Chapter 117 Blood magic
LYS
The roar was a new symptom of whatever was wrong with my body. The light too. It had never burned so bright.
Worse, it happened right in the presence of someone who was not Finn.
I was dying. I was losing my mind. It was the ritual. Those shadows had warned me. I was not taking it seriously enough.
Why had I been cuddling with him, trading stories in intimate whispers? It was supposed to be sex. Just sex.
If I had kept it at that I would not have been seized by that jealousy. That odd feeling of fierce possessiveness the moment he said he was only a romantic for his queen.
Why did I even care? I had never cared. In fact, I always enjoyed hearing all about the woman who I had now come to admire, a woman who could keep the feared dragon in her clutch for years.
The heat burned hotter now, washing over me like I was in a lava-filled bathtub. My eyes burned, hot as real flames and inside my body, Rhea warred, struggling against an unknown weight.
I screamed suddenly because something snapped, an explosion that made my body burst into flames.
And that was the last I remembered.
When I opened my eyes again, silver pools were gazing down at me, a wall of hard flesh boxing me in warmth. As seconds passed, I recognized the wet pebbles hitting my face as water. Mordaine was sitting under the shower, holding me in his arms.
I moved immediately, my heart racing, the room swimming around me as I tried to get off him. But he pinned me in place with no effort at all.
I struggled harder though, unafraid for the first time. I still had this illogical desire to please him, kiss his feet and do whatever he asked. But right now, my own sense of self-preservation seemed to trump every other instinct.
“Please let me go.”
He just watched me, keeping me boxed in his arms as the water beat down on both of us.
“Please.” The first tear slipped.
I had to move out of this bedroom till Hale returned. The only way to protect my heart was avoiding private moments with one man. I had agreed to sex and nothing more, so he could not stop me.
“You cannot run away from me. Not again.”
I froze. Did he read my thoughts? He promised to never do that.
“On your knees.” He pulled his hands away from me. I whimpered, but slid off his body and lowered to kneel on the cold bathroom tiles. I gazed up at him.
He was fully dressed, damp clothes clinging to him, his lashes fuller and lazy from the wetness. He leaned forward on the shower bench.
“I believe that wasn't the first time you experienced that.”
I bit my lip. “It has never been that bad.”
“Mm.” He nodded away, and then turned back to me. “You never thought to tell me, why?”
My spine stiffened.
What did he mean? Why would he care about something like that, care about a mere Ascendant who he had barely known for two weeks?
Maybe Hale would have cared, but him?
“You are mine!” he barked then. I shivered, crashing back on my heels, but he caught me immediately, and righted me again.
I was shivering like a leaf in the wind.
It was no news that he was a raging creature, perpetually angry and at the cusp of violence. Since I met him, he had been curt, snapped, but he had never once barked loudly at me.
And I was sobbing now. Embarrassing sob because my body was a riot. I felt emotions too many to name.
“I respect your agency, Lys.” His voice felt like a grater against my skin even though it was quiet and low. “I never read your thoughts, or track your activities except this," he poked my chest with his pointer finger, touching the spot where my heart was racing, "pulls my attention to you. The one time I went in your dreams, I did so with your permission?”
“Yes,” I said through my tears.
“Then why did you bloody keep this away from me?” He was cursing, cursing. I was in a danger zone. “Do you understand what this means? That I would have to resort to asking for details about your bathroom breaks.”
I whimpered, unable to form the words.
“I should. I should have you tell me the littlest details, if you thought the sky was too grey, if your shower was too cold, if you’re having a bad hair day.”
I wiped my cheeks quickly, inhaling through my mouth as my entire face burned hot. He had never been this mad, said so many words at the same time.
“Why do I have to find out something like this about my wife by accident?”
My body shivered. There was a force he usually put in those two words, my wife, that made all species of butterflies take flight in my belly, even in moments like this where I was terrified.
“When did you first experience this?”
“My first morning here.”
“Yet, you said nothing.” His voice was tight, strained.
I bit my lip. “I thought little of it as it happens to all Ascendants, and it….”
“What?” he spoke over me, his face twisting like a wrinkled fabric. “What are you talking about?”
I stared. Suddenly unsure of myself. “Finn said that was…”
He raised his hand, his eyes flashing brightly now, a bright gold that made me want to flee in the opposite direction. He will kill me, roar and project flames to burn me to crisp like that skinwalker.
“You told Finn.” It was not a question.
“No.” I blurted, my heart thudding at the realization of what he must be thinking. “He saw it, in the…”
My cheeks burned as my mouth turned dry. I could not bring myself to complete the statement.
But he understood.
We stayed quiet for a while, him on the shower bench, staring down at me with a look that read like he was reminding himself of all the reasons killing me would be non-beneficial.
Finally, he yanked me back up into his lap in one swift move.
“I had a sister once.” His low voice seemed to make the bathroom swell. “When us dragons outnumbered you wolves. She had wanderer lust and would fly far away to distant places.”
“On one of these directionless trips, she met a werewolf. There was a big pack of them in the Slavic region at the time, and for weeks, no one caught sight of her.”
I was breathing more evenly now, listening under the still running shower.
“The silly goose finally returned to us in the mountains. And in a few days, mother noticed something was different about her. She had…” he inhaled, his eyes gazing in the space before us as if trying to remember the details. “...this thing you just experienced.”
His gaze met mine again.
“She had bound herself to this wolf lover with some blood magic.”
He stopped and with a sinking feeling, I realized he was not going to tell me more. A shutter seemed to come down in his eyes.
“What I am trying to say here is this. What you're experiencing now has nothing to do with the Ascension. I don’t know what Finn told you, but all our Ascendants live perfectly normal lives till the moment they die.”
I stiffened in his arms. That was worse. Because if this was not the ritual, what could be wrong with me?
“Forget about the details.” He was staring right in my eyes now. “What you need now is a solution to this, right?”
I nodded quickly, her heart beating with new hope.
“Control is your solution. You are not just any werewolf anymore. You are bigger, better. I will teach you.”
His words made no sense. How was I better than a werewolf? And what did that have to do with his sister?
But he was right. I did not care for anything as long as I got control over my body again.