His eyes snapped to me. “Darkness?”
“Yes. Why? What’s wrong with that?”
He shook his head, but he looked unsettled. “Nothing. It’s just… an unusual manifestation of my power.”
“Why are you surprised? You told me to use it in the cave during the first Trial.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“I heard your…” Buthadit been Kilian’s voice I’d heard? To be fair, I hadn’t been the most clear-headed in the first challenge.
“I spoke to you before you went into the cave, but not while you were in there. I felt your pain when the creature attacked you and then the link went silent. Remember?” Kilian was giving me a strange look, like he was trying to figure something out.
“Maybe I’m mistaken.” I gave an airy laugh, hoping it concealed my unease. Perhaps it had been the same voice I’d heard on the summit, when practicing with Septimus? But if it wasn’t from Kilian, then where did it come from? I was too disturbed to think more on it and Kilian was eyeing me like I was mad. “Anyway. You were saying?”
He was still looking quizzically at me, but he said, “I’m going to send a small shock through you. You’re going to draw on the link. Since you’ve handled shadows before, I’d suggest using that to smother the current.”
“Is it going to hurt?”
“It shouldn’t, if you diffuse it correctly.”
I inhaled deeply, letting my eyes drift shut. All it did was heighten my other senses. And he invaded each and every one of them. His hand, callused against mine. His scent. The power radiating from him. It made thinking of anything elseverydifficult.
A tingle jolted through my palm, and my eyes flew open in surprise.
“You’re not concentrating.”
I frowned. “That hurt.”
“No, it didn’t. You need to focus.”
Focus. I needed to focus. My life was quite literally dependent on me learning this skill. Mine and the other candidate’s lives. I had to pay attention so I could tell them all how to do it. I needed to not imagine his hand sliding up my arm and trailing down to my waist. If he might pull me onto his lap after and let me straddle him. How he’d feel beneath me. If he’d suck on my pulse point until–
“Fucking hell, Lirah. You’re going to kill me.”
“I told you we shouldn’t practice together,” I said churlishly.
“If you could keep your thoughts out of the gutter, this would be a lot more straightforward.”
“Maybe you should stop breaking into my head and let me concentrate.”
“Maybe if your thoughts weren’t so fucking loud, I’d be able to ignore them.”
“Maybe–”
“Shut up.” His hands were on my waist then, and he drew me toward him so quickly I hardly registered the movement. My knees fell on either side of him, and he closed the gap between us instantly. His lips were on mine, unhurried. A gentle reunion after last night’s hasty departure.
“Don’t tell me to shut up,” I muttered, running my hands through his hair.
“Never shut up.” He pulled me against him, deepening the kiss.
I rocked my hips against his and he groaned into my mouth. He dropped his head to my neck, his tongue laving over my pulse, better than anything I’d imagined.
“This isn’t the sort of practice I thought we’d be doing today,” I gasped.
“Tell me to stop.”
“Never stop.”
