“Two?” Cethin growled, grabbing the arrow shaft and yanking it from his shoulder.
“Glad to see those basic arithmetic lessons stuck,” Razik growled, summoning black flames. It was just precautionary though. Kailia had already taken care of the being, another wail echoing the first.
“Make sure there aren’t more of them,” he told the male. Razik nodded, muttering under his breath as he left the room, and Cethin turned back to Kailia.
A very naked Kailia.
Warm brown skin on full display. Wet midnight hair hanging over her shoulders and covering her breasts. Droplets of water running down her flesh, clearly having come straight from the bath. Her bow still in hand with another arrow nocked and ready.
Just…
Fuck me,was all he could think as he swiped a hand down his face. Razik had seen her. The phantoms had seen her. Those things were dead, but Razik?—
A sound rumbled in his chest as he sent his darkness to her, wrapping it around her and hiding…everything.
Kailia slowly lifted her arm, studying his magic clinging to her. Ashes fluttered as she sent her bow to what he assumed was a pocket realm, but by Arius. Feeling her magic alongside his only heightened the possessive and primal turmoil in his soul right now. Between their conversation in his study the night prior, the talk of touching in the town square, and now this? He needed her to give somewhere. He’d settle for being able to press his lips to her cheek at this point.
She was clearly being affected too. He could see her chest moving a little faster, and he knew that wasn’t adrenaline from the second fight of the night. Not with the way her lips were slightly parted and the way she was looking at his magic.
The door opening again is what finally broke whatever spell they were under, and Cethin whirled around to find Razik back. Cethin was across the room in a few long strides, blocking Kailia from view.
“Relax, Sutara,” Razik drawled, dropping into the same armchair Cethin had been sitting in. “I already saw, and Lia is well aware I’m not interested.”
“You’ve discussed it?” Cethin demanded. Who had instigated that conversation? Wassheinterested?
“She asks a lot of questions,” he said with a shrug, toeing at the broken shards of glass on the floor.
That had a muscle ticking in Cethin’s jaw as he ground his molars. Kailia rarely asked him questions. He had to coax any information from her.
Ignoring the comment, he turned to face Kailia. Before he could say anything though, she was stepping closer, eliminating space between them. She reached up, fingers hovering over the arrow wound. Her head tilted to the side, hair shifting, and he found himself internally cursing Razik’s presence yet again. If he weren’t here, he wouldn’t let his power hide anything.
“You didn’t die,” she murmured. Then her gaze flicked to his hand. “And you have my arrow.”
“Gods forbid this all becomes about an arrow again,” he retorted, rolling his eyes and extending the thing to her.
She snatched it from his hand, bringing the point close to her face as she studied it intensely. Confused, Cethin glanced over his shoulder at Razik, but the male just shrugged, taking a drink directly from the wine bottle he’d found next to the chair.
“Something wrong with your arrow?” he finally asked, returning his attention to his wife.
“Yes. You didn’t die,” she answered.
He heard Razik’s snort of amusement, but he ignored the male as he usually did.
“Guess you’ll have to try harder next time,” he said, and her gaze snapped to his.
“If I were trying, you’d be dead,” she retorted.
“These ‘accidental’ stabbings are becoming a little too coincidental, tiny fiend,” he mused, watching her amber eyes swirl faster in her irritation.
“It is hardly my fault you keep getting in the way of my blades,” she admonished. “Especially not when I was protecting you. Again.”
He hummed in response. Something that only made her bristle more.
“Perhaps you should put some clothes on. Then we can discuss what to do from here,” he suggested.
“I thought we were staying until morning?”
He blinked at her incredulously. “That was before I was impaled with an arrow. I need to see Niara.”
