by Elena Lawson
I drew on the ice in my veins, pictured it flowing freely from my fingertips like Finn instructed. Fear was the other way to draw it out, he’d said, but we would use that as a last resort in our training.
My fingers prickled. Veins of spiky frost twisting around them like vines. Then I plunged my hand into the water. It melted.
“Why is this so hard?” I whined, “Fire is so much easier.”
Finn nodded his ascent, “It’s true that Kade’s Grace was stronger—more violent in the beginning, but it was harder to control. Ice is easier to control once you can draw it out.”
Finn. Ever the calm, brooding soldier. He showed exactly zero frustration at my inability to do more than make the water a little colder than it was before.
“Try again,” Alaric said, kneeling beside me on the light, soft sand at the waters edge.
We went on like that for hours. Until I could freeze a chunk of water about two yards in diameter and I ached for the warmth to return to my bones.
Training with Alaric… it was different. Finn gave us our space, and we sat cross legged in the grass, the sun casting orange glows on our faces and long shadows in the grass.
“Take my hands,” Alaric said, shuffling in closer to me.
I grasped his hands in mine.
Immediately, I felt giddy. The emotion bubbled up from inside me and burst from my mouth in a stream of cackling laughter. He let go of my hands.
“Do you see how I did that?” he asked as the fit of laughter faded.
I shook my head, reigning in the emotion, “No. Sorry. Maybe try again, I’ll pay more attention.”
His eyes crinkled at the edges, and he took my hands again.
I felt it first in my hands—a sort of pull. A taking of my frustration. Before the tantalizing feeling of uncontrollable desire flooded my body. From head to toe, I ached. I viewed Alaric in a haze. I licked my lips, biting down on the bottom one to stop the moan begging for release.
He let go.
I blinked. Once. Twice. Swallowed.
Sly bastard.
“Did you see that time?”
I cleared the remaining fog from my mind, “I think so. You aren’t just pushing an emotion into me. You’re taking the one I have first.”
Alaric considered what I’d said, “Yes, it’s sort of like that. I do have to pull a bit before I can push.”
“Ok, let me try.”
It took a few tries, and I had to endure several more crashing waves of hungry, passionate lust from him before I figured it out. I had to push into him an emotion I had. I had to draw on one of my own emotions, allow it to almost consume me, before I could pass it on to someone else.
That emotion was frustration. Unlike the other Graces, I couldn’t feel it at my core. It wasn’t warm, nor cold. It was a whisper from my mind. A whisper that morphed into a gale force wind shooting through my blood like an arrow. It left me and went into Alaric. He jolted at the sensation.
I cracked my eyes open to see his cheekbones flare and his eyes narrow.
“Ugh,” he exclaimed, shoving my hands away from him, but then he was smiling, “You did it,” he stated, a bit incredulous, “I knew you could.”
The frustration all but fell away at the absolute joy gleaming in his eyes.
We practiced a bit more, and I was able to push happiness through to him, and the desire he so cruelly shoved into me. Holding in a crude remark when his cock swelled beneath his trousers.
After I had seemed to master being able to emotionally effect Alaric, we tried the Grace on Finn.
Desire, I thought, bringing the emotion forward with all my willpower. It released from my body like a catapult, and I staggered back a step at the recoil.
Finn stepped back from me as though burned by my touch, blushing like a stable-boy. He cleared his throat, “I—well—uh well done,” he stuttered, all too eager to turn away from me, “I should—well, I should get the horses ready to return to the palace.”
Alaric clapped me on the back, “Well done, indeed, my queen,” he said, and we watched Finn readjust his trousers not once, but three times on his way to gather the horses.
I hoped he would be alright to ride.
The hour-long ride back to the palace was reinvigorating, and for the first time, I felt energized after training instead of dead on my feet. After the shared feeling of desire between my men and I, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind.
