“
Here he comes,” Blake said.
When Kaidan climbed the steps to the deck he came straight for me, his hair slicked back with sweat from running. He took my face in his hands, breathing hard, lips tight, eyes like blue blazes.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he ground out.
It took a second to process his words and remember what exactly I wasn’t supposed to do again. Then I recalled interfering.
“I know it was dangerous,” I admitted, “but there were five of them—”
“I can bloody well handle myself, Anna!” His hands flung away from my face.
“Maybe if there were only a couple, but there were five pissed-off psychos with weapons! I couldn’t just stand there and watch!”
Kaidan, exasperated, pivoted like he was going to walk away, raked his fingers through his hair, and turned to me again.
“What did you think you could do?” he asked. “You got in a lucky shot when you racked him, but what if it hadn’t worked? As you saw today your mind powers don’t always work!”
Ah. He had no idea what I was capable of now. I held a hand out. “Give me your knife.”
His eyebrows went together. “What?”
“Just give it to me.” I stepped closer, feeling edgy.
“No, Anna, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but this is ridic—”
My movements were fast as I went for him full force, using all my body weight and strength to hook a foot behind his knee and slam my palm into his shoulder. He landed on his back with a surprised oof and I crouched over him.
“Give me your knife,” I said again.
“Holy . . .” Blake let out a long whistle from where he watched at the rail.
Kaidan lay there with a whimsical sort of look and said, “God, that was hot.”
I held out my hand. This time he fished the knife from his waistband and placed the onyx handle in my palm. From my crouched position I momentarily eyed a wooden bird statue perched at the top of the deck rail twenty feet away, then let the cool metal fly from my fingers. It spun through the air with a sound like rapid wing beats, then a whump as it stuck into the side of the bird’s head.
“Dude!” Blake yelled.
Beneath me, where Kaidan lay, burst a vivid cloud of red so brief I wondered if I’d imagined it. I stared down at him in shock.
“You showed your colors!” I said.
“Did not.” He pushed himself up and we both stood.
“You totally let ’em out, brah,” Blake told him with a grin.
“Shut up.”
When he peered down at me I said, “I’ve been training. I’m not completely helpless anymore.”
“I can see that,” he murmured.
”
”