Free Power (Soul Savers) by Kristie Cook Page A

only things that went on these feet. Then again, this was
Blossom. She’d probably bought them for the same purpose we’d used them for: in
the bedroom.
    “Yeah, I didn’t think you would, but, well, a guy can’t help
but wonder how his girl would look in those.” He finished with a wink, and my
brain glazed over.
    He took the shoes from my hand and tossed them into the
closet before giving me a kiss that made me forget everything. Then he took my
hand and pulled me out to the kitchen.
    Blossom must have given Heather a serious threat, because
the girl still didn’t dive immediately into the subject of her sister. Rather,
she showed up at our house every day for a few hours and watched Dorian for us
while Tristan and I took care of Amadis business, which mostly consisted of
finding and purchasing (on behalf of the Amadis) a mansion to serve as the new
Captiva safe house. But every day before she left, she’d mention something
about her sister, or vampires, or the Daemoni, or the Amadis. This went on for
several weeks, and although I could have called her out—I already knew
what she wanted from the letter she sent me—I was buying time.
    I needed to follow orders and rebuild my Amadis power before
making any promises that I could help her. And even fully rejuvenated, I didn’t
know if I could keep such promises. The best way to help Heather and her
sister, if she was indeed a Daemoni vampire, was to convert her. But I knew too
little about the process of conversions, and Charlotte hadn’t started my
training yet. I’d hoped the warlock would be here by the time Heather stopped
circumventing the issue, but I ran out of time. She finally popped the
question—specifically asked for my help—one day as we sat on the
beach, watching Dorian ride his skim-board over the low waves of the Gulf of
Mexico.
    “Hold on,” I said. Up until now, I’d simply listened to
Heather’s remarks and comments with little acknowledgement, but I could avoid
the subject no longer. I had questions of my own before I answered hers.
“Before we really get into this, how do you know all these things about us?
You’re not supposed to.”
    She was a Norman. Someone had to have disclosed our secrets.
She gnawed on her bottom lip and watched her fingers as they weaved in and
around several yarn anklets decorating her foot. She always wore a bikini under
her tank tops and shorts, and with her sun-streaked hair, natural beauty
without a hint of makeup, the friendship bracelets adorning her arms, and all
of those anklets, she looked like the typical beach-town local teen.
    “It’s your fault,” she finally said, looking up at me.
“Yours and Tristan’s. Mom came home every night for weeks swearing that she
knew her new clients from somewhere but couldn’t figure out how. And then the
day after the sale finished, she completely forgot she’d told me that and only
said you two bought a house from her. But I saw you once when you stopped by
her office to drop something off, and I recognized you immediately. Because of
you, my dad stopped beating the shit out of my mom. You don’t forget the faces
of the people who finally scare away the real monster in your life. Well, not
unless someone wipes your memories.”
    I cringed—she’d guessed what Owen had done to her
mother.
    “But that doesn’t explain how you figured everything out,” I
said, avoiding her accusation.
      “Look at you.
You’re like … exactly the same as you
looked before. Well, not you. You’re a lot more … well, more everything.
Prettier, sexier, stronger. But still you, as if you’re frozen in time. And my
sister …” She drifted off, her mind going somewhere else as her fingers returned
to twisting in her anklets. When she spoke again, her voice came from a
distance. “She looked almost the same as the day she disappeared, too, but it’d
been four years. She’d barely been nineteen then and she should look older now.
At least different. Instead, she