But I also suspect he wants me to understand how infrequently hehascontrolled me.
From what my father told me, the ancient Lethians were a peaceful race. Kind and gentle. Their blood ran free of hatred and malice.
After the False Queen’s curse tore the original Kingdom of Serulia into three, the Lethian people became feared for what they could do with a single melodic word.
So they were hunted.
Their tongues were cut out, and their children slaughtered.
With their pointed ears and pale eyes, they were easily identifiable. They couldn’t assimilate into the lowborn population like my father and I did.
I stop within the water, close to the edge, the silver flowers floating alongside me, never far from my side. Several more of them return to my body, slipping beneath the surface and reattaching themselves to the other threads.
As if he senses when the threads stop moving aboutmy body—which, if I think about it, I’m certain he must—Stellen half-turns back to me, his hair falling across his face.
Again, a smile tugs on his lips.
He takes a quick, audible breath, and my eyes widen at the flush of power that sweeps over him, his eyes suddenly brighter than I’ve seen them, his hair gleaming and his pale cheeks luminous. A star that could shine more brightly than a Vividari’s light.
As he pins me with his gaze, he takes another breath.
Deeper this time. Completely silent, but it pulls and pulls andpulls, causing my back to arch under the water, my head to tip back, and heat to flood my core, ripples of pleasure spiraling through my stomach, thighs, and breasts, then into my head…
A moan rises to my lips.
This time, he doesn’t give a command.
He simply exhales, breathing out a single note as, without taking his eyes off me, he brushes a single fingertip across the cocoon’s surface.
My hands close around the rock ledge in front of me, my fingers clawing its surface as my body thrums, my head spinning with an ache I can’t ease.
As he presses his thumb to the cocoon, a thread of web attaches to his finger, pulling smoothly from the others, but only an inch before the entire cocoon collapses inward, releasing itself into his arms.
Softly, calmly, he sings, his hands working the thick wadding, reshaping it as it remains airborne, the bulk of it swaying in time to his song.
So does my need, rippling and building as I fight the urge to rise up out of the water and close the distance between him and me.
Somehow, as he works, only a single tether remainsextending from the mist, swaying with every note Stellen sings. He doesn’t attempt to cut it, nor does he break the webbing.
He weaves and molds until he releases a fully formed garment into the air opposite him, silently assessing it.
My size. My shape. A full body suit made of long pants and a fitted tunic with long sleeves. A hooded cape is attached at the shoulders; the cloak is large enough to wrap around me and provide another layer of warmth.
It’s a thoughtful garment. A protective garment.
I can barely pay it any mind.
I’m transfixed by the movement of Stellen’s mouth as he gently blows on the tether, singing another quiet note, at which the rope retracts, allowing the cloak to float into his arms.
The end of the loose tether winds in on itself, curling into the shape of a white rose before it withdraws into the mist.
Stellen turns to me, his gaze dark, his smile soft. “Come here.”
I’m up and out of the water, running across the stones before I know what I’m doing.
A trail of silver ripples behind me as the Lethian flowers catch on to each other, a cascade of movement pouring after me, rushing up the backs of my legs, sloughing the liquid off me as they storm around my body, covering me again.
The sensations are more than I can bear.
