Stifling both, I glanced away from his face, biting my lip as I felt that thing between us pulling on me, making it hard to think. I was tempted. Truthfully, I was more than tempted. Some part of me wanted that, badly. The craving was intense enough, I closed my eyes.
“Gods,” I said. “You are impossible.”
He could feel me wavering, and wrapped his hand gently around my neck, caressing the muscle with his thumb. “You want to come.”
“That doesn’t mean I should,” I pointed out.
He pressed his body against mine as his fingers tugged on one of the long, ringlet curls Miranda had shaped so precisely. He glanced at the windows on the other side of the classroom, his gold eyes glowing faintly again. “It’s snowing out there, my darling wife, and you don’t have a coat. Or boots. Or even a scarf. I don’t believe I can let you go, given the possible danger to your health. It would be incredibly irresponsible of me.”
I let out a half-snort, burying my face into his chest.
He’d won. He knew he’d won.
I didn’t even have it in me to pretend I minded.
36
Unwelcome Awakening
Present Day
November 29th
Caelum Bones’s Living Quarters
Malcroix Bones Academy
“Leda!” Bones’s voice, whispered, nearly harsh. His hands gripped my shoulders. He shook me, once, hard. “Leda! Get up! Now!”
I fought to drag myself back to consciousness, even though not a single part of me wanted that in any way. I was warm, insanely comfortable, completely naked except for my birthday present, and covered in thick, warm, achingly soft bedding that felt like sleeping inside a cloud. I must have caught enough of the panic in Bones’s voice to make the effort, because I doubt I would have otherwise.
“Leda!” He shook me again, harder, and my eyes flipped open. “Wake. Up.”
I stared up at him.
I got lost briefly in the look on his face.
I barely recognized the mage who stared back.
It wasn’t the version of Caelum I’d met at the base of the tower on the night of my birthday, but something about it struck me as nearly as foreign. It certainly wasn’t anything like the person I’d been talking to when I drifted off to sleep the night before. His face looked disturbingly blank, like he’d flicked some kind of switch and shut everything down. Only his eyes showed any hint of the person behind that wall.
I saw panic there. Maybe something deeper than panic.
“Do you have your crystal?” he murmured.
I nodded. “It’s on my costume. I made it part of the belt.”
“Get it,” he said. “I’ve put your clothes in the closet. You have to hide.” His face remained unnervingly empty. When I didn’t move, his fingers clenched on my shoulders.
“Leda. Now.Now.”
I sat up, fully awake, and breathing harder, clutching the duvet to my chest. “Bones, what’s wrong? What happened?”
His throat moved in a swallow, but his gold eyes remained flat, empty of any hint of that fiery glow I’d grown completely used to seeing. He looked like a cardboard cutout of Bones, not Bones himself. Then he met my gaze, and I saw something I could only describe as terror, but so intensely suppressed, it looked more like an echo.
“My father’s here,” he said.
I’d just hunkereddown in his walk-in closet, behind a row of winter coats, when I heard the main door to his residence open.
