Page 80 of Harnessed in Gold

“The energy.”

He drops his hand, leaving mine momentarily suspended before he grabs it and wraps our arms around my middle. “What do you mean, ‘the energy?’” He’s suddenly rigid behind me, holding me so tight I can’t tip my head back enough to see his face.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammer. “The energy between you and the holly?” Am I wrong? Was it something else I was feeling? Something I wasn’t supposed to?

“What did it feel like?”

“Um… tingly?” Now that I say it out loud, it seems so cliché. Tingly? Anything could’ve made me feel tingly. My hand could’ve been falling asleep. “Forget it. I was probably just imagining it.”

“No,” he says, coming back to himself. “You probably weren’t.” He sweeps back my hair that keeps getting caught in his bristly chin. “Let’s try it, and you tell me if you feel it again.”

“Okay.” I gulp. I won’t feel anything, I’m sure. Or I’ll feeleverything, all of it made up in my mind.

He slides his hand under mine and stretches them both closer to the snowdrops. When his fingers flex, mine slip between them, curling around his palm and absorbing its building heat. For a beat, I shut my eyes, concentrating on the sensations: his steady heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest, the cold air stinging my cheeks, the prickling of my hand, like someone’s tickling me with pine needles.

I try to will the tingling away. After all, it’s only in my mind. But it just gets stronger.

“Do you feel it?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to let it go. Watch the flowers.”

Ignoring my bristling palm, I focus on the green and white buds, but the sudden rip of energy as it surges between us and the snowdrops has me letting out a gasp. And for a moment, I feel utterly empty. Hollowed out. Until the white petals begin to unfurl, like one of those time-lapse films of blooming flowers. An entire patch of them, not just the ones Leo pointed to.

“I felt it,” Leo breathes.

“You did?” I angle myself in his arms, just enough to meet his gaze. Shivers ripple through me, but they’re pleasant and warm.

“I felt it last night, too, but I thought it was just—” His eyes flick away.

“Just?”

“Nerves. From being so close to you.” He looks at me again, with so much vulnerability that I reach up and slide my fingers along his jaw. His eyes close as he covers my hand with his and brings my palm to his lips.

I hold my breath to keep from sighing, to keep my mind on the present and not on the night in my room when he kissed my hand the same way. Then kissed my mouth, and my neck, and…

“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” he says, gazing down at me with eyes full of both wonder and concern. “But it’s like… like you’re part of the circuit.”

“Is that bad?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it shouldn’t be. It’s just—” he chews on his lip for a good three seconds. “It’s just, I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Icy fingers of panic scrape up my back. “But what does it mean?”

“It’s okay,” he soothes, folding me in his arms. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“That’s not what Jean said.”

“Jean never said it was bad.” He pulls back to look me in the eye. “Knowledge, Betts. So long as you know what you’re capable of, you’ll be fine.”

I bury my face in his warm neck as he murmurs, almost to himself, “We’ll figure it out.”

He’s so solid. So safe. I wrap my arms around his back, under his coat.

Stroking my hair, he adds, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

This is too familiar. Sitting on the ground alongside a river, clinging to Leo for dear life as I’m assaulted by the truth about my power. Mill-workers and snowdrops: so different, yet the same. A reality I have to face.