Revival (The Variant Series, Book 1) (10 page)

She curled her toes into the sand and tried to breathe normally. The heat radiating from Declan’s hands and the faint scent of his cologne were making it difficult to concentrate. 

“I want you to think back to when we teleported here from the bookstore.” Declan guided her along the shore as he spoke. From the direction they were moving and the changing texture of the ground beneath her feet, she thought they were headed toward the water. Alex struggled to keep from stumbling in the loose sand. “Think about how it felt. Replay the motion of it over and over in your head.”

He brought her to a stop at the waters edge. Alex could feel damp sand beneath her feet and the frigid waters of the lake lapping at the back of her heels.

“Okay,” she said. “Insane pressure, tingly feeling, falling through the air…”

She let out a cry of surprise as Declan pushed her backwards.  The shove was gentle, but with her eyes closed tight and the wet ground giving way beneath her feet, she’d lost any chance she had of maintaining her balance.

As Alex began to fall she found herself clinging to the memory from earlier. If she could just teleport herself away from the water, she could fall in the sand.

Acting on instinct, Alex braced herself. At first nothing happened…

And then time shuddered to a stop.

The world around her had come to a standstill. She was no longer falling, but the feeling of weightlessness remained.

Tendrils of violet electricity arced through the air and coiled themselves around her. Before she could react, a blinding flash of light engulfed her and the ensuing change in pressure forced her eyes closed.

As the pressure peaked and then abated, a tingling sensation surged through her, every muscle struck useless by the same prickling numbness she was accustomed to feeling when her foot went to sleep.

And then it was over.

Her eyes sprung open. She was falling, but not into the sand like she’d planned.

One second… Two seconds… Three…

Alex let out a curse as she sliced through the still waters of the lake.

She was going to
kill
Declan.

— 9 —

A
lex surfaced and took a gasping breath. Cold. So very, very cold.

The still-setting sun provided her with just enough light to make out Declan’s shadowy form standing on the beach.

Though it was too far away to be certain, she figured he was probably laughing.

Desperate to get out of the cold water, she attempted a jump… And nothing happened. Something about being in the water seemed to be stopping her.

Frustrated, she swam for the shore, the extra towel and Declan’s order to take off her jacket and shoes suddenly making sense. He’d known before they started that she would end up in the lake again. But how? And why hadn’t he said anything?

Her anger-fueled strokes propelled her quickly toward the shore. The sooner she reached it, the sooner she could strangle him.

As the sun sank fully below the horizon, a light blazed into existence on the beach. Declan had started a fire.

Alex dragged herself slowly from the water, shaking from the cold.

“You knew!” she spat. Once again, she’d aimed for righteous indignation and landed at a whimper. Stupid cold water. “You
knew
I was going to end up in the lake again, didn’t you? You could have warned me, you jerk!”

Declan, to his credit, had lost the look of amusement he’d been wearing when he sent her back into the lake.

He tossed her the towel she’d asked about earlier and she fell to her knees beside the fire. 

Alex wrapped the thin material around her, not caring that the sand was sticking to her borrowed clothes, or that her saturated camisole was probably leaving very little to Declan’s imagination.

“It was a possibility, yeah,” he admitted. “When you jump, you have to have a destination in mind. If you don’t, you could end up anywhere you’ve jumped recently. It’s like those paths are…” He searched for the word. “Like they’re magnetized. In your case, that meant you were drawn to the path you traveled this afternoon.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to tell me about the destination thing
beforehand
? Or to maybe, I don’t know, teleport me somewhere else before we started? Somewhere dry? So that I’d at least have a fifty-fifty shot of
not
ending up in the lake?”

“Huh.” His forehead crinkled in contemplation. “I hadn’t thought of that…”

Alex stared at him in disbelief. She was starting to think he’d taken the job with the sole intention of making her training as difficult as possible.

Why, oh why, couldn’t he just have let Nathaniel teach her?

