Chapter Twenty-Four
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My arms fly out as I pitch to the side, losing my balance from raising my boot over the first stair when we have many more than this to climb before we reach the catacombs.
Heat sluices up my skin, rolling up my legs to aid me in forging forward, doing my best to keep pace within the Emperor’s procession until it is safe for me to spare a glance at Varic.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.” His small smile shows how he wants to do this for me.
Yet tears prick my eyes at the fact he needs to. That I have become so weak he must project his magic over my legs just to ensure I can walk back through the mountain.
His magic helps to stabilize me like it did when we were dancing, and yet I nearly slam into his side when I lose my balance taking the next step.
Additional warmth envelops my arm over Varic’s shield as he takes hold of me while carefully snaking its opposite behind my back until his fingertips press into my hip and I give in, aligning my body with his.
I turn back and ensure the Guards behind us aren’t looking at just how closely we walk up the stairwell. Because the way Varic stared at me all morning was torturous enough, but this—this is unbearable. And the last thing I need are more witnesses to report untoward contact between us.
I straighten my spine, trying to make any space possible between our bodies as we take the next step. Lars stares down at us with an amused expression—one that makes my palms tingle with the urge to smack it from his face.
“I’m fine.”
Varic scoffs, and I growl when his hand rises to fit within the dip of my waist, curving his fingers beneath my ribs where a tingling sensation spreads. He glances over and that smirk I know too well creases his cheek.
“What is it, Varic?” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “Simply amused with how you still flush in that pattern whenever I’m around you.”
The breath I release draws the attention of the rest of my Guards, who all seem to assess me with a lightness I am unused to detecting within them.
“What is it?” Varic teases, repeating my line of inquiry.
“Just your continued efforts in earning the title of ‘the great distractor’,” I say, then flush hotter at the admission while he simply grins wider.
Varic’s touch elicits an increasingly stronger response from me—one I cannot chance growing—as he is already quite adept at diverting me from my purpose, and His Majesty has already mentioned my failure to properly attend to my duties.
While Varic’s presence has always conjured a different reaction in me than any other witch or sorcerer is capable of producing, it is as if years spent apart have only served to intensify this spark sizzling between us.
I could swear it wasn’t like this before—
“Do you always do that?” Varic asks, sitting cross-legged opposite me on the bed, pointing in the center of my chest.
I make no move to look down while he stares back, content to wear nothing but his black underwear in this searing heat—to which I have also conceded, stripping down to my black silk slip hours earlier.
“Do what?” I ask, though I’m a terrible actor when it comes to interacting with him.
“Flush in that pattern,” he says, before popping a berry in his mouth, agitating me further with his ability to maintain his smirk while chewing.
“Oh,” I say, allowing my gaze to drop, though I know exactly what it looks like, having seen it dozens of times. “No. I don’t know what this is. I haven’t ever blushed like this before.”
I shouldn’t have said the last part. It will only encourage this affection he seems to be developing for me.
Which is only natural, since I am providing him the type of support he needs.
My affirmation of his suspicion only deepens his smirk until it crinkles the skin by his eyes while his brows rise above his twinkling irises, reflecting the flames dancing in the gas lamps on the bedside tables.
“So, I’m special then.”
“How so?”
“If you mean it, that you only experience this lacy red flush which starts there”—he points at the space between my breasts—“in the center of your chest”—he traces his finger up the side of my neck—“up your neck, then under your cheeks”—his hand resting for a brief moment before he drops it beside him to brace against the bed.
“Burning rose red only when you’re near me—if all of that is true, then that means I am special. ”
“I don’t understand,” I say, unwilling to acknowledge this. Not yet.
“You don’t think it’s special for me to be able to make your body react in this unique way?
” he asks, popping another berry into his mouth, leaving me wondering how it’s possible for someone to become even more attractive while chewing?
The way his jaw muscles flex and release with every depression of his teeth—
I shake my head and readjust myself on the bed. Anything to break our eye contact.
“You think your body reacting like this, and only doing so with me, is somehow not an indication that we share some sort of special connection between us?” His eyes rove over me, setting my skin alight everywhere his gaze flicks, until my cheeks grow impossibly hot.
