Page 110 of Anomalies

“Lucky me,” I fire back, my arm locking around her waist when she threatens to get up. “Wait, wait, I’m sorry,” I breathe. “Stay, please stay.”

She settles back in my lap, keeping her arms crossed over her chest. “Where. Were. You.”

I take a deep breath. The soreness in my lungs still hasn’t gone away, and the only thing that can heal me right now is this woman and sleep. A lot of it.

“We were in the mines when the storm hit.” I trace circles on her thigh to remind myself that I’m here. I’m home. “The walls came down on us when we were feet from the exit. Phoenix and Devon made it out, but Easton and I…got stuck. We had a small pocket of air that we managed to ration for four days, but Phoenix and Devon still hadn’t found us when the air ran out.”

“That’s when you and Easton summoned your Velkans,” she mutters almost to herself, and my brows furrow.

“How did you know that?”

“Pa told us.”

Chiaros, no wonder Pax looked so relieved to see me, and no wonder she had tears in her eyes when she stumbled out of the bathroom. They truly thought we were dead.

“Yeah…we uh—our Velkans were able to buy us time.” I rest my hands on her thighs. “When Easton and I came to, Phoenix and Devon had dug us out. We had to wait in the bunker until the storm cleared, but Lucina, I couldn’t get back here fast enough.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, the tip of her tongue darting out across her bottom lip, and without thinking, I reach for one of the curls falling over her shoulders, mindlessly twisting it around my finger. Her hair is as wild and perfect as she is, and impossible not to touch.

“Did you find anything?” she asks, and the strand of hair falls from my fingertips.

“Yes.” We found a problem. A big one. “There’s a blood ward. Rogues put it up around the Palace.”

I can see thoughts churning behind her bright hazel eyes. “I’m guessing that means⁠—"

“We can’t cross it. Only their kind can.” My chest falls as I exhale, and she tracks the movement. “We were feet away from the wall we needed to get through, and even if we could find a way past the ward, the mine entrance is caved in now. Everything collapsed.” I run a hand over my face, then I let it fall back down to her thigh, a lump forming in my throat. “My father is on the other side of that wall.”

Her eyes meet mine, scanning my own as if she’s searching for a solution. That’s just the kind of person she is, empathetic to a fault. Vicarious to other people’s problems as if she has the responsibility to solve them. She doesn’t. Growing up, I think there were a lot of things she was responsible for, things she was too young to carry, but now that weight is familiar to her. And it shouldn’t be.

“You’re going to figure it out,” she says, and it isn’t a question.

“I’m going to figure it out,” I repeat back to her. A few breaths pass between us, unhurried. Everything is unhurried around her. Peaceful even. “Speaking of figuring things out.” I toy with the fabric of her dress. “Pax said you’ve been holed up in my office, pouring over Vaelith?”

Lucina huffs, blowing a smaller curl out of her face, then her sun-kissed shoulders fall. “It was a good distraction.”

“I was worried about you, too.” Her gaze softens at that, relief shining back at me in those big, beautiful eyes. My hands roam instinctively, finding her hips, then she flashes a heart-stopping smile.

It takes me a minute to catch my breath. Even longer to think of what to say next. “I was glad to see that your punching bags survived. Are you going to show me what you’ve learned?”

There’s a wicked glimmer in her stare, and with a long and drawn-out sigh, she loosens her hold on that beast beneath her skin, as if it’s nothing. As if what’s in her blood isn’t unprecedented. Preternatural. Matchless. It won’t matter how many times I witness it; I’ll never pinpoint its bounds, and I’ll forever be in awe of it.

With a sharp crack, the lanterns around the room go dark, and for a moment our faces are lit only by the full moonlight streaming through the windows⁠—

And then they’re lit by fire.

A flame dances in the palm of her hand, twisting and swirling across her skin. She pulls it up to her pointer finger, entirely in her control, then she lets it flicker there.

Heat flares through the fabric of her dress as that stunning magic of hers makes her skin hot to the touch, but I’d rather burn than take my hands away.

A ravishing flush hits her cheeks when I whistle low. “Look at you.”

She lets the flame linger a little longer, and I watch her watch the fire until I’m almost jealous of the attention she gives it. Gods, if she looked at me that way, screw Gemma’s plans, she’d be mine for the entire night. Mine indefinitely if it were up to me, but it’s not.

Her decision, I remind myself, when she gives light back to the lanterns, and I’m nearly blinded by the need to kiss her. Just to remind myself of what it’s like. But what if she doesn’t let me ever again? My fingers dig into her hips as if that might keep her here, exactly where she’s meant to be.

Lucina’s breath catches when my grip tightens, and I almost lose it entirely. She has to feel the same way. I think I’ll die if she doesn’t.

“I’m scared of the way you make me feel,” she confesses out of the thickening silence, and all the air is knocked from my lungs.