Chapter Thirty-Six
The loosely stacked pile of jagged gray rocks sat undisturbed where Torin had placed them. Tiny white lines of quartz embedded in the smooth limestone sparkled beneath the sun. Emma spread her fingers wide until her outstretched arms shook, staring at the squatting rocky target as though it were about to sprout fangs and attack her.
Gritting her teeth, Emma slowly bent her arms at the elbow, then lunged forward and flung out her outstretched hands as though shoving an invisible barrier away from her body. The crystals in the boulders winked in the sunlight, completely undisturbed in the untouched pile of stones. The never-ending wind gusted a pile of dried grass between Emma and her intended “victim” as a passing seabird squawked overhead.
“Dammit!”
“Ye must use yer instincts. Stop thinking so hard about what ye must do. Feel the magic. Allow the natural flow of the energy to move through ye and gain strength until yer ready to release it.”
Emma shot a fiery glance back over one shoulder. “Stop using that tone of voice with me. I am not a child nor am I stupid. Maybe you were just wrong about me. Did that ever occur to you?” Emma yanked her arms down against her body, pressing her stiff outspread fingers tight against her jeans. Her lower lip quivered across clenched teeth. The muscles of her jawline displayed her anger with an irregular tick.
Torin bit the inside of his cheek. Lore, he loved it when her temper flared. It turned her aura such a tempting shade of red. If only she could see the stubbornness of her expression. Emma reminded him of a beloved pouting child. “Emma.” Torin drew in a slow deep breath. “If I was wrong, which I never am when it comes to a guardian, how do ye explain the spirit walk?”
The slightest rumble of an irritated growl sounded low in Emma’s throat as her mouth tightened into a frustrated sneer. Her brows knotted into a vicious scowl over narrowed eyes.
Torin chewed down harder on the inside of his mouth. Perhaps ’twas a good thing Emma couldn’t quite focus her powers just yet. She surely wouldha singed his arse with the anger flashing from those eyes. “Take a deep breath and relax into the energies. You can do this. Now try it again.”
Emma scrubbed her hands over her face and curled her fingers back through her hair. Tightening the lopsided ponytail with a determined yank, she spun on one heel and turned back to frown at the unsuspecting pile of rocks.
“Now remember what I told ye—”
“Just be quiet and let me do it! I can’t do this if you keep fussing at me.”
Torin clamped his lips together, took a step back and folded his arms across his chest. Cupping his chin in one hand, he tapped the tip of his nose with his index finger. She’d never do it, not until she relaxed and felt the energy coursing through her veins. Torin sighed, dropped his hands to his waist and hooked his thumbs in the top of his kilt. This century had tainted her, taught her that everything must be explained away with purely logical reasoning. As Torin watched Emma’s frustration grow, a sense of loss weighed heavy on his heart. Poor Emma. The lass had lost touch with the wondrous feel of believing in the impossible. Torin studied the frustration etched into the lines of Emma’s scowl. Why did she fight the defensive side of the energy? She’d managed the spirit walk easily enough.
Emma stiffened her arms and aimed her tensed hands at the pile of rocks. Bending her knees and easing forward into a lunging crouch, she shook both of her stiffened hands at the boulders and roared, “Be gone!”
“Be gone?”
Emma straightened while tucking her arms back against her sides. “Well, what would you say if you wanted to make something disappear?”
Never taking his gaze from Emma’s face, Torin rendered the stones non-existent with a single flick of his wrist. “I would nay say a word. I would just make it so.”
Emma stared open-mouthed at the bare patch of ground where the pile of rocks once stood. Spinning around to face Torin, she dismissed his accomplishment with a shrug. “You know, Torin, nobody likes a smart-ass.”
Torin chuckled. Damnaigh, but he loved the way her anger colored her skin. His fingers itched to follow that rosy flush disappearing beneath her neckline. An insistent throb nudging between his legs echoed a hearty amen.
A distant tremor of grumbling thunder pulled his attention away from visions of Emma’s blushing breasts. Concentrate, man. He shook his head against the erotic daydreams. Later. Emma must master the power and the sooner he connected her with the magic the better.
Shifting his gaze to the ground, Torin’s attention focused on a fresh pile of sheep dung steaming close to his right foot. Torin sniffed. The aromatic pile of green-black pellets had to be less than an hour old. A nearby baa from just beyond the hill carried to him with the wind. Torin glanced beyond the rustling tips of the swaying grasses. He could just make out the dingy white source of the greasy pile of ovine beads. Torin stroked his thumb across his lower lip. Perhaps the sheep dung was just the answer. Emma needed to react without thinking. Come to think of it, she wasn’t particularly fond of the sheep or their pasture presents. She’d curled her nose and held her breath while giving the harmless fluffy beasts a particularly wide berth when she’d made her way to the middle of the field.
Torin glanced at Emma. She stood with her hands shoved deep in the back pockets of her jeans, scuffing the toe of her boot against a clump of dried grass. Swallowing hard, Torin decided. Emma would either find her magic in the next instant or she’d wring his neck for what he was about to do.
In one smooth motion, he dropped to a crouching position, scooped up a handful of the sheep manure and lobbed it toward Emma’s chest.
Emma’s eyes widened and her mouth flew open. Her lips shaped into a shocked O as she ripped her hands free of her back pockets. With her fingers spread wide, a pulsating light shot out from their tips and exploded the flying glob of sheep pellets into a cloud of greenish mist.
“Have you lost your mind?” Emma whirled on Torin, hands still raised and her eyes flashing with righteous fire. “I can’t believe you just threw a pile of sheep shit at me.”
“How did it feel, Emma?” Torin countered, widening his stance as he forced the smile tickling across his lips back into submission. He best take care. As angry as Emma was right now, she might open fire at him.
“It felt…” Emma swallowed hard, shuffled her feet and looked everywhere on the hillside except at Torin’s face. “It felt pretty freakin’ awesome.” One corner of her mouth twitched up and down as though Emma fought against a prideful grin. “But that’s no excuse. You could’ve found some other way to show me. What if I hadn’t figured it out in time?”
“Then yer lovely white top wouldha been splattered green with sheep shit.”