Page 95 of Anchor

I couldn’t help my smile if I tried. “You deserved a girlfriend who wasn’t sent there to spy on you, too, so I think we’re even.”

“Not even close,” Taland said and kissed me, deeply this time. His tongue was in my mouth, devouring, and his hand reached under the cover to wrap around my waist, to pull me closer to him until we were chest to chest. Until the bracelet slipped halfway under the pillow.

“The story,” I said against his lips because he was hard and I could feel his cock against my stomach. When he was hard, I was wet—it was automatic.

But I still needed to hear that story first.

“Yes, the story,” he said, a lazy smile on that beautiful face, his eyes half closed. He held me close to him still, spoke with my lips touching his, refused to let me move away.

“The story says that when that man who called himselfTitusbuilt his army of Laetus soldiers, he set out to claim every country and every piece of land for himself.” His hand traveled down my waist to my ass. “They fought a lot, and so many people died in the brutal battles.” He squeezed my ass tightly and moaned.

“Taland,” I warned because, like I said, now I was hot and bothered, too, and I shouldn’t have been when we were talking aboutdeath.

“Yes, yes,” he continued reluctantly. “In the end, all mages regardless of their color had to come together to defeat him. They say they threw a mountain upon the soldiers to stop them and managed to kill Titus after weeks and weeks of constant fighting. Of dying.

“After he was defeated, Iridians decided to remain united, and thus a Council was born to oversee that nothing like it would ever happen again. They created the IDD as their tool, and wrote a constitution to guide them, and to ensure that the power remained balanced between them. They also hunted down and killed the more powerful Laetus who remained and took their anchors—which I had no idea werebraceletsuntil now—and made it illegal for them to even attempt to do magic. Made it illegal for other mages to give magic to them in any way.”

“Not even to heal them,” I whispered because that’s what the books taught us. That’s why they didn’t healme,either, when Michael shot me that day. Because I’d been Mud.

“Not even to heal them,” Taland confirmed. “Laetus needmoreenergy, more power than all other Iridians to be able to master all the colors that exist inside them. And because the original Council, the people who defeated Titus, wasafraidof that power, they basically made the Laetus illegal. Took away their name, too—called themMud.They were cast out of society, made to live on scraps, just to make sure that none of them couldever accumulate as much power as one needed to be able to use all their colors together—or even just one.”

I looked at his lips moving, mesmerized. Even though those words sounded like a fiction novel, I still believed it because I believed in him.

“Then why is it calleddraining?”I wondered. “Why would they deliberately make criminals Mud if they could become so powerful?”

“Because that word reinforces the belief that Mud have no magic. There’s power in names; there is power in calling someoneMud.You give them a status, a whole fucking destiny. You make sure they’re cast out of society when you call them that,” he said. “It keeps people under control, that word, that fear—like Dostoyevsky said,the best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”

I laughed and it came straight from the heart. It was so bitter, that sound. “Yes, I can testify to that.” That’s exactly what happened to me. My own grandmother would have killed me if she hadn’t thought to put me in the Iris Roe first.

“Exactly,” said Taland, his smile soft and sad. “Exactly. And criminals are turned Mud because without an anchor, which nobody knows exists or how to make”—he looked down between us, where the bracelet remained half hidden under the pillow— “and without an incredible amount of power to sort ofactivatethem, they can’t even access their magic at all. Made Mud are far, far less powerful than those who are born with all colors.”

“Well, fuck,” I whispered. “So, the drainage doesn’t actuallydrainyou—it gives you magic instead?” Because that was fucked up—beyond fucked up.

“In a way,” Taland said, taking a moment to think about how to explain it to me better. “Whitefire magic has a way of basically turning energy into its original state—that’s the theory behind it, at least. It is thought that originally, all mages were Laetus, butwith time and with practicing only one color of magic, people forced it to evolve in that way. Like I said—it takes a lot to use all colors that become available in a mage during that process they calldrainage,and without a massive amount of power to activate it, they simply can’t access any of the colors. That’s why they turn criminals Mud—it’s perfectly safe in this day and age. A guaranteed way to keep people magic-less.”

For a moment, I kept my eyes closed and thought about everything he just said.

“An incredible amount of power—like the Rainbow,” I finally whispered.

Taland nodded. “Like the Rainbow. Which is why Mud are not allowed in the Iris Roe. Which is, I think, why the Council wanted to see you in person and required you to do magic in front of them. Honestly, it’s a miracle that you didn’t accidentally use all your colors in front of them.”

I let go of his hand, brought mine to my face and inspected it, like I was seeing it for the first time. “I don’t know how I did that, though. It wasn’t intentional. I just connected with my anchor, and…” I shrugged because I didn’t know how to make sense of it.

“All Laetus used to have a primary color, some stronger than others,” Taland said, bringing his fingertip to trail mine as the sunlight fell on them and made our skin glow.

“But why didn’t they bring me a bracelet to test me?”

Taland shook his head. “I’m not sure they even knew. Nobody knows—not even my brothers. Nobody in Selem. We’ve never heard of a Laetus anchor before. We honestly didn’t think they even used one.”

“But this was in the Vault,” I whispered. “It was in a drawer in the Vault.”

“What did its file say?”

I smiled bitterly. “That’s just it—there was no file. And the radars couldn’t read its signature, when they’re made to pick up even the smallest energies.”

“Because an anchor on its own doesn’t release energy—yes,” Taland whispered, eyes on our hands but he was lost in his head. “That makes sense, actually. They’re just doors. Gateways.”

“It’s…I don’t know, Taland. That book in my grandmother’s office—it had a drawing of these things. She would have known.”

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