Bright Familiar by Jeffe Kennedy

~ 13 ~

Recognizing Gabriel’s rapidly fraying temper, Nic watched with considerable relief as he strode back into the manse. He’d acquitted himself well, much as he loathed the part he had to play, and now deserved some time and space being only himself. The Refoel and Byssan pairings all relaxed as they watched him go, which also gave credit to Gabriel’s performance. They’d been suitably impressed and intimidated. Gabriel wouldn’t like to hear it, but cold arrogance came naturally to him.

And, maybe it hadn’t been necessary, but she’d much rather new arrivals came away from meeting the mysterious Lord Phel reconsidering any plans they might harbor to spy upon or betray him.

“Well,” she said brightly, allowing them to think she, too, was cowed by her powerful lord and master and could now speak freely, “let me give you the grand tour.”

“Quinn,” Sage said, nudging her familiar forward, “go ahead and greet your old friend properly. I know you want to.”

Quinn flashed her wizard a grateful smile and flung herself at Nic with a squeal of delight. Nic returned the hug, more moved than she’d expected to see her dear friend. “We have so much to talk about,” Quinn whispered in her ear. “There have been so many rumors! And your letter said almost nothing, you bitch. I want to hear everything. Will you be able to get away to talk privately?”

“Yes,” Nic whispered back, deciding to ignore the implication that Gabriel might keep her on that tight of a leash. Hadn’t she just been deliberately creating that impression? “I’d love to catch up.” She hadn’t heard that Quinn had been bonded to Sage, her older sister, and she was very curious how that had come about. With a last squeeze, she released Quinn. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

Keeping the smile for Quinn firmly fixed so it wouldn’t cool with dislike, Nic turned to Laryn. “It’s good to greet you again, too, Laryn.”

With her wizard’s expectant gaze upon her, Laryn produced a polite smile for Nic. One that Nic knew had to be mostly, if not totally, fake. Laryn had never liked Nic, and she’d been particularly gleeful at Veronica Elal’s fall from presumptive heir to House Elal to lowly familiar. How irritating that she would arrive here.

Though it had been a possibility—even a probability, given the relatively small number of unaffiliated wizards who’d be interested in an opportunity like this—that some would be former classmates from Convocation Academy, Nic hadn’t been properly braced for it. Inevitably, in inviting junior wizard–familiar pairings to join House Phel, some would also be those who didn’t particularly love Nic. They may have all graduated to adult lives, but that didn’t mean they’d all matured past petty school-aged squabbles.

“Lady Phel,” Laryn replied, smirking enough to make the title a question. “Congratulations on ascending to such an enviably high position. I’m sure House Phel isn’t nearly as decrepit as you say.”

Nic smiled thinly, having said no such thing. If she’d realized Laryn was a possibility, she’d have worded her message to House Refoel differently. Or perhaps not. She’d been mainly concerned with attracting wizards who would mesh well with Gabriel and his eccentricities. Asa certainly fit the bill there. She turned to Asa, pointedly declining to reply to Laryn’s remark. “Asa, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’d hoped you would answer the invitation.”

Asa grinned at her, the genuine smile creasing his dark face. He’d been a year ahead of her at Convocation Academy, and a fine wizard. They’d sometimes speculated that he could find a place at House Elal someday, when she took over for Papa. “It seems our hopes might work out after all, Nic,” he said. “Even if somewhat sideways of what we anticipated.”

“Isn’t that the way of life?” she replied with good humor. She’d been relieved that Asa hadn’t applied for her Betrothal Trials, and she’d been prepared to use a summary dismissal against him. Not that he wouldn’t be a kind master. Healers weren’t necessarily gentle types, especially with some given to thinking themselves omnipotent, holding the power of life and death in their hands, but Asa had a good and generous heart. She just hadn’t been able to imagine submitting to someone who’d been a friend. Perhaps Asa had recognized that a familiar with her MP scores would be too much power for a healer, particularly a wizard not in line to head his house.

Now it seemed he hadn’t applied because he’d already bonded Laryn. Her face looked fuller than Nic recalled, a lush glow to her skin, her gown loose through the middle. No doubt pregnant with Asa’s baby, then. Quinn caught her eye, that familiar glint of pressing gossip in them.

