I opened my mouth again, but he cut me off.
“Corvid Blackstone makes the potions my father requires me to take,” he said coldly. “The ones that dampen my magic.” He gripped my arms, dragging me closer to him, even as he backed me towards the classroom wall. His hands tightened, frustration bleeding through his fingers. “I have to meet with him once a week. Heworksfor him. Do you fuckinggetwhat you’ve done? Godsdamnit, Leda!”
I stared up at him, now breathing harder myself.
I didn’t feel violence on him, though.
Fear, frustration, grief, anger, despair… but not violence.
It still wasn’thimI was afraid of.
“Whyaren’t you?” he snapped in frustration. “What in the gods is thematterwith you? Even after I stopped talking to you, you still didn’t turn me in, not even to Alaric. Even after I treated you like garbage for months. I let you worry about being arrested. I let you believe I’d let you take the fall for her death. Fuck, I even seduced one of your friends…”
I flinched, paling, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“…I’ve done everything I fucking could, everything I could think of, short ofactuallyhurting you, to keep you away from me. Is that what it’s going to take? Why in the gods would you trust me? Why would you tell meanyof this?”
I looked between his gold eyes.
His hands were shaking.
His face contorted as he fought to control whatever was going on behind his clenched jaw and tensed muscles. Even more than his words, I could feel it on him now, some denser, harder fire that seemed to be spiraling out of control. Had he really meant to say any of that to me? Was he having some kind of mental breakdown? I saw gold light shining through the fabric and collar of the black shirt he wore, and my mind skipped in its tracks.
Gods. He was overloading.
He was overloading, possibly even as some form of Magical panic attack. Fear, anger, anxiety, stress, disbelief, horror––whatever the exact volcanic brew of feeling he was struggling with, it was overloading his magic.
He was losing control over it right in front of me.
I laid my hands on his chest, more from instinct than thought.
“Hey.” I rubbed his chest, to calm him, to get him to focus. When that didn’t work, I gripped his shirt tighter. “Caelum. Look at me.”
His eyes flickered, locked on mine.
“Caelum again?” He let out a harsh laugh. “Really, mongrel? I thought I was ‘Bones’ now. That’s one difference you’ve made crystal fucking clear since––”
“Give me some of it,” I urged him. “Give me some of your magic, and we can talk. We can’t talk like this.”
“Fuck off.” He started to pull away, but I gripped him tighter, yanking him back.
“Bones.” That time, I shook him a little, my hands fisted in his shirt. “Give me some of it. You can yell at me all you want afterwards. But you can’t go back out there like this. You can’t, and you know it.”
He stood there, breathing hard, struggling with each breath. He was nearly panting as he stared up at the ceiling, his expression half-contorted as he held whatever it was back. His chest was glowing brighter now, illuminating the two of us in the dark room, and his eyes were brighter, too. I saw the conflict worsen on his face, and I was about to argue with him again, when he turned abruptly, and wrapped a hand around my throat. He pressed me roughly into the wall between the counter and the classroom door.
Then, without speaking a word, he leaned into me and exhaled.
I watched, fascinated, as the tension bled out of his features.
He groaned right before it hit into me, a heavy, relieved sound that came from deep in his chest. It was loud… loud enough that I worried someone might hear it on the other side.
Then his magic reached me, and I couldn’t think about that, either.
I let out a choked gasp when it swam into my chest and arms.
My vision whited out.
Heat flooded through me like lava, making me writhe where he held me, then gasp again, louder, when he stepped into me, still holding me against the stone wall. Hot pulses of his magic ran into my belly, legs, arms, my fingers, my face, my sex, and his presence was so strong through all of it, I couldn’t think past it, or him.
