Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aela stretched her arms overhead and yawned herself awake, keeping her eyes sealed shut a moment longer to relive the dream of being tangled up with Jaelin in bed as they lost themselves in each other. A delicious soreness bloomed between her thighs. Aela smiled to herself.
“Nice dream?” a deep voice said.
Aela screeched and rolled away from the intruding sound before falling off the bed. She hastily yanked a blanket from the bedding and wrapped herself in it before standing and staring down at the Primary of Aries in her bed.
The Primary of Aries was in her bed.
No suitable curses entered her mind, and her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to form words.
“What, no thank you?” Eros crooned.
“Thank you? Why should I thank you?”
“I don’t know much about your years as a youngling, but I think a female of your class would know the appropriate time to express gratitude to someone for saving her life.”
“Saving me.”
“Yes, saving you.”
Aela narrowed her eyes.
The social.
“I had everything under control. I know how to handle him. And now…” Aela huffed a breath. “Now, I’m set back farther… At least with Tarek I had access to some information…” Aela trailed off as her mind tried to piece together her surroundings and her next move. “This will cause a fated war and—”
“Oh, it most certainly will. One I’m counting on anyway.”
“By the Fates,” Aela cursed again. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re welcome.”
Eros sat up; he was shirtless. The cream bedding she had been lying in was perfectly rumpled around miles of bronze skin.
Wide shoulders were propped up against the headboard of the bed, and powerful arms were banded across his muscled chest. His shoulder-length black hair was tousled from sleep, and a black snake was inked onto his forearm.
Before Aela’s treacherous eyes continued their carnal path, she darted her gaze away.
Eros chuckled and rose from the bed.
“Oh, Gods,” Aela said as she spun away.
He was as naked as she was, and the sounds of rustling bedding that assaulted her ears mixed with her recent dream of being in Jaelin’s arms was an unbidden invitation.
She clenched her thighs. Daring a glance over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of his perfectly sculpted backside and rippling back muscles. Aela wrenched her eyes away.
“Will you get some clothes on?”
“Of course.”
Eros dragged the top sheet off the bed and wrapped it around himself.
Why is everything so loud?
She could hear the fibers of the fabric brush against his skin. Shaking her head to dispel her hyperawareness of his every move, she asked before turning, “Are you decent?”
“Yes, though you don’t need to hide yourself, Aela. We’re not untouched.”
Aela slowly pivoted and regarded the Primary of Aries. A million thoughts fired off in her mind with quick strikes like blasts of lightning.
What was he doing here? How did he find me? Why was he in my bed?
She settled on the first thought, hoping her tone communicated her displeasure despite the flush that wouldn’t leave her skin.
“What are you doing here?”
“We’ll get to that. Hungry?”
Aela gave him a flat look.
“Unless…” Eros repositioned the sheet wrapped around his slim hips. “You have something else on your mind you wish to do instead?”
Aela swallowed; the insinuation lingered in the air.
“Some clothing would be nice, though I’m quite comfortable,” Eros said into the growing silence.
Aela stiffened as her other magic produced a neat pile of clothing that plopped onto the ground at Eros’ feet. He toed the pile over before scooping up the black garments into his arm one-handed, the other grasping at the sheet to cover himself.
His golden eyes flicked up to meet Aela’s astonished expression. “Good.”
Eros retrieved black boots on his way out and left her there, stunned to stillness. Aela patted her cheek several times to snap out of her stupor.
“What I wouldn’t give for some clear quartz. By the Fates, what is happening?”
She chastised her power. She knew her dreams altered her waking state at times—if her flaming nightmares weren’t proof enough—yet she had never willed something into existence like that before when she was awake. Dim memories told her otherwise, but they were trapped behind a wall of heat.
Eros mentioned clothing and poof. Aela mimicked the motion of the sound with her hand. She turned to look toward the sunken pool.
Well. That wasn’t there before my dream.
Her power was growing. And she didn’t know how to control it.
She moved deeper into the chamber, and a doorway appeared ahead.
Curious, she gathered the trailing blanket behind her and went through the door.
Aela’s breath caught in her throat as she entered a luxurious bathing suite.
