And a sickening sense of relief washes through me, because now I have a legitimate excuse to use my magic.
My eyes start glowing as I shove my magic towards the yellow-green spark of suspicion in his chest. Just as I suspected, I find it burning in there after he didn’t get a response from Nysara. I start by lowering that into the tiniest of flickers.
The knocks grow less insistent, but he still calls, “Nysara?”
Releasing the grip on his suspicion, I instead envision creating a large gray flame of boredom. After making sure that Draven still can’t feel any of my emotions through our mate bond, I shove my magic across the house and slam it into Karleus’s chest.
Pleasure immediately floods my body, and I have to bite my lip to stifle a moan. Warmth and comfort fill me as I continue to increase that flame of boredom in his chest. Suddenly, I feel like I can breathe properly again. All of the regret and grief and pain just melt away until they’re a distant memory. I’m okay. Everything will be okay.
“Good job,” Draven says.
My heart jerks.
Scrambling to pull my focus back to the present, I realize that the knocks have stopped and Karleus is no longer calling out to Nysara. It worked. He left. So now, I can release the magic.
I get ready to cut off the flow of it. Pleasure is still flowing into me, embracing me like a warm hug. I flex my hand, bracing myself for when it disappears. Just one more second. One more.
To my right, Isera slaps Orion’s hand away from her mouth and summons a shard of ice.
Gritting my teeth, I drink in another second of pleasure. Just one more.
With great effort, I force myself to cut off the flow of my magic.
Crushing regret and searing grief crash over me like a cold black wave. It’s so intense that I actually suck in a small gasp.
Thankfully, Isera chooses that exact moment to shove Orion up against the wall. The thud his body produces when his backhits the wall masks the sound of my faint gasp, and the sudden confrontation between them draws Draven’s attention as well. I drag in a deep breath, frantically trying to compose myself again.
While Isera grabs Orion by the collar and slams the shard of ice up against his throat, I at last manage to push all those awful emotions far enough away to function again. With a neutral mask back on my face, I turn towards the two arguing fae as well.
“If you ever gag me like that again, I will fucking kill you,” Isera growls in Orion’s face.
His eyes glint, and a devilish smile spreads across his lips. He seems entirely unbothered by the fact that she has a shard of ice against his throat. In fact, he slides his own hand up her neck and along her jaw in a teasingly loving gesture.
“And here I was, thinking you enjoyed that particular activity.” He smirks at her. “Why else would you threaten me with it so often?”
“Because the sound of your voice is making me want to stab you.”
“Ah, so you enjoy knife play, then? Excellent. I do too.”
Heat flushes Isera’s cheeks. “That’s not?—”
“Then what, little viper?” With his hand still on her neck, he draws his thumb over her bottom lip. “Tell me all your wicked little fantasies, and I will make them all come true.”
Isera looks like her brain has momentarily stopped working. She just stares back at him, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open, while that flush still stains her cheeks red.
He slides his thumb back over her lip while his smirk grows. “You really are perfect.”
Something that looks a lot like panic flashes across her face, and she jerks back. However, before she can say anything, or stab the smirking Unseelie King, the front door is yanked open and Nysara comes sprinting into the living room.
Isera practically leaps backwards, and the ice shard in herhand vanishes. Giving her head a quick shake, she works her jaw and looks to be desperately trying to school her features into a cold scowl instead of the deep blush they now hold. Orion just brushes his hands down his fancy dark blue shirt, smoothing out the creases that she created when she grabbed him by the collar like that.
“My king,” Nysara says, completely oblivious to what was happening in her living room before she arrived. “I have news.”
A ripple goes through the room, and we’re all suddenly on high alert.
Nysara drags in a deep breath to refill her lungs, as if she has been running across half the city. “The Icehearts are?—”
A portal opens right in the middle of the room.