“Look on the bright side.” Declan stoked the fire with a branch before dropping it into the flames. “Hard part’s over. You’ve figured out how to teleport on your own.”

Alex narrowed her eyes. Somehow, as she sat dripping and shivering on the lakeshore, muscles screaming in complaint, that didn’t feel like much of a consolation.

He got to his feet.

The smile was back.

“Now you just need to work on sticking the landing.”

Alex stood, dropped the towel, and smiled back at him. A mischievous gleam glinted in her steel-gray eyes. “Stick the landing, huh?”

Declan, rightfully, looked nervous.

“…Alex? What are you—
oof!
”

She’d cleared the few feet between them before Declan could react and, by using what she’d just learned, she managed to teleport mid-tackle, taking him with her as she disappeared from the campfire-lit shore and reappeared in the darkened sky above the lake.

They twisted as they fell through the air. Alex could feel Declan’s strong arms wrapping around her waist as they neared the surface of the water.

They jumped again.

This time they reappeared, a horizontal tangle of arms and legs, inside a dimly-lit room Alex didn’t recognize.

They landed on something soft, crashing into it with all the speed they’d picked up falling above the lake. There was a loud
crack
, followed by the sound of splintering wood.

The mattress they’d landed on dropped another foot and a half to the floor as the frame supporting it buckled.

There came the thundering sound of footsteps on stairs and the door behind them flew open.

Alex was lying nose-to-nose with Declan, their legs still entwined. She craned her neck around just in time to see Kenzie and Nathaniel burst into the room.

An overhead light flicked on.

Kenzie seemed amused; Nathaniel, annoyed.

“Hey guys!” Declan drawled.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” said Alex.

“This is exactly what it looks like,” said Declan. “What’s a guy got to do to get a little privacy around here?”

Alex managed to get in a good kick to his shin, despite being pinned to the bed.

“I am not
even
going to ask.” Kenzie shook her head and walked out as Brian appeared behind her in the hallway.

“Dammit, Declan.” Nathaniel appeared resigned as he took in the splinters of wood from the mangled bed frame and the general disarray that their arrival had caused.

For a moment, he looked as though he were going to ask about Alex’s freshly-saturated clothes and sand-covered bare feet. Instead, he glared at Declan.

“What?” Declan asked, feigning innocence.

Nathaniel sighed. “You’re paying for a new bed.”

“It’s alright,” said Declan, cheeky grin firmly in place. “Always wanted a futon.”

Nathaniel turned on his heel and walked back out, snagging a chuckling Brian by the shirt-collar and closing the door behind them.

Alex tried to disentangle herself from Declan, but he had her pinned with one of her arms trapped beneath his side. His arms were still wrapped tightly around her. That same electric sensation she’d felt when he’d touched her shoulders earlier was now cascading through her in waves.

Declan smiled, his face only inches from hers. “Yeah, I’d say you’re
definitely
getting the hang of it.”

His scent washed over her, a swirling mix of cinnamon and woodsmoke. For a moment, Alex forgot how to breathe.

Was it her imagination? Or was Declan actually flirting with her?

Alex tried to slow her racing heartbeat and worked to ignore the tremble of butterflies in her stomach.

The cabin was warmer than the beach, but she was still drenched. And still freezing.

Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t about to forgive and forget so easily. He’d been nothing but a jerk to her since the moment they’d met. Plus, he’d sent her for an unscheduled swim twice now. And for that, he still needed to pay.

Placing her free hand on his chest, she pushed him backwards and with a little effort, managed to pull her other arm free.

“Where are we?” She sat up.

“My room at the cabin.”

“Your room?”

He propped himself up on one elbow and shrugged his other shoulder. “Needed someplace soft to land. Besides… Now when you teleport without a destination you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of either ending up in the lake, or in my bed. I have to say, I like those odds.”

“Ha-ha.” She started for the door.

“Where are you going?”

Alex cast a glare over her shoulder. “To ask Kenzie for more dry clothes. And to shower—again—because her idiot brother couldn’t resist dropping me in the lake for a second time.”

