Chapter 25 #3
I can hear the rustling of the forest, the sound waves bouncing about the trees.
The sun’s photons springing off the moon, lighting it up in the night sky.
I sense the moisture in the air as the molecules kiss all around us, turning into early morning fog.
I enjoy the pull of the polar bonds of the water molecules as they dance in the air, lacing around my fingers, responding to my movement.
“Good. Now try to feel the molecules heating up.” He almost hums the words.
I don’t bother asking again how he can practically read my thoughts. I’m sure I’ll get another Ritherin-shit excuse about the whispering shadows. Maybe he’s just sensing the environment alongside me. I guess I don’t really know the extent of his shadow magic.
I get back to the task of feeling the water molecules around me.
I take advantage of the heat he ignites beneath my skin, letting it reach out, warming the air around us as it crashes with the cooler air.
The collision of opposite temperatures transforms the invisible gas into tiny water droplets in the air.
I control the new molecules, not letting them cluster into clotted droplets of rain.
My lashes flutter open to reveal mist swirling around us, waltzing to my desire as I move my fingers.
“See? You do have a Celestial Gift.” He looks down at me with a devilishly handsome smile on those full lips, making my chest tight. “Now let’s see if we can push you further.”
“But this magic makes me a Stormcaller. Isn’t that strong enough?” I petition. My gaze meets his deepening leer. He’s peeling away all my layers, all the walls I have worked so hard to build, uncovering my tattered soul.
“Trust me.” He smirks with smoldering blue embers peering down at me.
Easy for you to say.
“That is asking a great deal from me,” I plead, eyes wide.
My chest creaks under the vice of his request. Trust doesn’t come easily to me.
It makes you vulnerable, and I have enough of that to deal with around him as it is.
I trust him to have my back in battle, but this moment is already too intimate, too raw.
Too close to these pesky emotions that make everything far too muddled.
Then I remember the terror drenching his eyes the night he ran with me dying in his arms. There’s something more to him, a tether beneath my attraction to his divinely carved beauty. It calls to me, imploring me to throw caution to the wind and give in to all of him.
Yet the one time I did exactly that, he fucking left me. Sure, I wasn’t in any shape to be wildly ravaged by him, but it somehow hurt deeper than expected. Now I’m leery of letting him close again. That wound is still healing, can’t have it ripped wide open again.
He leans his head down to meet mine. My breath freezes in my chest as he wraps his large hand around the side of my neck, the pad of his thumb braced beneath my jaw.
He gently tilts my head, iridescent hair cascading back like tumbling starlight.
Then moving to my exposed ear, his lips grazing my skin as he whispers.
“Trust me.”
With my shields down, his commanding grasp tugs the invisible tether taut between us. As if, somehow, my foolish heart already implicitly trusts him, strung up in all this golden light he’s weaving through it.
Rather than focus on pushing him away, I decide to play along for the time being. Closing my eyes once more, and letting myself feel everything.
The electricity of his breath on my neck, eddying waves of power simmering beneath my skin. Instead of fighting to bottle them up, I let them crash into me, galvanizing me. They roar through my veins, clawing to be released.
I stumble a step back from him, fearing I’ll hurt him. It’d be a shame to kill him accidentally after committing not to.
He steps towards me, wrapping his strong arms around my waist. His embrace overwhelms me.
Power cascades off him, a rushing waterfall I’m struggling not to drown in.
Velvet ribbons of shade reach out, far beyond my vision, shielding us in his shadows.
The scent of amber and spruce filling my gasping lungs.
My magic pours out, trying to intertwine with his. The lightest touch of my power against his melts me from the inside out. I wobble in the heady sensation. This is way more intense than I’ve come to expect being close to him. I’m going under, forgetting how to swim. How to breathe.
He uses his shadows, pulling me back closer to him. Then the wall of smoke retreats, expanding outwards all around us.
“You won’t hurt me. Not like this. Not with your magic. Now, I want you to focus on that rock.” He nods to a boulder to our right.
I’m not going to lie that I’m slightly disappointed that his sentence began with I want you and then ended talking about a cursed rock.
“Focus on its structure, and concentrate on unraveling the bonds.”