“It is. Keeps life interesting. And I’m glad for this part, at least,” Asa was saying, taking in the sight of the elegant, rambling manse. “I hope Lord Phel finds me acceptable. This would be a grand adventure.” Laryn smiled at him but looked unconvinced. “You seem to have landed in an excellent position,” Asa continued, a lilt of a question in his voice as his gaze returned to the bruises on Nic’s neck.

Once again, she had to still her hands to keep from trying to hide the marks. She’d been so groggy when she dressed that she’d only been thinking of something clean, new, and stylish in which to greet their first visitors—not how the low neckline would reveal the hunters’ ravages and implicate Gabriel by default. She shouldn’t be concerned, as their assumptions would only add to the image she was building of a powerful and ruthless wizard determined to use all of his resources to defend House Phel, regardless of the cost. And yet, she hated for anyone to think badly of Gabriel. Such were the ramifications of harboring such affection for him.

“I’m grateful for my good fortune,” she replied firmly. “Shall we?”

After a brieftour of the common areas of the house, Nic left Sage and Quinn creating glass for the windows in the north-wing guest rooms, completing the suite Asa picked out. To her surprise, Asa chose one on the ground floor, saying that he looked forward to being able to go on rambles through the fascinating landscape, and that having a small terrace to sit upon and that allowed him to come and go at will would be ideal. Laryn looked decidedly unenthused at the prospect of nature walks, but her smile for Asa glowed with all the serene acceptance a wizard could ask for from his bonded familiar.

Once Asa chose, Sage and Quinn had leave to pick out their own smaller set of rooms and put in the glass for those once they finished Asa’s. Nic felt ever so slightly uncomfortable designating what they were allowed as lower-tier magic workers—she’d clearly been corrupted by Gabriel’s radical egalitarianism—but Sage and Quinn accepted the boundaries with good grace, even evincing pleasure at the options Nic presented.

Asa and Laryn then walked back with her to revisit a series of smaller salons in the south wing. Nic, of course, hadn’t yet had the opportunity to explore the south wing thoroughly, but it did appear to mostly mirror the north wing, as Gabriel had noted and she’d anticipated. The House Phel architects had been exacting in observing the classical forms, the manse as a whole beautifully balanced in design. As opposed to House Elal, which had begun as basically a fortress and endured in much the same vein, though with each generation of prideful lord and lady wizards determined to leave their stamp on the edifice. The result was a hodgepodge of walls, turrets, wings, and towers, each attempting to best a similar existing structure in some way.

So far the primary exception with the south wing of House Phel as opposed to the north, was that the south-side version of the ballroom had been subdivided into a series of smaller salons and parlors. Perfect for offices and other kinds of small group gatherings. No doubt they’d been used that way before. Nic didn’t have Gabriel’s connection to the Phel heritage, naturally, but she found an unexpected pleasure in bringing life back to the house. As if ghosts had lingered in these spaces, pale echoes of what had gone before, and she and Gabriel were coloring them in, room by room, filling the house again with people and magic.

“I’m thinking this salon for you, Asa,” she said. The room faced the river and led onto a terrace that could be fenced off for privacy and also used as an entrance for patients who might not care to traipse through the main house to visit the wizard healer. “We could divide it into a reception area and a couple of smaller treatment rooms. As with your suite, we’ll have these rooms furnished as soon as the House Ratisbon wizard arrives, so you’ll be able to request exactly what you’d prefer.”

Asa beamed, nodding along as he envisioned what she described. “That would be brilliant. I hardly dared hope for such an ideal situation. Knowing it would be you here, well, I suppose I did hope. Elals have a knack for pulling off everything with class and style.” He shrugged, somewhat abashed, while behind him, Laryn glared daggers at Nic. Wonderful. Asa tucked his hands in his loose trouser pockets, ambling around the room. A lone desk sat against one wall, apparently bolted to it. Though dried out, it remained suspiciously green, and Nic only hoped there weren’t desiccated water snakes in the drawers or something. She made a mental note to have the worker bees check for such things.

Asa edged a hip onto the desk, swinging one foot thoughtfully. “So, give me the full rundown. What do I have to do to get the contract? Tell me what this Lord Phel is really like. Powerful—I can sense that rumors didn’t overstate that. But he’s got to be completely ignorant of actual wizardry. Can he do anything? And how do I win his confidence?”

