29. Lenna
29
Lenna
L enna grinned at the golden feline cub rolling happily on the floor of the Coronary Atrium. There were some of her spare golden sparks floating around it, still trying to find somewhere to go in this new being she just created.
“I shouldn’t be surprised about your soul animal being a big cat,” Jake said next to her, a hint of a smile in his voice.
“She’s not a big cat, you idiot. She’s a tiny, cute lynx cub.” She kneeled down and extended her hand to stroke its glowering golden fur.
The cub happily leaped towards her and moved her head to adjust the stroke from her master in a more comfortable way. The golden animal twisted her mouth to Lenna’s stroking hand and bit it sharply before running to the other side of the room, making Lenna do a high-pitched scream. “Tiny cute bastard, is what she is!” she shouted, her jaw dropping.
Jake laughed, tilting his head back. “That is literally the best representation an animal could have done of your soul,” he said. “All nice and cute on the outside, probably also cute on the inside, but ready to rip your head off should you attempt to approach her.”
Lenna Took the blood drops from her finger and Gave a tissue to her other hand so she could press the wound. She lifted her gaze to Jake. “Nice and cute on the outside? Is that your best description of my outside ?”
Jake’s eyes glowed. He started walking towards her as he said, “What about attractive and sexy as fuck, with these ridiculous golden eyes that rip souls apart, and this fire hair of yours that can burn a man down?”
Lenna put her now scarred-but-not-bleeding finger on her lips, thinking. “Better,” the corner of her lips curled upward.
Jake continued walking until he was standing right behind her, but she didn’t move. He lowered his head until he was speaking straight into the spot underneath her ear. “If you thought the show you put on at the House two weeks ago with your “trainer” will make me want you more, you were Cardinals-damned right, sweet fire.” His breath on her neck was warm, and she might have arched her back a little at the sound of his grave voice. He seemed to notice, because he leaned closer, smelling her hair as if he couldn’t resist it.
“Don’t think I have forgotten what you looked like during your Fifth Ceremony.” He smiled and Lenna felt the muscles of his cheek moving against her skin as he did so. “You and your gold, sweet fire, have been chasing my dreams.”
“Pity that I am sharing my rooms with another man,” she said. Because she would not talk about how he had been appearing in her own dreams. Too fucking often.
“Pity that you haven’t fucked that man yet, so I can hear your moans through the walls,” Jake whispered.
She had had no interchange with Theon after his very pleasant but short welcome. Not in any way that didn’t involve their usual banter, actual training or going out with Ciaran and the others. Mainly because she had spent so many hours in the Coronary Atrium with this busybody.
“You had that pleasure when you were staying in the North House, didn’t you? You have always been a creepy stalker.” Lenna spun around over her feet, ending up extremely close to his gorgeous face and full lips.
“I wasn’t the one moaning through the gardens,” he said. He did not take a step back even though they were so close that Lenna could see dark blue dots on his silver irises. “I need to show you something useful about your mark,” he said, the corners of his lips curling upwards. Lenna nodded, giving him permission, trying to stay calm at the fact of where her four petal mark was in her body.
“Don’t kick my balls, okay? They are very precious,” he added, making Lenna snort.
He closed his hand in front of her chest, leaving the skin and the bottom part of her lacy white bra exposed as he Took a chunk of her shirt away.
“Golden skin, golden sparks, golden ink, golden mark,” he said, placing his index finger on the top petal of her panom mark between her breasts, tracing its shape. It tickled her skin.
“Golden heart too,” Lenna winked, trying not to shiver at his gentle touch. At imagining precisely where she wanted that finger to be.
His eyes shot up from the mark under her breasts to her amber eyes. His nostrils flared slightly, as if he knew or could sense the line of her thoughts. “I’m trying to concentrate here,” Jake said.
“So sorry, Panom Guidor,” she blinked a few times in a false apology.
“You see how your North petal becomes bright?” he asked.
Lenna looked down at her chest. “My big besties don’t let me see past them, actually,” she held her breasts tightly against her body with both hands, separating them just enough to see the golden panom mark underneath, its North petal indeed bright. “I see. What about it?” she asked casually. She was perfectly aware of how her breasts looked when she pressed them like that, and exactly how the white laces revealed certain areas.
Jake inhaled sharply, nostrils definitely flaring now. Lenna tried to avoid the big urge of biting her bottom lip.
“You have been Giving for a few weeks, and sort of control it, so your body acknowledges the North Petal. It recognises the magic ability in you to Give. As the North Cardinal used to.”
“I very much doubt I can Give anywhere near as the North Cardinal could,” Lenna said.
“You certainly can’t,” he snorted. “But you get the point. If your petal glows, your magic considers this skill mastered and you as able to use it at your will. It might be time for you to take it a step forward, to expand the strength of your Giving.”
