Page 92 of The Forbidden Fae King

Likely, he is doing it on purpose.

“And this is how to move it with your direction.” He pushes his will into the roots, gentle as a lover’s kiss and firm as steel, gliding across my essence as well. His hands stay at my temples, they don’t physically touch my body, but itfeelslike they are all over me.

“But I cannot make them grow like you do?” I turn in his embrace to look up at him, and his arms wrap around my waist. I am terrible at keeping my distance from this man.

Aldrin peers into my face. “No,” he says, his eyes flicks down to my lips. “You don’t have any spring magic.”

My heart stammers at the heat in his hooded eyes. The bastard knew exactly the reaction his magic had over me, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.

“Let me do one more thing.” His hands cup my face and tips itupwards, his fingers gliding to my temples. “I want to check something.”

“Okay,” I half-whisper. I don’t think I could deny him a thing in this moment.

Aldrin’s power thrusts into me, hot and hard like a shot of whiskey burning through me, reaching depths I never knew I had.

My breath hitches as cold sweat breaks out over my skin, but he buries it further. It strokes and caresses in the most delicious manner all the way down. A smug grin pulls on the corners of his lips, until he suddenly staggers away from me.

“What?” I manage. “What is it?”

He runs a hand through his dark hair. “You have an immense well of power, Keira, but there is a massive block on it. You hardly access a fraction of it. What are you, to have that much power?”

“Human. I’m human Aldrin.”

“Yeah. Human, with a hell of a lot of fae,” he retorts.

The fact that my grandmother was impregnated by a fae flies to mind. One she claims was incredibly powerful. “It doesn’t really matter, Aldrin.” I throw back. “I am duty bound to the human realm regardless of what is in my blood.”

He seems to shake himself. “I need to think of a way to break that block. But I came here now, because I didn’t get to teach you how to base jump. We got…distracted last time.”

My stomach tumbles at the idea of falling from the sky. “Gods,” I mutter. “Do we have to?”

Aldrin turns deadly serious as he forms a staircase of platforms hanging above the ground. They are of hardened air, but thick enough that their shape distorts the light and are clearly visible.

“This is what you don’t want to do.” He walks up the steps. His floating body is an eerie sight.

I raise my eyebrows. “You start by showing me the wrong way to do it?”

“Yes. It takes too much time and magic reserves,” Aldrin continues. “But you get the basic concept. Create a platform, step on it, thenretract the one behind you.” The lowest air base disappears, as more form above him.

I watch Aldrin in awe, my lips parted, as he reaches the height of a house, then simply leaps to the grown, landing in a crouch. Dust and small stones plume up in a radius around him, but he stands and strides over to me completely unaffected.

“Let me demonstrate the correct way to base jump.” He says.

Aldrin moves lightning-fast, leaping upwards in staggered jolts as thin platforms of air form beneath his feet then rapidly disintegrates. It is a beautiful dance through the sky.

He reaches the same height again, before misplacing a foot and landing in a heavy crouch. Sweat glistens the muscles of his bare arms below his rolled-up sleeves and fire burns in his amber eyes as he looks up at me. A hint of a smile plays across his lips.

“Now you try,” Aldrin commands.

“I can’t dothat,” I half-whisper.

“You can and you will.”

I weave a single platform, then step on it. Pride fills me and I turn to Aldrin beaming, but it disintegrates beneath my feet. I stumble to the ground, lurching forward and Aldrin hooks an arm around my waist and pulls me against his chest.

“I already know I’m going to enjoy this,” he murmurs into my hair, before letting me go.

I shoot him a dark look, but try again. I fall so many times, stumbling off the side of platforms, forgetting to hold my wield or simply losing sight of where I built them and leaping into thin air.

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