Page 91 of To Ashes and Dust
Damien smiled down at me. “I’ve no issues with it, just so long as you don’t push yourself too much.”
I smiled up at him before looking back out across the training yard. This was where I wanted to be, helping anyone I could while I could.
Here, I could make a difference.
“Well, while we’d love to stay and chat, Cas has training with Barrett and Thalia,” Damien said.
“They arrived earlier this morning. I think they’re inside,” Xander said as he and Alec dipped their heads before returning to their recruits.
Damien held the door open for me, and I stepped into the warmer air of the training facility. I rubbed my chilled hands together and slipped my jacket off, hanging it on the hook. There was no sign of Barrett or Thalia in the main lounge. There was no one, not even recruits, and it was oddly quiet.
“They’re probably downstairs in the sparring room, warming up. Go ahead and head down. I’ll grab us some water,” Damien said, surveying the room before he started for the kitchenette at the far end.
I nodded and headed for the door to the stairwell. Flame magic. I couldn’t stifle the excitement swelling in me, couldn’t wait to learn how to use it properly. Our first attempt to train had been a disaster, but this lesson would be different. I knew it. I hadn’t lost control when I’d used it last night, and I was eager to learn just what I could do without Eris’ interference. I pulled my hair tie from my wrist and braided my hair as I descended into the basement level.
There was so much I needed to learn, and I wondered if I could learn every element House Stoicheion had at their disposal—flame, water, lighting, earth, air. I was intrigued by how they were all used. I wanted to learn how Aster used his magic to command plant life. How did they fight with it? My excitement waned as I reached the foot of the stairwell, the list of all the different houses of power building in my mind. Did we have enough time before the darklings attacked?
Did... I have enough time?
I smothered the dread rising in my gut as I opened the door to the sparring room. “Barrett? Thal—”
I froze in the doorway when my eyes found them.
Thalia was pressed against a wall, Barrett’s hands roaming up her shirt, her pants undone and low on her hips where his other hand had vanished. His face was buried in her neck. Her pale skin was flushed, chest heaving.
Their gazes met mine, Barrett’s blazing with that intense flame raging inside him, and Thalia’s face held that same heated drunkenness I knew came with feeding. My face burned, and my feet cemented to the floor for a moment before I pulled myself away, my eyes flying in any direction but toward them.
“I’m so sorry!” I ducked back out into the hallway, slamming the door behind me. My back met the wall as I clasped my hands over my face. What would I have walked into if I’d arrived ten or fifteen minutes later? My mind wandered, unbound and wild and—Oh my God, no.Stop thinking!
“Cas?” Damien’s voice alerted me of his approach, pulling me from the thoughts which left me even more embarrassed, even though he couldn’t read them. I had never been more thankful that he wasn’t a Nous user.
My face was likely beet red, and when his eyes met mine, his confusion melted into something sinfully humorous. God, could I be more obvious?
He grew closer, leaning in to whisper, “Did you walk in on something,mea luna?”
“No!” I blurted.
He lowered his face to my neck as he inhaled deeply, and that smile turned wicked. “Your scent tells me otherwise.”
I swallowed, averting my gaze from him, wishing the floor would swallow me whole. His warm gray eyes shifted to the door, and he reached for the knob.
My hand shot out, stopping him. “We can’t go in there!”
“Oh?” he said, a mischievous grin tugging at the corner of his lips. “Why not?”
The doorknob clicked seconds later, and the door opened, revealing Barrett and Thalia, looking a bit more put together than they had moments before, although Thalia was still fixing her disheveled braid.
Thalia gave me an apologetic grin. “Sorry about that, Cas.”
“Didn’t realize it was already that time,” Barrett added, and it annoyed me how put together he looked, as if I hadn’t just walked in on them—the heat spread from my face to my ears and the back of my neck as my mind relived what I’d seen.
I waved my hands in a flurry. “No! You’re fine!”
A shit-eating grin spread across Barrett’s face. “Awe, spitfire’s embarrassed,”
Damien bit his lip as he became preoccupied by the detail of the barren walls around us.
“Barrett, leave the poor girl alone,” Thalia said as she passed him to head for the stairway.