It was interesting, as much as Nic had always liked Asa and enjoyed his easygoing nature, she noticed more than ever how much he oozed with that wizard-born arrogance. Laryn might as well be invisible to him, her presence falling out of his mind until he needed her. And he spoke easily with Nic, falling back on their old acquaintance from when their friendship had been based partially on the assumption they’d both be wizards. She understood, actually, his reasoning for asking for inside knowledge, bemused as she was that he was asking her to spill secrets on her wizard master. Was he relying on their friendship or did he think her weak-minded now that she was a bonded familiar?

Regardless, her loyalty belonged to Gabriel, and she wasn’t about to violate his trust—or the growing affection between them. She’d grown accustomed enough to Gabriel’s unconventional ways that coming up against Convocation attitudes was a bit discomfiting. “I would advise you to be authentic and forthright with Lord Phel,” she said in perfect honesty. “As a stranger to the Convocation, he has no patience for posturing or power plays. Be good at what you do, familiarize yourself with the customs and people of Meresin, and…” Her gaze went to Laryn, who was staring out the open windows at something. Or at her own thoughts. Laryn had always been serious to the point of being forbidding. “Treat your familiar well.”

If Laryn heard her, she gave no hint of it. Asa raised a brow, gaze going to her neck. “In what way?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

This time, Nic did brush her fingers over the scabs and healing bruises, which hardly hurt at all. She considered pushing up her sleeve to show Asa the bite from the hunters, to explain that Gabriel hadn’t done these things to her. But she didn’t want to discuss her flight and subsequent capture by the Convocation hunters. The less said there, the better. And it wasn’t what she meant. She didn’t mind at all that Gabriel’s rope had left marks on her wrists, nor would she mind other marks from him in the future. How to explain to Asa that what the Convocation saw as appropriate use of a familiar was abuse in Gabriel’s eyes?

“Allow Laryn the freedom to follow her own mind when you have no need of her,” Nic said, following impulse.

Asa’s gaze went to Laryn, who still had her back to them, as if deaf to the entire conversation. “So she could do what?” Asa asked, the question giving Nic a surge of irritation, he sounded so perplexed. No wonder Gabriel chafed at the status of familiars.

“I’m sure she would think of something,” Nic replied drily. “For example, to treat my minor wounds and assess the status of my pregnancy, you don’t need to access your familiar’s magic, do you?”

Asa frowned, his pride pricked. “Not for something so minor, no.”

“Then why is she here?”

Asa gazed at Laryn’s back, as if suddenly wondering that, too. “Well, I would need her for other patients. Say, for a major healing, for grave injuries or a long-unattended chronic disease, which I suspect may be an issue in this backwater countryside. Also if I have many patients in a row, I’d need to recharge or draw on her actively.”

“So you don’t need her to dance attendance on you constantly.”

Giving her an odd look, Asa said, “I wouldn’t phrase it exactly that way. I do need her available to me. Quickly, in an emergency.”

“It’s a big house, but not that big,” Nic pointed out.

“True…” Asa snapped his fingers at Laryn, who turned obediently. Nic sighed mentally, hoping Gabriel never saw that. “You may be excused, Laryn.”

Her suspicious dark-brown eyes went to Nic, a flicker of something angry in them. “What would you like me to do?”

Asa looked to Nic, who had to lock down her eyes to keep them from rolling. “Perhaps you could visit your suite,” she suggested, “and make plans for how you’d like to furnish it, including the nursery,” she added on a guess.

Laryn gazed back at her stonily. “Yes, Lady Phel.” She bowed to them both and left.

“How intriguing,” Asa commented, watching Laryn go, and then looking expectantly at Nic. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Pardon?”

“I assumed you wished to have a private conversation, and that’s why you wanted Laryn to be sent away.”

Well, that didn’t go well. “There’s a great deal to do here, and Lord Phel doesn’t approve of idle hands,” she said, wishing that explanation had come to her sooner. “If you want to win his confidence, have Laryn be productively occupied when you’re not in immediate need of her.”

Asa nodded thoughtfully, then patted the desk beside him. “So noted. And, in light of that, and in lieu of a proper examining table, let me take a look at you.”

