Page 25 of The Crownless King
“Okay, class, careful on the glass. Each Archive was built on a site where the Akachi landed. There are over a dozen smaller Archives, but only five major ones. If you notice the Chawi below, she’s carefully cleaning and shoring up the energy that the meteorite gives off. Who can tell me which of our friends use the chaos magic from the Akachi?”
Amaya didn’t need to look up to know the hands would be lifted.
“The Chawi, Aziza, and Mujaji!” they all yelled out.
She remembered her first trip to the Archive as a kid. Her mother had worked here her whole life and Amaya thought she knew everything there was to know. Smug for one so young. She smiled wistfully.
Amaya looked up and waved at the kids, smiling at their happy faces as they returned the greeting. She loved when field trips came through her otherwise quiet shift. She gave them ashow, using her hands to sweep the sand in the other direction, making the stone shimmer. The oohs and aahs made her chuckle.
By the time she was done for the day, she was wiped out. Harnessing chaos was no small magic. Dampening the residual energy from the meteorite took a lot out of her. She went through the steps to decontaminate herself, signaling for the door to open. Taking off her clean suit and chucking it into the basket, Amaya looked forward to collapsing on her bed. Just two weeks off and the endurance she’d built for the job was obliterated.
“See you tomorrow, Maya. A new class of mages will be in,” Malik told her.
“Really? It’s that time of year already?”
The mages came annually to renew their power. It was a big to-do and the sacred garden would be crawling with Chawi and their respective mentors and elders. The shifter met her at the door as she exited.
“Even at the viewing station, I could feel the power. I can’t imagine how you sit in there all day,” he said to her.
“Are you going to be my guard every day?”
He cocked his head at the change in subject, but nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Bronx.”
She nodded. “I’m starving, Bronx. Do you have to take me straight back?”
Though Levi didn’t keep his promise to make her starve, he still made her wait until he left for the night before he allowedthe maid to bring up a tray. They were at an impasse. She refused to break bread with him and he made her wait to eat. It was petty, but she was going to win at least one of their arguments, damn it.
“‘Fraid so.”
She sighed and followed him from the Archive. The ride home was just as silent as their earlier one. Bronx pulled up to the front of the house. He didn’t get out. As she opened the door, his question stopped her.
“My wolf is calm around you. You naturally dampen magic?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “You want coffee tomorrow morning?”
She smiled. “I don’t drink coffee, but I wouldn’t mind a tea.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
Satisfied that she and her guard would be on some kind of even footing, Amaya trudged back inside of her prison. To her surprise, her bed was full of boxes and bags. Peeking in, her mouth dropped at the clothes and luxury skin products. Sleep and lounge wear, even work clothes filled the shopping bags to bursting. Her eyes widened and reluctant excitement filled her. She couldn’t wait to try some of the stuff. Despite her tired body, she hummed in the shower, enjoying the gifts left for her. Wrapping a towel around herself, she prayed Levi left for work early so she wouldn’t have to wait forever to eat.
She squealed when she entered her bedroom to find the object of her thoughts sitting on the edge of her bed. Amayasighed. She’d been too tired after work to put up the spell over her door.
“What do you want?”
“You’re refusing dinner with me again?”
“You may have me here, but you don’t have me under your control. You’re a king with no crown, and no power over me.”
Levi closed the space between them quicker than she could blink. Her breath got stuck in her throat. His power probed at her thoughts, his magic and glamour raining over her. An ache built in her body as it attuned itself to his nearness with no input from her mind. Levi scraped his teeth down the skin of her neck and her stomach tumbled low, liquid sliding from her sex down her leg. She couldn’t help her body’s reaction to him, or the whimper that left her lips.
“And yet here you are, baby doll, in my grasp…under my power.” His hands cupped her throat, the sharp points of his claws lightly digging into her skin.
