Chapter 14 Winter #5
“So, what are you gonna hit me with?” Z asked. “Are you going frost, shadows, or Necromancy? Gotta know what I’m gonna be dealing with before we go into this, so we can make sure we balance.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?” he asked, cocking his hip in his neon-pink jeans.
And, yes, as he’d stated earlier, they were tight as hell. Tighter than I’d even visualized during our text exchange.
“I saw you performing your instinctual magic again.”
His eyes lit up. “I know, right? I’m becoming awesome! Well, more awesome.”
I laughed. “Without a doubt, Z.”
He called his power to his right palm, forming a glowing fuchsia ball.
And then he hesitated and looked at me, noting I hadn’t called any part of my power yet. “I mean, it’s still new, though.”
“And?”
“And I can’t always just… do it. You guys have seen that.”
“Understood.” I gestured at the pressure plate. “Breathe, focus, and let loose, and we’ll see what happens.”
“I don’t know,” he said, his fuchsia ball shuddering on his palm.
I stepped up to him, noting that the professor was no longer focused on us now, instead drawn to a volatile situation with Christalyn and Keuric.
Not the best partnership. She absolutely hated him.
She was the one who’d helped me dispose of him Evira’s first day here at Loxley all those weeks back.
She didn’t just detest him for me, because of my love for Evira.
Anyone abusing their power or anyone got under her skin.
Something she was putting into her career trajectory as she’d texted me about a few days ago—she was becoming a Guardian Movement member.
The first of the Celestial children to ever be inducted into it.
“Win,” Zayn gulped as I stepped so very close, my hoodie brushing against his metallic T-shirt.
I leaned in and whispered at his ear, enjoying the little tremble that went through him. “I’ll be extra gentle. Promise, little fireball.”
He pressed his hand to my chest, fingers clenching.
And then he sucked in a harsh breath and pushed me back a step.
“Stop,” he said, but with a coy smirk.
It was working, though.
And the knowing look in his eyes made it clear he was aware what I was doing. When Zayn got excited, his fear often slipped away.
“Thanks,” he said, beaming at me then as he shifted his weight and stabilized his power.
“I’ll use my Necromancy,” I told him.
I called my power.
An unexpected rush shot through me. Magic flamed, shooting up in two-foot-high raging amber flames.
“Shit,” Zayn exclaimed.
I sucked in a breath, despite an intense flood of adrenaline, and that thrill urging me to not just hold it, but push onward.
Go higher.
No, go deeper.
Drink it down.
Fucking relish it.
I managed to get control and pull it back quickly, my eyes darting all around.
Everyone was focused on their exercises thankfully.
“You all right?” Zayn asked me, eyes wide with so much worry.
Worry I couldn’t afford.
“Fine. It’s just a side effect of some of the training I’ve been doing with my dad.”
“Side effect?”
Sure. “Yeah. Learning how to call my power instantly at a high level without causing that scraping sensation and compromising myself in the process. There’s a trick to it for necromancers. I guess I’m still mastering it.”
“Mastering that, but having already mastered so much else in a really short timeframe?” Zayn rightfully questioned.
Fuck. “I guess some things are just more challenging. Even when you can master some of the advanced things more easily, some of the basics can elude you for a bit.”
“All right, yeah, I get that. Just… if you’re pushing things too hard—”
“I’m not.” I snuffed out my power, then called it back steadily, two controlled shimmering amber balls levitating over my palms. “See? All good here.” I focused and carefully began to spin the orbs—both at once in opposite directions.
“Damn, that’s some sweet control.”
There. We were good. Potential crisis averted.
“What can I say? Sylas Morgrave makes a hell of a trainer.”
Let him believe it was down to my dad, rather than my own competence. My dad was known the world over for his incredible control and mastery, so tying it to that lent weight to my stability projection.
I mean, it wasn’t just a projection. Not to me. I knew where I was at. I knew I was stable, that I could do this.
But any subversion of that, any sign of instability, worried people.
Now with Zayn and my loves it wasn’t about them seeing me as a danger or anything.
It was about my emotional, mental, and physical health, and them worrying about the burden on me straining things.
