She belonged to him, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to let go. The thought of her ever leaving him scared him, even angered him, so much so that he couldn’t hold back the growl that tore its way out of his chest.
Adriana stilled at the sound, and Xander wrenched himself away from her. He watched with wild eyes as her fingers tenderly touched her swollen lips, her hair falling in waves around her face as the wind died to a soft breeze.
Running a hand over his face, he felt the familiar ache in his gums, a sign that he needed to feed. But he knew he wasn’t hungry, not for blood at least. With a final look at her, he marched off the decking and back towards the manor, leaving Adriana alone in the cold.
As he reached the stone steps leading up to the manor entrance, he turned his head towards her, not quite meeting her eye, and whispered, “I am sorry.”
Not waiting to hear if she would respond, he ran into the house and up the stairs. The only sound he heard was the soft gasp that left her lips as she beheld the faint glow in her fingertips, theglow that he’d noticed had appeared the moment she decided to kiss him back.
Chapter eight
The Courts of Daemonium
Adriana
Adriana hadn’t seen or heard from Xander since the ball. Striga told her he had left town early on Christmas day. Now, the first day of Spring had arrived, and still he had not returned.
She didn’t ask after him, she didn’t want anyone to think she cared for his whereabouts, but she knew she missed him. She missed his dark stare and his sassy remarks, she missed the way he got under her skin, she missed the way his hands had felt on her body. She missed the way he had kissed her.
She had never been kissed like that, not by any of the boys in the tavern she used to sneak off to see, nor by Jonathon, whom she had begun to visit almost every night since Christmas to ease the new ache she felt. Xander’s kiss had been so strong,so desperate for her, she had never felt as truly desired as she had in that moment. She had never felt so sure of herself, so powerful.
She’d received visits from suitors from the ball, all of which she entertained politely and then sent them on their way if they hadn’t picked up on her blatant lack of interest soon enough. Fortunately, Lord Abbot had not been seen since the ball. He was assumed to have left town due to the failures of his copper mines by the coast and sought business elsewhere. Adriana hoped he’d fallen down one of those mines and that no one would ever find him again, but she knew it was just her own depraved, wishful thinking.
She picked up her training with Striga a few weeks after Christmas once the suitors had stopped bothering her and wasting her time; time she could now spend focusing on her powers. Her progression with her Elementai abilities continued at an exceptional rate, she showed more control over the elements than even Striga could in her prime. Adriana learnt how to channel her emotions into her power, rather than avoid them or allow them to take over completely. She was stronger than she had ever been, and yet she felt little satisfaction.
Striga had begun to teach her how to call upon the light to work on her Luciferus ability. Adriana could easily make her fingertips glow, and that glow would sometimes stretch down her hands, but it was just a glimmer of power. It wasn’t the bright light she needed to conjure.
One afternoon, after they’d been practising for a few hours on lighting individual candles around the drawing room with her eyes closed, Striga had suggested they go back to training outside now that it was warmer. In truth, Adriana would have preferred to train outside during the winter too, for she rarely ever felt the cold affected her—something that showed she was a strong Luciferus in the making, according to Striga.
She supported her great-grandmother with her arm as they walked down the steps and into the gardens. Anyone could see that Striga had become so frail in the recent months, so much weaker over the winter. Adriana hoped that the beginning of Spring would breathe some life back into her, or to at least add some colour on her pale, sunken cheeks, but she knew the inevitable truth. Striga was old, and she would not be around forever.
“It is so lovely outside, isn’t it?” Striga muttered. “Just what we both need, the warmth of the sun to celebrate your birthday.”
Adriana only smiled in response. She rarely celebrated her birthday, something Striga and her father had come to accept over the years. Today she turned twenty-one. She was now older than her mother had been when she had died.
Her father always struggled on her birthday, to him it would always be the day his dear Lucia passed away. And as Adriana grew older and understood why he tended to ensure he was away on trips over her birthdays, she stopped celebrating. Striga had given her a necklace this year, a thin silver chain that rested delicately above her collarbones, but she had purposefully not made a big fuss.
Realising Striga was putting almost all of her weight on her, Adriana wrapped an arm around her to better support her. “We needn’t walk down to the lake. We can sit in the garden instead?”
“Yes, I think the garden for today. My old bones are still rattling from that awful winter we had. I’ve never known it to be so cold here.”
Adriana frowned, knowing it hadn’t been a particularly cold winter, but that Striga’s age and faltering power were quickly catching up with her. They walked to one of the benches that sat surrounded by flowers, the beginning of Spring bringing new plants and life to the land again.
Striga sat back with a sigh, her eyes closed as she tilted her face up to the sun. She wrapped her shawl tightly around her, her shoulders shivering against the cool wind.
“We can go back inside,” Adriana suggested. “If you are too cold—”
“Nonsense!” Striga snapped. “Stop your fussing, you are just as much a nuisance as Xander.”
Adriana stiffened at the mention of his name. She’d tried to avoid thinking of him. All that did was make her miss him more, and missing him made her ache in ways she didn’t know were possible. Whenever someone said his name, or she looked across the lake and knew he wasn’t there looking back at her, she felt the emptiness in her body, in her chest. She needed him, in more ways than she could comprehend.
It was pitiful how much she longed for him to return. All those times he had stopped by her training sessions and she’d wished he’d disappeared each time, but now she could only hope that she would feel his eyes on her again, that he would come back. She blamed her stupidity on the kiss, but she knew the blame was ill-placed. There had been something drawing her to him from the start, but it was only now that she was choosing to acknowledge it rather than run from it. She wasn’t sure which of the two choices made her weaker.
Striga peered over at her, seemingly understanding the look upon her face. “I am so proud of you, my Adria. I want you to know that. And Thomas, he is proud of you, too.”
“How do you know that?” Adriana asked, trying to keep the sadness from her voice.
“Because he is still with me, his love will never leave me. His courage gave me strength in myself, it still does. And I suspect you have found something that gives you your courage, to be able to display such progress in your power. Or perhaps someone?”
