Page 92 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“Except they don’t want to answer. You just said they ran away feeling ashamed.”

“Because they’re not used to being heard.” He tugged on her hands to look at her in a way no man had ever done, as if beyond the bed hair and sulkiness, he was seeing her for who she was.

“Most people bury their secrets so deeply they forget they’re carrying them. When you give them the room to air their truths, even if they didn’t mean to, it can feel like exposure. That’s their shame. Not you.”

She wanted to believe him, but all she could think about was every person who’d ever walked away from her, and how she’d thought she was some freak with bad breath.

Yet this was coming from Zarek, the warrior who burned first and asked questions later. The Great Captain who commanded with silence and intimidation. He was also someone who understood people in ways she hadn’t expected, reading minds and watching humans wrestle with their shame, their secrets, and their fragile egos for who knows how long.

He wasn’t just powerful. He was wise.

And somehow, in all her assumptions about him being dangerous, lethal, and untouchable, she’d never considered he might also be kind. That he might understand loneliness and rejection better than anyone she’d ever met, because he’d lived it too. Centuries of it.

“How do you know all this?” she asked quietly.

His jaw tightened. “Because I’ve seen what shame does to people. What secrets do. And I’ve spent a long time watching people blame the wrong things for their pain.”

Poor Zarek had spent his entire life being the thing people blamed for their discomfort, the man who couldn’t touch anyone without burning them, while people avoided looking at him because his eyes could drive them mad.

Just like her.

“So, I’m just a different type of freak, then.”

“You’re not a freak, Angela. You’re powerful. And power makes people uncomfortable,” he added, pulling his hand away from hers. “Did you know?”

She shrugged. “My aunt called it a gift. To me, I always thought I’d been cursed…”

“I see my magic as a curse, too.”

She looked at him, surprised by the admission.

“But it was more than the eyes. People just… knew. Like they all knew that I was somehow different. Broken.” Again, she fell back, tossing the pillow over her head to hide.

“You’re not broken.” Zarek pulled back the pillow and smiled—actually smiled—and it transformed his face. He was gorgeous. “I’m the freak who can burn people with my touch, read minds, and send people mad if they look at me too long.”

“How do we know I can’t do that, too?” An icy fear crept back in, wrapping around her rib cage. “It scares me, Zarek. I don’t know how I made that rain. Or that I’d been compelling people to tell me their secrets. I don’t know what I am. But what I do know is that I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know you don’t.”

And he believed her. She felt it with an absolute certainty that settled into her bones—or were those his emotions? But it was enough for her to sit up again and brush the hair away from her face, even if her gown was a rumpled mess.

He reached out and gently smoothed down the ends of her hair. It was a simple and tender gesture that made her chest ache and her poor heart to thump-thump-thump. His teal eyes held hers that she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to.

The pause stretched between them, as the intimacy of sharing the same warm air became electrified. She could feel the heat from his body, not literally, but the weight of his attention and the raw need beneath his control. Not lust, but something deeper that created a tension so tight she could barely breathe.

What would happen if she leaned in and kissed him?

His eyes dropped to her lips, which she licked because he was watching.

Heat crept into her cheeks as she straightened out her gown.

Zarek cleared his throat and moved back as he sat on the bed—but he didn’t stand or head for the door. “Have you ever done that wish thing before?”

“I-I’ve wished people a good day when they’ve helped me. Strangers, family, that sort of thing. And they have good days, but I never thought—” She shook her head. “I never knew it could do anything. And if it works, how come I didn’t get that pony I wished so hard for as a little girl?”

That made him smile again. Twice in one conversation. A record.

“So, let’s find out what you can and can’t do?”