Chapter Fourteen
AFTER OUR brIEFING on the wall, Ninon and I rest for a few hours before returning. As soon as we reach the top, Ozias leads me right back down.
“You couldn’t have met me down here?” I ask once we touch ground.
“I could have, but then I wouldn’t have a tangible example to explain my lesson. That, and I’m enjoying seeing how far I can push you before you show your teeth,” he says with a winsome grin.
“How old did you say you were again? I thought practical jokes were for children.”
“You’re never too old for a bit of fun.”
“Your lesson?” I remind him.
His smile doesn’t diminish as he explains. “I imagine right now your heart rate is elevated from the climb up and back down. And possibly from your annoyance with me.”
I snort and crack a smile. I answer for both. “Of course.” No matter how strong or practiced, exertion will cause a heart rate to rise. That, and whatever it is he’s doing to toy with me.
“Our magical energy is a bit like that. You can feel it happening when you exert it, but it’s a little difficult to maintain at an even level or at a level you wish it to remain.
” Ozias and I walk along the base of the wall, the air cool despite the heat I know must be emanating from the Sere at this time of day.
“If I had you climb and descend another time, you would find it difficult to maintain your current heart rate.” I nod my understanding and he continues.
“Besides physical efforts, your heart rate can change with your emotions. The same is true for magic.”
“Emotions can affect magic?”
“Many things affect magic, but in its basest form, emotion is tied to our magical energies. It’s why the meditations we’ve been practicing are so important.
The more you can control your emotions, the more you can purposefully control your magic.
Emotions make our magic volatile, difficult to wield, and unpredictable.
A poor combination when faced with collecting souls during human wars.
But we are what we are—a combination of the gods and the humans.
Our emotions, our magic, our very essence are inextricably bound.
Everything we are, is balance. Between worlds, between our two halves, between the mortal and the mystical. ”
“Complicated,” I say.
“Complete, I like to think.”
I smile at that, looking down at our feet while we walk and when I look back at him, he’s studying me intensely. “You’ve essentially told me that what we discussed this morning is impossible for me to accomplish. At least with how much I know now.”
Ozias inclines his head and we veer off to a darker, more secluded place along the wall.
“Due to the delicate nature of maintaining an energy signature, and our urgent need for supplies, we thought perhaps we’d try something that would surprise Dyēus’s forces, to try to get what we need as soon as possible. ”
“What did you have in mind?”
“A large energy output to conceal what I’m doing on the barrier. We think it may work in our favor this once. Twice if we’re lucky. But it will give us time to get what we need before I can teach you the nuisance of your magic.”
I frown. I’ve only been in my dragon form twice since I passed the initial stages of savagery, and in both instances I’ve been calm.
Content, even. I can’t imagine feeling anything other than that.
Even coming back from my dream about the Sar Dyeus, I felt calm in that body.
Then I remember when I first turned. My anger, the complete sense of wanting to destroy the world.
I suppress a shudder. “How will I do that?”
Ozias pauses and I stop alongside him. He turns to me and I face him, the wall at my back. He takes a step closer and my breath hitches at his nearness. “Two of our greatest emotions are anger and love—a close adjacent of which being lust.”
I fill my lungs with a deep inhale. I’m not unfamiliar with that emotion. It’s rather close to the surface now as the heat from his body radiates against mine, with his attention on me, his gaze searing me from the inside.
“I could probably make you feel anger, but I must admit, I’d rather if I could make you feel something else.
Do you think that’s possible, Kaisa? That I could make you feel wanted?
” The intensity of his stare sears me, his eyes like liquid fire.
His hand lifts, fingers beneath my chin, his thumb lightly pressing against my bottom lip.
Heat pools in my core. It’s been so long and my body responds ravenously to his touch, to my own needs I’ve ignored for too long.
For months, I’ve been tending to Kalixta and preparing for the moment Alixor would take me away.
I’ve had no time for much else. My desire flutters and he smiles knowingly.