Oddly self-conscious, she sat beside Asa, lifting her chin as he ran light fingers over the scabs and bruises ringing her throat. “Iron collar, huh?” he asked, though it wasn’t a real question. “Ill-fitting, too. If Lord Phel wants a collar that won’t injure like this—”

“He doesn’t,” Nic interrupted firmly. The surest way for Asa to get on Gabriel’s bad side would be to suggest any kind of collar for Nic. “I mean,” she amended hastily, realizing Asa was getting entirely the wrong idea, “he’s not in favor of collars for familiars at all. If you want this contract, you won’t be either.”

“Hmm.” Asa’s noncommittal hum invited explanation, but she offered none. His magic streamed over her skin, itching as the deeper tissues mended. She’d had healing before—for a few minor childhood illnesses, a hefty bout of pneumonia at Convocation Academy one winter, and for a broken arm when she fell off her horse trying a difficult jump—and it never felt like much of anything to her. Magic, yes, but with no particular flavor, scent, or color. Gabriel’s magic had been so vivid to her from the first moment that she’d forgotten that other wizards’ magic wasn’t the same. She’d put it down to Gabriel’s truly remarkable level of power; now she wondered. Even with Asa working magical healing on her, it simply didn’t feel all that interesting.

“That takes care of that,” Asa said with professional neutrality. “Anything else?”

She pushed up the sleeve of her dress, showing him the bite from the hunters. That injury, too, was mostly bruises, the jaws mostly crushing her wrist so she’d drop the enchanted blade that could kill them, the hunter’s fangs only puncturing here and there.

“Looks like a dog bite.” Asa raised his brows in question, holding Nic’s arm but watching her face.

She simply nodded. With a suppressed sigh, Asa healed that, too. “I realize that Lord Phel is not of the Convocation,” he said as he worked, “but I can speak with him about the value of familiars—your high value, in particular—and our customs about allowing these sorts of incidental injuries.”

Oh, Nic could just imagine that conversation and how well it would go. They’d be lucky if Gabriel didn’t blow an artery in his brain and leak blood out of his ears. “None of my injuries are Gabriel’s fault,” she explained.

“‘Gabriel,’ is it?”

Nice slip, Nic.“He’s more upset than anyone that they occurred.”

Asa regarded her gravely. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Yes, you will.”

He cracked a half smile. “As strong-willed as ever. I’m glad to see it, Nic—that being a familiar, bonding to your wizard, hasn’t changed that.”

She smiled, sticking with declining to comment as the safest course. “And the pregnancy?”

Growing serious, Asa laid a hand over her lower belly, black eyes half lidded in concentration. “It’s early days yet,” he murmured, half to himself. “Barely a month along, are you?”

“That’s right.”

“Any tiredness, nausea?”

“Tired,” she admitted, “but we’ve been busy.”

“I noticed you’re low on magic. I’ll talk to Lord Phel about not draining you so completely. Heavy-handed of him.”

“Please don’t,” she begged. She didn’t want to explain that Gabriel was still learning, or that the reigniting of the arcanium had been an unusual event. Gabriel would continue to improve in skill and finesse—and in the meanwhile, she didn’t want him inhibited in any way.

Asa sighed. “I’ll take your wishes into consideration, but draining your magic reserves so dramatically could affect your unborn child, just as it could make you physically ill.”

“I know my limits,” Nic replied firmly.

“But does he? We both know you won’t be able to stop him. His ignorance is a danger to you and his heir, and he needs to know that.”

“I need to know what, exactly?” Gabriel asked from the doorway. He filled up most of it with his tall, wide-shouldered frame, his silver hair catching the light, except for that night-black streak, as black as his wizard’s eyes. Nic forgot sometimes, having grown familiar with Gabriel’s innate gentleness and fairness, how intimidating he could be when angered. No pretense needed. Gabriel glared silver daggers at Asa’s hand on her belly with those eyes, his magic coiling hard and sharp around him.

Asa sensed it too. Moving slowly, he removed his hand from Nic’s belly, holding both up in a gesture of peace that looked much like surrender. “Lord Phel, I was examining your lady to determine the state of her pregnancy.”

“And.” Gabriel threw out the word like a lance, not asking, but demanding.