My body still pulsed with need. The warmth that had pooled in my belly and the heavy fog of yearning in my mind had never fully abated. Now I was awake, alert, and dying for physical contact. It was a challenge not to reach out to my men during the short walk from the stables to the royal chambers. I itched for it.
“Has Aisling come by yet?” I asked Kade when we entered the parlor, amused to find him sitting with Tiernan, our chess board between them.
Good. He needed the practice.
The Draconian shook his head, “No, not yet.”
It was getting late. Maybe too late for her to come by.
Alaric, sensing my emotion, gave my shoulder a light brush with his own, “She’s likely gone to bed. I’m sure you’ll see her in the morning.”
“Speaking of,” Finn said, “I’m exhausted. ‘Night, Liana,” he said to me, planting a swift kiss on the top of my head before leaving—a first for him. I wondered if the feelings I pushed into him had made him more confident since he now knew how I felt for him.
“Goodnight,” I said to his retreating form.
“You should get some rest, too,” I said to Alaric, moving to sit next to Kade.
Alaric grabbed my arm, stopping me.
“What—”
“Actually, I’m not tired. I’ll take the first shift. If you two want to um—go and see that Aisling has returned to her chambers,” he said with false worry for my healer friend.
Kade and Tiernan shared a look, before Tiernan sighed and stood from the table, “I’ll relieve you in a few hours,” he said before exiting the parlor, throwing me a wink.
“But, we aren’t finished the game,” Kade hollered after Tiernan.
When he didn’t get an answer, he added, “We’ll just say that I won then.”
I shook my head at the disgruntled bear before me. He rose to his full height, stretching as he did. His wings vibrating. It was impossible not to marvel at the raw, unadulterated beauty of him.
He gave Alaric a look I couldn’t discern before he strode from the room. “Have fun,” he called back to us and my stomach tightened, remembering how he could smell desire. I was ripe with it. Still aching from mine and Alaric’s lesson.
Alaric pulled a piece of hay from my hair, and brushed the stray strands back behind my ear, eliciting a shiver from my body.
“I like you like this,” he said in a low whisper once everyone else had gone.
“Like what?” I asked him, distracted by the way he still caressed my face, forcing me to meet his haughty stare.
He watched my lips, and I realized I was biting them again—a habit I needed to break. His adam’s apple bobbed, “Wild. Free. Your hair a mess and a blush in your cheeks.”
“In trousers and a dirty blouse,” I added, looking down to see the bottoms of my trousers three inches deep in mud.
He nodded, “That too.”
What now? Did we go to bed? Or would he leave me wanting—again?
No, I wouldn’t let him. Not this time. He was mine, and I wanted him in every possible way. My relentless guardian. My champion.
“I want you.” The words erupted from me, needing to be said despite my inhibitions.
He traced the line of my body with hungry eyes. “I’ll draw you a bath,” he said through near gritted teeth. The pain of waiting even a moment longer clear on his face. And the way he said it… with a quivering intensity, had me clinging to him as though he was the only thing in the entire world.
Chapter Seventeen
The bath was drawn. Plumes of steam curled and twiste
d from the enormous tub. The bathing chamber smelled of jasmine and something spicy, igniting my senses.
“You can come in now,” Alaric said.
He closed the door behind me, and I took a moment to admire him. He had removed his armor and wore nothing save for his trousers. His bare chest glistened from the steam, the skin tight and tan and shining. He watched me watching him, and moved closer, his jaw tense, and his eyes burning.
Alaric’s chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm with mine. Deep. Hurried.
His hand came up, taking hold of the sash at my waist, the only thing holding my robe to my naked body.
Slowly, never taking his eyes from mine, he untied the knot, and pulled the sash away. The tepid air of the bathing chamber met my skin, setting every nerve ending ablaze. With only his index finger, he trailed a snaking line from my navel to my neck, slipping it under the edge of the silken fabric still hanging from my shoulders and then that was on the floor too.
My breasts were bare to him. Nipples hard and peaked. Aching to be touched.
