Rionan hadn’t pushed Alianna about her personal feelings towards him since his revelations this evening. She would need time to process. He understood this. Whatever decision she made, he would respect it, however difficult it may be.
So, he hadn’t invaded any of her space without invitation. He’d kept his distance when seated next to her. He tried incredibly hard to ignore the way her scent wrapped itself around him, the way the mere presence of her was like a drug to him. Rionan watched the way she moved around the room, to get water, to get snacks out of the fridge, to lounge on his bed while they spoke. Absolutely entranced.
“It was going to be a pretty normal day for me. I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary that I was doing, anything specific or relevant.”
Alianna twisted her hair around her index finger, biting her bottom lip as she thought. Rionan fought back the primal, possessive noise that threatened to leave him, memories of their night together flooding back at the sight of her on the bed now. He would not overwhelm her.
“When you showed me Xanthia,” Alianna started. “You showed me the port. There was somebody there talking about something he wanted to buy, and the currency was Goldmarks.”
“Yes. That is the currency we use in Xanthia. Similar to the Ironmarks that you use here. I had noticed this familiarity too, when I arrived and booked into The Rinniel.”
“Do you think your people have been here before? If we use similar currencies?”
“Potentially, yes,” Rionan said, standing up and stretching his arms out wide. He paced the room as he thought. “My power…it is not wholly sentient. But it does speak, to me, on rare occasions. Usuallywhen things are out of balance. This has been happening more since I have been here.”
“What has it said?”
“Porthan. It has said Porthan, a lot.”
“Anything else?”
Rionan considered whether or not he should share with Alianna that his power had said her name to him, too.
“Yes. It’s told me to go home.”
“Why does it want you to rush home if you don’t have what you need to end the war?”
Rionan motioned to where Alianna rested on the bed, asking if he could sit on the end. She nodded. He sank down, looking at the floor, black hair flopping over his eyes. He lifted a hand to sweep it back as he continued speaking.
“It is…not good for me to be away from Xanthia for so long. Without the network of power being in full use, with one of the Wells drained, that territory will begin to wither and die. If left long enough, this will spread. Xanthia can only thrive if all four lords occupy the land, and all four Wells are at capacity. We can leave for very short times, but I have been away for a while now.”
Alianna sat up, staring at him. “If you need to find this thing and rush home, why have you been spending so much time with me, instead of searching?”
Rionan let his composure slip for a moment as he pulled back his top lip and snarled, a purely animal noise, canine teeth exposed. Alianna stilled. He snapped his head up to her, immediately offering a look of apology.
“You must understand, I am angry with myself. I did not know where to begin. All I knew was that I had been drawn to you since I came here. I truly felt that you held some sortof answer…I did not realise I would begin to develop feelings for you. I continued spending time with you, not only because I was trying to find some sort of direction,any directionabout why I was here – but because I couldn’t stay away from you, Ali.”
Alianna considered his words. “I understand why you didn’t have a mobile phone now.”
Rionan laughed, the sound coming from deep within him, and a smile lingered on his face. “I had to get the human in the shop to show me how to use it.”
“He did a terrible job. You don’t even have any photos on it. What of your memories in Porthan?”
She picked up his phone from a side table, opened the camera, and snapped a picture of herself lying on the bed, smiling up at the camera. “There you go.”
Rionan’s relief washed over him like a tidal wave. Seeing that smile again,his Ali,even if for just the briefest moment. He had not forgotten her look of sheer terror the other night, when she had seen him in his Xanthian form for the first time, mid-nightmare. Seeing her look at him that way was like taking a knife to his heart.
“I’ll keep thinking, Rionan. I’ll help you find what you’re looking for. You have my word.”
23
Power
Alianna sat on the sofa in her apartment, looking out of her window towards the bustling streets below. When she came to leave Rionan’s suite earlier that day, he hadn’t hugged her, hadn’t kissed her goodbye. He certainly hadn’t asked if she would like to stay the night.
She understood why. Alianna knew, in her heart, that Rionan was a good male, and not one that would harm her. She knew that he was letting her decide if she wanted to spend further time around him (beyond the promise she had made), or not.
Alianna ran a hand through her hair and sighed heavily, walking to her fridge and grabbing some chocolate. Shoving it into her mouth, she considered everything she’d learnt about today.