“It’s not always easy to determine much at this early stage, but all seems to be well, Lord Phel,” Asa replied, standing and bowing courteously. “You should have no concerns about your heir.”

Gabriel bared his teeth in something that not even the most optimistic could call a smile. “I am not fond of the Convocation’s way of reducing people to their useful roles. Our child will be important to me as more than an heir, and my concerns are for Nic, a person who already exists. How is she, how is my ignorance endangering her, and what is it that I need to know?”

“I apologize for any implied insult. It was not intended. Your familiar is in good health, Lord Phel,” Asa replied formally. “I’ve healed Lady Phel of her various injuries.”

Asa put a slight emphasis on the final word, and Nic, her watchful gaze on Gabriel, managed not to wince at the flare of anger in his wizard-black eyes. She tried to give him a warning look, but his attention was entirely on Asa. “Mitigate my ignorance,” he instructed with quiet insistence. “Quit dancing around and tell me what I need to know about Nic’s limits.”

“The familiar’s magic has been drained excessively,” Asa replied. “Dangerously so, as I’m sure you can sense.” His tone made it clear he wasn’t at all sure Gabriel sensed that, and Nic had to steel herself not to flinch when his gaze snapped to hers, anger, accusation, and—worst of all—guilt in his eyes. She tried to keep her own expression calm and neutral, trying to communicate that this was not an extreme situation. Obviously, she couldn’t argue with either wizard, but she hoped Gabriel would reserve judgment for the moment.

“It is, of course, entirely up to you how you use your familiar, Lord Phel,” Asa continued with stiff formality. “None in the Convocation would gainsay you. It’s likely no surprise to you that I would like to secure this contract. However, I will not compromise my integrity as a healer for it. I won’t withhold my opinion and best advice simply to please you.”

Though Gabriel visibly fulminated, he considered Asa with a revised opinion. Asa had clearly managed to strike exactly the right note with Gabriel. Perhaps without realizing it, or perhaps in light of Nic’s advice. Whichever it was, it had been exactly the right thing to say—and if Asa always spoke so forthrightly to senior wizards, no wonder he hadn’t contracted with a house yet and was so eager to gain this position.

“Good,” Gabriel grunted, and Asa reacted with a start of surprise, making Gabriel smile mirthlessly. “I’m not interested in hiring sycophants. The job is yours—if you swear to always tell me when I’m wrong, and if you’ll teach me what I need to know about Nic’s abilities and limits—since she clearly isn’t going to.” His gaze slid to Nic’s again, his anger all for her now.

“To be fair, Lord Phel,” Asa put in, setting a hand on Nic’s shoulder, “familiars are well taught to refuse nothing that their wizards ask. In fact, the bonding won’t let them refuse, even if it occurs to them to do so.”

Gabriel’s jaw flexed, fingers curling into fists, and Asa removed his hand from Nic. “I asked you to give me honest advice, so I won’t make a hypocrite of myself and argue with you. But I would appreciate if you wouldn’t talk about Nic like she’s not right here.”

Nic lifted her brows at him, reminding him without words that he was doing the same thing. His mouth twisted in wry acknowledgment.

“I agree to all of your stipulations, Lord Phel,” Asa said, then nodded to Nic. “Lady Phel.”

Gabriel barely acknowledged him. “Are you done here?” he asked Nic. “Or do you need more healing?”

“I already—” Asa began, but Gabriel stopped him with a flick of his cold gaze.

“I’m much better,” Nic assured them both, hopping down from the table. “I would’ve met you in the library in another few minutes, as you asked. Did something come up?”

He cocked his head slightly, as if considering the answer, some sort of inappropriate retort leaping to his lips before his gaze flicked to Asa, and he squelched it. “Yes,” he said simply, holding out a hand to her.

She put her hand in his, obediently going with him as he turned to leave. “You have injuries too, Lord Phel, that Wizard Asa could tend to.”

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at Asa. “Later.” He paused. “These rooms will be the healing center, for seeing patients?”

“If it pleases you,” Nic replied, lifting a brow on the side of her face that Asa couldn’t see.

“It pleases me,” Gabriel replied, his tone so dry it sounded sarcastic. “Set it up however you like,” he told Asa.

