Page 75 of Heir of Broken Souls

“—of flying when all you’ve ever known is walking. It’s trickier to learn something when your brain isn’t as susceptible to learning.”

Crossing my arms over my soaking clothes, I arch a brow. “Not susceptible to learning?”

He bites his lip as if to hold himself back from laughing. “Most of us learned how to fly when we learned how to walk. It was a natural development. Right now, you’re fighting against every instinct within your brain.”

“Your mind thinks you’re a freak is what he’s trying to say,” Harlow drawls, not lifting her eyes from where she lies in the sun cleaning her nails while everyone else aboard the ship trains for combat. Except for Axel, who looks as bored as ever steering the ship.

“You’re not a freak.” Knox clicks his tongue. “Gods, Harlow, do you have anything useful to add to the conversation?”

“Not particularly.”

I tune her out. “I understand what you’re saying. Logically, I know I have the ability to fly but physically, it’s another story entirely.” I peer down at my once dry linen pants and shirt—that are thankfully not see-through due to its dark navy color. “Go within my mind and see what it’s like,” I blurt. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong but perhaps if you can feel what I’m feeling, we can actually get somewhere.”

“That’s the first good idea you’ve had since I met you,” Harlow quips.

Knox, now also choosing to ignore his spy, lowers his head. “That’s a good idea. Are you ready to go again?”

I make a salute motion with my hand and say in a sickly-sweet voice, “Of course I am, I’m so excited to be pelted with water. It’s such a joy having seven mermaids mock me.”

Knox can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes, but he places his warm hands on my hips and spins me around, plastering his front to my back. He lowers his lips to the shell of my ear. “Just focus on all the time we can spend in the air together once you learn.”

Heat pools in my lower belly at the husky drawl and the insinuation in his voice. Goosebumps spread down my arms at his low, knowing chuckle. “This better be worth it,” I mumble.

“Oh, I’ll certainly make it worth your time, Angel, no need to doubt that.”

Swallowing the need that’s coursing through my body and shoving it away, I step through the gilded door in my mind and enter my room of magic. My body practically hums with anticipation as my power dances around me, caressing my skin in a welcome greeting like I wasn’t just here ten minutes ago. I open myself to the power, and the moment I do, my back begins to tingle.

An airy sensation of pins and needles spreads between my shoulder blades as my wings open with a sharp exhale. In my mind, I can see myself atop the deck of the ship, standing with my eyes closed, the sun shining down upon me and my golden wings, soft as leather but as steady as the muscles in my legs. They arc high above my head, flaring out before cutting back in at my waist, and then widening again to another point.

They’re magnificent and so uniquely mine that every time I open them, I feel Knox’s appraisal down every inch of my body. I could swear that the mermaids look on in bewilderment too for the short time I’m in the air.

Whether it’s because of my new surge of power or something else entirely, I don’t find it as hard to hold them up compared to the first time they appeared. Moving them feels like second nature, as mindless as breathing, walking, and talking. Yet holding my weight in the air and steering—that’s what has me careening for the water below.

Slow and steady. Make your weight proportionate and even as you rise.

Knox’s voice sings to me down the bridge as I take a deep inhale, only to let it all go as I bend my knees and push off the hardwood floor of the ship’s top deck and hover in the sky.

Knox’s power slithers along my wings, sending chills down my spine as he pushes me off with a gentle brush of air so that I don’t break my fall with the hard unforgiving wood of the top deck but instead with the water below—despite how much entertainment the mermaids get from the situation. The gentle breeze of the sea brushes along the sensitive parts of my wings, forcing me to clench my teeth to stop the full body shiver that threatens to explode from the touch.

Easy, Angel.

Slowly fluttering my wings open and closed I remain hovering, my body bouncing up and down with the rhythm of my slow beats. Down the bridge Knox sends his shadows through my mind, a lover’s caress as he steps within my power, sparking warmth and radiance throughout my body and within the deepest part of my soul.

Ready whenever you are.

Attempting to steady my heartbeat with Knox within my mind is impossible. It’s as if his presence lights every nerve ending within me on fire. And no matter how hard I try to put out the flames, my body ignores me, instead turning its heated obsession onto Knox.

Breathing deeply, I mutter, “Here goes nothing.”

Silence descends, and even the bickering of the pod below quiets until the only sound to greet my ears is the lapping of the sea against the ship that no longer holds me steady beneath my feet. Picking up momentum, the muscles in my back work overtime as I open and close my wings, the movement growing faster with every passing heartbeat. I’m steady, courage and hope surging in my lungs as I continue hovering—until I’m not.

The muscles in my back spasm, contorting as the left side of my wings stutter for a moment while the right continues.

I don’t have time to correct it because, in the next breath, I’m not gazing at the endless sea, I’m suddenly sideways, with air rushing through my ears, whipping my wings closed as I careen for the water below. Tucking my wings into the pocket of safety my back offers, I have just enough time to suck in a sharp breath before my body connects with the water below. I feel the pain along my face first, then my shoulder and soon the whole left side of my body.

Sputtering to the surface, I’m greeted once more with the hysterical cackles of the mermaid’s laughter.

Chapter28