Page 7 of Blossoms and Bloodlines
It was a completely normal question, even more so from a high elf with earth affinity, but she stared at him like she’d rather chew nails than speak to him directly.
And then she smiled the most patronizing smile ever recorded for a human. “I do,” she said.
That was it. No elaboration whatsoever. Not a lifeline of small talk he could grab onto to save himself from this conversational nosedive.
He swallowed.
“What are you up to?” A beat. “I mean–” he cleared his throat, hating how awkward his voice sounded, “what are you working on in there?”
Beth’s smile widened, honey-sweet and laced with arsenic. “Pruning overgrowth,” she shrugged. “You know, making sure everything has the space to thrive, regardless.”
Oh, she would love to prune him out of existence, that much was clear.
Gael nodded once, tightly. Beth turned to Aryon, ignoring him as thoroughly as possible. “I’ll get you more tea, and if it’s okay, I’ll take off after that.”
She left, and Gael resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands.
Thankfully, Aryon didn’t say a word about that interaction.
They talked a little longer–about the meeting, about what waited ahead. Gael mentioned he would be leaving in a few days, itching to get back to the work waiting for him. It was easier to talk about logistics and duty than suffocating under the weight of the worst conversation he’d ever had.
Beth brought their teas over, moving with her usual efficiency, a towel slung over one shoulder. She set Aryon’s glass down first, then turned to him. When she passed his glass across the table, their hands brushed. A brief contact, nothing intentional, barely a whisper of skin against skin.
But it stopped him cold.
Gael had never touched her before. No handshake, no accidental brush of shoulders, no excuse to bridge the space between them. And yet now, now that it had happened, it had cracked him open from the inside. His skin flared like it had never been touched before, not like this. Not just heat, not simply want. Elves weren’t cold, exactly. But they were taught to temper emotions and treat pleasure like a measured, exquisite,and controlled art. Desire wasn’t meant to burn and destroy but this, this was crude, immediate, and inescapable starvation.
It didn’t stop at his hand, oh no. The heat spiraled down, sharp and unrelenting, coiling low in his loins and dragging something visceral to the surface, something Gael hadn’t let loose in years if ever.
Not just attraction. Not just lust.Her.
The shape of her wrist. The warmth of her skin. The faint, clean scent rising from her throat, something sun-warmed and human, and not crafted for seduction. Which somehow made it worse. Her energy spilled into him and it wasn’t the precise, tempered power of an elf. It was messy and radiant. Warm where he was cool. Soft where he was stone.
His thoughts didn’t stand a chance to catch up with what his body dictated with a snarl. To take her. Not carefully. Not elegantly, but in a way that would never be considered proper—not by his people, possibly not by anyone.
And that, more than anything, terrified him.
He snatched his hand back instinctively, clenched it into a fist, and hid it in his lap.
Control. Years of discipline. It was barely enough to keep his face from betraying him.
Beth noticed, anyway. Of course she noticed. Her gaze flicked to his retreating hand, her mouth tightening slightly. She probably thought he didn’t want to touch her. Would probably chalk it up to disdain. Didn’t know—couldn’tknow—that the problem wasn’t distance, it was need. Brutal, consuming need. To lean in, to chase the warmth of her touch and drown in it. Instead, he sat there, motionless, while she still burned on his skin.
Beth turned away, allowed only a glance over her shoulder in his direction. A glance sharp enough to leave another scar he’d pretend didn’t exist.
Gael watched her go, every instinct in him stretched taut between duty and something far, far more dangerous.
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Just let the moment carve itself into his soul.
And said nothing.
BETH WALKED FROM THEpub to her cottage under a wide, clear sky. Time feel unhurried while the sunlight filtered through the trees in soft, golden stripes. The air was warm and faintly sweet with pine and distant wildflowers. Birds chirped like nosy neighbors. A squirrel crash-landed on the undergrowth with zero grace and full enthusiasm.
It was a twenty-minute walk, one she still loved come snow, high winds, or summer sun. It gave her time to breathe, to shrug the day off her shoulders and scatter it along the trees.
She turned off the main road and into her quiet little lane canopied by green. The noise, the thoughts, even her pulse softened there. The tip of her cottage roof came into view, then the whole front slightly slanted from age, framed in thick ivy and stubborn roses she never had the heart to trim back.
