Blaize and the Maven: The Energetics Book 1 (20 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He was no longer slumped.

Her eyebrows rose. “Earlier when? In the middle of the night? Four a.m. when I woke up the second time? I thought they were just nightmares. I was hardly going to get you out of bed for a bad dream. When another one came this morning I told Tierra, and here we are.” There was something going on here.
Why is he so bothered about a bad dream?

“How do you feel now?” Cuinn’s tone was gruff.

“Fine thanks.” She crossed her arms over her chest again. “Apart from the lack of sleep and the sense of impending doom.”

Tierra subdued a smile as she put a hand out to touch each of them. “Relax, both of you.”

Blaize let out a shaky breath. “Okay, I’m sorry Cuinn. Let’s start again. For some reason, you wind me up the wrong way. But if you could try to remember that a) this isn’t my fault as far as we know, and b) I’m doing my best here, I’d appreciate it.”

She looked across the table into eyes that echoed the grey of the sky outside. They met hers, and for a moment, all three of them were still. Connected. Energy shivered through them, balm on physical and emotional hurts. Tierra removed her hand, and Cuinn moved his gaze to hers. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “I know you don’t love me using energy on you, but the two of you need to calm down. Neither of you has had much sleep recently, and as I’ve said, we all make bad decisions when we’re sleep-deprived. You’re on the same side. Really.”

The energy Cuinn had shown as she’d told him about her dreams had gone. His usually upright spine was bent, and his gaze was on something unseen out of the window. He shook his head, and looked back at her. “I’m sorry, Blaize. There’s so much going on here. And I need to tell you something else.”

He described the newest slivers of prophecy he’d collected. About seeing her injured and restrained. How he’d recognised her in the group of energetics who stood with him in the first glimpses of the prophecy.

She couldn’t believe this. She’d been there for days, and he’d said nothing. Her body felt as taut as a violin string.
How many more secrets were there?
“You should have told me earlier.”

“I know.”

“If you had told me before, I’d have come straight to you with the dreams. Source, I’d have woken you at 4 a.m.”

“I know.”

She stood and paced around the kitchen. She felt sick. He’d seen her brutally beaten, but perhaps also ready to save their world. How was she supposed to handle all that?

He sat quietly, watching her. After a few agitated minutes, she put her hands on the back of the wooden kitchen chair she’d been sitting on and stared into his eyes again. “No more secrets, Cuinn. Seriously. No more. You have to tell me everything. Is there anything else?”

Cuinn and Tierra exchanged a glance. Tierra’s look seemed pointed.

“My Guild leaders told me I needed to work with you. That my future and yours are bound up together. That I would need you.”

Blaize felt overloaded by all the information. She wanted to stomp around, to smash things. More, she wanted to break something over his pigheaded skull. Some of the most powerful farseers in the energetics race had told him their futures were linked, and still he fought taking her as an Adherent?

Tierra rose and gave Blaize a quick hug. “That’s everything. Why don’t you help me prepare some lunch, and we can talk about it more when we’ve all had some food? You—both—need time to process this morning.”
 

Blaize wasn’t sure that preparing food was going to help in terms of saving the world, but she’d use the break and be grateful for it. She felt frazzled from the intensity of the emotions in the room. She put a hand up to rub her temples, to soothe the headache she could feel lurking.

“I agree.” Cuinn pushed his own chair back from the table and got up.
 

Tierra stepped in front of him as he moved towards the door to the corridor. “I don’t think you should go back to your room, Cuinn. You need to replenish your connection to the earth. Go outside and walk for an hour while Blaize and I cook.”

He gave her a cool look, but he went to the utility room and grabbed his jacket. “Fine. But if it rains and I catch cold, I’m blaming you.”

“Talk to me,” Tierra said to Blaize once Cuinn had left.

“I feel … a bit blank. It’s hard to imagine featuring in a prophecy. My only - ” Blaize fumbled for the word “- experience with them has been negative.”

Tierra tilted her head a fraction, eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Blaize so did not want to go there. She was already raw from the last hour. She wondered whether she would get away with a diversion, but Tierra stayed silent. Expectant.
 

This was a dark part of Blaize’s past, and one she rarely discussed. But she wanted to explain her strong reaction to Cuinn’s latest information. She hadn’t thought about the connection between Ajna and prophecy when she’d been told she was to start training, but it seemed there was no getting away from it as a part of the Ajna energies. She’d keep it brief.

“My parents were given a prophecy when they were married. It hinted at what eventually did happen. They ignored it. And they both died.” Blaize kept a tight rein on the emotions that bringing the topic up raised. She was proud there was no break, no hitch in her voice.
It was a long time ago. I barely knew them.

“I didn’t realise.” Tierra’s voice held anguish. “You need to tell Cuinn that. This situation is bad enough, but both of you are carrying a lot of baggage from your past. You need to share everything and get past that.”

Blaize nodded and let out a breath, trying to relax but stay in control.
 

“Is Sophea why I hadn’t heard of Cuinn? Now I’m here, he seems as powerful as any of the Master energetics I’ve met, but I didn’t know who he was before Fai told me about him. Yet I know all thirty of the Minor Circle’s names, even if I haven’t met them.”
 

