Page 49 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

His eyes shot up from the mark under her breasts to her amber eyes. His nostrils flared slightly, as if he knew or could sense the line of her thoughts. “I’m trying to concentrate here,” Jake said.

“So sorry, Panom Guidor,” she blinked a few times in a false apology.

“You see how your North petal becomes bright?” he asked.

Lenna looked down at her chest. “My big besties don’t let me see past them, actually,” she held her breasts tightly against her body with both hands, separating them just enough to see the golden panom mark underneath, its North petal indeed bright. “I see. What about it?” she asked casually. She was perfectly aware of how her breasts looked when she pressed them like that, and exactly how the white laces revealed certain areas.

Jake inhaled sharply, nostrils definitely flaring now. Lenna tried to avoid the big urge of biting her bottom lip.

“You have been Giving for a few weeks, and sort of control it, so your body acknowledges the North Petal. It recognises the magic ability in you to Give. As the North Cardinal used to.”

“I very much doubt I can Give anywhere near as the North Cardinal could,” Lenna said.

“You certainly can’t,” he snorted. “But you get the point. If your petal glows, your magic considers this skill mastered and you as able to use it at your will. It might be time for you to take it a step forward, to expand the strength of your Giving.”

His finger traced the bottom petal, and Lenna’s chest expanded as she took a deep breath in. Again she felt a small ticklish sensation. The South Petal also became bright, a line of continuous golden sparks matching the one above it.

“You also control Taking.”

“Thank the fucking Cardinals for that. Only Giving I would have collapsed by now,” Lenna said.

Jake met her stare, not taking his finger off her panom mark yet. “What do you feel when you Give too much without Taking to compensate your harmony scale?”

“I feel as if I had been drinking way too much myster on an empty stomach,” Lenna considered, ignoring the smirk on his lips. “Dizzy, as if would lose the ability to stand straight. Tired. I see golden sparks floating on the sides of my vision, too. Not my real golden sparks. They don’t shine as bright.”

“Interesting. Different panoms, different symptoms when we push our inner balances,” he said.

“What do you feel?” Lenna asked.

“Pain.”

Lenna lifted her eyebrows. She wasn’t sure what type of pain he meant, but he looked down at her panom mark again, clearly not interested in talking about it further. And clearly ignoring Lenna’s hands still holding her breasts.

“You have two petals under control,” he continued. “I’m going to trace the West and East petals now. I want you to close your eyes and tell me which one you feel more.”

Whatever the Fifth that meant. Lenna closed her eyes, feeling his index move gently on her skin.

“Nothing?” Jake asked.

“Other than your touch? No. Nothing,” she said with her eyes closed.

Jake’s finger moved again, and she felt the skin on her spine tensing. “I felt something now,” she said. She did not know if any panom magic had caused the feeling or it had been her body reacting at his touch, though.

“Open your eyes,” Jake said, and Lenna found him smiling at her. “You are not only a generous Giver, dominating that skill before any others. But you are also more prone to Healing than Harming. Cute on the inside indeed, sweet fire.”

The West petal had caused that sensation, then. The one originally belonging to the West Cardinal. Coincidentally, it was in the West House where healers were still working day and night to bring Raoul to consciousness, Ciaran kept reassuring her. But it had been way too long, with no improvement at all. Way too long since Raoul had been brought from the discarding island.

It was well known that Healing and Harming were considerably more complex to master. Lenna tried to stay patient these weeks while learning to Give and Take as she knew those two were the basics. But Cardinals guide her is she would not try her damned best at mastering Healing. If she had any chance to help Raoul, to wake him up from wherever his mind was, Healing was probably the way she could do it.

Jake removed his finger from her skin. Lenna immediately asked, “What about the inner circle of the panom flower?”

He tilted his head to the side, as if considering if she was genuinely curious or just wanted his touch on her for a while longer.

“Your arms must be getting sore from holding your besties,” he said, a silent offer in his grave voice.

“Worry not. I would rather be sore than have someone with no morals holding my besties,” she spat. The Fifth would damn her for being such a liar.

“So we’re back to the no morals situation.” Jake’s eyes narrowed.

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