Page 16 of Lera of Lunos
Bending his head, Coal presses his mouth over mine. His masculine scent and taste surround me. The intensity of his lips rouses each of my exhausted nerves to alert, my hands rising to dig into the hard swells of his biceps. A heartbeat later, a phantom power stirs inside me, mirroring the sudden swelling of my breasts and a gripping need low in my belly. The throbbing in my ankle quiets. An energy that’s an echo of Coal’s magic seeps new strength into tired muscles, masking the pain and ache.
“Coal.” Shade’s rough reprimand has Coal’s hand tangling in my hair as he pauses to lift a brow at the shifter. Behind me, Shade growls softly.
I do too.
“There is a cost to her echoing your magic.” The usually gentle male sounds like the wolf he is. A predator defending his territory—not me, but my wellbeing. “Lera’s body will echo your strength and healing for a bit, and then she will crash even lower than now. Any more mending needs to be done the old-fashioned way until her body recovers. Let me have her.”
“Poke and prod her again just now and the mortal will slug you,” Coal says evenly. “And I will help her. Go. Away.”
A growl and flash of light are Shade’s only answer. As Coal’s mouth descends upon mine, however, I catch sight of a gray wolf lifting his leg to urinate over Coal’s scabbard, his black muzzle pulled back over long white teeth. Wrapping my hands in Coal’s hair before he can notice as much, I meet his demanding kiss with a force of my own. Our tongues clash inside our joined mouths, the battle making my hips press against Coal’s hardness, my body singing with new strength.
The last coherent thought I have before releasing the waking beast inside me is the realization that I haven’t seen Tye in hours. I shove away the worry for him, the pain, the questions, and just let myself live in the now for a bit longer.
10
Tye
Leaning against the wooden fence, Tye let the breeze brush the hair from his face. Far away from the brewing departure preparations, the sand-filled sparring ring was silent but for the slight whistle of the wind. That and the ghosts.
He hadn’t been able to get to her. To go through the static shield, for its impenetrable magic. Or jump over it, for his own deficiency. Worse, the whole mishap had been his fault. Tye knew the strength of his magic, the wildness in it that rivaled any stallion. No, stallion was too domesticated a term. Tye’s magic had the visceral needs of the tiger without any of the safeguards of the fae male. That’s what he’d given Lera to wrestle with while holding back the one act that might have helped her control the force.
Lera got hurt. And it wasn’t the first time someone Tye cared for had been injured over his choices.
Digging his fingers into the fence, Tye stared at the horizontal bar that someone had lugged from the practice arena to this unused spot. Even standing at the fence, Tye could feel the smooth flex of the bar, smell the chalk that always made a mess no matter how careful one was, taste the exhilaration of flying through the air, his magic and his muscles singing. It was all there for the taking.
A piece of cheese in a mousetrap.
The sound of familiar rolling footsteps behind Tye was simultaneously unexpected and inevitable. Tye still didn’t understand how Elidyr had managed to train in flex when he seemed unable to walk quite right without a horse beneath him. Hell, Tye wouldn’t even believe it possible if he’d not seen Elidyr compete for himself.
Elidyr had competed on the flex-air circuit, as Tye had on the flex-fire track. At his peak, the elder had been a few tiers below Tye, but that in itself was an achievement few could claim. As for the level Tye had been at, well, things had looked very different from up there.
Leaning against the fence beside Tye, Elidyr let the stallion he was holding graze on the lush grass. “Miss it?” he asked, holding a long strand of hay between his teeth.
There was little point in feigning misunderstanding, so Tye didn’t bother. “No.”
“I could have sworn I saw you enjoying yourself there for a moment, before class started,” Elidyr drawled, a smile cracking his tan, oval face. “Flying through your routine, defying death, stretching the full control and precision of your power.”
“Aye.” Tye turned around and leaned back on his arms. Anyone else, he’d have told to pound sand—elder or not. But Elidyr had lived and breathed the sport for a solid century, and the pull of professional courtesy made Tye indulge the male’s questions longer than he would have otherwise. “But I presumed you were asking whether I miss the lifestyle, not a few flips when no one is watching.”
“And you don’t?”
“Do I miss spending ten hours a day in practice, most of it in one agony or another? Listening to the healer warn me time and time again that if I sustain one more injury to my shoulder or my magic or my spine, there won’t be enough power in Lunos to piece me back together? Being called three kinds of imbecile over and over?”
“Heh.” Elidyr clicked his tongue. “From where the rest of us stood, you were one breath away from a god. There wasn’t one athlete there who didn’t worship the ground you walked on. Who wouldn’t have traded anything to be you.”
“Yes, well, it always looks more glamorous from the side.” Especially since, at the end, none of Tye’s skill or training had mattered. “Pity party over. What can I do for you, sir?”
Elidyr’s bay stallion nuzzled the male’s hip, rubbing against it with enough force to have knocked a lesser being off his feet. The elder spread his shoulders, glaring at the horse until the latter stepped back and lowered his head. “Better.” Elidyr scratched the animal’s head before returning his attention to Tye. “It occurred to me that I owe you an apology. That perhaps when I helped twist your arm into teaching flex to the trainees, I didn’t fully comprehend the wounds it would open.”
“I was a Citadel initiate. Your order was fully lawful.” Tye raised his face to the wind. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
Elidyr clicked his tongue. “Something happened right before the championship you never came to.”
“The whole of Lunos knows what happened, Eli. I got drunk enough to be thrown in a cell and I missed my start time.”
“Hmm.” Elidyr made a noncommittal noise, his attention back on the horse, idly stroking his neck with a callused hand. “I did hear that. Occurred to me after watching you teach class that mayhap there was more to it. That perhaps your quint brothers know as little of the truth as I do.”
Tye stuck his hands into the pockets of his leather riding pants and grinned. Coal might think brooding silence was the most efficient way to get intrusive bastards off one’s back, but in truth, cockiness worked a great deal better. “I assure you that my quint brothers know more about my past than my own mother.” He cut a conspiratorial glance toward the other male. “Point of fact, I think the notion of making us do two extra trials to make up for my indiscretions was your idea. I hope I never accidentally thanked you for it.”