Now that she was alone, she allowed the wonder of what her power was capable of to be evident on her face.
Dark green aventurine crystal tiles veined with gold lined the floor and walls.
A matching countertop with two inset sinks and sharp-edged gilded mirrors hung above the vanity.
On the opposite wall, a floor to ceiling glass wall separated another section of the bathroom.
Stepping around the glass, she saw little holes on the floor near the wall where more tile stretched up to the curved ceiling.
A jagged opening in the ceiling gave off an un-finished appearance, as though whoever crafted the shower had forgotten to smooth the edges. Water gurgled out of the opening.
Dropping the blanket, Aela reached out a hand into the water that rained from the ceiling; it was warm, just like the sunken pool in the larger room.
Stepping under the stream, she sighed as it cascaded down her body.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head into the flow.
Ducking her head out of the water, she searched around the shower.
A shelf grew out of the wall—vials misted into existence.
She knew without smelling them what the scent would be.
With trembling fingers, Aela selected the jade vial at the end of the shelf and removed the stopper.
Memory wafted through the scent, overtaking her.
“Only a little, my light. You don’t need much of it.
” Alrescha’s voice was playfully chiding as Aela’s small hand flecked with dried colored paint shook the scented oil from the bottle.
She gave it back to her mother and applied the oil through the ends of her ashy waves like her mother did each morning.
The pear and bergamot scent filled the air.
Alrescha bent down and tilted her head to the side allowing her honey-brown hair to fall over her shoulder.
“My turn.”
Aela happily obliged her mother and applied the scented oil through her hair, starting at the ends and working her way up to the middle.
“Now we match!” Aela’s young voice cried, delighted to emulate her mother.
“That we do. Let’s go show your father how pretty our hair is.”
Aela squealed and ran ahead with her mother following close behind.
Aela inhaled deeply and settled the memory with the jade vial back on the shelf.
She inspected the other bottles, then washed herself, working a lather for her hair and body.
She took the jade vial with her when she was done and set it on the counter by the sink.
A white robe and matching towels were now hanging outside the shower.
Aela frowned as she put on the robe, its fluffy texture drying her skin.
“I can’t feel it…”
She had grown accustomed to the tug in her gut that came before her other magic.
How was her power simply doing things she needed on its own?
With her lightning, if she wasn’t swept up in its dangerous song, she could summon and wield it, in her dreams anyway.
She hadn’t had many opportunities to let her elements really breathe or explore the depths of her power, not with the Taureon crystal bands on her wrists for half a cycle and being marooned beneath Prente’s wards before that.
While the air and the lightning within her wanted to be set free, the churning tides and water were content to simply be.
Perhaps, since she wasn’t within wards or trapped with crystal bands, her native element would heed her summons easier.
She needed to control all of it: the lightning that wanted to strike, the water that didn’t answer her, and now her strange manifesting ability that she didn’t understand.
“Maybe this is all a dream.”
Her magic made discerning dreams from reality hazy.
When her body shifted within her dreamscape, it was like turning the page of a book—a snap of the fingers and she was elsewhere.
In Avarice, when she learned what was befalling Prente, a need to save the innocents urged her movements, and she had flickered through space and time.
She hadn’t even been aware of how she teleported.
In the same way her magic had conjured fresh clothing for Eros, Aela found a pile of clothing on her bed. She dressed quickly in wide-legged, loose-fitting black pants and a matching long-sleeved top that fell to her waist, then went in search of answers from the Primary Star.
Aela followed the sound of tinkling glass through the twisting hallways of the asteroid.
Coming through a passageway, she found Eros staring out of a wide hollow opening in the rock wall into the void expanse of the realm.
With his back to her, she perused his form.
Midnight hair brushed his broad shoulders.
The black material of his long-sleeved tunic was stretched taut against his muscular frame.
A simple belt wrapped around his hips, and his matching black pants were tucked into thick-soled boots.
A lean mahogany dining table spanned the length of the room and was set with two chairs facing each other on one end, and a simple glass cart with beverages was tucked against another wall. Eros had already helped himself to a drink that dangled from his fingertips.