Because the next thing Elyria knew, his lips were crashing into hers again—immediate, imminent, urgent. Cedric’s entire body lurched forward, pressing her into the doorframe.
She loved it.
Loved the feel of the wood biting into her back. Loved the softness of his hair between her fingers as she raked her hands through it. Loved the pressure of his free hand running up her side, gripping her waist, digging into her skin, while his other one stayed in place, fingers gripping the doorframe so hard she heard the wood creak.
“Cedric,” she murmured against his mouth, and he groaned asthough hearing her say his name was the key to his very undoing.
Heat flared in Elyria’s core.
Flared elsewhere, too, she realized.
Because, suddenly, the glorious warmth of his body against hers was a littletoowarm. The hand on her waist was a littletoohot. And their scorching kiss was a littletooscorching.
It was burning.
And Elyria didn’t mean to do it, but a soft hiss of pain escaped her anyway.
In an instant, Cedric ripped himself away from her, cursing under his breath. The air around him shimmered, heat rolling off him in palpable waves. He fisted his hands at his sides, eyes closed, breathing sharply in through his nose and out through his mouth.
A few moments passed before his breath steadied, his hands relaxed. The heat in the air began to dissipate.
But Elyria could see it. Could see the guilt brewing on his handsome face. Could see the questions, the seeds of regret already planting themselves in his mind.
She refused to let them.
Elyria ignored the pain that flashed across her burned lips as she smirked, tilted her head appraisingly, and said, “Seems like that’s something you might want to get under control.”
Cedric tried to chuckle, but it came out ragged, broken. “Tell me how, and I’ll oblige.”
“See, now that is anexcellentattitude to have,” she said with a wink.
Despite her best efforts to breeze past the moment, Cedric’s face fell. His voice was little more than a whisper when he said, “It’s getting harder for me to control. It wasn’t like this before. But after last night...” His breathing began to quicken again, his eyes widening with panic. “I don’t understand this magic. Don’t know where it came from. Don’t know how to wield it.”
Elyria didn’t realize she’d made the conscious decision to call them, but suddenly her shadows were drifting from her fingers, wrapping around Cedric’s arm, dancing up his shoulder, grazing his jaw. They settled over him, a blanket of cooling smoke, and he relaxed.
“Hmm,” Elyria tutted, making a show of tapping her chin as shepulled her shadows back, letting them recede into the ether. “If only there were someone of whom you might ask such things.” She reached for his mana token, glowing faintly against his chest, and toyed with it between her fingers. “If only there were an entire delegation of magic wielders who recently arrived in your fair city.”
Cedric gave her a pointed look, already so familiar to her now, and her chest felt lighter than it had in months.
“You don’t even need this anymore, do you?” she said, voice feather soft as she dropped the token, her fingers moving to his collarbone instead. “Is that what you’re afraid of? What scares you most? That it might mean you’re not?—”
“Yes,” he said, the word sharp, cutting her off. “Yes, that is exactly what I am afraid of.”
“Cedric, you?—”
She didn’t get to finish the thought. Not as footsteps sounded from down the hallway, voices echoing off the walls. Cedric sprang farther back from her, his head shooting toward the source of the sound, posture straightening, the sudden space between them a chasm all its own.
And Elyria didn’t second-guess herself when she slipped into her room, the door clicking shut behind her.
For a moment, she thought she heard the shuffle of pacing footsteps—back and forth, back and forth—in front of her door. Thought she might have felt a hand being laid on the other side of it.
Thought she heard him mutter, “But that’s not what scares me most.”
PART II
SOLACE
13
