Page 24 of Shade of Ruin

I do as he says, and the resistance is still there. “I’m going to touch you,” he whispers, his breath hot on my neck. “Don’t open your eyes.”

I should be terrified, but I’m not. My racing heart is from excitement. The knot in my stomach is because I want to know what it’s like for him to touch me.

Then I feel him, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. My mind tries to comprehend what he’s doing, but it doesn’t make sense. Like a warm summer wind whispering over my body, Ican feel his heat, but not his actual touch. He starts at my neck and drifts down to my collarbone.

My tunic shifts, and the scent of salt and cedar flows over me at the same time thatsomethingslides across my skin between my tunic and my breasts. Down my tunic, and it slips under my pants, caressing my body in ways that I couldn’t have imagined previously. I should want to take a step back, to stop the Shade from making me feel this way. I’ve spent my life away from nearly everyone, and the thought of another person touching my hand makes me nervous. Yet, when the Shade touches the most intimate parts of my body like this, I can’t imagine pulling away from him.

The warmth that blows across my skin sets my body throbbing as my mind questions what it would feel like if it were more than this. What if it were his hands instead of whatever this magical sensation is. Those black-tinted nails caressing my stomach… my breasts… between my legs. Inside me, the storm that has raged for dayschanges. It becomes something different. Instead of the angry feeling of lightning stuck in a bottle, it becomes a throbbing that begins between my legs and steadily radiates outward.

It's not the frantic energy that’s been making me grit my teeth at every annoyance. No, this is a heady feeling that throbs in time to my racing heartbeat. I don’t know why, but a soft moan escapes my lips. The wind becomes more solid, and the sensations become even more intense.

“Maeve, create shadows,” he whispers into my ear. “Feel them flow over your skin just like mine are doing. They’re hot and heavy and sticky. They cling to your skin like dew at dawn.”

Instead of trying to force my power through my palm, Iallow it to flow, the throbbing drum inside me giving it strength instead of impeding it. I can feel my shadows moving over my arm, coiling around me like a snake. They’re so similar to theShade’s. Like he’d said, they’re thick and almost misty. Wet and sticky, they want to stay on me, holding tight to me rather than flowing into the air like a cloud would.

Then the Shade touches me. His nails run over my neck and into the hair at the nape of my neck. I sink into his touch, my entire body wanting to feel him. His fingers tighten in my hair, and that throbbing inside me quickens.

“Open your eyes, Maeve,” he whispers. “Your mother was no Wyrdling.” Then his hand moves away from my neck, and he steps back. Shadows rise into the air around me. Covering all the ground in the clearing in that inky blackness and wreathing my limbs in it, I make the Shade’s cloak look like the sun.

“How?” I ask, my voice barely more than a whisper. The shadows climb everything they can reach. The trees. Me. The Shade. Everything in the clearing below my knees is hidden in blackness. I’m nearly as hidden from the world as the Fae under the Shade’s cloak. This… this is not what I’d expected.

“That throbbing inside you is what feeds the shadows. Not anger, Maeve. Anger will choke your shadows to death. You need to feeldesirein order to use shadow magic. Or its opposite, revulsion.” He pauses for a moment, his head cocked ever so slightly to the side.

“Magic is controlled by emotions. This is why Immortals are taught to keep theirs tightly leashed at all times. Tightly leashed does not mean non-existent, though. It means controlled. Used and focused. Do you understand?”

I nod, not entirely sure that I’ll be able to make myself feel this way whenever I need to. “I think so.”

“Do not try to use revulsion. It’s a dangerous emotion even when you’re trained, and it results in far more accidents than desire. The negative sides of each House’s magic are far more dangerous.”

Again, I nod to him. I want to say that it all makes sense, but I’m having a hard time keeping my mind on what he’s saying when I can’t stop thinking about the way he made me feel only a few moments ago. Even though the shadows filling my small piece of the world are incredible, my body has no interest in them. The only thing it wants is for the Shade to touch me again, to press those hands against my skin.

I know that won’t happen. I try to focus on the shadows, on the reason I called him here. The reason that I’m going to owe him another unbreakable debt.

The shadows have faded, but the throbbing of the drum inside me is still just as loud as it was when I first opened my eyes. How am I supposed to fight like this? How am I supposed to train like this?

I’ve spent my life shunned. Untouched, unloved, and certainly unkissed. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this… except when Cole held me. Or when he taught me to fight.

Or when the Shade held my hand as he marked me.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

This time, it’s him who nods, and when he puts his hand out, I know what he expects me to do. I place my hand in his, palm upturned.

When he presses his nail against my skin, I sigh. I know the pain that’s going to come, and I welcome it. I don’t even grimace as he leaves his mark on my skin, but when he tries to pull away, I stop him, my hand going to his wrist. This time, he doesn’t pull away.

“Why do you do this?” I ask. “Why do you make these deals?”

I’ve felt him through those shadows under his hood, and I can tell his expression. Even though I have no proof that I’m right, I know I am. Just like I know when there is a wolf on the other side of a clearing or when there’s a rabbit in a bush. Iknowthat this question has turned his expression somber and morose when he’s been far more lighthearted this evening.

He hesitates. There’s nothing compelling him to answer me and nothing compelling him to tell the truth. I’m no one to him. I’m just a stupid Wyrdling who can’t use her magic.

“Because someone has to, and I’m the only one who can, but I can’t do it all. Goodnight, Maeve Arden.”

I pull my hand away, and this time, it’s me that cocks my head and frowns. The Shade doesn’t offer any further explanation, though, and simply steps forward. The shadows swallow him up.

He leaves me all alone again. I look down at my hand and feel the drumming in my chest, no longer nearly as strong, but still there. “I have to desire,” I whisper.

When I put my hand out this time, I feel the shadows appear, and they flow like water from a spring. Just as seductive as before, it whispers over my skin and pools at my feet. Liquid shadows that hide the very ground below them.

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