Present Day
October 18th
Caelum Bones’s Living Quarters
Malcroix Bones Academy
Iopened my eyes slowly, wincing at a low ache in the back of my skull. Apart from that mild headache, however, and a bitter taste in my mouth, I was intensely comfortable. I was so comfortable and warm, so completely enveloped, I didn’t want to move. Then I saw the window, and the sunlight pouring through an opening in the floor-length, red velvet curtains.
It wasn’t familiar.
Wherever I was, I hadn’t woken up here before.
That probably should have alarmed me, but somehow didn’t.
It took me a few seconds more to wrap my mind around the rest of it.
I wasn’t alone. My face pressed against bare skin that rose and fell under my cheek. An arm wrapped around my back, crosswise so that the attached hand held my shoulder. Both the arm and hand gripped me tightly, even in sleep. It feltpossessive, even confining, like their owner feared something might come and along and snatch me away while he slept.
I probably should have been alarmed by that, too.
At the very least, I should have tactfully tried to disentangle myself.
I couldn’t bring myself to want to, though, even beyond the intensity I felt off the person I was with. That intensity grew more profound the longer I lied there, assessing the situation.
He was breathing too hard.
His skin was really hot. It felt like he burned with a fever.
Was something wrong with him? Was he sick? Beyond his temperature, it felt almost like he might be having a minor heart attack, or like he was struggling to get enough oxygen. He let out a low sound while I thought it, and gripped me tighter in his hands.
I raised my head cautiously, without moving any other part of myself.
It was one of the few parts of me I could still move.
Once I did, I found his eyes closed, his lips slightly parted. His face was bizarrely pale, the muscles taut. His hair looked damp, with parts of it sweated to his face. His jaw clenched and unclenched while I watched, and he seemed to wince, as if from pain. I tried to decide if I should wake him up. Was he having another nightmare?
Or was there really something wrong with him?
I was about to shift my weight, to reach for him with a hand, when his whole body jerked, and his eyes flicked open. He stared up at the canopy over his bed, still breathing hard, his expression visibly confused. Then his arm tightened around me enough to cut my breath, and he looked down, directly into my face.
That fire filled his irises.
I’d never seen so much of it before.
Green, gold, and darker than I’d ever seen it, it rippled through his eyes, coloring his pupils, distorting the gold. The wave didn’t appear then vanish like it normally did. It sparked brighter and dimmer, like a lightbulb that was either getting too much electricity or not enough. Now that he was awake, he looked even paler than he had. Those dark circles under his eyes made me suck in a breath.
Gods, what was wrong with him?
He stared at me, unmoving, those fire-lit eyes out of focus, and I wondered if he could see me at all. Before I could open my mouth to ask, to say anything, his hand slid under the shirt I was wearing, and wrapped around the bare skin of my waist.
“Can I?” He barely got it out. It sounded more like a gasp than a question, mixed with something that might’ve been a groan. “Please. Fuck. Please.”
I felt like an idiot once I understood.
His magic. Gods, this was because of that bizarre magic of his.
His magic was overloading, or overheating, or whatever the hell it did, right in front of me. That’s what I’d been seeing on him for weeks, ever since I first glimpsed him on the carriage to school. I adjusted my hips to slide closer to him, so that his whole hand had contact with my skin. He shocked me when I did it, letting out a groan that came from deep in his chest.
