Page 20 of A Balm of Healing
He leaned down, but instead of shying away, his lips met hers in the sweetest caress.
She couldn’t help herself from touching him, from running her hands up his arms, over his broad shoulders, and through his silky hair. The faintest moan escaped him, and she devoured it with her mouth as she returned his kiss.
Emotion trembled through her body from relief to joy to heartache. She couldn’t go to Heulwen now. Not when her heart sang to the tune of his soul. Although she didn’t know what kind of life she might lead at Emeric’s side, she knew there was no other place she wanted to be.
Hot tears of happiness trailed down her face. As if he felt them run over his fingers, he wiped them away as he sprinkled several more kisses over her lips, giving her one last lingering kiss until they broke apart.
After the last incident, she never thought she’d be kissed by him again. But it had been better than she ever thought possible. Her heart responded with warmth and a seed of love. Because she cared for Emeric. Deeply. And his kiss had only planted the seed deeper and sprouted its leaves in a patch of warm sunlight.
“Did I do it right this time?” he asked in a husky tone.
“Perfectly right,” she said with a contented sigh. “But feel free to practice any time you’d like.”
He chuckled, and just the sight of his smile burst her heart into flames. She wanted to continue the kiss until the rest of her caught flames as well, but there was one thing she still needed to do…
“Lay down,” she instructed softly, not wanting to break the fragile atmosphere with anything louder.
With a confused expression, he did as she asked and laid back on the plush carpet stretching from one end of the hallway to the other. She knelt over him and tried to ignore the way heat sparked against her fingers as she unbuttoned his shirt halfway and pushed the fabric aside.
“What are you doing?”
“Hush now,” she chided, her mouth lifting in the faintest grin as she placed both her hands over the smooth but chiseled skin of his chest. Tendrils of her magic entered his body, searching, seeking. And when she didn’t find what she was looking for, she delved deeper.
Her brows furrowed in concentration, and she closed her eyes as she continued her search. Only a few times had she worked with those who had lost their magic. In two of those cases, the magic had been gone entirely. In the third case, the woman’s magic had run from her efforts to catch it but catch it she had.
“What happens when you try to call on your magic?” she asked, eyes still closed.
She felt his heart race beneath her touch as he answered, “It doesn’t respond. It’s as if nothing is there.”
“Do you know if your people have ever dipped their toes into Shadow Fae magic?”
She opened her eyes the slightest bit to find him shaking his head. “Never. They are too proud to accept anyone else’s culture.”
Her lips pressed together when she still couldn’t locate any sign of magic within his body. “You were the chief. Do you know what they put in the elixir?”
Another nod before he listed off the ingredients. One of them was a poison to kill magic, to dwindle it to nothing until it disappeared entirely. Although it wasn’t shadow magic, it was still an effective poison.
“The bad news is your magic isn’t simply detached from your body like I previously expected.” Her magic continued to rummage through him like a hound dog following an old scent. “The good news is that in many cases, this poison never kills the magic completely, but gives the appearance that it does. Stay here.”
She pushed on his chest to help her stand before rushing down the stairs. Without grabbing a coat, but only slipping her feet into her boots, she stepped outside into the chilly winter air, eyes searching the vicinity for some sort of plant that flourished during harsh weather.
Rounding the house, she finally spotted a handful of white and pink snowbalms climbing a trellis. She plucked two stems of the bell-like flowers, watching as they hung from white vines like bells hanging in a church.
Upon entering the house once again, she barely managed to kick off her boots before pulling on her healing gloves and jogging up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Emeric still lay where she’d left him, and without preamble, she placed a snowbalm stem in either of his hands.
“To possibly draw it out,” she explained.
“Do I need to do anything?”
She didn’t miss the hopeful lilt of his voice hidden beneath a layer of fear. “If you feel your magic, grab it. If you don’t, then it’s my job to find it for you.”
If it’s there,she added silently.
With the steady concentration her gloves offered her, she drew upon her magic. The sun stones glowed faintly beneath her administration as she wheedled her power into him once again.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and moved her magic along his spine and chest where the center of magic was located within each person. Only too late did she want to smack herself in the head when she realized she should have done this another time rather than right after their incredible kiss. If she declared him magicless, then the disappointment was sure to crush him.
Emeric inhaled sharply. “Right there. Try again right there.”
