The pillow barrier lay in ruins around us. Scattered. Dismantled. Some of them had fallen off the bed.
Acorn sat on the largest remaining cushion, looking smug.The barrier falls, the witch still crawls. Across the bed to wolf she calls.
I lifted my head.
Feral was already awake, watching me. His pale blue eyes tracked my face, and his mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile but was close enough to make my belly flip.
My fingers had somehow found their way into his hair. His thigh lay between mine.
And his erection poked against my belly.
The mortification of it all. I should extract myself with whatever dignity I could salvage and pretend this hadn’t happened. Except I didn’t want to move. The realization sat bright and uncomfortable in my chest.
His hand flexed against my back.
“Your barrier,” he said, his voice rough with sleep, “didn’t last an hour.”
“I noticed.”
“Should I be offended that you’re trying to avoid me?”
“I’m not trying to avoid you. I’m implementing reasonable boundaries.”
His eyebrow rose, a gesture that made everything inside me coil tight.
“How’s that working for you?” he asked.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “I need better materials. Perhaps something constructed of wood.”
His laugh rumbled through his chest and into me.
I scrambled off him, this time managing not to fall off the bed, and stalked toward the bathing chamber with as much dignity as possible given the circumstances.
His laughter followed me inside.
I spent the morning in my laboratory, determined not to think about pillows or barriers or the way Feral’s hand had felt on my back.
The samples I’d collected from the northern tributary sat arranged on my worktable, each one carefully labeled. I’d run preliminary tests already, standard procedures to establish baselines.
Now I needed to go deeper.
I started with the soil sample, using a separation spell to isolate individual compounds. The magical signature I’d detected at the creek had been faint, barely there. In the controlled environment of my lab, it became slightly more distinct.
My enchanted pen hovered beside my notebook, waiting for my dictation.
“The compound structure appears crystalline,” I said, watching the separated elements arrange themselves in my analysis dish. “Trace amounts only. Not occurring naturally in surrounding samples. The results could point to something or they could be random.”
The pen scratched across the page.
I leaned closer, adjusting the magnification spell. The compound glittered, catching the light in a way that made my skin prickle. This wasn’t a poison or a hex. It almost appeared intentional, like something had been introduced rather than occurring naturally.
I made a note to cross-reference it with my grandmother’s compendium of restricted magical compounds. If this had been deliberately placed, someone had gone to a lot of effort to make it subtle.
The water samples came next. I’d stored them in a spelled container that maintained the exact temperature and state of thecollection site. When I opened it, the faint signature I’d detected earlier became clearer.
Old magic. Layered. Like something dormant that had been disturbed rather a new thing placed there.
I started to dictate another observation, but kept thinking about the way Feral had looked at me this morning. The slow curve of his mouth. His low, husky laugh.
