by Kallysten
The question took Bradan aback. He was about to ask what she meant by that when one word clued him in: too. Why would Aedan want to do such a thing? Did he have second thoughts? It had been a lot longer for him... Long enough for his determination to waver?
“If you want me to swear to you,” he said slowly, holding her gaze, “I will. If it’ll help you trust me, if it’ll make it easier to be around me—”
“I do trust you,” she said very fast. After a beat, her cheeks pinked, and she looked away again when she added, “And I don’t mind being around you. I like you. I thought you knew that.”
Bradan had no clue how to answer. He did know she liked him. She’d made it clear when she had asked to go out with him. He’d never guessed her interest before that, though. He’d never dared imagine she could see him as anything more than a friend. Even now, he could hardly believe it.
“Dame Vivien,” he started, but she interrupted him right away. Her face whipped toward him once more, and she clasped his hand, squeezing it tightly.
“No. Don’t call me that. That’s what your brother calls me, because he doesn’t know me. But you do. Don’t you?”
He dropped his gaze to their hands, resting entwined on his thigh. She had beautiful hands with long, elegant fingers. The ring on her thumb gleamed softly; so did the mark on his wrist, a reminder of what and who he was.
“Whether I know you or not,” he said in a low voice, “what matters is that you are Dame Vivien, and I am your guard.”
He tried to pull his hand free, but she refused to let go.
“Is that all?” she insisted. “You’re my bodyguard, and that’s all it is for you? Your oath? Your duty?”
She spat that last word as though it were a curse. Bradan met her eyes again, expecting to find her angry once more, like when he had backed away from her offer at the coffee shop. Instead, all he found in her features, in her quivering bottom lip, was pain—the same pain any person whose affection was denied would feel, he supposed. At that moment, the mere thought that he was causing her pain was unbearable.
He squeezed her fingers gently and asked with a small smile, “Do you remember the very first time you had a crush on a boy?”
Vivien blinked twice, very fast, clearly taken aback by the question. “The first time... You mean, my first boyfriend?”
“Not necessarily. The first time you looked at a boy and wanted nothing more than to talk to him, be with him, but at the same time you were scared he’d make fun of you if he realized you liked him.”
Her expression changed, and he could see that she was searching through her memory. “Second grade,” she finally said with a tiny grin. “My best friend and I both liked this one boy. Carlos. We’d chase him around all through recess, and he’d pull our pigtails as payback.”
“Did you ever see him again when you were older?”
She shrugged. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Bradan hesitated. Was he making a mistake? What he felt for her didn’t, couldn’t matter, not in the face of the oath he had taken. But she had asked why he was doing all this, and this was the only way he knew how to answer her.
“I was six when I had my first crush on a little girl. She was a year younger than me, and she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” He swallowed hard and finished in a whisper. “She still is.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Colors and Light
Vivien couldn’t have stopped herself from smiling even if she had wanted to. She had been so sure Brad felt something for her that his rejection had hurt more than she had thought possible. To hear him say so now—for him to admit it wasn’t all just his job—was the first bright spot since this had all started.
Holding on to his hand, she leaned closer to him, her eyes locked with his as she tilted her face up for a kiss. He pulled back ever so slowly and shook his head.
“I can’t,” he breathed. “Whatever I feel, I’m still your guard, and you’re still my dame. It wouldn’t be proper.”
The same sting she had felt at the coffee shop drew tears to her eyes. She chased them away with a few blinks. She wasn’t going to cry, not here, not now, and certainly not in front of Brad.
“Says who?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as level as she could. “Who decides what’s proper or not? Ana—” She felt a pang of guilt as Anabel’s image resurfaced. Vivien couldn’t do anything about her now, though, and if she thought about her, the tears would rise again. “She always told me you weren’t right for me. I never accepted that. What makes you think I’m going to accept it now that you’ve said you like me?”
Except...he hadn’t said he liked her, had he? He’d just said he used to have a crush on her and that she was beautiful. That didn’t mean anything; she could have called his brother handsome, but that didn’t mean she liked him, or could even stand him, the same way Brad calling her beautiful didn’t mean he liked her...not unless he said so out right.
“You do like me, right?” she asked in a tiny voice, suddenly afraid she was reading too much into his words again.
Long seconds trickled by, their passage marked by the beating of Vivien’s heart, faster and faster. Had she made a fool out of herself again? Why wasn’t Brad saying anything? Why was he looking at her with that small frown?
The frown finally smoothed out, and Brad’s whole face seemed to relax.
“Like is not a good word,” he finally said. “I love you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. But even if I do—”
She refused to listen to him say that his feelings didn’t matter again, that it wasn’t proper for them to be together. She shut him up the only way she knew how: by pressing her mouth to his.
In the moment before she closed her eyes, she could see how wide his were, how surprised. He remained completely still against her, but his fingers did tighten over hers when she flicked her tongue against the seam of his lips. When she did it a second time, his mouth parted, inviting her inside. She pressed in harder against him, caressing his tongue lightly, hoping that he’d join in.
