Chapter 6 Crackling Wards and Burning Hands
six
Crackling Wards and Burning Hands
“And yet you came with nothing to actually draw the wards,” the asshole says.
I’m getting really tired of calling him asshole.
“That’s because I just got here and haven’t unpacked or gone to the store yet, Mister…?”
I leave the end hanging so he can fill it in, but he doesn’t. We stare at one another for an awkward beat before he scowls.
“So, you just expect I’ll come with the proper equipment?” he asks.
“No, I have a pencil,” I say, showing off the tiny nub Nai Nai used.
He leans down to inspect it, and my stomach drops out from under me. His dark coal eyes track over the tip of the pencil, then down my fingers to my wrist before they snap back up to my eyes.
“That will be sufficient for tonight.”
I clear my arid throat. “Great. So, what can I call you?”
“Whatever you like,” he says, turning for the coffee bar.
I follow him behind the drink station. “I’m trying to ask for your name.”
“I know.”
I groan. “Can you just tell me your name, please?”
He stops abruptly and I bump into his wings. They’re hot, but incredibly soft and airy, like touching a burning cloud. I have the insane need to touch them again and get wrapped up in them.
Suddenly, his wings disappear. He whirls around and glares at me with narrowed eyes.
“Why do you want my name?”
I throw my hands out to keep from putting them anywhere on his body. “Because it’s pretty rude to just be calling someone asshole in your mind all the time.”
He moves into my space and I step back against the edge of the coffee bar. His hands come down on either side of me and I yelp, but none of my fighting instinct comes to the surface.
“It’s also pretty rude not to tell your name to someone who’s asked,” I say on a trembling breath as he leans down into my space. He’s so close, the heat radiating off him soaks into my skin, just like in the shower. I find myself wanting to bask in it.
“You’re not trying to use it to do something nefarious?”
“I don’t know how to do nefarious things with names,” I murmur, my face yearning up toward his like a plant seeking sunlight.
His gaze traces my features and I feel inspected, but not in a crude or clinical way. He’s really looking at me, seeing me. Does he like what he’s seeing?
Gods above and below, what is wrong with me?
I clear my throat. “I’m Jiahui, but most people call me Jade.”
“Jyah-hwey…” He says my name slowly, even getting the proper inflection. The sound sends a tremor down my neck to my stomach, and I clench my thighs together.
“Okay, so, that’s my name,” I say, ducking under his arm and escaping the cage that was driving me mad. “What’s yours?”
He turns to face me and advances again. I’m up against the other wall. It’s starting to feel like we’re a snake and a badger dancing around one another, one trying not to be bitten, the other trying not to be eaten.
There are no caging arms or leaning in this time, but he steps close enough that his heat batters my skin.
“Rhazan,” he says, extending his hand.
I lift mine tentatively and he grasps it. A sudden burn sears my wrist like a hot iron. I gasp, trying to pull away, but he has a firm grip on me.
“What are you doing?”
“Hold still,” he says.
The heat under my skin reaches a crescendo that forces a whimper from my lips. I yank my hand back and look at my wrist. Two wings of smoke and fire cage around a four-pointed jade-green star.
“You’re under my protection now,” Rhazan says. “If Skreet comes here again, he’ll know the consequences of harming you by this mark.”
It’s pretty rad looking, but also I didn’t ask for a glowing tattoo, or his protection.
“What the fuck! You can’t just…brand me,” I sputter, following after him as he moves toward the back.
“And yet I just did.”
“Rhasshole,” I shout.
He stops in his tracks, his shoulders climbing up to his ears.
I hold up my arm. “Take this off.”
He turns back to me slowly, and there’s something more predatory in his walk, something truly dangerous.
“Do you want to know what it feels like to be feasted upon by hundreds of dog-sized cockroaches? Would you like your grandmother and your little brother to be eaten? This whole town?”
I swallow, but nothing helps the heat growing in my chest. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Just ask permission next time,” I say in a voice far too small for how justified I feel.
His face softens, the line in his forehead disappearing. His jaw flexes and his gaze darts away from me. Then he licks his bottom lip, exposing fangs.
“I…apologize for not asking for your consent. I make decisions quickly,” he says and then murmurs, “Too quickly, sometimes.”
Holy shit, I got an apology out of him. Maybe he’s not an asshole. Maybe I should thank him for saving my skin last night and protecting me and my family.
“Accepted. And I’m grateful for this…agreement,” I say, brushing my thumb over the mark.
He closes his eyes and a full-body shiver moves down from his shoulders to the flick of his spade-tipped tail.
“What was that?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath and then clears his throat. “Nothing. You can call me like that. It sends a sort of message to me, and I’ll know you need me.”
He turns around and heads back for the freezer. I thumb over the spot again and he shivers, then growls.
“You cannot just do it anytime you please! I will stop coming!”
“Okay, okay,” I laugh. “Sorry.”
He huffs and smoke curls from his nostrils. “Show me the wards you’re going to use.”
I uncrumple the page from Nai Nai and fold it open for him. His fingers trace the symbols and he grunts.
“These are an appropriate stopgap.”
I snort. “See, not a baby.”
He raises an eyebrow. “No, your grandmother certainly isn’t.”
Shit, he’s got me there.
He pulls open the door to the pantry and runs his fingers along the frame.
