“Hey,” Kat gasped as she stared up at me. She looked more tired than the last time I saw her. “Are you helping tonight?”
My gaze dropped to her bandaged fingers. “Yeah. Where’s Bilbo?”
“Blake,” she corrected. “He’s in the living room.”
I shut the door behind me. “About your hand…”
“I burned it on the stove last night.” She shrugged, staring at the tips of my black boots.
“That…is…”
She sighed. “Lame?”
I didn’t know if I should believe her or be relieved. “Yeah, really lame, Kat. Maybe you should stay away from the stove for a little while?” I sidled past her and walked into the living room.
Douche Bag actually waved at me. “Nice of you to join us again.”
Grinning, I sat down next to him and spread my arm along the back of the couch, crowding him.
“I know you’ve missed me. It’s all right, I’m here.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding real genuine.
Training got started, and I stayed quiet, watching Kat move stuff around. She was getting damn good at it. I was proud of her.
“Moving stuff is just a parlor trick, really,” Douche Bag said after Kat stacked about twenty books without touching them.
“Wow.” I cocked my head to the side. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
He stared at Kat, keeping his arms pinned to his chest. “The good news is you can do it on command now, but that doesn’t mean you have control. I hope it does, but we really don’t know.”
Geez, he was a really positive polly over there.
“I have an idea. You’re going to need to completely trust me. If I ask you to do something, you can’t fire back with a thousand questions.” He paused while my eyes narrowed. “We need to see something amazing.”
“I’m doing my best,” she said, her shoulders tensing.
“Your best isn’t good enough.” He exhaled loudly. “Okay. Stay here.”
She glanced at me as he disappeared into the foyer. “I have no idea what he’s up to.”
I arched a brow. “I’m guessing it’s going to be something I don’t like.”
There was an odd clank of silverware and then Douche Bag returned to the doorway, one hand behind his back. “You ready?”
“Sure,” she replied.
The kid smiled and then cocked his arm back. I saw the light reflecting off metal a second before he threw it—threw the knife straight at Kat.
Kat threw up her hand, a look of horror etched into her face. The knife stopped in midair. Frozen inches from her chest, pointy end facing toward her. It just stayed there, suspended.
My mouth dropped open as I blinked slowly.
He clapped. “I knew it!”
“What the hell, Blake?” Kat screeched as the knife fell to the floor.
He did not just throw a butcher knife at Kat’s chest.
I came out of my frozen stupor in a rage, what he had just done finally cracking through my skull. I was like a rocket of anger. Flipping into my true form, I slammed Blake into the wall, my whitish-red light nearly swallowing him.
I was going to kill him, right here and right now. This dumbass fucker was going to die. I lifted him until he was halfway up the wall.
“Whoa! Whoa!” he yelled, arms flailing in the light. “You need to check yourself. Katy wasn’t in any danger.”
That’s it. I’m going to kill him. That was my only warning to Kat. He didn’t hear me, but he knew death was coming. Windows began to shake and walls trembled. The flat-screen on the TV stand rattled. Puffs of plaster filled the air. My light flared, swallowing him whole.
“Daemon!” Kat shrieked. “Stop!”
Air heated and charged around me. Her terror-filled scream cycled over and over. She would hate me if I killed him—absolutely hate me. That I could almost deal with, but she would also be scared of me, and that…yeah, that I couldn’t handle.
With Herculean effort, I dropped his rat ass. Unfortunately, he landed on his feet and not his head. Kat darted in between us. “Okay. You two need to freaking stop.”
He ran his hands down his shirt, straightening. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You did throw a freaking knife at me,” she shot back.
I will break him in two.
Hearing my voice, Kat looked at me. “Stop.”
Fury hummed through me. He could’ve killed her, just like that, and I had sat there like a freaking idiot and let it happen. No more. I was done with this. She was done with this.
Still in my true form, I reached out and brushed my fingers along her cheek. Her skin was soft as silk and so damn fragile. Dropping my hand, I shifted into my human form. Only my eyes remained white and sharp like the damn knife he’d thrown at her.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“She wasn’t in any danger!” he shouted. “If I thought for a second she couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t have thrown it at her!”
I sidestepped Kat, my hand curling into a fist. “But there was no way you would’ve known she could do it! Not a hundred percent!”
He turned pleading eyes on Kat. “I swear you were never in any danger, Katy. If I thought you couldn’t stop it, I wouldn’t have done it.”
I cursed again, but Kat blocked me. I stared down at her. “Who does that?”
“Actually, Kiefer Sutherland did. In the original Buffy movie,” he explained. “It was on TV a few nights ago. He threw one at Buffy, and she caught it.”
“That was Donald Sutherland—the dad,” I corrected. What an ass.
He shrugged. “Same difference.”
“I’m not Buffy!” Kat yelled.
A slow grin pulled at his lips. “You are definitely cuter than Buffy.”
I growled low in my throat. “You got a death wish? Because you’re really pushing it tonight, buddy. I’m dead serious. Really pushing it. I can hold you up against that wall until you run out of juice. Can you hold me off forever? No? I didn’t think so.”
His jaw jutted out. “Okay. I’m sorry. But if she hadn’t been able to catch it, I would’ve stopped it. Just like you would’ve. No harm. No foul.”
A whirlwind of rage was building inside me as Kat drew in a deep breath. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”
“But—”
“Blake, I really think you should leave,” she said. “Okay? I think you need to go.”
He stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “All right.” With a quick look in my direction, he started toward the door and stopped. “But you did great, Katy. I don’t think you realize how awesome that was.”
The fury rolled off me, rattling the floors. Douche Bag got the hell out of the house at that point. Part of me was disappointed. I was kind of hoping he’d be stupid enough to try something with me. At least then I could claim self-defense.
Silence fell in his wake until I finally spoke. “No more. Absolutely no more.” My voice was low as Kat faced me. “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.”
Disbelief flooded me. “Are you insane?”
“No.” She bent and picked up the wickedly sharp knife.
“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. I’m going to give him back-alley plastic surgery. I can’t—”
“Daemon,” she whispered.
“—believe he did that.” It hit me again, just how close she came to taking a knife wound to the chest. Stepping forward, I wrapped my arms around her and hauled her against me. I held her tight. “Jesus, Kat, he could have hurt you.” I lifted my hand, wrapping it around the back of my head. Good God, she could’ve died tonight, and I might not have been here to help her. I would’ve been out, chasing down a damn Arum.
Or sulking around my house like a loser.
A tremor rocked me. “Look, you’ve obviously got some control. I can help you work on it.” I rested my chin against the top of her head. “This can’t happen again.”