Page 41 of Reluctant Wizard

“Feeding me is all you think about.”

“Not all.” His grin became a leer as his gaze swept her body. “Still, keeping you alive and well enough to handle the many stones being hurled in your direction is a priority for me. There’s fresh gingerbread,” he added with a purr of enticement.

“So I smell,” she replied, trying to sound grudging, but her stomach chose that moment to growl in audible demand. She clapped a hand to it, groaning theatrically. “I swear, all I do around you is eat and sleep.”

“Not all,” he repeated with a salacious grin, ducking when she swatted him. “You need both and I’m happy to facilitate that.” He tipped up her chin and gave her a sweet, chaste kiss. “Be a good girl and we can see about more of this later. I left pajamas for you on the end of the bed there.” Taking her shoulders, he turned her to point her that way, then gave her bottom a pat. “You know where the bathing facilities are. Take your time. I’ll dish up dinner when you’re ready.”

“Dinner?” she called after him as he left the room. “I thought I was having fresh gingerbread!”

“You’ll have a proper meal, first,” he called back. “Then dessert, if you behave.”

It was absurd to be charmed by him saying such things to her, but a silly smile stretched her cheeks and she rolled her eyes at herself. Apparently she’d lost all sense along with her virginity.

Alise emerged from Cillian’s bedroom wearing his old pajamas. Or, it might have been more precise to say they were wearing her, as she was nearly swallowed up by them. And he wasn’t all that big of a guy. She looked like one of his sisters’ porcelain dolls: delicately lovely, lustrous eyes dominating her heart-shaped face, and wearing the clothes from an entirely different doll. She’d rolled up the fleece bottoms at the ankles, where they hovered in fat rolls above her slender feet. The sight of her adorable pink toes did something to him.

She gave him a wry look, flapping her arms in the baggy top. He noticed she had the spirit bottle in one hand. Keeping it close. He supposed that was the best solution for the moment. “I feel like I’m wearing a tent,” Alise informed him.

“Have you ever been in a tent?” he asked curiously. He liked to sleep out in the hills in a tent, but that didn’t seem like something a daughter of Lord Elal would do.

She lifted her nose. “I don’t have to have slept in one to know what it is. Or what it feels like to be draped in one,” she added. “My clothes seem to have disappeared.”

“I gave them to the cleaning imps. They’ll be done soon. Besides, I thought you’d be more comfortable in pajamas. It’s getting cold out there.”

“I can get the fire elemental to increase the heat, if you want?”

“That would be excellent.” The old building tended to be drafty, the generous heat provided by the elementals dispersing rapidly, especially when it got windy, as this night promised to be. He was lucky to have the little fireplace, but his sole fire elemental could only do so much. Or, it seemed. Turned out the creature hadn’t been doing as much as it could, after all. While he dished up their supper, he observed with interest as Alise crouched before the flickering elemental a faint scent of roses in the air as she spoke to it in low tones, sounding not unlike someone speaking to a pet cat.

When she rose to her feet again, the fire elemental had doubled in size, dancing with increased vigor over the wood chips.

“What did you do?” he asked, carrying their bowls to the small dining table he almost never used. “I thought fire elementals were one size and strength.”

“The kind already tamed and bound for household use are,” she answered. “That’s part of House Elal product standardization. I didn’t even realize you had a dining table. I thought this was a desk or bookshelf,” she teased.

He loved her humor, especially since she so rarely let it emerge. “I picked some things up, to accommodate an actual human being here.”

“Don’t you count as an actual human?”

“Not at all,” he answered in his most serious voice. “I’m book-adjacent and serve their whims.”

She laughed, a low, sensual sound. Setting the bowls down, he leaned over to kiss her, delighted to have her there, relaxed and happy. She gave him a curious smile. “What was that for?”

“Just saying hi.”

She blushed lightly. “Hi.”

“Go ahead and sit. Start eating. I’ll grab the bread.”

“This looks really lovely. And like hours of work.”

He brought the basket of warm bread back to the table and sat opposite her. “You slept several hours.”

“And you didn’t.”

“Unlike other people at this table, I regularly get sufficient sleep, so no, I did not take a nap.” Instead he’d started the breads, made the stew and put it on simmer, then picked up the apartment so it would be more orderly, all the while comforted to know Alise was in the little bedroom, the scent of her drowsy magic comforting as a glass of warmed wine.

“Ha ha.” She dipped her spoon into the bowl, moving pieces around. “What am I eating?”

“Beef stew, with mushrooms.”

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