“I’m…I’m doing okay, Kier,” she said, though I could feel her tense slightly in my arms. “Really, it’s fine.”
Was she embarrassed?
“Humor me,” I requested, holding her just a little tighter.
Arken sighed. “I can hear the nightingales. I can hear…your fireplace, crackling in the other room.” She turned to rest her cheek against my chest. “And I can hear your heartbeat,” she whispered.
Can you hear that it only beats for you?
I blinked, surprised by the unerring softness of that intrusive thought. I was grateful to have not inadvertently spoken the words out loud—the last thing I needed was to give this girl another panic attack.
“Good girl,” I said, still rocking us gently with my body, stroking her hair, and holding her against my chest.
The urge to protect Arken from this world, from myself, even from the darkest corners of her own mind, was so intense that I could think of little else. Even the pleasure of her body against mine—the ample flesh of her ass right up against my groin—was muted by the stronger instinct to be her shield, her shelter from the storm.
“What next?” she asked, disrupting that intensifying introspection.
“Two things you can smell.”
She didn’t even hesitate. “Citrus,” she said with a small smile. “Orange zest, to be precise. And cloves. Always the damn cloves.”
I held my tongue, resisting the urge to ask her what she meant by that, or why she spoke of those scents—my scent—with such affection. Now was hardly the time to stroke my own ego.
“And for the last step in the exercise,” I began, leaning my back against the pillows behind us, bringing her with me so my torso acted as a pillow of her own. We were staring up at the ceiling together now, watching the candlelight dance across the shadows of the night. “Summon the one element you control,” I continued softly as I summoned a miniature raven of glimmering smoke and Shadow, sending the construct overhead on flapping wings.
For just a fraction of a second before the little raven took flight, Arken had stiffened beneath my words, and I worried that her panic might’ve returned.
That happened to me, sometimes, too. Or at least, it had in the past. Even with my brother’s guidance and his best intentions, sometimes all of the fear just came flooding right back. Thankfully, as the smaller version of Hekate swooped around, chasing Shadows across the room overhead, Arken softened again. She followed suit by swirling her own fingertips around in the air to summon a tiny fox—a touch bigger than myraven, but much smaller than Bluebell, still small enough that I could probably stuff the little thing in my pocket, were it not currently giving chase to my Shadow puppet.
“Cute,” I chuckled.
“You started it,” she murmured.
Lazily twisting my fingers, I sent my puppet to nip at her fox’s tail, and I felt an oddly pleasurable frisson of warmth traverse my spine. Something strange skittered across my skin, making my core clench the moment our aether made contact.
I had felt that comfortably discomforting sensation before.
Once, in the alleyway when Arken had drawn from my Shadows to form her own aetherblade.Gods,what a sight that had been to behold. Even if I had chastised her for it afterward, the truth was, the memory of that woman holding her glowing dagger of Light to the throat of that pathetic, leering Lord-to-be…Yeah.Yeah.
It got me fucking hard, every damn time.
Is that why such a casual brush against Arken’s sparkling arcana felt so…sensual to me, somehow? Maybe, but that hadn’t been the last time I’d felt it.
I had felt it again just the other day, when she and I first crashed into this bed together. With my hands roaming over her body, I’d felt as though an invisible extension of myself poured forth, the very essence of my aether seeping out of me, slinking around whatever bare skin my hands had left unoccupied. It wasn’t something I could even understand, let alone control—and I’d had no idea if it was normal. I hadn’t heard of such a thing, and I most certainly hadn’t experienced it before…but then again, my sexual education had been largely self-guided.
So who knows? Maybe it was a thing, when the sex was good enough, or you found a particularly compatible partner. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact she was aLight Conduit, and I commanded Shadows. There were certain parallel relationships between the elements, after all.
And as for never having heard of it before…Well. It was an exceptionally intimate experience, one that even I would struggle to put into words. And I had no interest in sharing with the class, so maybe this was simply anif you know, you knowtype of situation.
I ran my tongue over my lower lip as we continued to play with our arcane puppets like errant children, giggling and staying up past our bedtime. The casual innocence of the activity was a strange juxtaposition with the rather adult feelings it stirred within, but the effect was soothing, somehow.
All of my stress from Arken’s nightmare began to fade away. I mean, how could it not? Her nose wrinkled so adorably every time her fox leaped through the air, and she burst into such sweet laughter, and…
Fates damn it all to Hel.
I’d do anything for that fucking smile.
CHAPTER SIX