The Breaking Point

Harper stumbled forward, gasping for air as Silas was thrown back. Blood dripped steadily from her nose and her slashed palm. The agony in her body was a roaring fire, consuming her from the inside out. Her vision blurred at the edges, but she refused to fall.

"You want to see how much I can take, Thorne?" Harper screamed, her voice hoarse.

She raised both trembling hands. She bypassed the standard incantations, tearing down the protective barriers in her own mind to unleash a point-blank banishment sigil. The magic gathered between her palms like a miniature, blinding sun. The sheer power of it cracked the floorboards beneath her feet. It was a kamikaze spell. If it connected, it would obliterate the ghost. The backlash would also likely stop her own heart.

Silas recovered his footing. He looked at the catastrophic amount of energy building in her hands. He looked at her pale, blood-stained face, and the desperate, fiercely stubborn fire in her eyes.

He didn't raise his hands to defend himself. He didn't try to flee.

Instead, Silas stepped forward. He walked directly into the lethal, swirling energy field of her blood-magic.

"Do it, then," Silas challenged, his voice dangerously soft over the roar of the spell.

The crimson magic tore at his spectral form, shredding the edges of his trench coat and causing his luminescent skin to violently flicker. The feedback scorched Harper’s arms, the pain elevating from agony to pure, transcendent torture.

Yet, in the center of the blinding storm, Silas reached out. His freezing, solid-yet-incorporeal hands locked onto her wrists. He pulled her forward, dragging her flush against his freezing chest. The contrast of her burning skin against his icy form was a sensory overload that made Harper gasp.

The hostility between them shattered, replaced by a raw, suffocating tension. They were perfectly aligned, trapped in the eye of a magical hurricane. Silas leaned down, his face mere millimeters from hers. Harper could feel the phantom brush of his breath against her lips.

"Finish it, Harper," Silas whispered, his eyes locked onto her mouth. "Burn us both down. Or admit that you don't want to be alone anymore."

Harper’s heart hammered against her ribs, entirely out of control. The hatred she had clung to was melting, giving way to an electric, terrifying desire. She stared into his eyes, her lips parted, the agony of the spell forgotten in the wake of the crushing intimacy.

She couldn't do it.

With a jagged sob, Harper severed the connection. The spell shattered from the sheer overload of power and aborted emotion. The banishment wards dissolved with a deafening crack, throwing Harper backward onto the floor.

She hit the ground hard, her muscles seizing, gasping for breath as the dust settled around her.

Silas remained standing, though he was severely weakened. His blue glow had dimmed to a faint flicker, and he looked exhausted. Slowly, he walked over and crouched beside her battered, panting form.

Harper couldn't move. She could only watch as Silas reached out, tracing a freezing, surprisingly gentle thumb over her bruised jawline. The touch sent a violent shiver down her spine.

"Better," Silas whispered, his arrogant smirk returning, though it was softer now. "I'll be waiting for you to try again, Vance."

Before she could find the breath to insult him, Silas melted into the shadows, leaving no trace behind but the chill in the air.

Harper lay alone in the dark, shattered library. Her body was bleeding, exhausted, and screaming in pain, but her skin felt terrifyingly electrified where he had touched her. She stared up at the broken stained glass, completely and utterly unsure if she actually wanted to banish him the next time they met.