Page 52 of Rogue Familiar

“They could give you a scorecard, too,” he murmured, kissing the side of her neck as she stilled, then tilted her head to give him better access.

“Why would I even care about that?” she reframed the question in a dry tone, but her throaty voice softened the sarcasm.

He slid his hands over the narrow flare of her hips, savoring the neat curves of her pelvis that arrowed down to the triangle of her mound, so nicely delineated in those close-fitting leathers. Sliding his fingers into the gap between her thighs, he caressed her mound, marveling at the addictive heat radiating from it, and lifted his other hand to mold over her small breast, loving how her nipple hardened in response, leaping to his touch. She let out one of those little moan-sighs that never failed to get to him, and leaned back against his chest. “We can’t mess up the bed again,” she purred. “I already put clean sheets on it.”

“I recall,” he said on a snort. She’d insisted on doing that menial chore and others, cleaning up the little cottage and leaving coin for the occupants on top of it. A soft heart and softer head, not that he’d make the mistake of saying so. Seliah might be soft in some ways, including the most enticing ones, but never forget what a vicious and ruthless fighter she could be when provoked. Feeling reckless, he nipped her on the ear for a bit of extra provocation. “Nothing wrong with the grass right here,” he suggested.

“Except that we’re out in the open, anyone could come by, and you are avoiding the subject.” She turned in his arms and slid her hands behind his neck. “Why would either of us want an MP scorecard? A useless piece of paper that only establishes rank in the hoity-toity world of Convocation princes and princesses.”

Dark arts how he loved her. Nobody said things like that. “Is it useless or is it good for establishing rank?” he teased.

“Exactly.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Jadren, you don’t need an MP scorecard or to impress anyone with your rank. What you need is to find out the nature of your magic and how that device of your mother’s allowed you to focus it to use on someone else. House Refoel’s expertise in healing magic exceeds anyone else’s in the Convocation, right? We wouldn’t go to Refoel with questions about moon magic. We shouldn’t go to Hanneil with questions about healing magic.”

“Suddenly you’re an authority on Convocation houses and their areas of specialty.”

“I know a few of them anyway. Besides which, remember when you approached House Hanneil only a few days ago and they tried to kill you?”

“Did a pretty thorough job of it, too,” he pointed out.

“Don’t remind me.”

“It would be different this time,” he argued. He’d been mulling this exact question. “That patrol apprehended me because they thought I was a houseless, rogue wizard. I couldn’t tell them I’m a scion of House El-Adrel as I had no identification that way.”

“Which you still don’t have,” she pointed out relentlessly while softly stroking the back of his neck, which felt lovely, but also seemed like petting him to be calm, so he pulled away, stalking a few strides toward the empty road that wended past the farmed clearing. He didn’t need to be managed, least of all by his familiar. Care and feeding of wizards, indeed.

“Jadren,” she continued, still in that sympathetic tone that rankled, “you were able to waltz up to House Sammael and knock on the door to rescue me because Lord Igino Sammael knows you, you told me that.” She paused. “Is that why you want this MP scorecard so badly, to prove that you’re a wizard to be reckoned with? Because you are that. You don’t need a piece of paper saying so.”

“Aren’t you so wise?” he sneered. Ouch. Seliah saw into him far too well for comfort. “Stop calling it a piece of paper. You don’t understand the significance of having that documentation. I can’t get a job anywhere without it. I’m not even a citizen of the Convocation without it. Even commoners have citizenship papers or marks that show they have the right to be where they live. I have nothing, which means I am nothing. For all intents and purposes, I don’t exist, Seliah. My beloved Maman saw to that.”

“You do exist, though. You don’t need anyone else to say so for that to be true.”

“Tell that to the Convocation,” he retorted bitterly.

Seliah regarded him with that same sapping sympathy, her amber eyes soft with compassion. “What your mother did to you is heinous, Jadren, but you’re free of her now. You are someone and you have a job—at House Phel.”

“That’s just another kind of servitude,” he snarled. “I’m trapped no matter which way I turn. I might as well be still confined to one of my mother’s glass cages for all the real freedom I have.”

At last her sympathy faded, her gaze hardening. “Trapped by your bond to me, you mean.”

Yes. No. He didn’t know. “The bond confines you, too,” he pointed out, with a sense that he’d stepped onto the slick, shifting sands of one of those lethal sinkholes she’d warned him about.

“This again?” She tapped her foot. “I don’t feel confined by my bond to you. I feel strengthened by it. More, I know that you are strengthened by your bond to me. So, in your flailing about to find your identity or whatever it is you’re doing, don’t pretend that this is anything rational. I get that you’re deeply messed up, Jadren. Guess what? So am I. But that’s what makes us good together.”

He stared at her, practically speechless. “You’re actually arguing that adding fucked-up to fucked-up doesn’t equal twice as fucked, doesn’t even result in the one canceling out the other, but somehow winds up in the positive column?”

She frowned at him, punching her hands to her hips. “As we’re talking about human beings, not numbers to be added and subtracted, yes!”

“We are not human beings,” he informed her silkily. “We are wizard and familiar.” He stabbed a thumb at his chest and then pointed at her to emphasize their roles, as if she might be unclear.

Seliah actually rolled her eyes at him. “We are human beings with magical ability. That doesn’t take away from our humanity.”

“So you admit adding and subtracting makes sense in this scenario,” he crowed triumphantly.

She gazed at him blankly. “I’ve forgotten what we’re arguing about.”

To be fair, so had he. “For some absurd reason, I’m arguing with my familiar about what I plan to do. If you’re so determined to be bound to me, to follow wherever I go, then you’d best learn to be obedient to your wizard’s will,” he informed her, rather enjoying as she reacted first with shock, then with annoyance. Far better than that sympathy that only weakened him. “Wizard,” he declared, repeating the thumb-stabbing gesture, then pointing at her again. “Familiar. We’re going to House Hanneil.”

She gazed at him for a beat, then raised her brows in supercilious question. “Are you done beating your chest at me now?”

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