I wasn’t giving her back.
Not ever.
“What was that at the end?” she asked quietly.
I looked down.
Her moonbeam eyes stared up at me beneath the storm-lit darkness, wide and uncertain and still flushed from pleasure.
Fuck.
Beautiful.
“The blue sparks,” she continued softly. “And that feeling like… like something was squeezing me toward you.”
Her voice dropped lower on the last part.
Almost shy.
I frowned slightly.
“I thought that was you,” I admitted. “Your magic.”
“But I don’t have magic like that.”
Immediately, I disagreed.
Not verbally at first.
Instinctively.
Violently.
Because the idea that Amrin thought herself powerless after what I’d just felt between us bordered on absurdity.
“Luna,” I said carefully, brushing tangled curls away from her face, “you are far more powerful than you realize.”
“Well, that’s not true,” she replied quickly, already shaking her head.
The movement alone told me this argument wasn’t new.
This wasn’t insecurity born tonight.
This was old.
Conditioned.
Carved into her over years of comparison and disappointment.
“I don’t want you thinking you’re getting some kind of bargain with me, Sten,” she continued, words rushing faster now.
“Other Witches here have incredible affinities. My sisters all made excellent matches because of what they could offer their husbands and their positions in the Coven.”
My jaw tightened instantly.
Husbands.
Offer.
