3. The Flame and the Chain #8
Gideon's expression shifted, curiosity deepening into fascination. "And the intimacy?"
Malec's gaze grew distant, his voice quieter. “It’s not just flesh. It runs deeper than that. When we’re together, it feels as though our souls meet and fuse into one whole.
Bliss barely begins to describe it. I’ve bedded my share of Awyan females, but this…
” He shook his head slowly. “There is no comparison. I could spend eternity with her and never tire of it.”
Silence settled over the table. Even Tavien, usually quick with a quip, held his tongue.
Gideon nodded slowly, a flash of respect in his weathered eyes. “Then I understand why you guard her so fiercely.”
"I don't guard her," Malec said with a faint, wry smile. "I simply refuse to let the world take her from me."
Surion grunted into his cup, swirling the dark liquid like it held answers.
Gideon leaned in slightly, curious. "Forgive the indelicacy, Old friend, but is the courtship closed, or do you lend her out?"
Malec's gaze dropped to the amber swirling in his cup.
There was no outward reaction, but a faint pulse of ache bloomed low in his gut.
He knew Gideon asked out of idle curiosity, not malice.
Among their kind, it was a fair question.
Canariae were often shared, sold, passed between households. That was the custom.
"No," he said, voice even. "She'd kill anyone who tried. Including me, if I dared suggest it."
Gideon laughed again, but with a glint of surprise. "Spirited, then. I suppose I'd best stick to the docile ones."
Malec's smirk didn't reach his eyes. "If you value your throat while you sleep, yes."
Tavien, one of the younger officers and fond of pushing limits, leaned forward with a lazy grin. "Sounds exhilarating. I'd pay a month's salary to see you try to rein her in."
Malec chuckled. "There is no reining her in. She is chaos embodied. And I was fool enough to love the fire."
More laughter and wine, the warmth of camaraderie settled over the table like a comfortable blanket.
Then suddenly?—
A spike of cold drove straight through his chest.
Malec froze mid-reach, his hand suspended above his goblet.
The air left his lungs in a silent rush.
His whole chest lurched violently, as though a hook had been set between his ribs and yanked hard.
The tether flared white-hot, then ice-cold, pulsing with wrongness.
A shimmer of blue light sparked at the edge of his vision, there and gone in a heartbeat.
His entire body went rigid. The laughter around the table became distant, muffled, as though he'd been plunged underwater. A weight settled at the base of his skull, heavy and suffocating.
Wrong. Something is wrong.
His hand clenched around the stem of his glass, knuckles bone-white. His breath came shallow and sudden.
Surion saw it first. The sudden stillness, the way Malec's gaze cut outward, searching past the walls. He filed it away quietly, intently.
"Malec?"
Malec blinked once, cleared his throat. "It's nothing."
But his voice was wrong. Flat. Strained.
It was at least an hour later when boots pounded the hall. The doors bursting open. A flushed guard appeared, breathless, eyes wide.
"Forgive the interruption. There's a messenger from Lady Surian's estate. She insists it is urgent. It's about your?—"
Malec was already standing, the chair scraping back violently. The wine forgotten. The warmth of moments before evaporated like steam.
"Speak of the storm," he murmured, voice soft and strangely fond, "and she'll summon me to the eye of it."
Tavien gave a low whistle. "We were just talking about her."
Malec's eyes flicked to him, that faint amusement still playing behind the cool silver of his gaze.
"I know," he said, already turning toward the doors. "That's what terrifies me."
The table laughed again, less rowdy this time, touched with a reverent camaraderie, as Malec swept out of the room.
Only Surion didn't laugh.
He watched Malec's retreating form with cool detachment, his pale fingers curling around the base of his goblet in a slow, measured motion. His expression remained unreadable, but behind the stillness, his mind was already at work.
So the Canariae had summoned her stormcloud. How convenient.
He'd caught the faint tremor in the guard's voice, the urgency barely concealed beneath protocol. A messenger wouldn't have burst in like that unless the news was dire. And now Malec was gone, vanished at the first whisper of her distress.
Surion's lip twitched. How deeply she'd rooted herself into him. He sipped his wine, eyes narrowing as the chamber's laughter faded into dull noise around him. He wouldn't waste this moment, not when fate had handed him a crack in Malec's armor wide enough to slip a dagger through.
Slowly, he set the goblet down and leaned back in his chair, his gaze distant and calculating.
Malec could play the doting fool. Surion would be watching. And when the storm finally broke—he’d make sure the lightning struck exactly where he wanted.