The crystalline head ignited the moment it left my grasp. Pale light spilled across his face, carving the sharp planes of his features into something severe and almost inhuman. The shadows beneath his cheekbones deepened, giving him the unsettling stillness of a statue cut from mountain stone.
“The spirits seek height,” he said, rotating the weapon. “When you thrust it forward, you scatter them. You treat it like a blade when it is meant to be a channel.”
“Again,” he commanded, pressing the wood back into my grip.
I lifted the spear.
“Upward,” he corrected immediately. “Straighten your shoulders. You stand as though you are bracing for it to strike you.”
“It is heavier than it looks,” I muttered.
It was a lie. The spear weighed almost nothing. It was the feeling of Talon stepping behind me that made my knees weak.
“Do not lock your knees,” he murmured, his breath a warm current against my neck. His hands settled on my hips—firm and searing through my shirt—as he forced my feet wider, dictating my balance. “Be empty, Kaelia, so they can fill you.”
I drew a slow breath, letting the wall in my mind crumble. The Spirit Spear answered with a surge so violent it felt like a physical rushing of water through my veins. Smoky silver light erupted from the crystal, twisting through the cavern air in slick, oil-sheen spirals that pulsed in time with my own racing heart.
A low rumble of satisfaction vibrated from Talon’s chest, pressing directly into my spine. He did not pull away. Instead, his lips grazed the line of my jaw as the spirits circled us in a silent, glowing vortex.
When I glanced up, I found his face much closer than I had expected, his gaze fixed on the spirits as they moved through the cavern air.
“They are bound to me,” he said quietly. “But they will follow your soul to the ends of the earth.”
His hand slid over mine where it held the spear, his thumb moving slowly across my knuckles.
“Command them,” he urged.
I leaned slightly back into him before I realized what I was doing and closed my eyes, picturing the farthest corner of the cave.
The spirits reacted instantly.
They surged forward together, their drifting shapes tightening into a single rushing current of shadowed light. For one brief heartbeat they flooded the darkest edge of the cavern, illuminating rough stone that had likely not seen light in centuries.
Then, just as quickly, they collapsed inward.
The swirling shapes folded neatly back into the spear’s crystal head, the light fading until only the quiet hum of power remained in the wood beneath my hands.
Talon turned me slowly to face him. His fingers rose to my cheek, tracing the curve of my cheekbone.
“Amazing,” he whispered, his thumb brushing the curve of my bottom lip.
The heat in my chest shifted and coiled lower. My hand lifted without thought as my fingers traced the firm planes of his abdomen through the thin fabric of his shirt. I moved to slide the spear into the leather at his hip, but my palm stayed against him.
Threading my finger through the loop of his trousers, I tugged him closer, inviting the collision.
Talon’s mouth found mine with a bruising demand that scorched the air from my lungs. My breath left me in a quiet gasp, lost beneath the unrelenting pressure of his lips. My hands rose, tangling in the heavy silk of his hair to anchor myself as the cavern floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
I needed the contact—the rough, possessive weight of him—to drown out the world I had burned down to reach this moment.
Talon’s arms closed around me the moment my fingers tightened in his hair. He lifted me from the stone floor and I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him closer to erase the last space between us.
I had skipped undergarments in my haste to wash, leaving me bare and achingly aware of every brush against me. Heat pooled between my thighs, the moisture impossible to hide as it stained the cotton of his shirt. A rough sound escaped him against my mouth and his grip tightened beneath my thighs, anchoring me to him as he carried me across the cavern.
The furs of the raised platform sank beneath my back when he lowered me onto them. My legs remained locked around his waist, holding him in place while the heat between us continued to build until it felt almost unbearable. He shifted above me, the firm weight of his body pressing exactly where I had begun to ache for more.
“You are soaking me, Kaelia.”
The flush on my cheeks deepened, yet shame failed to find me.