I should probably ask him what he meant about my magic not being able to hurt him, but his eyes suddenly turn solid white again, glowing like the full moon. I follow his gaze to a large boulder that’s now in his Shadowveil alongside us.
I sigh, shifting my focus, peering deep within the rock, envisioning the crystalline matrixes bracing its structure.
Then I visualize a beam of pure energy coming out of my lifted hand, tearing through the bonds.
The boulder begins to fracture before my eyes, its splintering cry tearing through the silent night.
S?las squeezes me tighter, lowering his head more, breathing heavily along my neck, his lips grazing my skin, teasing, torturing me with temptation.
My craving for him becomes crushing. Overpowering.
And I let go. I arch my body into his, savoring the swell of his endowed length against my lower abdomen.
He responds in kind by releasing a guttural growl against my neck. The sound of his pleasure unshackles an untamed wildness deep within me.
Any semblance of control unravels along with me.
I wrap my arm around his neck, running my hand through his hair as I pull his head back, biting his exposed nape, rabid in my hunger for him.
His body rocks against mine, hard, as I gasp for air.
I cling to him as his power consumes me, touching me everywhere, all at once.
The otherworldly pull of our connection, a force all its own.
I shatter.
And the world along with me.
Explosions bursting all around us.
I immediately jump back, unsheathing the two short swords from my back, ready to fight as the shadows retreat. My eyes dart all around, waiting for something to move.
But all I hear is a warm laughter filling the air.
A genuine laugh. One that cracks my ribs open, like my heart recognizes the sound that can wake my soul.
One that I want to bottle up and swallow like a cognac on a cool winter night, satiating my very being.
I’ve never heard such a laugh from S?las.
I look at him with his head dipped back, raven waves twirling from his face, revealing a pure smile of amusement. The sound of his happiness flutters in my chest. Golden light slings through my ribs, curling around my heart, as if they can mend all the misshaped parts.
Until I realize I have no clue what he’s laughing about. There’s nothing worse than being left out of a joke. He finally composes himself, tucking strands of hair behind my ear.
“I do enjoy being right, Luxsula,” he purrs.
There’s that fucking word again, but the way he says it with heated eyes pries my ribs open further as more rays of light flood me. I sling him an unamused glare, ignoring the muddling mess of light in my chest.
He steps back, waving his arm in a long arch in front of his hips as if he’s presenting me with a grand dinner spread.
I take another step back, truly taking in my surroundings.
The boulder is shattered into a million pebbles.
But it’s not the only one. We are left in the bottom of a crater with thousands of tiny rocks strewn about.
My mouth falls open, fully appreciating the havoc my magic wrought.
Thank the Celestials the protection of his shadows held against the wreckage around us.
His presence is suddenly behind me.
“Chaos Magic,” he susurrates along my bare collar as he sweeps my hair away.
“Chaos Magic?” I’m awestruck and don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about.
“It’s why you have so much trouble accessing it. You thrive on being in control of yourself. You hate to feel your emotions. With magic, there is always a balance. It makes sense someone who loathes chaos would be granted the power to wield it.”
“I’ve never once heard of ‘Chaos Magic.’ You’re just making shit up now.”
“It hasn’t been seen as a gift since before the Celestial Dimming.
That’s why you’ve never heard of it. But I sensed the wild, untamed disorder radiating off you that first day of classes, in the hallway when you threatened to burn me like a moth.
Chaos thrives in the shadows. Atlas theorizes this is why I could sense it.
We found an ancient carved stone that was hard to translate, but it briefly mentions the might of chaos wielders in the Celestials’ fight against the darkness.
The inscription was on a tablet from Emberhell.
Atlas wasn’t sure of the translation, but it said something about how only a being of demonic blood could wield it.
Clearly, he got that part wrong. Look at you! ”
“Are you telling me you just held me like that as part of an experiment to get me to unleash my magic?” My fists curl, nails digging in, slashing crimson from my palms and slitting wide the wound from him I worked so hard to heal.
I want to rip out the stringy golden mess he’s made of my heart, chuck it right in his face. He can fucking have it; it’s no use to me anymore. Leading me right into his manipulative snare, snagging my feet right out from underneath me. How many times is it going to take me to learn this lesson?