not why you didn’t want me here.” He raised a hand before thinking better of it and ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t look away. “You were off too when you saw me at your office. You’ve been off the way up till here.”

Maybe it was a good thing we'd had so many phone calls. In the silence, staring at my face, Rafe could read in between the lines better than ever.

He sighed. "Let's go," he said, quieter than anything, and stood up.