Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
Seraphina
He had left her there. Alone. In the dark, with her breathing so loudly, she wanted to scream. She had been a fool to think he would accept her advance.
Had it been an advance? She didn’t even know. All she had wanted was to experience that rush of their magic mixing.
And to feel his jaw and throat.
“I’m fully capable of embarrassing myself. I don’t need you to remind me.”
Her magic laughed at her before thankfully going silent.
Sera pushed her hair off her shoulders and finally moved. It was getting late, dinner was expected, and…
Her stomach dropped. Why couldn’t she hate him? He obviously didn’t want anything to do with her. But today, she hadn’t put a small fox out of its misery. She hadn’t lit things on fire. No, today they’d made something beautiful.
She could still picture what he looked like in the rays of light peeking through the canopy of shadow above them. The light had settled on the dark hair of his brows, down his straight, regal nose, across the full pink lips of his smile, against his fair skin.
Sera shook the thought away. Fool, fool, fool.
As Sera crossed through the mirrored pool chamber on the way back to her room, Ophelia called out, “Seraphina, don’t worry about changing for dinner.
It will be casual.” The oracle turned back to her threads, and the blue glow on the far side of the lake pulsed with each movement of the witch’s hand.
Casual.
She was pretty sure she was living inside a bad joke. A demon lord who sings to her magic, an all-seeing oracle who speaks in riddles, and a warlock she could potentially kill with a touch walk into a tavern.
A terrible joke. One that was becoming so entangled she had no idea how to get herself out of it.
Nora.
That was her true north. She needed a doorway.
No more shadow trees or wasting time; she needed Vasso to teach her control.
How stupid could she have been… She hadn’t even asked him.
Sera groaned, then entered her room and immediately stripped out of her black leathers into brown trousers, boots, and her Legion tunic.
She let her hair fall in clustered curls around her.
Eventually, she’d need some cream to help with the frizz, but one more night wouldn’t hurt.
What was far more pressing was figuring out what lie she’d tell Alistair next so she could train again tomorrow. She was sure an upset stomach would only work for so long.
Sera pressed the heels of her palms hard into her eyes and rubbed. She hoped she looked like she’d been sleeping most of the day. She’d be screwed if Alistair had actually gone into her room to check up on her. Well, let him call her bluff.
Vasso’s words drifted over her. Why don’t you ask your captain what happened to his clan? Dread slithered through her like an eel. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what he had to say about it.
Sera knocked on Alistair’s door. Nothing. She knocked again, and silence was the only response. After a few moments, she turned the handle and peeked inside.
The room was organized. His bed was made with folded corners despite the thick, elaborate duvet, and his weapons were laid out in a perfect line.
Not a single thing was out of place.
Tempted to turn one of the swords slightly askew to see if he would notice, she plopped on his bed, unbothered by the creases she created, and burrowed her face in his pillow.
How did she get here? All desperate and longing? A stupid crush from childhood, that’s how.
A clattering in the bathing room had her jolt upright, and the door swung open.
Alistair walked into the room, running a towel over his face, the rest of his glorious body on display. Sera covered her eyes with a yelp when the image of his massive member seared itself into her retinas.
He really is built to inflict damage.
“Fuck, Sera!” he yelled. She peeked through her fingers while he wrapped the towel low around his hips. “What are you doing in here?”
It wasn’t only the black blood across the front of the towel that gave her pause; it was the smell. Ash mixed with iron, and the metal tang hit her tongue as she looked at Alistair.
His hair wasn’t wet. He hadn’t just finished bathing. Undressed, yes… but covered in blood. Welts spanned his arms and face. And she couldn’t help but wonder for a second if her blood would do the same. “Why are you covered in demon blood, Alistair?” The heat from her cheeks faded.
“What are you doing in my room?” His voice was a low growl.
“I came to walk with you to dinner. Why is there blood all over you?” She pointed to his arm, which was now covered with nasty red splotches underneath the black blood. “I thought you were still injured and couldn’t travel?” She rose from the bed.
Why don’t you ask your captain what happened to his clan? Again, Vasso’s voice rattled through her. Her mouth went dry.
“You should have knocked,” he said, crossing the room and gathering his clean uniform.
