Because it seemed to serve to excite them both, he moved around her, making minute adjustments to show off her beauty for him, teasing her with caresses and soft pinches. He’d explored her some before this, finding those sweet spots that enhanced her pleasure. Taking more time with it, he investigated meticulously, adding mouth, tongue, and the occasional edge of teeth to test every bit of her. The nape of her neck, in the hollow revealed by the short, silken nap of black fringe at the base of her skull, proved to be almost more sensitive than she could bear. Her moans and whimpers grew in pitch and frequency, a song played only for him.
Giving her time to calm herself, he smoothed caresses down her spine, then turned her head so her cheek rested on the cool tiles, telling her in a whisper that she could turn it the other direction as she needed to. She blinked at him with languorous eyes, deep as a primeval forest, her face suffused with desire. “Thank you, wizard,” she answered, and somehow he knew she meant for all of it, that this was what she’d been asking him for.
Kissing his way down her spine, he positioned himself behind her, shaping the globes of her gorgeous behind with his palms. Then put his mouth on her sex.
She convulsed, a cry of agonized pleasure ripping from her, wine-bright magic exploding in his mind with the flavor of her. He’d thought to tease her with his tongue, but he’d miscalculated the level of her tension, how precariously she’d teetered on the edge of climax, holding herself so still for him, writhing within her skin for completion.
And he… he’d miscalculated the level of savagery in himself, for he was unable to stop himself from rearing up and plunging into that ripe and ready sex. She convulsed around him, her sex as avid as her mouth had been, embracing and massaging his cock, pulling him into her so that he released almost immediately. His roar of triumphant ecstasy bounced off the glass and silver, the water beyond the arcanium shimmering in argent flames as he plunged into her sheath, joining that which he’d been separated from so violently, long ago.
She moved under him, echoing that same wordless frenzy, her guttural cries of climactic need a wine-dark harmony to his silvery magic. It had been like this in the bonding, their magic coiling together like vines, growing, thickening, creating a lattice that couldn’t be torn apart.
But this time, the focus wasn’t on tying them together. He and Nic were already bonded, with ties glaringly obvious to his magic heightened sight. Taking their melded magic, he poured it into the arcanium, bidding it to awaken, to absorb and reflect their magic. Water and fire. Sun-warmed roses and cool moonlight. The essentialthem.
Emptying the last of himself into her, he collapsed over and around her, wrapping an arm around her waist to snug her against him as he rolled onto his side, holding himself still buried in her, dropping his forehead, sweating silver against the tender nape of her neck, both of them panting raggedly. Exhausted from the distance they’d crossed.
It took awhile for Nic’s mind to clear, for the hot haze of blood desire to dissipate enough for her to remember who she was. Gabriel’s magic coursed through her, her heart pumping his cool water, her nerves made of singing silver, her very being possessed by him more utterly than her worst imaginings.
It was glorious and perfect. Shattering and satiating.
Leaving her hollowed out and endlessly full.
All a result of their first tentative steps into this realm of working together. Taking things slow. It was difficult to imagine how she’d feel after something more intense. No wonder Maman would collapse for days after an incantation.
She was luckier than she’d known, that Gabriel was the one. This kind of power exchange was not for the faint of heart, or the faintly cared for. Giving herself up so completely, being so rawly vulnerable like this with anyone else might indeed have broken something inside herself. She shuddered at the thought.
“Are you all right?” Gabriel murmured in her ear, brushing the lobe with a tender kiss and gathering her tighter in the circle of his arms.
For once, his solicitude didn’t exasperate her. It soothed that part of her still so terribly exposed.
“My hands are numb,” she admitted. He pulled out of her with a muttered oath, his nimble fingers that had tormented her so deftly and with such devastating thoroughness loosening the knot on the rope that had bound her so erotically. Though she appreciated the rush of feeling to her hands, she also missed Gabriel’s comforting embrace. So, an even greater admission, she added, “But I think I need to be held still.”
“Oh, Nic…” He sounded ragged as he gathered her onto his lap, sitting cross-legged and wrapping himself around her. Sheltered in the protective strength of his body, she calmed, the flayed bits of her heart knitting together again. “It was too much,” he said.
“No, it was just right,” she breathed, becoming aware that the lantern flames had all gone out, replaced by a cooler, silver white, much brighter light. “Look.”
He lifted his head, then tilted it back to follow the direction of her gaze, his breath easing out in wonder at the sight. The silver structure of the arcanium glowed, currents of magic running like contained lightning through the struts and bars framing the panes of glass. They seemed to pulse in a regular pattern, streaming up to flow in a circle around the moon window above. The window panes themselves shimmered like water made solid. Perhaps they had been made of water originally, as Gabriel had remarked the stone of the arcanium door seemed to be.
If so, the arcanium had been constructed via an immense wielding of power. More so than even her father commanded. Papa couldn’t transmute materials like this. And if the Elal arcanium was capable of storing this amount and intensity of magical energy, well… She just didn’t think it was, or she’d have sensed it.
More to the point, if the Phel wizards had been so powerful, how had that magic collapsed so completely that it vanished within a couple of generations? And, why had it appeared again and with such potency in Gabriel and Seliah?
“It’s phenomenal,” Gabriel breathed. “Though I’m not sure I fully understand what it means.”
Her heart fairly burst with love for him, that he could be so masterful in one moment, so deftly commanding her and drawing the magic from her in perfect streams of control—once he stopped dithering about the morality of it—and then so willing to expose his ignorance in the next. Laying a hand on his cheek, she drew his wondering gaze down to hers, brushing the soft silver shadow growing along his jaw. He must’ve skipped shaving that morning, what with sleeping in the stables, then forgotten after he fell asleep in the bath. Giving him a long, lingering kiss, she poured her feelings for him into the caress, as if her lips could convey what she didn’t have the nerve to speak aloud. And not only because he wouldn’t believe her, thinking her mind and will compromised by the Fascination and the bonding.
“What was that for?” he asked with a quirk of a smile.
“A reward,” she replied lightly. “What this means,” she continued, before he could question her further, “is that we’ve awakened the arcanium. There is a huge amount of stored magic here. Water and moon intertwined. Do you feel it?”
“Yes,” he answered in a reverent tone, wizard-black gaze following the rivers and runnels of sparking magic.
“You know, I’ve been thinking of the water and moon magic in you as two different categories, but now I’m wondering if they aren’t two sides of the same coin. One feeding into the other, a kind of transmutation.”
He studied her face thoughtfully. “That could be.” Adjusting his embrace so he could look at her more fully while still holding her, as she’d asked him too, he tilted his head. “Tell me truly, though—how are you? Was what we did just now…” He trailed off, not quite able to frame the question.
“It was perfect,” she told him, holding his gaze and hoping he’d feel her absolute sincerity. “I won’t pretend that it didn’t leave me feeling a little fragile, but it was exactly right.” He hadn’t even caused her any pain, and yet that sensation of being helpless in his control… She shivered, and his arms tightened around her. “I feel a bit hollow,” she admitted.
“You’re pale,” he observed, “and your magic is…”