After a few more seconds, just when she was ready to give up and pull away, he finally did. He tilted his face and deepened the kiss, stroking her tongue delicately, almost shyly. Vivien’s heart fluttered, and a small sound rose from her throat, half moan, half sigh.
Everything came to a standstill as they continued to kiss, the birds falling quiet, the wind abating until she was conscious of nothing but their bodies, their clasped hands, their joined mouths, and how warm and good she felt. After a moment longer, when they pulled away at the same time, the world seemed to lurch back into movement.
Vivien opened her eyes; Brad’s were right there, and she felt as though he were looking right to the deepest corners of her soul. She smiled and ducked her head, caught between embarrassed and happy.
“See?” she teased. “Nothing bad happened. We didn’t break some cosmic rule or anything. We weren’t struck by lightning or swallowed by the lake.”
Her only warning was a wicked twist to Brad’s grin before he kicked the water hard with both feet. Water splashed high, sprinkling over both of them. Vivien yelped in surprise at how cool it was, especially when every inch of her body felt like it was burning. She kicked back, spraying water toward him, and for a few moments they splashed water at each other like kids. Vivien was laughing so hard she could hardly breathe.
“Truce!” she wheezed out in between two fits of laughter. “I call a truce!”
Brad stopped at once, still grinning. “I can summon lightning, too, if you really insist.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and stood, tugging at her skirt where it adhered to her legs.
“I’m soaked,” she complained, turning a pout to him. “I thought you were supposed to keep me safe, not give me pneumonia.”
“In this weather?” He chuckled. “Fine. I’ll fix it. Don’t move.”
He got to his feet, too, and stood in front of her. A slight grimac
e marred his smile when he raised both his hands between them, and he glanced at his arm for a second. But before she could ask if he was all right, his gaze was back on her.
“Don’t move,” he said again, more quietly now.
Wondering what he was going to do, Vivien remained very still, even holding her breath when she felt the first brush of warm air on her skin. Her eyes flitted between her clothes and his face, where a look of concentration tugged his eyebrows into a small frown. Her skirt was dancing around her legs as though caught in a whirlwind, while the bottom of her blouse kept riding up, exposing her stomach above the skirt’s waistband.
He was directing a light flow of warm air at her, drying her clothes. Each puff of air was so gentle, it was like a caress, and goose bumps erupted over Vivien’s legs and arms. Like before when Brad had done magic, she noticed the colors swirling around him.
“There,” Brad said in an absent tone as he lowered his hands and the flow stopped. “No pneumonia for you.”
Would it be too much to kiss him again so soon after their first kiss? Vivien leaned forward and brushed her lips across his cheek as she murmured, “Thank you.”
He looked surprised as he raised a hand to touch his cheek. He smiled and offered a quiet, “Thank you.” Louder, he added, “Are you ready to go back?”
Without thinking, Vivien looked toward the castle. Because of the slope, she couldn’t see it. It was almost as if it didn’t exist—as if nothing existed but the lake, Brad, and her. As though they were truly on that date she had thought they’d never have.
“Can we... Can we stay here a little longer? Walk for a bit?”
“Anything you want.”
They left their shoes by the boulders and started to stroll along the edge of the lake, where small expanses of a fine gray sand alternated with stretches of lush grass that went right to the water’s edge.
“How does it work? Your magic, I mean.” Remembering Aedan’s admonition that first night, she corrected herself. “The Quickening. Do you say spells in your head or something?”
Without stopping, Brad bent down to pluck a blade of grass. He held it in one hand in front of him and waved his other hand toward it. At once, the grass lifted, like it was caught by the wind. But rather than flying away, it twirled in Brad’s palm. As before, colors seemed to play over him, as though reflected through a prism.
“No incantation,” he said. “No spell, no potion. It’s mostly a matter of determination.”
Watching that blade of grass dance, Vivien thought about what Aedan had said about her learning to use the Quickening and how Brad had summoned a sword of light. Three fighters might not be enough against the king’s forces, but it had to be better than two.
“Can you teach me?” she asked, touching his arm lightly.
He nodded and invited her to sit down with him. They sat in the grass, legs crossed, facing each other. The blade of grass was still twirling in his palm.
“Like I said, using the Quickening—channeling—is a lot about determination. Strength of will. You have to want something to happen, to know it will happen because you want it to. There can be no doubt whatsoever in your mind.”
“Is that all?” she asked, nonplussed. Her fingers were itching to pluck a blade of grass and try to make it dance, but it couldn’t be that easy, could it?
Brad grinned. “Look at me,” he said softly. “What do you see?”
“Colors,” she replied at once, waving her fingers as though to show how they glittered. “All around you.”
“Only around me?” he prodded. “Look closer.”
She did, her eyes narrowing as she focused her gaze. After a few seconds, she realized what he was getting at. The colors didn’t only surround him; they filtered out of him, radiating from his chest.
“Not around,” she corrected herself. “It comes from you.”