Fire curls through the wood, lighting up the cracked paint and peeling it back.
The shapes on my page appear in glowing orange as his hands slide down farther.
He moves with slow, smooth precision, ensuring each shape is delicately carved.
But he’s gotten one wrong.
I put my fingers over the mark and press down on the comforting warmth.
He hisses in a breath. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I say.
My astral body follows my fingers through the motion, pressing his magic into shape with my will. The curling tail of the mark wraps tighter, mimicking the drawing on the page.
He’s stopped, but there are still more to go. I touch his hand, marveling at just how much bigger it is than mine. Pulsing veins of fire etch through his skin, pushing his magic into his sharp talons. That’s what he’s using to craft the wards.
“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice soft with curiosity and something else, some deep part of him that’s been deprived.
“Finishing it.”
I grasp his fingers and scrawl the next symbol. Sparks fly from the wood as the protection takes form. The wards set deeper, farther than just the doorframe on this physical plane. I sense it seeping into the astral realm and across the planar barriers.
His other hand falls to my hip as he steps behind me, letting me use his body to scrawl the runes. My heart thuds heavily in my chest as we shape the magic together. It feels right. More than right. It feels designed. Destined.
Rhazan’s wings have reappeared. They curve around us, pinning us together against the door.
I put the flourish on the last shape, and the doorframe comes alive with light before it settles.
The shapes are blackened scars on the wood that somehow bring out more of its character. It’s beautiful and functional.
And I’m still holding his fingers like a paintbrush.
“Sorry,” I murmur as I slide my hand away.
Rhazan snaps to attention and pulls back. The sudden loss of his heat makes me shiver. His retreating footsteps turn me around, and for some reason, I’m desperate to ask him to stay for tea.
“Is that all?” I ask.
He doesn’t stop walking toward the portal of smoke and embers. “These are more than adequate to keep you safe for the time being.”
“But—”
“I will work on my wards. You won’t see me again unless there’s another breach.”
He steps through and the gateway snaps shut behind him, leaving little embers floating on the wind of his departure, and fluttering through my stomach, too. The heat from his hand lingers on mine. I turn my arm and see the mark burning there on the inside of my wrist.
I know he told me not to abuse it, but what if it doesn’t actually work? What if when he’s on a different plane, he can’t sense it?
I swish my thumb over it. Rhazan’s arms merge through the air in smoky wisps and he grabs my wrists. His chest presses against my back, and he whispers searing words in my ear.
“You’re starting to make me regret this.”
I relish his return, that I could call him. I know it makes me a little bonkers, but that worry is far away right now.
“Just starting to?” I ask.
He grunts, the sound evocative and thrilling.
I turn my head to look at him. His black hair is escaping its hold at the top. Curling strands of it fall in front of his burning eyes. His gaze dips to my lips and his hold on my wrists tightens. The tension between us is palpable, charged with more than anger.
“If you call me again when you don’t need me, I’ll have to punish you.”
The rumbling threat sends pangs of something hot and needy through my core. I get the strong sense that I’ll like his brand of punishment, and I want him to unleash it on me.
“I don’t think you will.”
He moves fast, pinning my wrists against the wall above me with one of his hands. The air is thin between us, and I find myself panting for it. Yearning burns between us like a pyre and I wonder how this happened so quickly.
One second, he was an asshole ifrit invading my space, putting magical protection brands on me without my permission, and the next we’re drawing wards together, cozier than friends.
And now, his body is pressed against mine.
The hard line of his bicep flexes against my shoulder as his other hand slides down my body.
All I can think is that I want whatever it is he’s about to do, and I don’t care if it hurts.
His palm slides over my ass, then disappears. I gasp just before his hand comes down on my cheek with a loud smack. I yelp and he groans a curse. The thought of him spanking my bare ass red has saliva pooling in my mouth.
“Don’t tempt me, Firecracker. I will make you beg forgiveness.”
My aching center clenches at the deadly tenor of his voice.
“Is that a promise?” I ask, my voice breathless and heady.
His lips graze my ear, a whisper made of smoke and sin.
“Oh, it’s a warning.”
His grip tightens. Not enough to bruise—but enough to remind me he could.
“One you clearly want to ignore.”
He drags his mouth down my neck, slow and deliberate, just hovering a hairsbreadth above my skin. My pulse thrums at the thought of his lips marking me with a searing kiss. I’m panting and squirming in his tight hold. It’s right at the edge of too much.
“I never give idle threats. And I never leave a lesson unfinished.”
His hand disappears, then comes down against my other cheek in a hard slap. I moan at the radiating sting sending fire through my veins. How is a spanking the most erotic moment of my life?
“Have you learned the lesson?” he asks, his voice heavy and loaded with hunger.
“Not nearly,” I say.
The stairs overhead creak and I gasp. Nai Nai calls for me, her voice teasing.
Rhazan pulls away. I whirl around to look at him. The fire burns brighter across his chest and his pulse thrums in the flames.
“Leaving the lesson unfinished?”
His jaw tightens and his fists clench at his sides. The motion draws my gaze to the sturdy outline in his pants. I bite my lip as an impish streak flares through me.
“You broke your word, RhazDaddy.”
Smoke curls off his skin and he groans. “There is no time limit on my lessons, Firecracker, and you will learn it.”
He disappears in a puff of heat, and I smirk.
Round two goes to me.