It took Theira a moment to realize he’d looked down and was now just watching her touch him. His feet were firmly planted on the floor, and she was kneeling between his legs.
His eyes as he watched her were dark, glittering.
She grinned up at him, as if it were not embarrassing to be caught distracted by the realness of him,here, when he’d just been forced to flee for his life.
“You’re half naked in my kitchen and I can finally satisfy my curiosity,” Theira said with a shrug.
Varius looked faintly stunned.
Oh no. Had she misread after all? She didn’t have anything like his charm and ease with people.
Maybe that was too personal. She didn’t want to destroy the surreal truce they had going, so she tried one more time to make it into more of a joke.
“Any wounds that would justify taking your pants off?”
Silence.
On further reflection, if her goal was to set him at ease, that may not have been the joke to do it.
Theira shriveled internally as she forced herself to sit back to keep him from being uncomfortable here in a place he came to only because he had no other options—moreuncomfortable—because she wasn’t sure she could bear it if someone finally came to her for help and then she was the reason they fled.
She was just about to get to her feet when Varius said, his voice dry and very, very rough, “Unless you have a rejuvenation potion with a little more kick, I don’t think you’ll be impressed with anything in my pants tonight.”
Theira kept her expression one of mild amusement but thought he could probably see the brightness in her eyes. Unreasonable, for her heart to soar like this, from so little—but he wasplaying, despite the devastation made of his life in the last day, and withher, when he knew better than anyone what she could do.
She hadn’t misread him, or made him uncomfortable. At least, not so much that he was going to flee from her.
Then again, given what it had taken to get him to move, he would withstand a lot of discomfort if he thought he had to.
Maybe she didn’t deserve to have nice things after all she’d done, but that wasn’t how she wanted him.
Theira smiled, so he wouldn’t thinkshewas fleeing, and withdrew back to the kitchen. “After this healing, you’re going to sleep like a rock anyway.”
“Not magical sleep?” Varius asked. “You know they’ll come for me, I don’t want you—“
“Varius. Why did you come here?”
A beat.
Theira crossed back to him and leaned down, her eyes right in front of his.
And then with heat in his voice, Varius said, “Because if anyone can get the better of them, it’s you.”
Theira’s smile was slow and feral.
It was so nice to be appreciated without the cowering.
She purred, “And it will be my pleasure.”
The fire in him faded, and his shoulders slumped. “But what can be done? They won’t give up. This war will go on forever.”
She eyed him critically. A little hopelessness after the day he’d had was entirely justified, but that wasn’t how she wanted him, either.
And she didn’t think it was what he wanted.
So the Sorceress Transcendent just said, “Sleep. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Chapter 2
