Page 93 of A Sun Scorched Bloom

Janelle had taken to sleeping in his shirts since they’d arrived in Calir, the sight driving him to near insanity with need, despite the fact that they hung down to nearly her knees. He’d controlled himself, but now? He needed to see her, all of her. Feel her. He began pressing kisses between her breasts, lifting her shirt, and continuing down, kissing lower and lower. Erik needed to taste her, had waited so long to explore every inch of her body.

Something inside him demanded he show her what true pleasure felt like, what a man could do for a woman he loved. What a manshoulddo for the woman he loved. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her pants, sliding them down slowly as he took in every inch of her exposed flesh. His fingers brushed against something hard and raised, and Janelle stiffened.

Erik searched her eyes for permission, and she nodded slightly before he pulled the side of her pants down further to expose her hip. A thick, jagged scar ran from her pubic bone across her hip bone, branching off and wrapping down her thigh and around her side to nearly her back. Erik’s eyes darkened. He’d seen Janelle rub her hip subconsciously at times when she was nervous, but he had thought it was just a mannerism. But this? The scarscreamedof violence and pain.

"Who did this to you?" Erik could hardly speak through the fire in his chest, the room suddenly stiflingly, unbearably hot.

"It doesn’t matter." Janelle grabbed her pants and tried to pull them back up.

"Donottell me it doesn’t matter. This is why you’re afraid, isn’t it?" Erik traced the scar with his calloused fingers.

Janelle nodded silently.

"Is he still alive?" Erik’s nostrils flared as he tried to control his magic.

"They are," she confirmed, looking away.

Erik felt his flames licking just inside his skin, threatening to explode out of him in his absolute rage.They?How many men was he going to have to kill? Because he would. He would kill every. Single. One of them. His rage became white hot, almostpainfulin his veins. Before his fire could hurt Janelle, he sent it outward, the torches in the room growing so tall the flames caressed the stone ceiling. Erik could see his reflection in Janelle’s eyes, orange and red sparks flying around them.

"They won’t be for long," Erik growled as he stood on shaking legs, helping Janelle rise from the floor and leading her out onto the balcony to escape the heat of his need for vengeance.

Chapter 62

Lea

AfterhereveningwithErik, Lea couldn’t settle. They'd trained until the sun was about to set, and Lea had returned to her room hoping exhaustion would pull her into a deep sleep. But as the rush of night magic had cascaded through the open wall, bringing in a gust of salty sea air, Lea’s restlessness had only grown.

The more she’d accessed her shadows earlier, the more they’d seemed to multiply, eating up the darkness in the air and growing until she couldn’t fully tuck them back down into her chest. Even now, tiny dark wisps emanated from her body, flickering like pure black flames.

With Gray gone and all hope for sleep lost, Lea wandered to the garden. It had filled her with hope to be given an opportunity to attempt to grow the moonflowers again, but that hope had quickly morphed into frustration as she found that the challenges of harvesting them hadn’t changed with her increased magic.

The moon glowed softly and waves crashed in the distance as she slid off her shoes and stepped into the plot of dirt surrounded by sand. It was exceedingly odd, seeing such fertile ground sitting as an island in a barren seascape, but as Gray had told her before, magic wasn’t controlled in Calir, and she was finding that the different abilities in the kingdom were far more diverse than she'd ever dreamed.

As soon as Lea climbed over the driftwood barriers to the garden and her feet touched the damp soil, her heart rate slowed. She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as she savored the sweet scent of the various flowers growing all around her. In another life, or if she had more time, Lea would’ve explored this garden and everything growing in it. The tropical flowers were far more vibrant than the ones that she'd grown back home, and while she recognized a few, most of them were completely foreign to her.

Someday, when the king was defeated and the kingdom was once again living in peace, Lea would come back and learn all she could about these plants. But not today. Today, she had one singular mission. The same one she’d nurtured for the longest time. If the moonflowers could "defeat death himself," as her mother had told her, then Lea needed to learn how to grow and harvest them, andsoon. There would never be a time they’d be more needed than now, with the Lonely Death spreading and war on the horizon.

She pulled a handful of seeds from the pocket of the skirt hanging loosely around her waist. It was once again white and flowed in soft folds all the way to the ground. The warm sea air blew it around her ankles, and she knelt down into the dirt, not bothered by the fact that she would get it dirty.

Thiswas where she was meant to be, in the garden, connected to the earth. She'd already spent time here learning the differences in the soil and climate between her kingdom and Calir. The moonflowers grew differently here. Instead of tall, climbing vines, the moonflowers here seemed to prefer to bush out as they matured. They fared somewhat better in the shaded corner of the garden underneath a large foreign tree with bright pink flowers the size of her hand hanging from its branches, but still, even without the harsh direct sun, the small white flowers died off even before the petals fully opened. Yesterday, Lea had thought that maybe she would have some success when she planted three seeds beneath a large canvas sheet that blocked out all the light, but even in the shade, the flowers seemed determined to die.

It would have to be at night, she’d decided. Without the sun to burn the petal’s edges, or the intense heat to dry out the vines, maybe she would be able to do it. Lea knelt down, cupping her hands and digging a small divot into the earth. She placed a seed inside before smoothing soil back over the hole and patting it down gently. Grabbing a watering can, she saturated the area, then watched with anticipation as the watering can magically refilled itself.Amazing, she thought. Lea would never get over how freely magic was available here. It almost made her giddy, and she hoped that her own kingdom would someday be the same.

Placing her hands on top of the small mound, Lea gathered the light in her chest and sent it to the seed. It only took a few moments before it sprouted, a small green shoot tickling underneath Lea’s fingers. It snaked along the ground, growing so much faster than it ever had in Bearswillow. Lea allowed that energy to flow into the entire length of the plant, down into its roots and through the small tendrils branching off the main stem. The sight of white petals emerging from tiny buds caused her chest to squeeze, but after a moment, she sensed the creeping chill of death surrounding them.

It wasn't so different from what she'd felt as Queen Emmaline’s baby had been struggling to survive. Powerful, black fingers closed around the flowers, pushing inside them and trying to pull away all evidence of life. More concerning was that it felt all too similar to the darkness Lea now felt inside herself—that raw, terrible power that had exploded within her as she’d fought to save the baby and had only grown today when she’d used her night magic. She tried to push it away from her moonflowers, but death’s grip held firm.

She forced more light into the roots, urging them to take in more water, to fight against their own demise, but soon the plant’s growth stalled and the petals turned into dust.

"Gods Dammit!" Lea hissed as she dropped her hands to her sides, flexing and extending her stiff fingers in frustration. It was the same thing, every damn time.

Lea tried again, once pushing the seed deeper into the soil, another time simply laying it on top of the ground. For what felt like hours, she attempted to change every variable she could think of. She’d planted one seed in the sand, given them differing amounts of water, had even tried to use her fire to chase away death, but that had left her only with incinerated flowers and growing desperation.

Sitting down in the dirt, Lea pulled the last moonflower seed from her pocket. She would need to ask the king’s men if they’d return to the cottage and get her more. Pinching the small, crescent shaped seed between her thumb and forefinger, she held it up to the sky to get a better look. It was nearly identical to the current phase of the moon, slightly more slender, but the curvature was the same.

Maybe it's based on moon cycles?Lea pondered.

"It has nothing to do with the moon, Daughter of the Sun and Stars."

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