“So that’s what we’ll do? We’ll fuck and my lust will send energy out into the world?”
His laugh is a deep rumble in his chest. “All we need is to bring your lust to the surface. You can do it on your own, if you like.” I frown, disappointed, and his smiles grows as he goes on, “Or, I’ll help you, if you’ll allow it.
” His thumb lazily strokes across my bottom lip, spiking my desire once again before he drops his hand.
I miss the contact immediately. “And if it doesn’t work?”
Ozias leans in close, his breath coasting along the shell of my ear. “I’m fairly certain it will.”
I shudder, my body responding by tightening everywhere I imagine him touching.
“And if by chance it doesn’t, we’ll find another way. We always do.”
“We’ll try tonight?” I ask.
“Tonight,” he promises.
That evening as the sun prepares to sink below the horizon, I meet Ozias along the wall, somewhere to the south.
It’s quiet and dark, the cold stones leeched of the lingering heat of the day.
I’ve thought of our meeting all afternoon—I haven’t been able to help myself—the anticipation keeping my mind preoccupied, brimming with the lust he said would aid my energy output.
I imagine it’s exactly what he intended when he propositioned me earlier.
“This is a bit strange,” I admit, twisting my fingers.
Ozias hesitates a beat, then asks, as if the thought only now occurred to him, “Have you been intimate before?”
“Oh,” I breathe out in surprise. “Of course. Many times.”
He nods. “Somehow that doesn’t soothe me as much as I’d hoped it would.”
I smirk, pleased, but not fooled. “Trying to make me feel special?”
“You are.” His answer is quick. Earnest.
My skin flushes. I’ve always enjoyed this aspect ahead of being intimate with someone. The feeling of being wanted. It eases some tension within me, and even if the respite is only brief, it stills a part of me that always feel like it’s running.
Ozias draws nearer and runs his fingertips up my bare forearm, along my shoulder and collarbone, the side of my neck, sending static through my veins. He locks his eyes with mine.
“When you transform, think of me. Think of all the things you wish I’d do to you, the things you wish to do to me.
Hold them in your mind and let them rush through your dragon.
She will emit that energy out into the world, desperate to put it somewhere.
When you transform, it will no longer feel sexual, but it will be powerful all the same.
Hold onto that power for as long as you can to give me time to open the barrier. ”
All while he explains, his hands rove my body, skipping every possible place I want them to rest, and my mind struggles to hear him properly. I’m thrumming with need and I see him as a means to an end. A very attractive, alluring means to an end.
“Kaisa,” Ozias says into my ear, his voice so inviting. His thumb presses under my chin, tipping my head back. “Did you hear me?”
I hum, leaning into his touch. “I don’t think I could let go of this feeling right now if I tried.
” I love physical contact. Crave it, desperately sometimes.
His fingers coil into my hair. Then his other hand is on my wrist, fingers on my pulse.
He tugs me closer to him, then guides me until my back is against the rough stone, the contrast of the cool surface and the molten heat of his body delicious.
He cups my jaw with his palm. His thumb sweeps across my bottom lip. “Can I kiss you, Kaisa?” His voice is breathless, his eyes intent.
The question surprises me, given that we’ve already agreed to this, but it warms something in me that I can’t name. I press myself closer to him and manage a shallow nod.
His smile unfurls just before he fits it over mine.
The kiss is soft at first, tentative, like an apology he’s not sure he can give.
Then his teeth flash against my bottom lip and I open my mouth, tongue meeting his.
He groans as I sigh and he uses the moment to dive deeper into me, and my insides feel like the beginning of a rockslide—trembling and inevitable.
He tips his forehead against mine until our mouths part.
“And if I wanted to touch you, what would you say?”
My voice is a rasp. “Where did you have in mind?”
He hums, the hand on my jaw trailing down my neck to hover over my breasts. “Here.” The hand that had clasped my waist travels lower, fingers dancing dangerously close to the curve of my backside. “And here. For starters.”
My breath is coming fast and loose. “I would say yes.”