Chapter 25 #2
It was carnal. Erotic.
No one had ever mentioned to David that his voice sounded like sex. They’d said words like sweet and honey and drizzle, but never sex or lust or hot. Did each of their magical voices sound different, then?
Or maybe this was how Anna Ainslan sounded to him.
Like sex.
Phenomenal sex.
The unexpected jolt had him straightening, and something jerked out of place in his chest. Or maybe it fell into place. Damned uncomfortable, whatever it was.
David slipped into the study. He shut the door and propped himself in the archway that lead to the sitting room. His mother sat beside Anna in a patch of electric-purple light cast by the stained glass behind her.
Anna’s magical voice abruptly cut off at his entrance, and sky-blue eyes met his, tugging on the misplaced piece inside his heart.
“David,” his mother said, finally cluing in to his presence. Her winged eyebrows arched, and a smile formed.
He didn’t return it.
Elenya rose from her chair. “Have you decided to join us?”
Anna crossed her legs and speared him with a homicidal stare.
He fought a smile. Her attitude had been pure sass since that day he’d called her useless. The girl certainly knew how to hold a grudge.
“Was just curious,” David said, laying on a thick layer of boredom.
The corners of Anna’s mouth tightened. “I’m not interested in an audience, so you’re either joining or you’re leaving.”
Ha. He should have known she wouldn’t tolerate his insouciance. She’d been jabbing at him for weeks now, which…fair. She gave as good as she got.
He prowled into the room. “Guess I’m joining, then. You’re getting pretty bold with the ultimatums.”
“I’ve found it’s the quickest way to get what I want.”
An intriguing statement. What exactly did she want?
I can hear how much she thinks about you.
His mother filled with a joy that fizzed like bubbles against his skin. “You may have my seat, if that would please you.”
David made a home in the settee across from them. “I’m good.”
Still bubbling, Elenya reseated herself. “Anna has been practicing hard. I’m quite proud of her progress, though she still has work to do. It will be good for her to practice on someone other than me.”
A rosy flood washed into Anna’s cheeks, somehow making her eyes more blue. Her smart mouth finally softened into that smile he hadn’t known he’d been craving.
Fuck.
She was gorgeous.
The thought rose from nowhere, or maybe it spewed from the new jagged piece in his chest, like it had been waiting to spring from the void. How annoying. Now that it existed, he couldn’t un-think it.
Maybe he’d been thinking it the whole time.
The jagged thing cracked quite abruptly, spilling far too many emotions between the fissures in his ice—blistering hot and viscerally hungry.
He sucked in a breath at the onslaught and rushed to reinforce his barricades.
This new, unwanted desire had to freeze before it melted anything else.
Sitting in the company of two women who felt emotion in the very air, he didn’t need these weird feelings slipping out.
Useless feelings.
The pretty smile faded as soon as Anna’s gaze met his, a saucy expression taking its place. He sat in a staring contest with her, refusing to be the first to back down. He’d learned long ago that eye contact was a silent weapon, and he would not surrender his only remaining ammunition against her.
“I want ground rules,” she said.
Ground rules? What—
“I think that’s wise,” his mother said, a faint crease between her smooth brow.
Alright, then. Ground rules. “Make all the rules you want, pixie girl. I’m listening.”
“The point of this is to teach me how to use the voice. You’re allowed to use it on me as an example only.”
The smile that wanted to break free earned its due reward.
She scowled. “And don’t smile like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to know what I look like naked,” she said with a glorious roll of her eyes.
Hmm. Okay. Maybe Autumn was onto something with the smile thing.
In a rare instance of impulsiveness, David’s mouth opened and he said, “I can’t change that. I do want to know.”
He blinked. Did that just come out of his mouth?
Anna stared, her eyes wide. Her cheeks flamed crimson, and her emotions hydroplaned across the slippery surface he’d just thrown between them. His mother, on the other hand, shifted in her seat, her emotions a quiet rainbow of surprise.
He couldn’t blame her.
What the absolute fuck was wrong with him?
Thoughts of Sean shimmied through his mind—all the instances Sean had acted before thinking, the impetuous decisions, the bursts of recklessness.
One thing became clear: Daily exposure to Caden Sidera had broken his brain.
Sean was a bad influence. This was entirely his fault.
“Did you really just say that?” Anna asked.
Her breathing quickened, and beneath layers of frazzled indignity and kaleidoscopic anxiety, a faint thread of arousal shimmered.
David wouldn’t have caught it if he wasn’t searching.
He wondered if his mother could feel it or if Anna was even aware of it, faint as it was among her brighter emotions.
“I think I did,” he replied.
“You don’t get to say things like that after taunting me for a month and being mad about something I didn’t even do.”
“I have a lot of arguments I could make against those points.”
Her jaw clenched. “Just agree, David. My rules.”
David put his hands in the air, palms out, surrendering to her irritation. Was she really that mad? She seemed like she’d be jazzed to know what his beating heart might look like outside his body. Autumn was wrong, he thought. This woman despised him, despite that tiny shade of arousal.
Too bad she was so pretty when flustered. What would she do if he kissed her?
Probably break his ribs or some other nonsense he couldn’t be bothered with.
“You don’t use that voice to ask personal details about me,” she said. “Or to make me do things that would upset me later.”
“That it?” he asked in a dry tone. Her rules were unnecessary. Didn’t she trust him?
“I reserve the right to make up new rules as we go.”
“Of course.” He didn’t smirk, but he wanted to, and he suspected she knew it by the dramatic narrowing of her pretty eyes.
“I’m not kidding, David.”
He lifted his brow. “You realize that in order to understand how the magic actually works, I’m going have to ask you to do things you don’t want to do.”
With a sigh, Anna looked at Elenya, as if the older woman could somehow control David’s waywardness.
Elenya hesitated. “Er—he has a point, Anna, dear. There is no magic in compelling willing people.”
Anna’s mouth tightened, and she took a slow breath through her nose. “Fine. What about you? What are your rules?”
David set an ankle over the opposite knee and shrugged. “I don’t have rules. If you can get what you want from me, then you deserve it.”
“Are you sure that’s wise, son?” Elenya asked.
His insides twisted at that word, and David cut his gaze to hers. “I’m not your son.”
As his heart transformed into a thunderstorm in his chest, the bubbles finally popped inside Elenya, and she wilted.
Anna looked between them. “Fine. Then I’m good to start if you are.”
Knowing his voice would be shakier than he wanted, David merely gestured for her to begin.
He hated that word.
Son.
What a lie.
Anna pointed at a pair of chairs facing each other at the opposite side of the room. Without argument, David obeyed, planting himself in the chair she indicated.
And then he waited, his entire focus zeroing in on the pixie across from him. Patience was a virtue honed into him from long years of fraught silences between him and his fake father. He’d whetted the skill on prolonged, challenging eye contact. Will versus will.