I give her a small taunting smile; I know her well enough at this point to know what a powerful motivator challenge is for her.
She retrieves her blade, then recenters herself before lifting her sword to meet mine.
We begin to move again, circling each other, our bare toes pressing against the stone underfoot.
“In class that first day, you told me that storm energy doesn’t want to be static. That it wants to move.” I strike her sword, but this time, she retains her hold on it. “So, if you already know this, why are you trying so hard to make your energy sphere static?”
“Because,” she grunts out, striking my sword this time, “I don’t know how else to control it. When I let it move, I lose my control over it.”
“Then your control is an illusion.” I quote her own words back to her again. “Storms need guidance, not dominance.”
Maeve falters, and I use the gap in her focus to once again send the sword flying from her hands. She grits her teeth as it clatters and slides away from her, clanging across the stone. Then her angry storm-purple eyes meet mine.
“You know these concepts,” I tell her as I lower my blade to my side. “But you don’t yet know how to put them into practice. It’s the difference between learning something in a book and learning it in your bones. It alreadyexists here.” I take a slow step forward, reaching out my fingers to touch Maeve between her eyes. “But not here.” I lower my fingers to her heart, being mindful of the way the serpent around her throat watches me.
And immediately, I sense the shift in her pulse, the sudden burst of blood through her veins as my fingers skim her sternum. My instincts react as her scent overwhelms my senses. The taste of venom is bitter on my tongue.
The snake hisses.
I force myself to take a step back. After a moment of collecting myself, I say, “Do you understand?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Her chest rises and falls with her heaving breathing. The wind and movement have tugged a few strands of hair free from her braids, and they dance around her flushed face.
“I understand the theory,” she finally says. “But I don’t know how to let go without losing my control.”
“Perhaps you don’t need to control. Perhaps you only need to guide.”
Her gaze searches my face. I can see she’s frustrated, but this is exactly my point. Without magic of my own, I can’t teach her the steps to harnessing her power successfully. What Icanteach her is how to find that power within herself.
I take another step back, giving her space. “Pick up your blade.”
At first, she doesn’t move, and I wonder if she’s going to tell me no, give up on these lessons altogether. But finally, she crosses the spire and retrieves her blade. But she doesn’t yet return to me.
With her back to me, she asks quietly, “If I were to ask you to feed on me... would you?”
The question is so startling that I take a step back. My focus narrows to her: the wind toying with the escaped strands of hair, the way her shoulders still rise and falls as she catches her breath, the tight grip on the hilt of her sword.
And her scent. It’s stronger now, like just asking the question aloud sent a burst of adrenaline flowing through her veins.
I clench my jaw, my fangs and gums aching. “That’s not a question to ask lightly.”
“I’m not asking it lightly.” She turns to face me, and the seriousness in her eyes would likely send a smarter man fleeing, jumping right off this tower to escape her.
But I’m not a smart man. Not around her.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking,” I say as she takes a step closer to me.
“Then explain it to me.”
How can I explain such a thing? How can I put into words the raging instinct inside me, the battle I fight every day to restrain myself around her? The rapture I’d feel if my fangs were to puncture her skin?
And the consequences of doing such a thing.
“If I fed from you,” I say slowly, my heart racing at the very thought of it, “I would want more.”
“More blood?” She takes another step forward.
Yes. But that wasn’t what I meant.
