Ellowyn wiped her eyes before physically shaking the vestiges of her pleasure away as she donned the mask of Elyria’s future queen.
Soon, my love. Soon you won’t have to wear that, and we can justbe.
Chapter 61
Rohak
Arap of knuckles sounded on the door to my office in the Academy. Now that Faylinn and I had restored, and maybe even progressed, our previous relationship, I spent the majority of my time here. She seemed to prefer it to the office in the administration building, and I was happy to oblige her.
It’s probably because it has quicker access to the library.
Faylinn had taken to hiding scrolls and books in her shirt and belt, squirreling them away until she reached my office before researching. It never failed to amuse me when she would burst into the room—hair askew and cheeks flushed, eyes alight with mischief and excitement—before removing her stolen haul from random places on her body. I laughed the first time she did it, and ever since that day, she’d taken to trying to fit as many tomes in the most random places possible—all for my amusement.
I love this woman.
“Come in,” I called, my voice startling Faylinn from where her nose was buried in a book. There were faint ink smudges on her face that mixed with the spattering of runes on her skin.
I want to wash that from her skin with my thumb and spit.The thought had my cock stirring in my pants and I quickly redirected my thoughts.
Her eyes were hazy and a bit unfocused as if she was struggling to separate reality from what she was reading.
“Go back to your book, Faylinn,” I called quietly as Lex strode into the room, closing the door behind him. “It’s just Lex.”
She nodded without a word before refocusing on the words in front of her.
Lex looked at the Rune Master splayed out on my floor, her bare feet kicking aimlessly in the air as she read. Every so often, she would scratch something onto one of the crowded pages of her journal.
Lex quirked his eyebrows at me, an obvious question in his eyes. I simply rolled my own even as a faint heat seared my cheeks.
Was it that obvious how I felt for her?
“Have a seat”—I gestured to the chair opposite my desk—“what do you have to report.”
Lex’s gaze darted behind me and his leg bounced in obvious distress.
“Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Faylinn. She arguably knows more about what is happening than I do.”
“Not arguably—I do,” Faylinn called. It wasn’t boastful, just an honest truth. I bowed my head with a smile, the foreign muscles stretching more in the past few weeks than they had in the past twenty years.
Lex’s leg ceased its movement and his lips quirked at the corners before a mask of seriousness fell once more. He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair before raising his eyes to meet mine.
“We just returned from Cellia,” he started, and I nodded my head. “Yes, I received the written report already.” I waved a paper in my hands. One of the older cadets was assigned to scribe what she saw while in Cellia—it was an important skill to have, especially since our reports needed to cover everything while still being succinct and devoid of emotion.
This particular cadet was good, but not great. It was fortunate that I’d read enough reports in my lifetime—and written even more—that I was able to separate the fact from her prose and fill in the gaps.
“Worse than Isrun?”
Lex nodded sharply once, and I heard Faylinn’s small intake of breath.
Sneaky minx is listening, of course.
“Faylinn, if you’re going to eavesdrop on my conversation, why don’t you come join us?” I called. She huffed, and I heard the snap of a book closing before her bare feet shuffled across the black stone floor to my desk. She perched on the end of it, her ass perfectly in my view, before opening her journal to a blank page.
My face must have been stricken and showed all of my emotions because Lex had to stifle a laugh with a well-placed cough. I shot him a halfhearted admonishing look before he sobered and explained to both of us what he saw.
“They’re growing bolder,” Faylinn mused as she wrote the most important pieces in her journal. “We housed a large number of refugees here a few days ago—shortly after you left, actually—and it seems that they’re adjusting well to life in Vespera. The ranks of our military have swollen, and a few even showed enough promise that Rohak allowed them to join the Academy.”
Pride swelled in my chest at her recount of the past week’s events in Vespera. She was so smart, so perceptive.
