“You are if you think you can keep being a farmer.”
“What do you call what we’re doing with those fields out there?” he demanded, waving a hand at the lands beyond the walls.
Levering up, she leaned on the desk, too, meeting him loom for loom. “I call ityourlands being farmed byyourpeople whileyouact as lord of House Phel.”
His eyes glittered, lowered to her mouth. Before she could wonder what he intended, he caught her by the back of the neck and pulled her in for a kiss. For once, he forgot to moderate his strength, kissing her hard, almost bruising, the force of years of struggling with his unwanted destiny in it. She returned it in kind, meeting his disappointed hopes with her own. When he finally broke off the kiss, he leaned his forehead against hers, still gripping the back of her neck. “Our house. Our people. Lady Phel,” he said quietly.
“Do you see me out there picking cotton?” she asked lightly, though her voice shook a bit from the rush of passion.
He breathed a laugh. “I assume that falls in the same category as asking you to do housework, which will result in vague but dire vengeance.”
She wrapped a hand around his wrist, not pulling away but solidifying the contact. “I didn’t mean it. You know I’ll do whatever is necessary to rebuild House Phel. I was trying to make a point, and I lost my temper.”
Tilting his head, he kissed her again, this time tenderly. “As did I. And I’m not even sure what we were arguing about.”
“Let’s try this again,” she said, easing out of his grip and coming around the desk. Hitching herself up, she sat on it beside him, absently rubbing the back of her neck, which throbbed distractingly.
“I hurt you. Nic, I’m so sorry.” Gabriel looked stricken.
“Only a little, and in the best possible way.” She pursed her lips in an air kiss. “Next time, try bending me over the desk while you hold me down by the back of the neck and toss up my skirts. That will shut me up longer.”
“What?” His face contorted in shock. “No! That’s not why I—”
“Gabriel, I’m kidding. Well, not entirely, because itwouldwork, and we’d both likely enjoy that method, but I know that’s not why you did it.”
“Do tell,” he ground out, folding his arms. It was ridiculous how the more worked up he got, the more she wanted to climb that big body and rub herself all over him. Or kneel at his feet. Did all familiars plagued by the Fascination feel this way? Probably. The novels didn’t capture even half of the true potency of the bonding.
Tempting as it was to fall to her knees and relieve his tension in the most primitive way possible, she patted the desk next to her, waiting for him to sit. “You bonded me only last night and—”
“We bonded each other,” he interrupted with an obstinate shake of his head.
“Andthat’s a potent connection,” she continued. “It will take a while for us to get used to it. A normal wizard would have me restrained in the arcanium, bleeding me for every drop of magic they could wring from me.”
He wasn’t amused. “We both know I’m not a normal wizard.”
“True,” she agreed without rancor. “Most wizards have extensive plans laid for the incantations they want to work once they have a familiar. Projects that needed the power boost only a familiar can provide. You, being you, have barely even drawn on my magic.”
“I haven’t needed to.”
“You think you don’t need to, but that’s your rational brain talking. Your wizard nature isn’t a rational creature any more than my familiar nature is.”
He considered that, canting his head as he studied her face. “Surely you don’t believe that.”
“I do believe it. Maman once told me the predator desires the prey—he can’t have any mercy in his heart for it.”
His expression contorted. “That’s revolting.”
“That’s reality,” she replied in exasperation. “There are aspects to our magical natures that are beyond our intellectual control. I know you think the Convocation Academy filled my head with propaganda and misguided convictions of how the world really is, but I’m speaking from experience here. I was sure Fascination was a myth, a romantic idea to persuade familiars that becoming a wizard’s slave would be pleasant. Until I met you.”
He made an incoherent sound of dismay, and she put a hand on his muscled thigh, enjoying the heated strength there while giving him a bit of comfort. “I’m not saying this by way of recrimination. I’m trying to explain that something beyond my control kicked into force. I think you’ll concede that I’m reasonably strong-willed.” She cocked a brow at him, then shook her head. “I could not will this away. Much as I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Couldn’t stop wanting you.”Wanting to give everything to you,though she managed not to say that part aloud.
Covering her hand with his, he nodded. “I felt—feel—the same.”
“You don’t have to look so grim about it,” she teased, but he didn’t smile.
Instead, he pulled his hand away, knotting his fingers together to rest on his muscular thigh. “I told you from the beginning, Nic: I don’t want you unwilling.”
She swallowed her immediate retort that she could hardly be anymorewilling. When she’d attempted to escape him, she’d put that doubt in his mind forever. She’d be forever paying the price of that. “Areyouunwilling?” she countered.