* * *
Not until we reach my apartment in Creatus does it become clear. Case does smell. But we both do. Smoke and sweat’s all over us, staining our clothes and steeped into our skin.
He beelines for the washroom. I down a glass of whiskey before joining him in the shower, stripping off my shirt but leaving on my sweatpants. Standing under the rain of the center showerhead, my sweatpants quickly soak through. The gray cotton is heavy with water and clings to my skin. I pretend not to notice the way Case frowns down at them.
“Interesting choice.” He puts a hand on my waist, more focused on the bulge in my pants than what I recently said to him.
We should be friends.
And then, because he’d replied,That’s what we’ve always been, I had to make it clearer for him.Friends who don’t have sex.
He backs me against the tile, and his fingers hook into the elastic around my hips, lightly tugging the sweatpants down an inch. He’s not an ass; he waits to see where I want to go with this.
I lift a brow, taking in his face and the warm water running down it in rivulets. “Thought we decided we’re better off not doing this?”
“You decided that. I cast twenty spells tonight. Then you followed me into the shower.”
“I know. But I can’t. Not when . . .” The glass steams, and I close my eyes for a second. I listen to the water softly patting the base of the shower.
For Elementals, sex drive is power, and after a long night of casting spells, Case needs to release it. I know he’ll think it’s Vyra, or maybe even Ember, but it isn’t. It’s my legs — what the sweatpants are hiding — and the fact that if I cast one more spelltonight I’ll deplete and end up sleeping.
“I’ll go to the brothel,” he says, not upset about it.
I pump a few drops of soap in my hand and lather my chest while he goes to stand under another showerhead. For all of five seconds.
He comes back, drags his hand down the soap suds on my abs, slowly clearing them. Then his finger traces the shape of the scar I know he blames himself for, but he shouldn’t. He touches the scar where it starts below my navel, then trails down to where it ends at my thighs, his hand staying over the fabric of my pants. My hips shift forward, wanting more. But I can’t.
I flatten my palm over his hand. AStop. AnI meant it when I saidwe needed to let go of this.
He pulls his hand away. “Is it Vyra?”
I shake my head.
“Ember?” he tries again.
I tip my head up so the spray hits me directly in the face. Water gets in my eyes, stinging.
“So you haven’t told her yet?”
“Told her what?” I ask, but I know. Lately, it’s all Case and I talk about. He hates how I’m handling things with her. I can’t see another solution.
“Your Death Bond?” he says. “That you’re dead if she doesn’t figure her shit out?”
“Don’t want her to know,” I say.
He says something else, but all I hear isEmbernow. Her name echoes off the glass and lingers.Ember. Ember. Ember.My pulse syncs to it, my blood itching. I crave moonale. Moonale, coffee, lavender, and vanilla. I breathe it in —
“Lee?”
Beads of water roll off my lashes as I’m blinking rapidly, fighting to snap out of it.
“Tell her you’ll die if she doesn’t go to Selection. Tell her tosuck it up and be a Dark Witch. Tell her — ” He sprays me down with the gentle setting on the handheld showerhead. “I don’t want to lose my best friend.”
I take a deep breath like I might say something different, but — “No.”
Case shuts the water off and gets out, leaving me standing there, trying not to send the wrong message by staring too much at him. He doesn’t want me to die, and I don’t want to leave him. But Jaxan’s left me with no other choice. If Ember doesn’t make it to Selection, and no part of me thinks she will, I’m dead.
* * *
