His icy eyes grew dark.
And she was so tired of him. The thing inside her—her magic—swirled in a tempest, locked behind her ribs. She was so tempted to let it free. But the sea was calm, and the ship sailed onward. She wouldn’t ruin it all again with her chaos.
Though, just one thing slipped free.
A whisper of air, curling from her fingertips, rising to meet him. Shefeltit, but none of them saw it. Not until that tendril of air grew and grew, turning to harsh gusts that made them all stumble.
She felt as the air wrapped around the mage’s wrists, too perfect to be normal.
For just one moment, she felt pleased, and a tiny smile fell upon her lips, before the air dissolved into nothingness. All without her permission.
"It’s true," Graves proclaimed from his spot leaning against a pole. The ropes were wrapped around his fists.
"What is?" she inquired.
"Pleasure made you call in your storm," Vale said simply.
"Then we’ll just have to make sure she stays pleasured," Tharen interjected.
Luella spluttered, picking at a loose thread in her billowy breeches. "W-why is that any of your concern?"
It was Graves who answered her. "If you aren’t kept calm, then your storms could return and we could die before we reach our destination." He didn’t sound very saddened by that prospect, however.
She knew they weren’t wrong, but, once again, intimacy was the topic of conversation for them all. She wasn’t used to this.
Luella found her eyes drifting to the vampire on the other side of Az. "How do you feel about this?"
"If it is what you want, pet." Bastian’s eyelids fell shut, pained. "Though, I am afraid it is what must happen. I’m sorry if you feel forced into this."
Bastian’s answer made her heart clench. "Az?" she whispered.
"If you don’t want this, say the word, and I’ll make sure you get whatever it is you need or want," her demon replied.
It was what she had been searching for—someone on her side. Even though she knew they were all right. Even though she knew she would… give in.
She swallowed.
"Easy words fallen from the lips of one who has had her," Graves rasped.
"No one has had me," Luella interjected quietly.
But she caught Tharen’s eyes, and something within their icy depths made her look away.
"If no one has had you, why do you smell so sweet?" Graves ran a hand over his jaw, and she couldn’t help but notice how weary he appeared.
"Leave her alone," Az snapped roughly.
"You can all—" She broke off when they all looked to her, shoulders curving inward, wings fluttering. "You can smell… t-that?"
Footsteps thumped across the deck, and a shadow was cast upon the wood as Graves crouched before her, an ungloved hand reaching for her face, tipping her chin up to meet his eyes. "More than scent it," the raven shifter revealed. She couldn’t stand being trapped by his gaze, so she looked to the swirling amulet at his chest, so similar to the one she wore for her dreams; though, her dreams hadn’t been very… prophetic as of late. "We felt it."
"Like how I feel all of you?" she hedged.
Graves’s dark brow arched in question.
"What do you feel?" Vale demanded.
"I feel everything, as I’ve already told you. Right now, I feel how hungry Bastian is; I feel Az’s sweetness; I feel"—she looked up from under her lashes at Graves—"how terrified you are."
