Page 44 of Wildfire Witch

“I just needyou. Seth, please.” This close, I felt how hot she was, pulsing with every beat of her heart.

“That, I can give you. No problem at all, sweetheart.” I used the water around her ankles and wrists to help anchor her in just the right position and lined myself up. I sank into her heated core with a trembling breath. As my hips bumped into hers, I knew. There was strong magic between us, and it felt the most right of all.

I reached up to twine my fingers with hers, palms pressed together. Our anam cara marks would manifest there as a perfectly matched set. She held on to my hand tightly as I pulled back, thrusting slow and hard to fill her again.

Her mouth fell open as I found my rhythm, making soft noises. Her toes curled within the liquid that wrapped around her feet. “Kiss me, Seth,” she demanded.

I met her lips in a tangle of openmouthed passion. We breathed at an identical pace, our heartbeats syncing to the same beat. As the pressure mounted, we opened our eyes together, and I watched her face twist with pleasure as we came as one.

The anam cara mark burned into my palm with a pinch of pain. I barely noticed it.

What I definitelydidnotice was her eyes rolling back and her body going slack in my hold. My water flopped back into the tub,inert, as a new connection opened between us. I had a sense that my magic diminished by half, rushing from me to her with the force of a mighty waterfall.

Fatigue blurred the edges of my sight, but I still smiled, cradling her to my chest until she came back to awareness. She blinked, refocusing on my face and shivering. Goosebumps ran up her arms. “Why is it suddenly so cold in here?” she asked.

“It’s no different outside. But in here?” I set her on her feet and tapped the skin over her heart. “It must’ve cooled off significantly if you’re feeling cold at all.”

She laughed, grinning and throwing her arms around me. “I haven’t felt cold in years! Do you know what this means?”

“It worked?” I ventured hopefully.

Nix flipped up her hand, and I did the same, putting my palm close to hers. We had matching marks close to our thumbs, the traditional long line with several smaller ones passing through it.

“Yeah. Look at that…we are anam cara officially, bound to one another,” she said, slipping her hand in mine. The mark on my skin tingled with awareness and I felt a rush of affection for her. “I was also going to say, now you get to warm me back up.”

I grinned. “Oh, gladly!”

NIX

I wokein a man’s arms, disoriented. The beam of sunlight crossing my face hadn’t woken me; that was because of a rhythmic noise nearby. And a chill lingered on my skin.

There was no soreness throughout my body from lingering heat, just a numb sensation. I’d take it. I sat up, my groggy mind coming into enough focus to realize someone was pounding on the door.

“Five more minutes!” I called.

Seth was stirring. He was adorably rumpled after everything, and the reason there was a delicious ache between my thighs when I slid onto my feet. Who knew the cute EMT would be so skilled with my body? Though I had to admit, I was quite jealous of the people he practiced with before we’d met.

I shivered. The room had turned frigid overnight. Rushing to my bag, I put on a clean change of clothes and slipped my feet into a pair of sturdy, close-toed shoes to warm the little icicles I called my toes.

I reached for Aodhnait with my mind, to share in the wonder of being cold again. She was curled into a tight ball in my heart.“Too cold,”she mumbled.“Our balance is going the wrong direction.”

Oh, shit.It hadn’t even occurred to me that that was possible. Both air and water were wet elements, while Ceridor’s heritage made his air icy rather than hot, as it was traditionally notated amongst alchemists. A cold and wet environment would extinguish a phoenix.

“It’s not an emergency, but it’s very unpleasant,”she said.

The knocking resumed, and I glanced over at Seth to be sure he was decent before looking in the peephole. It was Rusty…well, Rusty’s broad shoulder in an ill-fitting shirt he’d pop open if he flexed too hard. “Morning, Nix,” he said once I opened the door. “Wind guy…I mean,Ceridor.” He infused the name with nose-lifted haughtiness. I supposed my husband came off that way, especially since they barely knew one another. “He’s awake and asking for you.”

“He’s awake?” Seth and I asked at the same time. Me with hope, him with disbelief.

“I’ll be right behind you guys. I’m just going to grab the medical bag,” Seth said, waving me on.

I followed Rusty into his room, past the tiny couch which had a rumpled sheet and a pillow that’d been forcibly contorted into thirds. Rusty presumably slept there, similarly scrunched up to fit his long limbs, because Ceridor was sitting up in the bed. He wasn’t due to wake until the afternoon, but I saw his sheer stubbornness in action. He was only upright by the grace of astack of pillows, his shoulders and head leaned back against the wall.

“You’re all right.” His voice was reduced to wisps. With his eyes clouded over and lids resting at half-mast, I was surprised he could even see me.

I crossed to his bedside, stroking his cheek. “And you should go back to sleep. Everything’s okay, but you still need time to recover,” I murmured.

He leaned into my touch with a silly, rather un-fae-like smile. “My wife’s worried about me,” he practically giggled. His words were slurring together at the edges.

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