Don’t cuss at him.
Don’t curse him.
Don’tanythinghim.
I sit primly. Perfect posture. I’m downrightelegant.
After I fire off an email to him with allmyresearch, I sort through the components I have in my belt. I always keep a wide array of things along with a few prepared vials.
I find what I’m looking for and toss an appreciative nod to the dagger hail that’s still going strong outside, thanking it for the inspiration.
Elethior’s back is to me as he scrolls through what I assume is my research on his phone.
I ready the components, mutter the incantation, and send the spell skipping merrily across the lab.
Frost creeps up the bottom of his chair, freezing the wheels, the rungs, the base, until—
He rockets up with a yelp, only his chair is frozen to the floor and can’t roll away. Which makes him bang his thighs into his desk and flail back onto the now ice-solid seat of his chair.
Elethior stills, hands splayed, ass no doubt a littlechilly.
“Sebastian,” he barks, still not facing me.
“Oh no,” I coo. “The evil witch-king must be after you. Should I call an adventure party?”
He sits for one more beat before he rubs a hand over his left shoulder. Through his T-shirt sleeve, there’s a faint blue glow.
The ice vanishes.
My brows pulse. “You have a counterspell rune tattoo?”
Chair freed, he spins enough to look at me and lifts one of hisarms, showing the ink swirling across his skin. Even from here, I spot a few other runes now, camouflaged with intricate snaking ivy and grayscale flowers.
Magic tattoos supposedly hurt a helluva lot more than regular tattoos; bits of components are woven in with the ink and the whole process involves a constant, steady stream of magic imbued in the art. I never let myself look too closely at his tattoos before, but—
Woah,pump those brakes. Notlet; there was noletting.I simply didnotlook too closely at his tattoos. Why would I have wanted to?
I lurch away, scowling at my desk.
“Pouting doesn’t become you,” he says.
“I’m notpouting. I’mfocusing.” I point at my laptop. “As should you. Stop distracting me.Youshould wear the hazmat suit.”
“I should—what?”
Breath gets trapped in my lungs.
That was not a thought he’d been privy to, wearing a hazmat suit to avoid uncomfortable situations, and saying it out loud has a nightmare-level realization cannonballing into my mind:
Am Iattractedto Elethior?
Oh.
Oh,fuckno.
I have a fairly masochistic personality, but that’s taking self-flagellation too far, even for me.
“Nothing,” I fumble. “Never mind. Just—shut up and get to work.”
