Chapter 33
KIERAN
I could still taste her. That was the first problem.
The second was that I had been awake for nearly an hour and had yet to think about anything else.
I stood beneath the shower in my suite with one hand against the stone wall, cold water running over the back of my neck because starting with it hot had been a catastrophic error in judgment.
Apparently heat was all my mind needed to return to the chamber.
Lyra against the wall. Her fingers twisted into my hair. That little sound she’d made when I pulled her closer. Her mouth opening beneath mine. I lowered my forehead against the stone and turned the water colder.
Useless.
The first kiss could at least be blamed on circumstances. The chamber had been collapsing around us. I had nearly watched her disappear through a hole with no visible bottom, and weeks of restraint had chosen the worst possible moment to abandon me.
I had kissed her.
I could call that a mistake if I wanted.
The second kiss was harder to explain away because Lyra had looked straight at me, apparently decided she was finished pretending too, and put her mouth back on mine.
I had replayed that particular moment an embarrassing number of times.
Cold water ran down my spine. My mind wandered lower, to her body pinned between mine and the wall, her breasts against my chest, the pressure of her thigh shifting between—
I shut off the water.
“Enough.” The word sounded ridiculous in an empty bathing room. I stepped out, dried myself, and wrapped the towel around my waist.
There were actual problems requiring my attention.
The convergence chamber buried beneath the Crucible.
Aurenya Evanora. Maerox. The record someone had deliberately mutilated.
The fact that the foundation had recognized Lyra’s Light and Shadow before reacting even more violently when her magic joined with mine.
And the silver.
Especially the silver.
Those were useful things to think about.
Instead, while crossing into my bedroom, I remembered Lyra rising onto her toes because I was too tall for her and dragging me down by my shirt.
My cock twitched.
I stopped beside the bed and stared at the opposite wall.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Apparently my body had no interest in cooperating with the rest of me.
My suite occupied the highest residential level of the western Umbra Ring, well above the candidate quarters.
No one wandered this far up without a reason, which had always suited me.
I had a bedroom, bathing room, sitting room, a small study, and a narrow balcony overlooking the western grounds.
Usually, I valued the privacy. This morning, being alone ten feet from a bed seemed ill-advised.
I opened the wardrobe and reached for training leathers.
Weapons would be useful too. Anything requiring enough concentration to keep me from thinking about Lyra Alerain’s tongue.
I had one leg in my trousers when someone knocked three times. I considered pretending I hadn’t heard.
“Open the door,” Eiryx called.
Of course.
“Go away.”
“No.”
“I’m naked.”
There was a brief pause. “Then this morning is already more interesting than expected.”
I dragged my trousers the rest of the way on. “If you come through that door, I’m throwing you off the balcony.”
The latch clicked. Eiryx walked in. I stared at him. He held up a thin strip of metal between two fingers. “You should replace the lock.”
“You should develop a sense of self-preservation.”
His gaze traveled over me before settling on my face. More specifically, my mouth. I knew the exact moment he noticed whatever he thought he noticed because his face changed.
I turned toward the wardrobe. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“I was thinking.”
“Do it somewhere else.” I pulled a shirt over my head. Eiryx remained suspiciously quiet.
When I turned around, the bastard was smiling. There was none of his usual uncertainty about it either. He looked like a man who had just solved a problem that had been irritating him for weeks. “No.”
His smile widened.
“Whatever you think you know—”
“You kissed her.”
I reached for my boots. “You’re remarkably confident for someone who wasn’t there.”
“You kissed her.”
“Did you come here for an actual reason?”
“Holy shit.”
“Eiryx.”
“You actually did.” I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on one boot while he leaned against my desk, looking far too entertained by my suffering. “How long?”
I glanced up. “How long what?”
“How long did you kiss her?”
The second boot was already in my hand. I threw it. He caught it against his chest. “Violent.”
“Give me my boot.”
He tossed it back. “I’m impressed. I genuinely assumed one of you would die first.”
“Still possible.”
That wiped some of the amusement from him. “That bad?”
I looked at him. That was enough. His eyebrows climbed. “Oh.”
“Stop.”
“That good?”
“Eiryx.”
He laughed, and I briefly reconsidered the balcony. I finished dressing while he made himself comfortable against my desk as though he hadn’t broken into my private rooms before breakfast. “What happened down there?”
“You received the important part last night.”
The message I’d sent him after returning had been deliberately concise.