Blaize traced patterns on the table as she thought aloud. She had a lot of questions. “Is it because of what happened with his previous Adherent?”

“Yes, but not in the way you think.” Tierra got up and went over to the kitchen island. She motioned for Blaize to follow her and sit at the breakfast bar. “Cuinn’s always been involved in Circle business. He would have been a good choice for his Minor Guild’s Circle seat when the last energetic who held it passed away. Many energetics in his Guild—and outside—were keen for him to take it, but since Sophea, he’s resolutely refused any formal position. He’ll help out based on his sense of duty, but he doesn’t trust himself to be in a position of responsibility.”

Tierra brought over a bag of potatoes and a peeler. “I hoped you could help him move past that. By taking on a new Adherent, a new responsibility, he would regain the confidence he lost. It was a big deal for him to agree to take a new Adherent, and to be honest, we—Adam and I, and some of his other friends—pushed him into it when the opportunity arose. He has so much to offer. And as I told you at the start, he’s a good person who’s lost his way.”

Tierra hesitated for a moment. "And as you'll have understood from the story about Sophea, he's also not that great with women. Sometimes his book smarts get in the way of his people smarts."

Blaize rubbed her face to hide her blush. When she thought the colour had died down again, she took out a potato and began to peel it, concentrating on the task as if it was brain surgery. “Cuinn and I still have some talking to do I guess. And we should perform the binding ritual as quickly as possible.”

“Really?” Tierra looked surprised.

“Our energies work together, and there’s danger ahead—not just for us, but for the whole energetic race. I’ve trained to be a Warrior, Tierra. It would go against everything I’ve trained for up to now to back off because of the personal consequences.” And in saying that, Blaize felt a kind of peace settle over her. She was someone who liked to have a goal, and the more stretching the better. This definitely fit the bill. Maybe she’d be able to use her Manipura training sooner than she’d thought. “But I need to start physical training again. Will you open up the gym for me after lunch?”
 

“Of course. But are you sure about the binding?”

“Yes.” And the simple word resonated with the total confidence of a Manipura Warrior.

***

Cuinn spent an hour walking his land and renewing his connection with the earth. The day had remained dry despite the clouds above. He moved through the woods, smelling the damp, peaty earth, and paused in a clearing bathed in one of the few patches of sunshine he’d seen that day. He sat on a fallen log, closed his eyes and leaned back on his hands, the rough bark digging into his thighs, grounding him.

Tierra had been right, he’d come almost to the end of his resources. And while he could see that the secrets he’d been keeping from Blaize needed to be shared, exposing himself like that had been one of the hardest things he’d done in years. He couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in her eyes. Or worse, pity.

But when he’d been brave enough to look at her, he hadn’t seen either. He’d seen empathy. Compassion for the man he’d been, and acceptance of the man he was now.

Blaize was also unsettled, and he didn’t blame her. Her dreams were worrying, along with her sense that she shouldn’t draw on her power—which had persisted after the dreams had ended.

He had just told her about a prophecy where she was terribly injured. That tended to put a crimp on someone’s day. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell her he’d seen her die. That wasn’t keeping a secret; it was holding a little something back. Something that might have pushed her past her reserves.

Should we go ahead with the binding?
He wasn’t right to be a Maven. His arrogance and ignorance had caused the last tragedy. And if he was honest with himself, really honest, his feelings for Blaize had become—complicated.
 

He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the kiss until now. He’d taken advantage of her when she was barely in her right mind after being thrown from the etheric plane by Source knows what. He groaned.
What an idiot.

He couldn’t repeat the strange behaviour, the impulse that had overtaken him. She was desirable, an attractive woman, but he could control himself better than that.
 

Anyway, it had probably just been his own stress reaction to seeing her lying on the floor, bleeding. He’d been terrified. When she’d come around, his relief had been so great, it had translated into the kiss. In fact, when he thought of it like that it was almost as if he had hugged her. Sort of like a sister.

But he then thought, ashamed, of the reaction of his body. The lascivious heat that had spread through him like honey as he’d kissed her. Heat that was firmly centred around his groin. That hadn’t been the way he reacted to female family members—in fact, it wasn’t the way he reacted to women at all these days.
 

He wasn’t a man who went in for brief, uncomplicated sexual relationships. But right now, he wished he did. A night of healthy sex with a woman who had the same understanding might have gotten rid of these complicated feelings he had for Blaize.
 

His body reacted to the thought of Blaize and sex in the same sentence with its own opinion, his cock throbbing, and he adjusted his pants. It seemed that some parts of him were quite strongly in favour of the concept.

He groaned again.

This wasn’t helping. He and Blaize couldn’t get involved sexually; it would just complicate things further. The feelings would probably fade as they got used to each other.
 

He’d just take plenty of cold showers until they did.

Blaize and Cuinn helped Tierra set the table, then sat to eat.

“I have one more secret. Well, not so much a secret, as something I didn’t think was relevant.” Blaize took some salad and passed the bowl to Cuinn. “But Tierra thinks I should lay out all the pieces for you.”
 

He nodded and added a veggie burger to his plate.