“Jealousy,” he breathed. “It takes time for it to build. We may yet save S’Kir.”
The laugh bubbled up out of me. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t even care that I was laughing at the oldest and strongest of the temple masters.
Dropping me on a cold bench, he took a step back and stared at me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“We can’t save S’Kir,” I answered. “There’s no way. Elex left again, without sex. I have no power. None. There’s no way to stop the tremors.”
Master Dorian narrowed his eyes. “You did last time without—”
“That’s because there was some left, and I had a mated couple lend me their power.” I wiped away a laughing tear, starting to sober. “I have nothing. Zero.”
A rumbling growl came from Master Dorian as he stared at me—but in that instant, I realized it was not directed at me.
It was directed at Elex. He was unspeakably pissed at him for leaving me here, time and again, and not fulfilling the primary reason he was asked to move in.
Stalking in closer, Master Dorian leaned down and hissed his question fiercely. “You presented him with this marvelous tableau, and he can’t blow off work—not even a quick fuck?”
What?
In that same moment, I also realized my robe was wide open.
Master Dorian was staring at my bare breasts.
With a yelp, I pulled the robe closed. “He left. I can’t stop him. I tried. I even begged. I wouldn’t let go, but had to at the last moment, because he would have dragged me with him. There’s nothing I can do!”
“You’ve endangered all of S’Kir, girl.”
“I didn’t ask for this, and it’s not like I’m not trying!” I pulled the robe open again as if to prove that with my naked breasts I was trying.
What did it matter if he stared at me if we were all going to die anyway?
“Close that.”
“Why?”
Master Dorian grabbed my chin. I expected the touch to be uncaring and rough, but it was…
Tender. Reverent.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll take you myself and fuck the power back into you.”
The air rushed out of my lungs.
“What’s going on?” Rilen ran across the roof from the other entrance. Alone, he skidded to a halt not a few feet from us.
I jerked the robe closed.
He sucked in a breath. “Oh, no, Kimber. He didn’t.”
Master Dorian took a step back. “She has no power.”
Rilen let out the saddest, most sorrowful sigh I had ever heard. “Oh,ilati. I’m so sorry.”
“Where is your twin?” Master Dorian demanded.
“He’ll be here in a moment.”
I finally took notice of the tremors, when a particularly bad one shook the building and threw Roran out of the doorway we had come through.
