"All the way in." His hands never left her shoulders, steadying or controlling, impossible to say which. "Let it know you."
The water swirled around her calves, her thighs, her waist. Where it touched the marks he'd made, it purred approval. Where it found traces of Arion, and somehow it did find them, invisible threads of foreign magic, it hissed displeasure.
When she was waist-deep, he stopped her. "Kneel."
The command made no sense, the water would cover her face, but her body obeyed before her mind could protest. As she sank down, the water parted, forming a pocket of air around her head while still examining every inch below.
"Clever, isn't it?" He moved to the edge, settling with casual grace on the carved stone. His shirt was gone leaving him in dark trousers that made his pale skin look carved from moonlight. "The bath knows what belongs and what doesn't. What's mine and what's... trespassing."
The water grew warmer where it found his marks, almost soothing. But where it sensed Arion's touch—her lips, her hands, the places his clothes had pressed during dancing—it turned aggressive. Not painful exactly, but thorough. Scrubbing away foreign magic like it was personally offended.
"Your hair," Eliam said, and she realized he'd moved. He sat behind her now on the bath's edge, legs framing where she knelt. "He touched it, didn't he? When you danced."
Before she could answer, his hands were in her hair, working it free from the braids she had put it in for the festival. The careful plaits came undone beneath his fingers, and he pulled her head back until it rested against his thigh.
"The water needs to reach everything," he explained, but his touch was possessive rather than practical. He guided her back until her hair floated in the dark water, his fingers working through the strands with methodical patience. "Every place he might have left his mark."
The position left her vulnerable, her throat exposed, her body displayed beneath the water's surface. That warmth in her chest pulsed brighter at the contact, at being handled by him even like this.
"There's something different about you," he mused, fingers still working through her hair. The water responded to his touch, turning warmer, almost playful where he guided it. "Something that wasn't there before."
"The mark is spreading," she offered, voice tight.
"No. Not that." His nails scraped lightly against her scalp, sending involuntary shivers through her. "This."
His hand moved from her hair to press against her chest, right over that warmth. The moment he touched it directly, it flared: bright, hot, reaching. She gasped, back arching, and the water swirled excitedly around her.
"Interesting." He didn't remove his hand, just held it there, feeling whatever that warmth was doing. "It recognizes me. Reaches for me. But it reached for him too, didn't it?"
She couldn't lie. Not with his hand right over it, feeling its reactions. "Yes."
"Tell me how it felt. When he touched you. When he kissed you." His other hand returned to her hair, holding her in place. "What did this warmth do?"
"It... pulsed. Reached. Like it was trying to..." She struggled for words.
"Connect?" His voice had gone thoughtful. "Like calling to like?"
"I don't understand it."
"No. But you felt it." His hand pressed harder against her chest, and the warmth sang in response. "Did it confuse you? Feeling this while kissing another? Did you wonder why your body burned for someone gentle when it was made for cruelty?"
The water swirled higher, responding to his mood. Where it touched her, she felt his magic more clearly—dark and vast and patient as winter. But underneath that, in the places where that warmth pulsed strongest, she felt something else. Something that reminded her of—
"Starlight," she breathed.
His hands stilled for a moment in her hair. "What did you say?"
"Nothing. I just—" But she couldn't take it back. "The warmth. When you touch it directly. It feels like darkness but also... light. Both. Neither."
His hand moved to press against her chest, right over that pulsing heat. She felt it flare in response, reaching for him with desperate intensity.
"Tell me how it felt," he said, voice lower now. "When he touched you. When he kissed you. What did this warmth do?"
"It... pulsed. Reached."
"And with me?"
She shouldn't answer, but the words came anyway. "Like burning. Like drowning in darkness that somehow feels like home."