“Oh no you don’t.” He leapt from the bed, placing himself between Alex and the door and cutting off her exit. The action made her flinch.

Alex fought to calm her nerves. Her heart had started to race again, but this time Declan’s close proximity had nothing to do with it. She flashed back to that afternoon with Brandt in the bookstore.

A crystal-clear image of the shopkeeper’s blackened corpse tore through her thoughts.

That could have been her.

“We’re not done with your… training… yet…” he trailed off. “Hey, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She snapped back to the present.

Declan was staring at her, brow furrowed in confusion. “You haven’t tried to draw that much energy since we met this afternoon. What’s the matter?”

Damn.

She was starting to wish Declan couldn’t read the changes in her emotions quite so easily.

“Nothing,” she said, trying to push the awful image from her thoughts and quiet her sudden fear.

Declan’s gaze traveled from the door back to where he stood, blocking her exit. A look of understanding crossed his face.

“The bookstore?” he asked softly.

Alex nodded.

This was Declan. He might be a jerk, but he wasn’t Brandt. He wouldn’t hurt her. At least, she didn’t think he would…

He walked closer, tentatively placing his hands on her shoulders, the same way he had on the lakeshore. She could feel the electricity passing between them, a one-way stream, flowing out of her and into Declan.

Alex focused on the electrical currents she was affecting. Declan was right, she was calling up a large amount of energy as her anxiety intensified. Even before he had touched her, she could sense him siphoning off the excess. She’d never noticed it before. Had all this teleporting made her more sensitive to it?

Declan looked thoughtful. “Before you go, there’s one more thing I want to try and teach you tonight.” He guided her back to the bed. She perched on a corner of the mattress and he sat down beside her.

Her shoulders felt cold from the loss of his touch.

A moment passed. Alex looked at Declan expectantly. He was staring at her, but appeared lost in thought.

He scratched the back of his head.

“Well?” she said.

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to do this.” His expression was sheepish. It wasn’t a look she ever expected to see on him. The honesty in it was almost endearing. “Never exactly tried to teach this to someone before.”

After another minute of contemplation, Declan held up both hands, palm out and gestured for her to do the same.

“Alright. Close your eyes.”

She hesitated. “Last time you told me to close my eyes, I went for a swim.”

He laughed. Alex couldn’t help but smile. The low rumble of Declan’s laughter was quickly becoming a sound that she relished hearing. And oh, that was
so
not good.

“No swimming this time,” he said. “Promise. Just close ’em.”

She complied.

Their hands were still a few inches apart, but Alex could sense the current flowing between them.

“Feel that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, I want you to concentrate on that sensation. Right now it’s traveling one way. From you, into me,” he said. “I want you to reverse it.”

Alex opened her eyes. “How the heck do I do that?”

“Eyes shut,” he said again. “Do you ever do as your told?”

She smiled and closed her eyes once more. “Not if I can help it.”

“Stubborn…”

She could hear the smile in his reply.

Alex wasn’t sure what it was about this guy. Declan seemed to be bringing out a side of her that, before tonight, she hadn’t even known existed.

 It was as though he’d somehow managed to light a fire inside of her. A fire that was now slowly starting to consume her, transforming her as the blaze grew brighter, searching for new ways to shine through.

Sure, he was driving her half-crazy in the process with his obnoxious attitude and that damned cheeky grin… But Alex’s growing desire to prove herself to him was forcing her to be far more brazen than she would have, normally.

And to be entirely honest, Alex was rather starting to enjoy herself.

“You reverse the flow by drawing the energy back into you,” Declan was saying. “You did it earlier when you teleported us from the lakeshore, and then again when you got upset, but you can affect the current without doing either of those things. You just need to recognize the electricity for what it is and learn to conquer it.”

She wondered if he could possibly be more vague. Conquer it? How was she supposed to
conquer
an intangible force she couldn’t see and could hardly feel?