Chapter 12
Twelve
“Tell me, Lory…” Falcrest’s voice slithered over her body like tendrils of black ink, smooth and cool, easing the agony that was her skin. “What is it like to be consumed by fire?”
Lory was faintly aware of standing in a dark chamber…
No, not a chamber but the room Aiden and she had nearly escaped from before she’d gone up in flames and nearly incinerated herself—but when she glanced down, not a single tongue of fire was licking up her body.
Imagination. This had all been a figment of her imagination. Or had it?
As she scanned the room for Aiden, she realized he wasn’t there.
But Falcrest was, prowling along the wall that had lifted when Lory’s and Aiden’s daggers set off the mechanism.
His black uniform—the same one she wore—showed off the powerful lines of his body, the casual elegance of each deliberate step as he watched her study him.
“See anything interesting there?” A mocking grin ghosted across his face, hair moving as if on a phantom wind.
“I’d rather you focus on yourself—you know, with all that heat going on.
” With a flick of his hand, he gestured at her person, and had it not been for the orange glow rising from Lory’s skin, she would have asked him what he was talking about.
The burning sensation had almost disappeared, as if Falcrest’s presence blanketed the worst of the pain until only the thrill of the heat remained.
“Have you lost your voice?” His tone wasn’t harsh, not like the tone of the captain ordering her in training, but an unfamiliar challenge lingered in the velvet layers of his deep timbre—one that made Lory want to stick out her tongue at him.
Falcrest slowed—stopped—looking her over with those cold gray eyes as if she were a particularly fascinating riddle.
His hand lifted to her face as if to brush back strands of her hair dancing on the same phantom wind that was making black strands dance on his forehead.
An inch from her cheek, he paused, waiting for Lory didn’t know what, and the glow she’d noticed from the corner of her eye intensified into hues of gold as the fingertips of Falcrest’s other hand skated the edge of her jaw. “Is it getting a little hot?”
He was the one who sounded breathless when it was Lory who could barely breathe at the electrifying sensation.
“Tell me what it’s like to feel the flames on your skin, Lory. Are they torture? Or are they like a lover’s caress?”
As if to emphasize his words, his fingers wandered down the side of her neck to the collar of her shirt, halting an inch above the fabric.
A trail of fire blazed along her skin in its wake.
Not the punishing kind but the exciting one that made Lory’s heart beat out of her chest and her toes curl in her boots.
“I can hear your pulse race, Lory,” Falcrest purred, his face so close, Lory had a hard time ignoring the full curve of his very kissable lips.
Guardians, did they look soft. And his jaw…
Her fingers itched to feel the hint of dark stubble.
It was an exercise in self-control not to reach for his hair and bury her hands in the dark, silken strands burnished by the soft golden glow filling the room a little more with every hitching breath.
“Would you like me to show you what it could be like, Lory?”
She wasn’t certain he’d spoken at all or if it had been in her head, but the mischief sparkling in his eyes told her it didn’t matter.
This couldn’t be real. Not in a million years.
Captain Falcrest would never touch her like that, would never grin at her the way he did, a hint of pearly white teeth flashing in the half-light.
This had to be a dream, and she was almost certainly unconscious on Hand Nahrit’s desk while Falcrest was peeling off the tunic that had melted to her skin.
Whether she should have found it concerning that her unconscious mind went into fantasies about Khay Falcrest to forget the pain remained to be determined. As for now, those eyes, those lips, were all she could see, and the heat smoldering in his gaze was enough to set the world on fire.
“I could show you, Lory.” His fingers remained where they were—at her collarbone, while his other hand hovered an inch from her cheek. “I can show you what it could be like if you let go.”
Lory didn’t move, didn’t breathe for fear of catching his scent of leather and sage and a hint of smoke that would dizzy her senses, would bend her will and make her lean against his chest…
That chest—defined muscles beneath smooth skin.
She’d seen his naked chest, hadn’t dared look her fill…
But this—this wasn’t real. Falcrest wasn’t real, so she could do whatever she wanted without risking reprimand or rejection.
This wasn’t the captain who held her leash but a version of him that would never tell the real Falcrest just how much she wanted him.
Guardians—the heat running along her skin had made its path right between her legs while dream-Falcrest seemed to be waiting for her to make up her mind and stir this fantasy wherever she wanted.