“Thank you, Lord Phel.” Asa bowed deeply, his face serious, dimples in his cheeks showing that he struggled to restrain a grin. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“I’m not sure ‘confidence’ is the word I’d choose,” Gabriel replied, then walked out of the room with such long strides that Nic had to trot to keep up. He held her hand fiercely, magic boiling silver around him, the scent of steam hovering in the air.

“What did you need?” Nic finally asked. After all, she knew what was wrong, so no sense asking that. Even if she was brave enough with him in such a mood.

He slanted her a look, not replying immediately. They entered the library, considerably less gloomy with all the windows open to the bright day, and he released his death grip on her hand to close—and bar—the doors. All right, then. Nic shook out her hand while his back was turned, then dropped it into the folds of her gown, composing herself as he turned back to her, folding his arms and staring at her with a forbidding expression.

Nic waited. He said nothing.

“I missed you,” he finally ground out, not sounding like meant it.

Feeling as if she was handling a half-feral water elemental, Nic searched for what to say in return.

“And then I saw you, with him,” Gabriel continued, sparing her that much. “Were you lovers?”

Nic’s mouth fell open in surprise, no reply leaping to fill the empty space.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Gabriel added hastily. “It’s a question unworthy of you and invasive of me. It doesn’t matter. Don’t answer that.”

Was he jealous? “I’d like to answer that. No, Asa was a friend, but never a lover. I was a virgin until my Betrothal Trials.”

He nodded, stiff, arms still folded. “That doesn’t preclude you from having had lovers. And it doesn’t matter,” he added, sounding as if he was reminding himself, as it clearly did matter to him.

“Gabriel,” she said, laying her hands gently on his bulging forearms, the simmering tension popping in his muscles, “I have no feelings like that for Asa. We were classmates and friends, and I was happy to see him. That’s all. I’m bonded to you, which means that even if I’d ever had softer feelings for Asa, I wouldn’t have them now.”

Huffing out a laugh, Gabriel shook his head. “That does not make me feel any better.”

“What would help?” she asked earnestly, massaging his tight muscles with her fingertips.

He frowned blackly, unmoving. “I was jealous,” he admitted, sounding like he hated even saying the words. Sighing, he unbent enough to take her hands in his. “I am jealous. I hated seeing him put his hands on you. I nearly forbade him from doing so ever again.”

“He wouldn’t have been surprised. It’s in a wizard’s nature to be possessive.”

Gabriel grimaced. “I really hate when you tell me that what I’m feeling is because I’m a wizard.” Despite the strong words, he didn’t pull away from her.

Nic pressed her lips together, sorting through various replies to that. “I could resolve not to say that anymore, but it wouldn’t make it less true.”

Searching her face, Gabriel looked profoundly unhappy. “I wish that…”

“You can be honest with me,” she encouraged when he trailed off and didn’t continue.

Shaking his head, he blew out a long breath. “What you must think of me.”

“I think a great deal of you, Gabriel,” she replied with perfect honesty.

“Do you, really, though?” Her breath caught sharply in her throat at the accusation, the very real doubt in his eyes. Before she could answer, though, he went on. “I wish that everything between us didn’t come down to wizard and familiar.”

She wanted to tell him that it didn’t, but would that be the truth? He saw it in her, too, his keen attention on her face, no doubt sensing her emotions, if not the direction of her thoughts. “Gabriel,” she said slowly, wanting very much to say whatever might soothe this roiling hurt and anger in him, “while the Fascination draws me to you, and the bonding ties us together, I do care about you. I know you don’t want to hear that I love you, because you don’t believe it’s real or that I don’t feel that way of my own free will, but you asked for my friendship and trust. You have that. You are my wizard, which is a permanent bond, but I also don’t want to be with anyone but you. I like you,” she added, somewhat desperately, feeling the inadequacy of the word.

His lips twitched with ironic appreciation, but his eyes held more. A kind of yearning. And a wistful sorrow. “Nic, I don’t have your trust and friendship,” he said gravely. “If I did, you would have told me that I drained you too much.”

“That has nothing to do with trust and friendship,” Nic countered. “First of—”

“It has everything to do with that,” he snarled, abruptly dropping her hands and pacing away, full of restless anger. “You knew I didn’t want to use the arcanium, to do those things to you, exactly for fear of—”

“Yes, I know!” she shouted at him, startling him enough that he paused mid-step, head whipping around in shock. “Now will you listen to me instead of telling me how I feel and what my motivations are?”