I knew they actually cared about me, not the image of what I was to others—or what others thought I was.
But it was still a risk to have even my loves seeing any perceived issues with me.
And that would only change when this Ruxnoth situation did.
Soon.
Just a little more time.
“Ready?” I asked Zayn, shifting my weight and taking aim at the pressure plate.
He got back into it, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Yeah. Give it to me.”
A spark of need rolled through me at his choice of phrasing.
I blinked, and zeroed in on the plate, feeling my amber spheres perfectly synced to my will.
Zayn looked to me.
He wanted me to hit first, and he’d be the balance.
Things had definitely changed there.
I smiled to myself, then fired the right ball, guiding it in a steady trajectory, dragging the speed a little to give him a good opening.
Two inches out, he made his move, firing a bolt of his fuchsia magical flame.
It collided perfectly with my sphere, driving through its center.
“Ungh,” I uttered as his power didn’t just touch slightly, but remained there threaded through it.
“Motherfucker,” he gasped, feeling it, too.
I gritted my teeth as I tried to focus through the sensation. “Thought you were going to hit with attacking force… not… this.”
He smirked. “You mean, not my magic teasing yours?” He lifted a shoulder. “Me too. Guess I got a little carried away.”
“Or this is payback for the text convo earlier. Me messing with you about the cock rub thing?”
“That was the least of it.”
A growl left me, but it ended with a chuckle.
He laughed, too. “Hey, we’re still completing the task at hand, and really damn well. Look at our magic balancing so well together and hitting the plate with perfect pressure and intensity.”
I saw his hand shaking.
And it wasn’t him being unable to hold his power steady. He was getting too worked up. Not the best in this sort of situation, let alone for an Ifrit in magical flux—his new instinctive magic he’d been developing.
“All right. Just relax for me,” I told him.
“Win, not exactly helping with that kind of talk.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not what I meant.”
“As if you’re not enjoying this and seeing me overshoot to mess with you—it’s gonna be a whole other kind of shooting in the next few moments if—”
“Stop,” I said, blinking to will away the image of his cock doing… that. “Seeing as though you started it and—”
“Did I, though?”
Ah, the text message thing again.
“Just… seriously, relax. I’m gonna pull my power back, but replace it instantly. Same power level, just not… this. I need you to sink into it, pull on that instinctual aspect you’ve been working on. Don’t overthink it. Just trust in it. In you, Z.”
I guided forward the sphere that I was still stably levitating above my left palm.
Then I eyed him in question.
“Yeah,” he said, strengthening his stance. “I’ve got it. Got it, Win.”
I smiled to myself. He was adorable. Even with this stunt. Let’s face it, that just made him more adorable in my eyes.
As my second sphere reached the clusterfuck at the pressure plate, I twisted my hand carefully, forming it into a cylindrical disc, bit by bit.
I held it just a fraction of an inch out from his… penetrating… fuchsia spike currently driven through my other sphere. Then I started to guide my right hand to see to that orb, carefully easing it off his magic.
The moment it was off, I focused on pressing my disc to his magic with the exact same amount of pressure and power, so there was no break or change at all that would impact the plate.
His eyes widened as his magic responded perfectly to the movement of mine, and morphed into an identically-sized disc, hovering against mine.
Now there was intensity, yes, but it wasn’t anything like it had been. It was pure power meeting other power equally.
“Highly impressive,” I commended him. “That was really something, Zayn.”
I drew my stray sphere back to me, but kept it hovering over my right palm just in case something else happened that required immediate action. My left hand remained steady holding the disc against his.
“Right back at you. Those were some sweet moves.”
A shadow fell over us and I turned to see the professor there.
“Excellent,” he said, admiring our handiwork. “That’s how it’s done. Fusion is not domination. It’s alignment. Very well done, gentlemen.”
He gave us a chin lift, of all things, then continued on to the next pair down the line.
Zayn grinned at me. “That sounds like an A+, right?”
I chuckled.
Actually, I burst out laughing, still holding my magic steady through it all.
And it felt really good.
The levity.
The innocence of it.
The normalcy of it being just a class exercise.
Zayn being Zayn.
And me actually getting to be me.
At least for a little while.