I’m all too aware of his touch. His thumb sweeping over my thigh—the same one he stuck a dagger in the day we first met. And damn if that touch doesn’t feel so perfectly normal. So perfectly perfect.
“I’ve never felt anything like that. I thought it was going to consume me.”
“What did it feel like?”
I hold his gaze. “Power. It felt like power.”
“Well, you better get used to it, witch.” He nods toward Furi, a hidden smile threatening to peek through. “Time to go again.”
68
JACE
12 DAYS
“That fuckinghurts!”
“You’re channeling an obscene amount of dragon fire and converting into pure magic. Of course it fucking hurts.”
I sit on a large rock, sharpening my blade. After this morning’s awkward as hell council meeting, and a grueling two-hour strategy meeting with Max and his lieutenants afterward, I desperately needed to get away.
“Shouldn’t this be getting easier?” Serena glances down at me from Furi’s back.
“It will if you keep practicing.”
“We’ve been at it for hours. Can I take a break now?”
“No.”
Blatantly ignoring my answer, she slides off Furi’s wing and hops onto the ground. “Still a hard-ass, I see.”
“Still apainin the ass, I see.”
She laughs, strutting toward me and scooping up the waterskin. “How many times do I have to do this?”
“Until you can do it in your sleep. What you’re doing requires intense discipline,” I explain, glancing up at her leather-clad body.
Big mistake.
Seeing her in beautiful gowns and courtly finery was one thing, but the way she looks in her training clothes, disheveled and flushed, is my weakness. “Once you’re able to harness Furi’s fire, you can funnel it into any kind of power you want. Hence, wielding.”
I focus on my blade, running a small stone along its edges until tiny sparks pop off. Serena plops down on the ground, staring up at me with those wide purple eyes.
“So I should be able to convert it to whatever I want?”
“In theory.”
“Well, what if I wanted it to rain unicorns?”
I pause what I’m doing to shoot her a stern look. “This is not a joke. You need to take this seriously.”
“And I’m seriously asking what would happen if I wanted it to rain unicorns.”
“They’re an endangered species,” I mutter.
“Unicorns are real?” She gapes, her voice jumping an octave.
“Yes. If you really wanted to, you could make it rain unicorns. But you can do a lot more than that. Say you wanted to incapacitate, but not kill. You could freeze an entire army in place, render them immobile. You could use compulsion, you could do anything. It’s all about control. Without it, you’ll kill everyone within a fifty-mile radius.”