Boiling. Then the feeling transforms and intensifies, almost as if my whole body is submerged and I can’t breathe while his attention is on me—with the need to break this spell feeling imperative.
“Can we please focus?”
“Can you?” he asks.
No, I cannot. Because next thing I know, I’m blurting out a question that’s been circling. “Why do you have scars when your father was a healer?”
His eyebrows rise, shifting one of the scars in question. He releases a breath and leans forward, rolling his shoulders on the way down.
“My father’s philosophy, or I suppose we could go as far as to say, ‘the Euclid way,’ is to keep from making mistakes. However, if you make one, you will live with the consequences to ensure you make a different decision in the future.”
“That seems to have stuck with you,” I tease, surprising even myself as he chuckles.
“Right. So when I climbed on top of the hay bales when he told me I shouldn’t because I would get hurt, I fell on top of a broken bit of wood, which cut through here,” he says, lightly tapping his eyebrow. “He refused to help me clean the wound, much less heal me.”
“How old were you?” I ask, aghast.
“Must have been seven, maybe eight years old.”
“And this one?” I ask, nearly brushing the bottom of his lip to indicate the scar there.
“That one,” he says, shaking his head. “That one is a different kind of story, and one which took place when my father was not present.” I gesture for him to continue, and he straightens to tell it.
“I was ten years old, and we were outside playing in the yard when a force sorcerer around my size shoved one of the smallest flight sorcerers, and I told him to stop, or I’d make him.
A threat which he did not appreciate after he failed to heed my warning and promptly clocked me after I blasted him to prove it. ”
“He punched you?” I ask, brows raised.
“Split my lip open so far it ran all the way down to where you see the end of the scar.”
I shake my head and pull my hand back into my lap, having reached out for him at some point during his telling of the story.
“And what did he walk away with?”
“A nice lightning-shaped scar down his neck.” His stomach tenses in reaction to my shocked expression. “Don’t worry. The healers dealt with it in no time. My father, however, had instructed them not to tend to me when it came to accidents or skirmishes where I should have known better.”
Fire. Flames. Molten lava roils through my veins with the sudden need to pay this sorcerer a visit, though his son quickly tempers it.
“I feel the same,” he says, lips curving on one side as I look back in confusion. “I want to hurt the one who neglects your needs.” My face falls, and his follows.
Did I send my emotions to him just now? Or can he possibly guess something so specific? Am I that incapable of controlling my feelings around him? Or when it comes to him…
He clears his throat, dragging my attention back.
“Let me guess. You want us to return to focusing on my rehabilitation.”
“That is why the Emperor sent me here.”
“Thank you for the reminder. Can we please discuss anything but him?”
“As long as the topic doesn’t include my feelings.” For you.
“That’s no fun.”
“I wasn’t sent here to entertain you, Varic.”
“And it seems to be your favorite thing to remind me.”
I close my eyes with a sigh, reaching out with my magic—which he blocks. Effectively.
My eyes fly open with surprise, quickly overtaken by a sense of pride—though he must misread my meaning as his own face falls.
“Hey.” His voice is gentle, as is his touch, yet I startle when his fingertips brush over my own. “Tasch. I’m sorry.” His expression squeezes my heart, a pained mix of sorrow and remorse. “I came on too strong. I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
I stare down where my fingers smooth the lace edge of my slip over the top of my thigh.
“You didn’t choose to be here.” His voice cracks, allowing the hurt to seep out.
“And you didn’t choose to hurt anyone,” I remind him.
His mouth opens and closes while his eyes mark a trail I could trace with my eyes closed.
“No,” he says, and I sit up straighter, inadvertently bringing our chests closer together. This is the first time he’s acknowledged it was not his intent to hurt anyone. “I assume the same is true for you.”
My heart leaps in my chest. He knows, and he’s not judging me for it. He means it. Then my stomach drops, and a familiar nagging voice takes over, shaming me into eternity.
I laugh. A true, hearty belly laugh. Needing the levity to get through, well, everything.
“I amuse you,” he says, though his tone is questioning.
“Indeed.” I take a sip of the now room-temperature tea, fidgeting with the handle. “Anyone thinking they understand me or my situation is always amusing.”
“You think no one understands you.” He pauses. “Or what you’ve been through.”
“I do not just think so. I know.”