“Of course, I’ll be right back.” He handed me the vial before descending the stairs.
The contents of the glass could have easily been water, the liquid inside a simple clear tonic. I handed it to Dom. My eyes strayed to the V at his hips, his abs flexing with each intake of his breath. Dom’s gaze narrowed on the vial. “I grabbed my tonic before I came up here,” he muttered.
He retrieved both vials and opened the bottle he had grabbed from downstairs. A song, sweet and delicious, flooded our room. I swallowed hard; my hands gripped the fabric of my pants, twisting at them. Dom’s pupils blazed and his breath stuttered.
“Cork it.” I forced out the words. He moved in slow motion, blinking away the power that swallowed us. The stopper silenced the spell, but the effects lingered heavy between us.
A wave of lust engulfed me.
Bowen blew back into the room, tossing clothes at Dom. He caught them deftly, then retreated back into the bathroom with leaden steps. He emerged in a loose-fitting top that cut deep at the neck. The sleeves had been shoved up to the elbow revealing his honed forearms. He looked way more delicious than should be humanly possible. I wanted to rip the clothes off. I licked my lips.
“Are you sure the vial you brought me is my tonic?” Dom directed at Bowen.
Bowen quirked his brow. “Of course. Let me see it.” Dom handed it to Bowen. Bowen released a tendril of magic to test it. “This is yours.” He handed it back, confused.
“Then this belongs to Evander,” Dom pressed the other vial forcefully in Bowen’s hand. “Do not open it.”
Bowen looked from Dom to me. If a whole body could wince, then Bowen’s just did. He pointedly addressed me. “Do you need my help?”
Dom tensed, and something almost inhuman snarled. “Leave.”
The door shut behind Bowen before I could exhale.
Dom stood motionless, his muscles taut in a fight against the siren-song between us. The spell seemed to strip all pretense and filters. My mind hazed with its potency. Only raw, unfiltered emotion remained. Guilt at my choices convulsed into pain. Grief at Dom’s curse bent into rage. Anger conflicted with consuming desire.
Determination flashed in his honeyed eyes. “You need to know I want you, Liora. I’ve been pulled to you since the day I stepped into Maripol. Even as a child I felt connected to you. When I lost you, I never once stopped searching. I would easily burn this whole place down for you. I stand, even now, with a match to light the flame. This tonic only makes the truth of it crystal clear.”
I became very aware of a sizzle in the air, a growing intensity in the breath between us. My heart pounded in my chest.
I stalked toward him in anger, always my most accessible emotion. “You lied to me. You didn’t tell me you were cursed. That you were dying.” The word cracked on my tongue, sharp as jagged glass. “I never stopped hoping you’d find me. I never stopped dreaming of you.” The admission cost me. I shook with the power of barely restrained desire and the rage of lies and loss. I grasped for hate, but it slipped through my fingers.
I advanced on him. Angry, wanting. He stepped backward into the bathroom, out of the confines of the door’s threshold.
“I had never feared death until I met you,” he whispered.
My hand flew up in a sign to stop him. I couldn’t think of that. “We have allies and now we have weapons. When we leave here, it’s to find your cure in the Nymphian Library. No more talk of death.”
The space between us closed. “I want to touch you, but not like this.” Muscles in his arms drew taut as he clenched his fists.
Hurt blistered through me. My emotions tangled with each other. Maybe we shouldn’t act on these desires. Maybe it’s all I wanted him to do. How dare he deny me. I shoved him further into the bathroom, then threw my affinity around him.
He acted as if he could see my magic flow through the air toward him. But that wasn’t possible. Bars of ice flew upward from floor to ceiling, creating a cage so cold that vaporous smoke curled away from its surface. He turned in a slow circle, awe glinting in his expression. I scowled. I aimed to punish, not impress.
He gripped the bars, ignoring their sting. “You’re radiant when you use your power.” His shadows hovered lazily around him. “I don’t want to touch you because I want you to know for certain, that when I do, it was not under any numbing influence. When I claim you it will be slow. And it will be thorough. And you will know, without a doubt, that you’re mine.”
My skin flared with heat.
“But… I do want to taste you.” He pressed himself against the bars, my magic holding fast against his strength. “Release me so I can taste the cherry scent that haunts me.” His eyes glowed with the force of his demand.
The urge to torture him turned me on as much as the thought of Dom’s filthy mouth. Well, almost.
I stepped forward, grabbing hold of the ice bars. My fingers brushed his. Even that simple act had me suppressing a moan. But I had to know if there were any other secrets between us. The scar tissue Nolan left behind haunted me.
I thought of the dreki poster from downstairs. “Tell me what you know of Nolan’s plans.”
The braziers in the bathroom casted a flickering light, the metal holding the lighted coals quaked with his response. “He’sbuilding his army by recruiting and creating more drekis from the power of orphans. If a child seems promising to his cause, he will keep it, if it doesn’t then the magic that has yet to manifest is drained. Raw magic can be turned into anything. Since you’ve left Haluma, children—girls—in your realm have been disappearing.”
“How do you know this?”
