“But—”
“Blake, I really think you should leave,” I said meaningfully. “Okay? I think you need to go.”
Blake looked over my shoulder and seemed to get it, because he nodded. “All right.” He started toward the door and stopped. “But you did great, Katy. I don’t think you realize how awesome that was.”
A low hum rattled the floors and Blake took his cue, hightailing his behind out of the house. Only when I heard the rumbling of his truck’s engine did I relax.
“No more,” Daemon said, voice low. “Absolutely no more.”
Slowly, I turned around. His eyes were still doing the glow thing. Up close, they were sort of beautiful—odd but really striking.
“He could have killed you, Kat. I’m not okay with that. I won’t be okay with that.”
“Daemon, he wasn’t trying to kill me.”
He looked incredulous. “Are you insane?”
“No.” Tired, I bent and picked up the huge serial-killer knife. As I held it, it sunk in that I had stopped a knife whizzing toward my chest. I faced Daemon, swallowing.
He was still ranting. “I don’t want you doing any more training with him. I don’t even want you near him. That boy’s got a few screws loose.”
Freezing anything was a huge deal. It was one of the most powerful uses of the Source, Blake and Daemon had both said, with the exception of using it as a weapon.
“I’m going to give him back-alley plastic surgery. I can’t—”
“Daemon,” I whispered.
“—believe he did that.” All of a sudden, he was wrapping his arms around me, hauling me against his chest. By some miracle, I didn’t stab him. “Jesus, Kat, he could have hurt you.”
Somewhat shocked by the close contact that he’d avoided since the evening he made me a sandwich, I didn’t move at first. His entire body hummed. The hand that came up, wrapping around the back of my head, shook slightly.
“Look, you’ve obviously got some control. I can help you work on it,” he said, resting his chin against the top of my head, and God, his arms, his body was so warm and so perfect. “This can’t happen again.”
“Daemon.” My voice was muffled against his chest.
“What?” He pulled back a little, lowering his chin.
“I froze it.”
His brows knitted. “Huh?”
“I froze the knife.” I wiggled free, waving the thing around. “I didn’t just stop it, but I froze it. The thing was just hovering in air.”
It seemed to hit him, too. “Holy…”
I laughed. “God, that’s pretty huge, isn’t it?”
Daemon nodded. “It is. That’s…that’s a big deal.”
Excitement thrummed through me. “We can’t stop training.”
“Kat—”
“We can’t! Look, throwing a knife at me isn’t cool. And God knows, I’m not exactly thrilled that he did it, but it worked. It really worked. We’re getting somewhere—”
“What part of ’He could’ve killed you’ don’t you understand?” Daemon backed off, which usually meant he was really, really angry. “I don’t want you training with him. Not when he’s putting your life in danger.”
“He’s not putting my life in danger.” Besides catching my fingers on fire and the knife incident—but still, the risks were worth it. If I could control these abilities and actually use them to protect Daemon and Dee, then I wouldn’t be just a human—or just a mutated human one step away from exposing them to the world.
“We can’t stop,” I reasoned. “I’ll be able to control it and use the Source, just like you and Dee can. I can help you—”
“Help me with what?” Daemon stared at me, then laughed. “Help me to fight Arum?”
Okay. I wasn’t going that far, but now that he mentioned it, why not? According to Blake, I had potential to be stronger than Daemon. Crossing my arms over my chest, I tapped the edge of the knife on my arm. “Yeah, what if I wanted to?”
He laughed again, and I wanted to kick him. “Kitten, you’re not helping me fight Arum.”
“Why not? If I can control the Source and help, why not? I could fight.”
“I think the reasons are pretty huge,” he yelled, all the humor vanishing. “First off, you’re a human.”
“Not really.”
His eyes narrowed. “Granted, you’re a mutated human, but a human who’s a hell of a lot weaker and more vulnerable than a Luxen.”
I exhaled slowly. “You don’t know how weak or vulnerable I’ll be fully trained.”
“Whatever. Secondly, you have no business going up against the Arum. That will never happen.”
“Daemon—”
“It won’t if I’m still alive. Do you understand that? You will never go after an Arum. I don’t care if you can stop the world from spinning.”
I tried to push down my anger. One thing I hated more than Daemon’s douche-nozzle side was him telling me what to do. “You don’t own me, Daemon.”
“It’s not about ownership, you little nut.”
“Nut?” I glared at him. “I wouldn’t call me names when I have a knife in my hand.”
He ignored that. “Thirdly, there is something off about Blake. You can’t tell me you don’t see or sense that.”
“Oh, don’t—”
“You know nothing about him—nothing deeper than that he likes to surf and blog. Big deal.”