Alaric led me to the bath by the hand, waiting as I stepped down the three stone steps and into the deep water. The oils he’d put in made it feel like hot silk and I moaned at the instant relief in my muscles.
I looked at him in question, wondering if he’d join me, but he made no move to come in.
“Come here,” he said, kneeling next to the tubs edge. “Now turn around.”
I did as I was told, putting my back to him. His hand submerged in the water next to me, coming up with a wet sponge.
His fingers brushed my hair away from my back and over my shoulder. I shivered at the small contact, trying and failing not to imagine his fingers elsewhere.
In long languorous circles he stroked the soft skin of my back, reaching low, beneath the surface of the water to get the lower parts. My hands clenched and unclenched of their own accord, their patience wearing thin. I wanted to touch him. To taste him.
“I thought you were upset with me,” I whispered, and the sponge tensed on my back, though only for an instant before it resumed its gentle scrubbing.
He sighed, “I could never stay upset with you.” He spun me around to face him, dunking the sponge into the water again. His eyes flickered with specks of purest silver in the moonlight streaming in from the tall window. I could get lost in their pull and never come out again. “How can I fault you your stubbornness when anyone in this palace could attest to my own,” his gaze fell, resting on the dark water hiding most of my body from him, “You’re my match, Liana. In every way. I—”
I reached up and tugged him down, the rest of whatever he was about to say lost against my lips. The sponge fell from his hands and came up to caress my cheeks. It started soft. Slow. Heartbreakingly tender. The kiss comforting me more than anything he could ever dream to say.
And then it changed. The pressure increased, and our breaths mingled, rising and falling, only to rise again, coming harder and faster. His tongue slipped into my mouth. Hot and insistent.
His hands left my face for an instant and I was rewarded with the sound of his trousers falling to the floor. I didn’t give him a chance to break free of my lips, instead pulling him into the water over the tubs edge.
Alaric made an undignified sound, breaking away for a fraction of a second. And it was too much. I yanked him back to me, and his strong hands curled around my lower back, stroking me all over. His proud length brushed against me, just below my navel and my breathing hitched. I moaned. He growled in response, pushing my back up to the wall of stone on the other side of the tub.
With his feet he spread my legs apart. I shook against him. Feeling his own carnal, wild desire through his Grace. There was no pulling or pushing sensation. No. He wasn’t trying to force the emotion into me. He couldn’t help it, and neither could I. That whisper in my mind begged to be heard and unconsciously I knew I was pushing my desire into him, too.
His left hand came up to knot in my hair, pulling hard, but not so hard that it hurt. And his other went low. Tripping down my wet body, below the water line. Lower. His fingers teased at my pubic bone. I whimpered, ready to collapse in a heap of blind, dizzying longing.
Alaric’s fingers plunged into me and I gasped. My muscles tightening. He tightened his grip on my hair, tugging to one side to kiss and nip up and down my neck. He plunged his fingers in again and again, harder, his palm massaging my clit.
I was a living pulse. My hips bucked against him and my fingers dug into the skin of his back, pulling him, urging him not to stop. I didn’t want him to ever stop. It happened all at once. So fast. And I fell, crying out my ecstasy in a long high-pitched moan.
But I wasn’t finished. When I opened my eyes and met his—burning with his own unsatiated need. I reached down, taking his hard length into my hand. His body tensed, and he bit back a groan, circling his arms around me. The corded muscles flexing.
His cock pulsed, and I ran my hand up and down the length of it, reveling in how his body shuddered against mine. Alaric grabbed hold of my wrist, stopping me, moving my arms to circle his neck. He hoisted me into his arms as though I weighed nothing, and carried me from the water, both of us dripping onto the tile.
He claimed my lips with his own, taking his time as he carried me slowly to the bedchamber, laying me down as though I was the most precious thing in the world. As he stood, I indulged in the view of his naked body, still glistening with oil and water and sweat. Legs wrapped in solid muscle. A broad chest tapered into a solid waist. His jaw—strong, darkened by facial hair.