We found the foundation. It collapsed. We got out.
I had omitted the portion where Lyra and I nearly fucked each other against an ancient wall before apparently awakening half the architecture beneath the Sanctum. At the time, that had seemed like reasonable editing.
Eiryx clearly disagreed. “You left out a detail.”
“It wasn’t relevant.”
“Kieran, you kissed Alerain inside a convergence chamber documented as responding to her mother and a Shadow wielder twenty-two years ago. I would argue that makes it moderately relevant.”
“Get out.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“Get the hell out.”
“I mean it.” That stopped me. Eiryx amusement hadn’t disappeared completely. It likely never would where this particular subject was concerned. But I had known him long enough to recognize what sat beneath it. “You’ve been miserable for years,” he said.
“I’m not miserable.”
“You’re right, you’re unbearable.”
“So are you.”
“Yes, but I enjoy myself.” I slid the dagger from my desk into its sheath. Eiryx watched me fasten it. “Do you?”
I glanced at him. “Do I what?”
“Enjoy her.”
“That sounded considerably more obscene than you intended.”
“I know exactly how it sounded.”
“Then I’m not answering.”
He pushed away from the desk. “You like her.”
“Brilliant deduction.”
“No, I knew you wanted her. Everyone with functioning eyes knows you want her.”
That got my attention. “Everyone?”
“Relax. Most of them think you want to murder her.”
I knew what he meant, which was precisely why I crossed to the table beside the windows and poured myself water.
He followed. “You like being around her.”
“I tolerate being around her.”
Eiryx gave me a long look. “You voluntarily spend hours alone with her, at night, in a ruined ring no one else uses.”
“She needed discretion. It’s not like I can just take her to the Umbra rings.”
“Right. Makes sense. And all the putting your hands on her?” I turned slowly. He lifted both hands. “Training.”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
He laughed under his breath. I drank half the water. “You’re screwed.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean genuinely.”
“I gathered.”
The amusement left him. “She’s Aurenya’s daughter. She carries Shadow. She may be Starborn.”
My hand paused around the cup. “We don’t know that.”
Eiryx gave me a look. “You’ve known since the archives.
” Knowing and proving were different things, but there was no point having that argument with him again.
“And now you kissed her,” he continued. “Inside a chamber that apparently responded to her parents doing the same sort of forbidden courting two decades ago.”
“We have no idea what Aurenya and Maerox were doing down there.”
“You think they were discussing Sanctum policy?”
“Possibly.”
He stared at me. “What happened when you kissed her?” I should have answered immediately. I didn’t. Eiryx straightened. “Kieran.”
“The foundation changed.”
The amusement left him. “How?”
“Her Shadow responded to mine.”
“That happens during training sometimes.”
“Not like this it doesn’t.” I could still see the darkness winding around my wrist. Mine had moved around Lyra’s waist before I consciously commanded it. Shadow recognized intent before its wielder did. One of the first lessons I’d ever been taught.
Which meant my magic had apparently admitted to wanting Lyra before I had. I found that deeply irritating. “Her Light joined it,” I said.
Eiryx’s focus sharpened. “What happened?”
“Silver.”
“What do you mean, silver?”
“Exactly that. Wherever the affinities crossed, they turned silver. The chamber stopped moving.”
“All of it?”
“Completely.”
He waited a beat. “And then?”
Lyra’s mouth returned to me with enough clarity that I could feel the heat of her body again. “It woke up.”
Eiryx studied my face. “You kissed her again.”
“That isn’t relevant.”
“It seems extremely relevant to the architecture.”
“She kissed me.”
His mouth twitched. “Important distinction?”
“Very.”
“Why?” Because I wanted someone else to say what I had spent the entire morning thinking. She had wanted me too. Gods.
I put the cup down. “Are we finished?”
“Not remotely.” A knock interrupted him. We both looked toward the door. Two precise knocks came a moment later.
My morning was rapidly deteriorating. I opened the door to find Neseryn dressed for morning training, her dark hair pulled back and suspicion already sitting in those violet-rimmed eyes. She pushed past me.
I caught the door before it struck the wall. “Come in.”
“Eiryx.”
“Neseryn.”
She stopped in the center of the sitting room and turned on me. “Where were you last night?”
“Asleep.”
“Try again.”
I walked past her and retrieved my water. “If you’ve already decided where I was, why bother asking?”
“Because I want to know exactly how stupid you were.”
“That could take all morning.”