Chapter 9 #2
And not that I could actually ask about the difference between fae men and women without making Quill curious.
If I saw Zinnia I could ask her… although then she might want to know what my magic was, and I wasn’t sure if I should tell her.
Yes, I trusted her to tell me the truth about fae society and to keep my sleeping mating marks a secret, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust her to keep my magic a secret.
“Your vision last night…” Quill shifted on the bed, the movement pulling my attention back to him. “Can you remember what you saw? Did you see the serpent that bit Payne?”
“No.” The images of the enormous, misshapen bears, their maws open, their claws slashing, the guys screaming and gasping and yelling, all caught between sudden flashes of light in the darkness crashed through my mind. “I— It happened so fast.”
Quill leaned forward and rested his warm hand on my knee.
A shudder swept through me, a mix of the fear from what I’d seen and desire at his touch.
“I know it’s difficult, but I need you to think carefully. How did the bears behave? Did you see anything else? Anything strange?”
That didn’t sound good. He’d only be asking questions like that if he thought there was something wrong with the bears. Of course, Payne had been poisoned, and it didn’t sound like anyone noticed anything poisonous around them, so…
“I’m sorry. I only caught a glimpse of the shadow bears. It was dark and my vision of the bears only lasted a moment. Then I saw Payne collapse in the infirmary and Flint say that he’d been poisoned.”
Quill hummed in thought and sat back, frowning.
Did he think I was lying or not telling the whole truth?
His gaze jumped back to mine and his expression softened. “It’s all right. Visions can be unpredictable, especially if you’re untrained. It’s not surprising you didn’t see much.”
“But you were hoping I’d seen something?”
“It most certainly would have made things easier.” He offered me a soft smile. “Right. Well… We should get to what we’re supposed to be doing in the first place. Meditation.”
Right. Learning to meditate so I wouldn’t go crazy. Maybe. If I was lucky.
Of course, I’d already foreseen that I’d die in the Gray so worrying about losing my mind probably shouldn’t have been my first concern.
“Will it help me control my visions?” If I could control when they came and what I focused on, maybe I could find a way to survive… and then I’d actually need to worry about going crazy.
“Possibly,” he said, his expression serious. “It should keep you from getting lost in them, but there isn’t any record of a fae with the sight ever having full control over their visions.”
Swell. And I didn’t like how he’d said “should” and not “would” keep me from getting lost in my visions.
Except that was the best I was going to get. If I could survive my foreseen death, then keeping myself sane for as long as possible had to be the goal, since I had no idea if the attack would come before Sawyer was safe.
“All right.” It was better than nothing.
“Close your eyes and breathe deeply,” he said. “Hold for a count of four, then release slowly.”
I closed my eyes and was suddenly hyperaware of how small the room was and how close Lord Quill and I were even though I sat in a chair, and he was on the bed.
I sucked in air, determined to focus. One… two… three… four. I slowly released my breath.
“Good.” His tone softened and deepened, reminding me of his tone when he’d begged to help me relieve the pressure from my mating marks. “Keep breathing like that and focus on the spark inside you.”
I frowned. I didn’t have a spark. I was human.
Except I also had magic. So did that mean I did have a spark? Was that what made me fae-touched?
“If you… ah… can’t sense a spark,” he said before I could ask him what a spark was supposed to feel like, “imagine one in the middle of your chest, anchored within your body.”
I drew in another breath, held it, and released it slowly while trying to picture a small flame in the center of my chest, and not how the wooden bedframe creaked as Quill shifted positions.
“My spark is like a miniscule star,” he murmured, his voice caressing my senses and drawing a highly inappropriate shiver of need through me. “A pinprick of light rooted in the heart of my being, an anchor that tethers my spirit to my body.”
My imagined flame shifted to my heart and melted into a shimmering white star the size of my thumbnail, and I couldn’t help wondering if I imagined mine bigger than Lord Quill’s because I knew he didn’t have magic and I did or if something else controlled my imagination.
“Talon, because his magic allows him to control darkness, says his spark is like an eclipsed sun, big and powerful with a black core and a thin red ring around the circumference.”
My white star flickered, but didn’t change color or shape, and I drew in another breath.
“Focus on the point of connection between you and the spark,” he purred. “On how it’s locked inside you.”
I shuddered softly at the words “inside you,” remembering how it had felt to have him inside me.
“How it’s buried within the core of your being.”
A stronger shiver rolled down my spine, bringing soft, sensual desire.
Damn it. Concentrate.
I sucked in a sharp breath, determined to focus and not think about how he sat on the bed, how I’d tackled him and taken my pleasure.
Father, it was harder to think with his husky voice driving me crazy than it had been when I’d been in the actual bedroom where we’d had sex.
“Now slowly send your senses out from the core to the rest of your body. Feel your lungs fill with air every time you breathe in, the tightness in your chest as you hold your breath, and the emptiness as you release it. Feel your muscles and limbs, your fingers and toes. Your skin—”
I felt a heat low in my core and my skin tingling.
I felt a warmth pulsing around my neck and down my chest where my impossible mating marks were when I was in the Garden.
I felt an aching yearning that I couldn’t and shouldn’t feel for a love that would never be mine.
I felt alone and angry and trapped in my circumstances. I felt too much.
My eyes flew open. Lord Quill had leaned forward, his face close to mine, and I jerked back, my chair tipping back precariously.
Quill grabbed the chair’s arms, catching me before I fell then pulled it back, his face now even closer to mine than before. His emerald eyes locked with mine, and a mix of desire and fear that he’d realize who I was stole my breath.
Concern and confusion filled his expression, and he opened his mouth as if to say something, then dropped his gaze and leaned back giving me space.
“The goal is to make you hyperaware of your physical body and your spark so you always know how to return to it.”
I was pretty sure that wasn’t what he’d been about to say.