“I did. You didn’t answer, but that isn’t my question, is it? Where the fuck were you, Al?” His face was set in a hard line. “You traveled, didn’t you?”
Al glared at her, his knuckles turning white around the Legion uniform in his hand. He closed his eyes and sighed.
“How long?” she asked.
“Minnow.” He took a step toward her. Sera reared back.
“Do not Minnow me. You’ve been breathing down my neck, asking me where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing. I think I deserve an answer.”
“I’m not the one in danger here.” His lip curled.
She raised her chin to meet his eye. “That parasite might have said otherwise. The burnout… Those marks.” Sera pointed to his face.
“A few days.” He scratched the purpling welt on his cheek. “I’ve only been practicing.”
“Do not fucking lie to me right now,” she said. “You don’t get covered in blood by practicing traveling. What happened to Snik’s clan?”
Alistair threw the coven-blue uniform to the floor and crossed his arms. The cords in his neck stood out, his face deadly still. “Who told you to ask me that?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Sera backed up a step.
“Did Lord Vasso?”
She wouldn’t give him up. Obviously, Al was hiding something. “Just tell me!”
“They were slain! The woodland goblins were ordered to be executed by the Council. I had nothing to do with it; it was Crag and his company.”
Sera raised a shaking hand to her mouth. “They are innocent,” she whispered. “You know they do no harm.”
“They were orders, Seraphina. The Council wants demons dead… so we kill them. The goblins might not have been able to retaliate, but you know others would. They’ve been slaughtering us for centuries.”
Her stomach dropped. She could understand his reasoning, she supposed. Her family had been so far removed from the Legion’s casualty list since her father had died. But Snik was just a small creature. And his kind lived in burrows and glens.
She could almost smell their burning flesh. But when she closed her eyes, willing the phantom stench away, it wasn’t small goblins she saw; it was the bodies of those humans in the village of Feybury. The feel of the people who’d been caught in her blaze in the tavern.
“Oh, and by the way,” Alistair said in an almost sneer. “The ceasefire has ended. We’re back at war.”
The room spun. War. She swallowed against the burning at the back of her throat. “When?”
“Can we talk about this after I wash?” He pointed to the welts turning indigo on his arms. They looked painful, but he didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere.
Still, he stood there, waiting for permission, with every dip and swell of muscle on display.
How many times had she thought about running her hands over him? And now?
Bile threatened to come up.
Sera nodded. She didn’t watch him reenter the bathing room chamber, but the sound of splashing water reached her ears; at least she knew he was still there.
Her darkness rumbled through her. Sera let her fingernails bite into her palm, sure to leave half crescents in their wake.
Snik. Poor Snik. His clan slaughtered for nothing. Did he have kin? A mate? Sera glanced at her palms, at the death magic that lay within them.
Thump. Her darkness raged.
Thump. They were back at war.
It was inevitable, her magic hissed. The threads are pulled.
War or not, the Council members were monsters for ordering the woodland goblins’ slaughter. She remembered the stench of Crag and his company, the stains of blood on their knees and across their torsos.
Al returned, fully clothed this time. His damp dark hair brushed back in waves, the sides of his mouth drooping in a frown.
“Sit. What I’m about to tell you is confidential. Do you understand?”
Sera lowered herself slowly to the edge of the bed, unsure if it would burst into flames at her touch. Taking a deep breath, she crossed her arms and listened.
“Two nights before we departed from the Citadel’s walls, the ceasefire ended.”
“That was the day before Nora was taken… They’d delayed the trial. Why wasn’t the coven alerted then?” she asked.
“That’s the Council’s business.” He sat in the small writing desk’s chair. The wood screamed under his muscled weight.
“So you’re telling me that the Solarni coven has been at war since we left the Citadel two weeks ago? And we happen to be holed up in the underground manor with one of the most powerful beings on the planet… who is our active enemy?”
Al swallowed hard. “It would seem so.” He leaned forward, forearms settling atop his knees, the brown trousers bunching beneath his elbows.
“And you’re just telling me all this now?” Her voice was down to a deadly whisper. The vatra within her turned into a tumultuous violence, roaring in her ears, raging through her veins. Sera shook with restraint.
“It was confidential. I wanted to tell you! Shit, I wanted to, Sera, but I was sworn to secrecy.”