And his lips… on mine before I could produce another sane thought. The heat rose. The water that had kept the flames at bay gone. No. No.
We were all hands, and slick bodies, and soft moans, and, oh, gods damn it, I needed him.
As if sensing I was at the end of my rope, he pushed a small wave of calm into me, just enough to settle the flames back to embers in my core.
Not enough to subdue me. I was wild. Ravenous. Excited. We could do this. If he kept me calm enough to stop the fire, we could…
I took his cock into my hand and a roar ripped from his chest, “I want you,” I said, “Now.”
He needed no other invitation, he eased himself between my legs, lowering his body to cover mine. And with one quick thrust he entered me. It hurt, but in the most delicious, beautiful way. He thrust again, filling me. His body molded to mine like a piece of a puzzle I didn’t even know I was missing.
I writhed against him. Our bodies moved in tandem. A perfect symphony. The striking of all the right cords. Rising. Rising to a looming crescendo. The strength of the ever-building hum stole all the breath from my lungs. My body would be torn apart by the sheer force of it, I was sure. I’d be reduced to ashes. Scattered to the breeze gently brushing our sweat-slicked skin. And yet… I urged him on. More. I needed more.
He thrusted again and again. His hands grasping my body anywhere—everywhere they touched me.
“Alaric.” His name was a plea.
He panted against my neck, “Liana,” he called as we both found our release. Muscles taught. Breaths taken through clenched teeth. Hold tight. Tighter. Nails biting down. Spiraling together in a torrent of bliss.
Chapter Eighteen
“Did you sleep well?” Tiernan asked, breaking me out of my day dreams. I’d been awake for over an hour but wasn’t quite ready to start the new day.
The smell of Alaric mixed with the heady aromas of jasmine and spice still clung to my sheets and body. And the slight soreness between my legs had my mind picturing him. On top of me. Inside me. My stomach muscles tightened, and I caught my bottom lip between two teeth to hold back a longing sigh.
He’d stayed almost the whole night through. I dozed peacefully atop his chest. I had only awoken once—to the sound of him talking in his sleep. Saying something in Melîn? My lips pursed. I didn’t think he knew the language of old.
“I did, actually,” I finally answered Tiernan, who was giving me
a knowing stare from his perch across the room.
I rose from the bed, realizing too little too late that I was still naked.
Tiernan didn’t so much as blink—much less attempt to avert his gaze. I shook my head at him.
“And here I was thinking you were a gentleman.”
He grinned. Shrugged. “Only when I want to be.”
I tugged on a silken robe from the armoire, wondering what the day had in store for me. More training? I couldn’t remember what the plan was. The memorial was the following eve, and I felt there was still so much to do. All I knew was today, I would face anything with a smile and a bounce in my step. The former seemed permanently sown onto my face and I had no intention of removing it.
I sat at the dressing table, ready to begin taming my hair, when I noticed the burgundy dress laid out next to me. Aisling’s dress.
The sun told me it was already mid-morning, and she hadn’t come. Worry twisted in my stomach. “Did you find Aisling?” I spun on the cushioned bench, already trying to read Tiernan’s expression.
He nodded, “We did. She was still in Valin’s room when we went to look for her. Kade heard her from Valin’s balcony. He said it sounded like she was laughing.”
My shoulders relaxed, “Good. That’s good. I hope she comes by soon.”
“I’m sure she will,” was his reply.
Tiernan was oddly quiet as I combed through the matted tangle at the back of my head—yet another side-effect of spending too much time on your back.
Through the mirror, I saw him, looking off into the room, but at nothing. His jaw tight, and eyes hard.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked him, “Is everything alright?”
He pursed his full lips, “No. Not really.”
My smile faltered, “What is it?”
Tiernan looked to the still-closed door to my chambers, “Finn should explain it all to you. He’s the one who figured it out.”