“I could show you right now,” he uttered as she leaned an inch closer, just to see what would happen if she dared touch him.
His grin stretched wider, gaze burning hotter as if in anticipation of the moment when her chest would graze his, and Lory almost smiled for real when he lowered his head enough so she could meet his mouth in what she knew would be a kiss to destroy any rational thought left in her.
Trapped by his gaze, Lory tilted her head up, inhaling deeply and relishing the scent that would haunt her long after she woke up, and slid the tip of her tongue over Falcrest’s lower lip so painfully slowly his groan nearly made her forget she’d decided not to throw herself into his arms. A hint of salt and something sweet spread in her mouth, and for a heartbeat, she allowed herself to memorize the rumbling sound, sweeping her tongue along the corner of his mouth, then she pulled back, folding her arms over her chest and smirking up at him.
“The only thing you should show me, Khay Falcrest, is that you’re not a complete prick. I don’t do manipulative idiots, and I know one when I see one.”
Lory had expected anger, cold, harsh words, but not the broad grin that told her she hadn’t seen the half of it. “You have no idea what you’re missing out on, Gutter Gem.”
The chamber went dark as instantly as it had appeared around her, and when Lory sank back into a dreamless deep sleep, Falcrest’s chuckle echoed in her mind like a promise.
“It’s impossible,” someone whispered near Lory’s head as she dove out of the calm, forgiving darkness that had swallowed her for what could have been hours or days. “She should have died in there with the way her magic reacted to the Almelyte gas.”
“Perhaps I used too high a dosage.” This murmur Lory recognized immediately as Falcrest’s, who seemed to be a bit farther away than the first voice. “Thank the Guardians, Bellmont was there to stop it, and Hand Nahrit was able to heal the injuries while she was unconscious.”
“You wouldn’t mind if she’d died, would you, Khay?” Anees—this was definitely Anees.
Eyes shut and breath held, Lory waited for them to say more, eager for any detail they’d reveal when they believed she wasn’t listening.
“It would definitely solve a problem or two.” The reluctance in Falcrest’s tone made Lory want to believe he wouldn’t be relieved by her passing.
“Definitely.” A sigh accompanied Anees’s response. “Have you told Brunn and Ycken?”
“Not yet. I need to know if I was right first.” Fabric sliding against fabric interrupted his words. “If I prematurely alert them, I won’t have time to find out if she can be useful to us.”
Again, fabric rustled, something heavier this time, and then footsteps tapped around the room before a weight made whatever Lory was lying on shift.
When she tore open her eyes, Falcrest was staring down at her from where he was sitting on the edge of an infirmary cot, next to her hip.
“I’d been wondering when you’d come around.” The corner of his lips tipped up in a dangerous half-smile, and much to her chagrin, heat crept into Lory’s cheeks as she vividly remembered the taste of those lips.
“What—” She slid back on the pillow, putting as much distance between them as the space allowed, while her gaze darted from Falcrest to Anees. “What happened?”
While the captain kept studying her like he was waiting for her to do something unexpected, Anees shrugged. “The Veiled Hand says you went up in flames in the testing chamber.”
Lory hadn’t heard Anees call Falcrest by his official academy title, but her tone made her wonder if it had been to mock the captain. When she studied the phantom’s brown features, Anees didn’t let anything on.
“We have reason to believe you have light magic.” Falcrest stood from the bed to stare out the window on the left side of the room, across from where he and Anees must have sat while she was sleeping. A few more cots stood against the wall, all of them neatly made and ready to host patients.
“Light magic?”
Falcrest’s dark silhouette shifted in front of the sunlit limestone walls beyond the window.
“‘Illusionist’ is what they like to call it in King Ulder’s ranks, but what it really is, is the ability to manipulate light.
You can shape it into whatever you like as long as it keeps a luminescent quality.
Sunlight, firelight, starlight, moonlight.
Take your pick.” He turned on his heels, facing Lory so abruptly she forgot to be confused.
“At contact with the Almelyte gas, you shaped it into firelight, Vednis.”
“Almelyte gas?” The way she kept repeating his words made her wonder if she’d taken damage in that room where Falcrest had obviously poisoned her with what he called Almelyte gas.