TWENTY-SEVEN IMARA
TWENTY-SEVEN
IMARA
Iwake with Kharvek’s arm heavy across my waist and his breath warm against the back of my neck.
I don’t move. Just lie there in the gray pre-dawn light, feeling the solid wall of his chest against my spine, the slow rise and fall of his breathing, the way his hand has curled possessively over my hip in sleep.
We found a sheltered corner of the ravine after Tomek’s signal, after the survivors were settled, and we slept tangled in each other like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it is. Maybe after what we did last night, this is just… how we are now.
His fingers twitch against my hip. A small movement, unconscious, but it sends heat spreading through my belly. My body remembers what those fingers did to me. Remembers and wants more.
Something is different this morning. Not just the pleasant ache between my thighs or the marks his mouth left on my throat.
Something deeper. I can sense him in ways I couldn’t before—not just his presence, but his emotional state.
The slow drift of his dreams. The moment when consciousness begins to surface.
That’s not how blood magic works.
I’ve been a harvester for ten years. I understand the mechanics of power flowing through scarified flesh, the limitations of what one mage can sense about another.
Reading blood requires physical contact.
Sensing another person’s emotional state requires deep ritual work, hours of preparation, specialized channels carved for exactly that purpose.
I have none of those things. All I did was redirect his power through damaged pathways. A healing working, nothing more.
So why do I know the exact moment he wakes? Why do I sense the shift from sleep to awareness, the spike of alertness followed by recognition—followed by something warmer when he realizes where he is and who he’s holding?
“Morning.” I turn in his arms, face him. His eyes are still heavy-lidded, his expression softer than I’ve ever seen it. Unguarded. “How do you feel?”
“Better.” His hand slides up my side, traces the curve of my waist, comes to rest just below my breast. Casual. Possessive. Like he has every right to touch me however he wants. “You?”
“Sore.” I smile at the way his expression shifts—concern chasing satisfaction. “Good sore. Very good sore.”
The satisfaction wins. He pulls me closer, slots our bodies together, and I feel him hardening against my thigh. Morning arousal, natural and unselfconscious. He doesn’t try to hide it.
“We should—” I start.
He kisses me. Slow, thorough, tasting of sleep and a deeper note that’s purely him. I melt into it, let my hands explore the broad planes of his back, the ridges of scarification I’ve memorized by touch now. When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing harder.
“We should what?” he asks against my lips.
I’ve completely forgotten.
We don’t have time for what our bodies want.
The survivors need to be moved. Tomek’s diversion bought us hours, not days. And there’s still the matter of what happened during the healing—the strange awareness that hums between us, growing stronger by the minute.
But untangling from Kharvek takes effort.
He doesn’t want to let go, and I don’t want him to.
We compromise by staying close as we rise and dress—his hand on my lower back while I tie my robes, my fingers brushing his arm as I check his bandages.
Small touches. Constant contact. Like neither of us can bear to be apart for more than a few seconds.
“The survivors,” I finally manage, forcing my mind back to practical matters. “We need to get them to the secondary contact point before midday.”
“I know.” His thumb traces circles on my hip through my robe. Distracting. Deliberate. “After.”
“After what?”
“After I do this.”
He cups my face in both hands and kisses me again. Deeper this time. His tongue sweeps against mine, and I grip his shoulders to keep from swaying. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with want.
“Now we can go.”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling. “You’re impossible.”
“You like it.”
I do. Gods help me, I do.
We return to the farmstead after the survivors leave.
The goodbye with Dena was harder than I expected.
She clung to me, small fingers digging into my robes, and I had to promise three times that I’d come find her when this was over.
Kharvek stood behind me the whole time—not hovering, just present.
His hand found the small of my back when I straightened, steadying me without words.
The farmstead feels different now. Still abandoned, still dusty, still haunted by whoever lived here before the clan’s influence drove them away.
But it’s also the place where we first kissed without desperation.
Where we planned in the bone garden’s absence.
Where we’re building something that might survive the Matron’s destruction.
Kharvek settles against the wall while I search for the books I found yesterday. Old texts, hidden behind a collapsed shelf. Ritual theory that might explain what’s happening between us.
“You’re worried.” His voice comes from across the room.
I look up. He’s watching me with that intent focus I’ve grown used to—but there’s something different in it now. Softer. More intimate. Like he’s not just observing me but experiencing me.
He rises, crosses to where I’m crouched by the shelf. Lowers himself beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. “I knew you were awake before you moved. Knew you were confused, then aroused—” A hint of a smile. “—then confused again.”
Heat floods my face. He felt that. Felt me wanting him, felt my body responding to his proximity.
“This shouldn’t be possible.” I pull out one of the texts, flip it open. “Blood magic doesn’t work this way. You can’t create permanent awareness without extensive ritual preparation, without both parties consenting to the working. I just redirected your power. That’s all.”
“Obviously that’s not all.” He takes my hand. Threads his fingers through mine. The contact sends a jolt through my scars—pleasure and awareness and something deeper, something that feels like his presence settling into my bones. “What do the books say?”
I don’t pull away. Can’t. Don’t want to.
“I’m trying to find out.”