Dark irritation clouded his face, but he inclined his chin. “By all means. I look forward to this explanation.”

Setting her teeth and refusing to be intimidated by his supercilious attitude, she paced up to him. “First of all,” she repeated herself pointedly. “I do know my limits, and I’m not an idiot familiar as Asa, in his wizardly arrogance, assumes. It was easier with him to take the humble approach and ask him not to bring it up with you than attempt to argue with him. I’m a grown woman with exceptionally high MP scores, well-educated, with excellently honed skills. I know what I’m doing. I’m asking you to trust in me. I’m not done,” she said when he opened his mouth, and he closed it again, firmly pressing his lips together in a stern line.

“Second,” she continued, “I suspected it would take galvanizing power to reignite the arcanium like that, and I was willing to do what it takes because that would make everything easier for both of us. A plan that worked, I might add. Third, I didn’t tell you because I knew you would worry and that it wouldn’t be productive for either of us. Fourth,” she inserted forcefully when he looked like he wanted to argue, “yes, of course I knew you didn’t want to use the arcanium, to do those ‘things’ with me—which I also know you enjoyed just as much as I did—so the last thing I was going to do was tell you anything that would give you an excuse not to do it again.” She finished nearly out of breath, the close-fitting bodice tight against her breasts until the Ophiel gown adjusted to accommodate.

Gabriel’s gaze flicked down at her excitedly heaving bosom, then up to her face again. He raised one brow sardonically. “Are you done now?”

“I believe so,” she replied as coolly as she could, drawing on her best Lady Veronica Elal poise. “Though I reserve the right to add additional counterarguments as they occur to me.”

With a sigh, he shook his head. “Of course you do.” Then he pinned her with his wizard-black eyes, hard and determined. “My counterargument is singular: all of those fine rationalizations come down to one crystal-clear truth. You don’t trust me. Not to be given salient information, not to make up my own mind once I have it, and not to use my concern for you in productive ways.”

She tried to pick apart his argument. Couldn’t. “You have a fair point,” she admitted on a sigh.

Gabriel raised both brows. “Did I just win this argument?”

“It’s not a competition,” she retorted in an arch tone, “but I will take your suggested modifications to my behavior under advisement.”

He caught her around the waist before she could step away. Holding her close, he stared into her face, his expression fierce. “Is that Lady Elal speak that you’ll try to trust me—or that you’ll pretend to?”

She didn’t mean to hesitate, but she didn’t want to lie either. “It’s not easy for me, Gabriel,” she confessed on a near whisper. “I come from a world where trusting other people is not a good idea.”

“I understand why that’s so.” But his hands on her only tightened. “What can I do to help?”

“You’re doing it.” Indeed, in the face of his determined onslaught of her defenses, of her heart, she had little ability to withhold anything that he asked for. “Let me try this. I’ll behave as if I trust you, and maybe I’ll get used to it. After all, what difference is there between appearing to be a thing and becoming it?”

He laughed softly, but at least without that humorless, bitter edge. “I’ll take it.” Lowering his mouth to hers, he caressed her lips with his, sweet and tantalizing, a promise of more. The yearning flaring in her, she clung to him, savoring his flavor and his cooling, silvery magic, no longer sharp and steaming, but coiling around her in an affectionate embrace.

Withdrawing from the kiss as slowly as he’d eased in, he leaned his forehead against hers. “This was never easy, between us,” he observed quietly, “but it was easier before other people arrived.”

“You could always go into a rage and throw them out,” she teased.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“If you don’t like Asa, you don’t have to keep him.” She pulled back enough to study his expression. “There will be others.”

“Perversely, I actually do like him.”

“So long as he keeps his hands off of me?”

“I suppose it’s not practical,” he mused as his hands explored her curves, “but I would prefer if you were only mine.”

“In point of fact, I am,” she reminded him.

He froze. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right.” She framed his face in her hands. “There are reasons for these customs you so despise. I won’t say anything about the nature of wizards, but be aware that the magic that runs through you isn’t entirely yours. It has wants of its own. Fighting that could tear you apart.”