Page 85 of Wretched Thorns

He set the working in motion the way Tara had taught him. Without rushing. Without forcing. The bayou stabilizer lit up under the chalk in a slow warm seam he could see at the edge of vision. The trail-sigil at the center answered.

The architecture rose.

That was the only word he had for it. The bond didn’t open with the working. It built. Eli watched it build from inside his own chest. Walls. Ceiling. A place neither of them had been before.

A library came up around him at the edge of perception and resolved.

***

Three walls of shelves running up to a ceiling higher than any ceiling he’d stood under in his life. Candles. A stone hearth with a fire he hadn’t built. Books in languages older than Sumerian, Aramaic and Nod. His historian’s brain noted the impossibility and, for the first time in his life, decided not to comment on it.

She was already there.

She was at the long oak reading-table at the center of the room, in a dark green wrap dress he’d never seen her wear, hair down across her shoulders, her hand flat to the wood. She lifted her head.

“Hi, Eli,” she said.

“Serena.”

“You built this.”

“Tara and I built it. The architecture is mine. The stabilizer, foundation, is hers.”

“Tara’s with you?”

She walked around the table and stopped beside him. The silver thread stirred the second she got close. He could feel the strain in her through it now almost as clearly as his own body. Exhaustion. Anger. The careful steadiness she’d been carrying since her last bout with Marcus.

“Eli.”

“Yes, beautiful.”

“I don’t have a lot of time.”

“I know.”

“He tried to take... He’ll be back.”

“I know.”

“Tell me why we're here.”

He took her face in his hands.

“I’m going to tell you what I plan to do,” he said. His thumbs along her cheekbones. His forehead against hers. “Stop me if you want me to stop. Tell me to skip if you want me to skip.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to undress you first.”

She closed her eyes. Her hand came up to his wrist.

“Then I’m going to put my mouth on the place at your throat where Jasper put his. And the dip of your collarbone where Callum put his. And the inside of your thigh where I put my hand in the grove.”

She made a sound at the back of her throat.

“Then I’m going to put my hand between your thighs and make you come on it. Once. Something for you to hold on to until we get there.”

“Eli.”