Chapter 17 #2
My eyes drifted shut as my hands found his wrists.
So thick and wide, my fingers didn’t meet on the other side.
I could feel the pulse of his heartbeat, strong and steady.
I shivered, feeling my magic grow warm and languid.
Like metal in a forge, malleable and molten.
It rose. Tangible. My breaths went heavy with it.
This was what I wanted to learn.
“Show me,” I said, determined. I didn’t care if my voice sounded like a plea.
This was power. Alaryk had wielded his with mastery for much longer than I had.
And I wanted to know how. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so frightened of it.
Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I was risking my own life every time I had to call it to me. “Hanniva.”
Please.
He made a gruff sound in the back of his throat.
Then his hand rose. It dove into my hair, and I felt him tangle it into the strands, pulling back my head so he could peer down into my gaze.
“Know this was not meant to happen like this,” he told me. His expression looked wildly furious, though still simmering in his own control. For a reckless moment, I wanted to see that control snap. Even I knew I shouldn’t want that.
The magic rising made a droplet of sweat roll down the back of my neck. Why was it so hot? A strange desire pricked my body, swirling in my lower belly. Perhaps magic and seduction were intertwined, just as he’d said. But it embarrassed me to feel it.
“Nothing has happened,” I breathed. “Maybe nothing has to.”
His scowl lightened. “You feel it?”
“Lysi.”
“Practice keeping it there,” he told me, his tone hushed. “I’ll show you.”
I felt it then. The familiar touch of his magic. Only it felt different. Before I had likened it to a warm current in an icy river.
Now it felt like the drag of his calloused fingers against my bare flesh, making me arch. A moan fell from me, but I couldn’t even be embarrassed by it. Had he done that on purpose? Could he have even done that? It felt good. Sinfully good.
My lips parted as I stared up at him. His eyes began to glow a bright blue. Heartstone blue.
I could only describe it as threads intertwining when his magic met my own. I felt the color of it, and it felt like a burst of gold within me. Beautiful and pure.
Only then I panicked. Because it felt like he could just claw his way up my throat and he’d be inside my mind with no resistance. I would give him anything like this. Every secret spilled for him, just as he’d wanted that first day I’d met him.
It was vulnerable and shocking.
“You’re fighting me again,” came his voice, sounding far away, just as it had in the forest. “Hold on to it. Let me guide you. Trust me, Amaia.”
Could I?
I didn’t know.
“You’ll come to know my magic with the familiarity of my touch,” came his smoky voice. “That is when you’ll stop fighting. When you know I won’t hurt you. Or break my promise to you.”
This felt more intimate than I ever thought possible. His wrists were firmly in my grasp. I could push him away at any time. There was a laughable comfort in that.
But he was joined with me. More than anyone had ever been before. Even sex had never felt this intimate.
It felt raw. It felt aching. I wanted more, and I wanted it to stop. I was both breathlessly greedy and breathlessly frightened.
“Just for a moment,” he murmured, his lips brushing my ear. “Let me show you what’s possible, mariss.”
I closed my eyes. With my heart beating its way into my throat, I pushed into him, just as I did when I used my ability to heal. I heard him hiss out a low breath as I surrendered willingly.
Giving in, I leaned forward, pressing my forehead to his chest, running my hands up from his wrist to skim along his arms. I rubbed my lips against the rough material of his shirt, feeling his heartbeat throb against them.
“That’s it,” I heard him say above me, his deep voice sending a flood of warmth rushing through my limbs. He groaned, clutching me to him, like he was afraid I’d pull away. “You feel so good, mariss.”
It felt like I was floating. On an endless sea, water rushing in my ears, drowning everything out.
But Alaryk was there, holding me up. There was no pain, though the threads of his magic felt sharper.
The edge of it skimmed across my skin like a dulled blade.
The threat of danger was present, but there was a part of me that recognized it like…
his scent. Unchangeable. That was just how his magic felt, perhaps honed and sharpened through pain and experience, as he’d admitted.
It didn’t mean he would wield it against me.
But where he was sharp, I was soft, encasing his magic until he was forced to sink into me. To give in.
I felt him stiffen.
He’d called this seduction. A push and a pull. And so I dragged him deeper, envisioning pulling him down beneath the water. I could feel his heart thundering against my lips. I heard a breath in his throat catch. It sent my own pulse soaring.
He was right. There was no pain. Only pleasure. Sublime pleasure. It was alarming how good it felt.
But where there was a push, there should be a pull.
And so, when I felt myself getting too wrapped in him, when I began to feel his magic press harder into my own, I surfaced, imagining a blade cutting the threads of our magic.
“Fuck,” came his anguished groan as I stumbled back.
Only this time, my foot went flying over the edge of the stone walkway.
I still felt wrapped up in our connection, confused about what was real and what wasn’t.
When I felt the water rush over my head, I felt…
calm. Tranquil, even. The water was deeper than I expected.
It was icy cold, too, shocking me back to reality. The reminder I desperately needed.
When I surfaced, I looked up at the stone walkway, only a few feet above my head.
Alaryk was sprawled on the ground, as if the broken connection had taken him by surprise.
He stared down at me, breathing hard, expression unreadable though the intensity in his gaze made my nipples pebble tight beneath my thin tunic, the reverberations of heat still weaving between my thighs.
His cock was hard, eye-catching and distracting, pressed against the laces of his trews, straining them so tight that I thought they might break.
My hand curled beneath the water in want.
That had been…entirely unexpected.
As we regarded one another, neither moving, I thought that might’ve been the case for both of us.
And the way he was looking at me?
He was looking at me like he’d never seen me before.
My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth as I stood in the water. The surface came up to my shoulders, and I waded closer to the walkway. By then, Alaryk had regained some of his control, crouching at the edge, reaching a hand down toward me.
That was when I realized…the cut on his hand had healed. Unblemished skin met my gaze. I felt more energized than I had in years. I flicked a curious, puzzled glance up at him before taking it, and he effortlessly pulled me up.
I stood, dripping wet, before him. His hand came to my hip, his thumb nestled against the bone there. His jaw tightened. His lips opened, like he was about to speak, before he stopped himself. And I didn’t know why that brought awareness crawling over my skin.
“Let’s head back so you can get warm,” he finally said, his voice guttural, like he hadn’t spoken in days.
All I could do was nod as he moved to the hidden stairwell through the archway.
I was flushed, aroused, reeling as I followed.
The most alarming thing, however, was that I wanted to feel him—his body, his magic, his touch—again. I thought that if I wasn’t careful, I could come to crave it.