He nodded again. “That’s the other part of it. You have to fuel your determination with something, and that something is what you feel. Your emotions.” He touched his chest, right over the place where the colors were pouring out of him. “It’s called ‘channeling’ because you’re focusing those emotions to accomplish what you want to happen. It’s easier if you try something you can actually see at first. When you start seeing results, it reinforces your will, and it trains your mind for the next time, and for more complex uses of the Quickening.”
The slim blade of grass finally stopped twirling in Brad’s hand. Vivien was about to ask if she should try now when she felt the first petal graze her cheek. She looked up and let out a quiet “Oh” as petals of all colors started raining down on her, covering her like a light, fragrant snow. He’d never taken his eyes off her as he spoke; how had he gathered all those petals?
Strength of will, she remembered he had said. She had to truly believe she would achieve her goal. No, not just believe. She had to know she would.
She picked up a large petal from her lap, almost fuchsia on the edge and baby pink along the center vein. She held it in her cupped hands and focused on it, staring so hard that her eyes began to water. Nothing happened, and the petal did not twirl like she was imagining.
“Should I make gestures or something?” she asked, remembering how Brad always waved his hands whenever he did magic—channeled.
“Gestures are just a crutch,” he replied. “A bad habit I can’t get rid of. Better if you don’t do the same.”
She glanced at his face and lost her focus. He was watching her with such hope, his lips pinched tight as he observed her... She couldn’t think of anything other than kissing him again.
He made a small, reproving sound in his throat. “You’re not focusing,” he chided gently. “Can you even tell what emotions you’re trying to channel?”
She dropped her gaze back to the petal in her hands, feeling a little embarrassed. “Huh... I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m not sure I understand how to channel emotions, actually.”
Brad shifted a little closer, then cupped his hands underneath hers. As gentle as the touch was, it sent a shiver through Vivien’s entire body.
“Find your emotion first,” he said in a low, almost lulling voice. “Hope. Happiness. Fear. It doesn’t matter what it is, it just needs to be something you feel very strongly at the moment you try to channel.”
Vivien looked inside herself. What was she feeling? Fear and anger were at the back of her mind, like a dull light she couldn’t quite turn off; fear of what that king might do to her, anger at what he might be doing to Anabel. At that very moment, though, she felt something else much more acutely.
After the first kiss she and Brad had shared, after those innocent ribbons of air that had caressed her body, with Brad sitting so close to her, with his hands so warm underneath hers, what she felt was desire. She wanted him, wanted another kiss, wanted to run her fingers through his hair and feel his body against her like when he had held her to his chest the previous night. Maybe even more than that, but she couldn’t quite admit that to herself.
“There you go,” Brad said in that same hypnotic tone. “Keep focusing on what you’re feeling. Embrace that emotion, whatever it is. Let it fill you, all of you.”
Vivien squirmed a little, remembering the softness of Brad’s lips and how gentle his tongue had been, sliding alongside hers. Her panties were becoming a little damp.
“Hold on to that feeling, but rather than keeping it inside you, you’re going to let it out. You’re going to direct it at that petal, like it’s the source of what you feel. And at the same time, you’re going to will that petal to do something. You’re going to see it in your mind, like it’s already...happening.”
His last word was no louder than a whisper, as though he were afraid to disrupt Vivien’s focus when she was finally doing it. The petal was fluttering in her palms, like the wings of a bird just learning to fly. No, not learning, she told herself forcefully. Flying. She could do this. She was already doing it.
The petal rose in the air,
revolving slowly on itself. It was the only thing left around her that still had color. The rest of the world was shades of gray, as though she were watching an old movie, but the petal was a bright, vivid fuchsia color. Vivien let out a quick laugh, but silenced it when the petal wavered along with her concentration. She clung to that image in her mind, clung to the desire she felt—clung to Brad, turning her hands palms down to clutch his.
The petal danced in the air between them, rising higher until it was level with Brad’s face. With no color left in them, his eyes were a silvery gray, like his brother’s. Vivien chased that thought away and tightened her hands over his as she focused a little more. The petal drifted up, as though on a breeze, and brushed against Brad’s cheek where a hint of stubble darkened his skin. His eyes fluttered closed when the petal caressed first one eyelid then the other. He smiled, and Vivien had to touch that smile.
She floated the petal to his lips and brushed it along the curve of his mouth. A delicate shiver rocked his body, and suddenly it was no longer enough to touch him by proxy. She dropped the petal and leaned forward, her focus shifting to Brad. His eyes blinked open just before she kissed him again. They were more beautiful than ever, blue in a world of gray.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Channeling
One moment, Vivien was still in control of her emotions—of her desire. The next, it was pouring out of her and into that kiss, consuming her mind right along with her body. She could have screamed when Brad wrenched himself away, panting, his eyes blazing with what Vivien knew was the same need she felt.
“That’s...” He gulped. His hands were tight on hers, and he was using his grip to hold her at bay. “That’s a dangerous emotion to channel. It’s easy, too easy to lose your hold on it and...and...”
Colors erupted from him the way they did when he channeled, and rather than holding Vivien back, he pulled her to him, twisting their bodies and laying her down on the grass and the bed of fragrant petals he had rained upon her. If their kisses up until now had been sweet and slow, this time he devoured her mouth.