Page 26 of Reluctant Wizard

“What has to stop?” she demanded. “If you mean the independent study, I’ve been trying to stop it. You’re the one who—”

“I don’t mean the cursed independent study and you know it!” he fired back, with eyes blazing, no sign of the mild-mannered librarian about him. “You’re running yourself into the ground. Exhausted, overworked, underfed, and so terrified of this Gordon Hanneil that you literally collapsed at my feet at the mere mention of his name.”

The bones of her skull throbbed and she dropped her face into her hands, despair welling up to sting her eyes. She’d utterly failed to do a very simple thing. All she’d had to do was keep her head down and her mouth shut. Essentially avoid doing something wrong, and she’d screwed that up within only a couple of days. And now both of them would pay the price.

“Alise. Sweetheart.” Cillian gently pried her hands from her face. “I’m sorry. That was harsh of me. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I’m not,” she said, aware of the lie as she spoke it, the taste of salt tears on her dry lips.

“You’re going to tell me what this Gordon Hanneil did to you,” he said, holding her by the wrists, his expression fierce. “And then we’re going to deal with this situation.”

“Cillian, please,” she begged. “You have to stay out of this. It’s not safe for you. You’re already in danger and you have to let me go.”

He cocked his head, as if he hadn’t quite heard her correctly. “You’re terrified to the point of fainting because of whatever this creep said or did to you and you’re worried about me?”

She bit her lip against saying anything more, pleading with her eyes for him to understand, to let this go. “You have to walk away,” she whispered urgently. “This isn’t your fight.”

“You’re a real piece of work,” he said slowly. “You know that?”

Alise flinched, unable to meet his accusing stare. She knew it. And she didn’t blame him for hating her. Though it gave her a pang to realize she’d dealt the killing blow to whatever friendship they’d begun. Still, he didn’t release her wrists, tightening his grip when she feebly tugged away.

“Alise Phel,” Cillian said with the deliberation of someone speaking a vow, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m certainly not abandoning you to this… situation, whatever it is. I might be only a librarian-wizard, but—”

Her gaze flew up to his. “I never meant it that way! I’m only trying to protect you.”

His tight face softened, along with his grip on her wrists, and he stroked his thumbs over the backs of her hands. “I appreciate that. It means a great deal to me that you feel that way. Is it then so difficult to understand that I have the same desire to protect you?”

She had no words, gazing at him helplessly, thinking she couldn’t let him do this, but also how some agonized part of her deep inside leapt in aching need. If only he could protect her. “I don’t know how you can,” she whispered. “Not because you’re a librarian,” she added hastily, unwilling to hurt him again, “but because… You just don’t know.”

“With House Hanneil involved, I have an idea,” he replied grimly. “But whatever it is, you’re not handling this by yourself. That only makes things harder and worse. You’re not alone in this, Alise. There is no way I’m walking away to leave you to deal with the problem on your own. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

This firm, determined Cillian was new. Or was he? He’d certainly pushed her into eating and refilling her magic the first time they met, like a velvet-covered elemental carriage rolling over her protests. “I just don’t know what—”

He laid a finger over her lips to stop her words. “We’ll figure it out,” he insisted softly. “Just let me help. Let me prove I can take care of myself—and of you.”

Mute, feeling dizzy again, for a different reason, she nodded. The movement dragged his finger along her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Feathering his fingers over her cheek, he leaned in, as if drawn by an invisible string, hovering there for an endless moment.

She should pull back.

She didn’t want to.

His lips breathed over hers, a barely there caress that nevertheless tingled with bright sparks of delight. The cold, hungry, empty places inside her seemed to thaw, receiving the kiss, opening to him.

With an incoherent sound of profound need, she moved into the kiss, deepening it hungrily. Cillian met her more than halfway, running his hands into her hair and cupping her head, holding her while he returned the kiss, feeding and nibbling on her lips as if they tasted delicious. Hesitant at first, she lifted her hands to his black curls that the girls had so rhapsodized about, finding them as deliciously silky as they’d speculated. He hummed deep in his throat as she touched him, encouraging her, and she found they’d both risen to their knees, all the better to press together, clinging to each other, kisses almost frantic. Alise had never felt anything like this, a wildness rising in her demanding to be freed, craving more and more and more.

Cillian broke the kiss, holding onto her still, but staring at her, his expression distraught. “We can’t do this,” he whispered, sounding stunned. “I can’t do this. I apologize. I shouldn’t have. This can’t have happened.”

A giggle welled up in Alise, entirely inappropriate given his chagrined horror. “It did happen, though,” she confided. And she was… happy?

“But I—I promised,” he stammered. Seeming to realize he still clutched her close, he let her go suddenly enough that she nearly fell. Which, naturally, meant he reached out to steady her—and then yanked away his hands again, holding them out a short distance from her, like they might soil her if he got them too close. “What have I done?” he cried.

“Oh, Cillian,” she said on a laugh. “It was a kiss. Nothing more.”

“How can you laugh? This is a disaster.”

No, the disaster had been everything else, one terrible event piled upon the next, until the accumulated pressure became crushing. This was the one good thing that had happened in… certainly longer than she could remember, maybe the best thing to ever happen to her. She patted his cheek and pressed a light kiss to his parted lips, a kiss he was still too stunned to return. “I liked the kiss,” she told him, surprising herself by admitting it. And not above taking the distraction to extract a bit of reprieve from the uncomfortable interrogation. “Kiss me again,” she invited.

Cillian’s head whirled, his body throbbing with unaccustomed desire. And there was Alise, acting like everything was fine. No, more than fine: her depthless, sharp black eyes sparkled with lively happiness, a very real smile curving her perfect lips, plump and shining from their kiss. Their kiss. He’d kissed Alise Phel. His younger self, the bookish, timid boy who’d regarded wizards like those of House Elal with considerable awe, fluttered in delighted surprise. His current self, the one who knew much better and should have been thinking, cringed in different, but equally strong disbelief.

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