Chapter 31 #3
He drew one last, deep pull on my breast that made my toes curl, and then let go, straightening to his full height.
“I think you overestimate what you need. Plus, you’re still learning.
Maybe the limit was self-imposed, and you’ll be able to draw more tomorrow.
Or maybe we need to deepen our bond, by doing this.
” He gave me a lingering kiss, then tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“Do you need to talk about this right now, or can it wait until the morning?” Gold flecks swirled in his eyes.
I bit my lip. All I wanted right now was his hands and mouth on me and his cock inside me. “It can wait.”
“Good. Now, how do you feel about calling me ‘sir’ again?”
* * *
We never talked about it the next morning, because Fen was gone when I woke up. Daphne told me at breakfast he’d gone to the Dungeon early to work with a soul.
Training was almost exactly like the day before.
I reached the limit of how much power I could draw earlier than I needed.
Day after day. It never budged. Titus finally switched tactics, working out exactly how much power each action took and how to achieve the same thing with less, but the finite limit frightened me.
I’d never been very good with strategy, one of the reasons I never played chess with my father.
If I couldn’t increase the amount of power I drew, I would have to end the challenge with Death quickly.
Otherwise, all she had to do was outlast me.
One more way, out of far too many, that I could fail.
I should have discussed it more in depth with Fen, but he was barely around.
The only time I saw him was at night in bed, and it was clear he didn’t want to spend that time talking.
Neither did I. It was the one part of my life that felt good.
I didn’t want to weigh it down with my failure.
Besides, what if it wasn’t just my failure?
What if there was something wrong with our Death Chord?
If that was the case, deepening my connection with Fen through physical intimacy might solve the problem.
It didn’t. After a week of nothing changing, I decided I couldn’t avoid it anymore. During our midday break, I went looking for Fen.
He was a hard man to track down. Every time I arrived in one part of the castle looking for him, I was told that he’d just left for somewhere else. I began to think he was avoiding me.
“Let me guess,” I said to a Tempter in the kitchen. “I just missed him.” It was the sixth place I’d looked. He was definitely avoiding me.
They nodded, a frightened look on their face.
Blowing out a short breath through my nose, I rolled my lips inward. “Did he say where he was going?”
The Tempter shook their head.
“Thanks.” I gave them a tight smile, trying to rein in my anger and anxiety. Why was he making me chase him all over the damn castle? Were things not as good between us as I thought? And how did he know I was coming? There was nothing unusual coming from his end of our bond.
The thought pulled me up short. Our bond. Could he tell where I was from our Death Chord? I’d never used it that way before, but maybe I could.
Exiting the kitchen, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, focusing on my connection to Fen. I imagined it as a golden string stretching between the two of us. In my mind’s eye it extended off to my right, so I headed in that direction.
It was like trying to chase a slippery snake.
Every time I moved in one direction, Fen changed his.
After a few turns, I stopped. Unless I could take him by surprise, at this rate I’d never catch him.
Switching tactics, I focused back on our bond, on him at the other end.
Fixing him in my mind, I created a portal of light and stepped through it into the atrium.
I spotted him right away, jogging up one of the central staircases.
“Fen.”
He stopped mid-stride. I could tell from how long it took him to turn around that he debated brushing me off.
“Why are you avoiding me? I need to talk to you.” I stood at the base of the stairs.
A group of Tempters looked at me funny as they walked by, but I ignored them. If shaming Fen into a conversation was what it took, so be it.
He turned around and raised one eyebrow. “I’m not avoiding you. I’m a busy man.” His air of I’m so reasonable, and you are not raised my hackles, but I refused to let him bait me.
“This is important.”
Glancing at the Tempters milling around us, he descended the steps to join me. “Maybe we should go somewhere private.”
“So you can seduce me into forgetting about this? No. We can talk here.” I crossed my arms.
“You’ve been an active participant in any and all seductions recently.” He smirked.
“Precisely.” Leaning in, I lowered my voice. “I still can’t pull enough power to defeat Death. I need you to help me figure out what’s going on.”
A mixture of anger and something I couldn’t read flickered across Fen’s face for a moment before his expression settled into a frown. “I told you, you’re overestimating how much you need.”
“You can’t know that.” The words came out louder than I intended. I lowered my voice again. “If I only have a finite amount I can use, my window for defeating Death is small. She can easily outlast me.”
“Then you’ll defeat her quickly.” He put his hand on my arm. “You should have more faith in yourself. I know you can do this.”
I glared at him. “Why do you refuse to see this as a problem? You know the stakes. I have to deliver, and I don’t know that I can.”
“You—”
Screams sounded from the Dungeon, and a moment later a small stampede of people rushed from the entrance down the hall towards us. A blur of black was followed by three separate shrieks that abruptly cut off.
My eyes widened in horror when I realized what I was seeing. Standing amidst the panicked crowd were Wraiths feeding on Tempters. Three of them.