Myrdin blusters. I swear he’d clutch pearls if he was wearing them. “You are making this out to be something it isn’t, Elethior. This is so unlike you.”
Breath hisses through the seam of my lips.
Stop being so dramatic, Sebastian.
I look at Thio. Fuck Myrdin. My whole focus is on Thio, the vehement scarlet on his cheeks and the rage in his eyes and the way he’s barely clinging to decorum.
“Leave,” Thio says again. No, hecommandsit, the walls rattling with the force of his shout. Somewhere beyond this conference room, I hear a passerby gasp, but I can’t look away from Thio.
Myrdin huffs and there’s rustling; he must put away his tablet. “She won’t be pleased.”
“She never is.” Thio shoves back from the table. “And Sebastian is off-limits. To you. To Arasne. He isn’t part of this. Do not approach him, do not speak to him. Do you understand?”
Holy shit.
Myrdin mutters something else. I don’t know what. I don’t fucking care what he says.
Thio’s radiating fury and I’m hypnotized.
Then we’re alone.
I only know we’re alone because Thio turns his focus to me.
A crease forms above his nose. “I don’t tell Arasne anything about our project. And I won’t. I tell her whatI’mworking on, but only in terms of how it affects conjuration, and I keep it vague anyway. That’s why she’s being so persistent; I’mwithholding,and—”
“Drive me home.”
That crease smooths flat. “Pardon?”
“You get chauffeured to and from school in that fancy private car. Right?”
His eyelashes flutter in bewilderment. “I—what?”
“Actually, it doesn’t matter; it’d just have been easier.” I adjust my messenger bag and hand him his leather jacket from where it’s hooked over the back of his chair. We’re leaving. Now. “But however you get from school to home, don’t. Don’t do the home part, I mean. Your home. Instead, take me home. To my home.”
Fucking hell, I’m bad at this.
Thio accepts his coat from me and realization dawns in the parting of his lips.
It only takes a second for all the other emotions on his face—anger and shame and grief—to get packed away.
He steps closer to me, eyes glinting. “What are you trying to say, Sebastian?”
“I’m trying to say that I fucking want you. Right now. So take me home. I mean, not like tostay,but take me to my apartment and come in. For a bit. For—”
Aaaandthat’s where my mouth chooses to finally shut up.
Thio’s eyes fix on mine with such intensity I’m worried when I look away, it’ll hurt.
I can smell his cologne. It’s muted after a day in the lab then this meeting, earthy freshness mingled with the smell of chalk from when he’d practiced a few runes.
Without saying a word, he steps back, gathers his stuff from the table, and angles for the hall.
“You coming?” he throws over his shoulder.
My sigh of relief is worryingly loud.
Orok’s got rawball practice this evening, so I let us into the apartment—and reactivate the security wards, fool me once—and the moment my bag hits the floor, I’m on Thio. No decorum. No walls. No hesitating. I fucking need him after not having touched him since Monday. And after… Ineedhim, and I let that need overwhelm me, become a flash point.