His finger traced the bottom petal, and Lenna’s chest expanded as she took a deep breath in. Again she felt a small ticklish sensation. The South Petal also became bright, a line of continuous golden sparks matching the one above it.
“You also control Taking.”
“Thank the fucking Cardinals for that. Only Giving I would have collapsed by now,” Lenna said.
Jake met her stare, not taking his finger off her panom mark yet. “What do you feel when you Give too much without Taking to compensate your harmony scale?”
“I feel as if I had been drinking way too much myster on an empty stomach,” Lenna considered, ignoring the smirk on his lips. “Dizzy, as if would lose the ability to stand straight. Tired. I see golden sparks floating on the sides of my vision, too. Not my real golden sparks. They don’t shine as bright.”
“Interesting. Different panoms, different symptoms when we push our inner balances,” he said.
“What do you feel?” Lenna asked.
“Pain.”
Lenna lifted her eyebrows. She wasn’t sure what type of pain he meant, but he looked down at her panom mark again, clearly not interested in talking about it further. And clearly ignoring Lenna’s hands still holding her breasts.
“You have two petals under control,” he continued. “I’m going to trace the West and East petals now. I want you to close your eyes and tell me which one you feel more.”
Whatever the Fifth that meant. Lenna closed her eyes, feeling his index move gently on her skin.
“Nothing?” Jake asked.
“Other than your touch? No. Nothing,” she said with her eyes closed.
Jake’s finger moved again, and she felt the skin on her spine tensing. “I felt something now,” she said. She did not know if any panom magic had caused the feeling or it had been her body reacting at his touch, though.
“Open your eyes,” Jake said, and Lenna found him smiling at her. “You are not only a generous Giver, dominating that skill before any others. But you are also more prone to Healing than Harming. Cute on the inside indeed, sweet fire.”
The West petal had caused that sensation, then. The one originally belonging to the West Cardinal. Coincidentally, it was in the West House where healers were still working day and night to bring Raoul to consciousness, Ciaran kept reassuring her. But it had been way too long, with no improvement at all. Way too long since Raoul had been brought from the discarding island.
It was well known that Healing and Harming were considerably more complex to master. Lenna tried to stay patient these weeks while learning to Give and Take as she knew those two were the basics. But Cardinals guide her is she would not try her damned best at mastering Healing. If she had any chance to help Raoul, to wake him up from wherever his mind was, Healing was probably the way she could do it.
Jake removed his finger from her skin. Lenna immediately asked, “What about the inner circle of the panom flower?”
He tilted his head to the side, as if considering if she was genuinely curious or just wanted his touch on her for a while longer.
“Your arms must be getting sore from holding your besties ,” he said, a silent offer in his grave voice.
“Worry not. I would rather be sore than have someone with no morals holding my besties,” she spat. The Fifth would damn her for being such a liar.
“So we’re back to the no morals situation.” Jake’s eyes narrowed.
“You are one of the key players in the discarding game of this society. The game your daddy is a master at,” she explained. “Don’t think for a minute that I forget who am I talking to and all the shit you do. How you ruin people’s lives for no reason.”
Jake held her stare. “Someone needs to discard the lower beings, so the lands keep their balance. So that our islands don’t sink in the seas.”
Lenna made a mental note of the plural. He didn’t consider his island just Thyria, if there was more than one he felt possessive about.
“I thought you were all about pushing boundaries and testing limits,” Lenna replied. As far as she was concerned, there was no difference between him pushing her to make her own harmony scale uneven, and him not discarding people to make the harmonic balance of the land uneven. Her raising anger showed in her palms, pressing harder against her breasts.
Jake swallowed, an emotion Lenna couldn’t identify crossing his eyes swiftly. He put his finger back on her skin, tracing the circle inside her panom mark. Lenna inhaled, her chin lifting at the touch.
“History says that the inner circle of a panom mark would brighten only for those who gained the Fifth Power,” Jake explained. “As I told you, there is no record of anyone alive with it. No matter how many times I trace it on you, it will not brighten up.”
He opened his hand and Gave the missing part of shirt back to Lenna. She finally changed position and crossed her arms, her lips tight in a thin line.
“I love it, when you are angry,” Jake said, his eyes darkening. “You want to have a reason to hate me. To resist the need of having my cock inside you. But I told you once, sweet fire, and I will say it again: you will beg for it. Sooner or later, you will beg for me.”
“Take a seat and get comfy,” she spat. But Lenna’s core tightened as her eyes narrowed.
Jake continued, the side of his lips curling upwards, “But if you want to hate me for having “no morals”, I will tell you a little secret. You and I, Brachyan, will never be together. Heirs of the Houses can’t be together. Not without causing a panomquake that will break Thyria in half. So all this teasing,” he grabbed her breasts, squeezing them as Lenna gasped, “is because I like to play with fire. And when you finally beg me to fuck you, sweet fire, I will refuse.”