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The answer earned him a smile. The look he gave me afterwards carried more heat than another joke could have managed.
Stellan sat on the curved bench and drew me between his knees. His hand moved from mine to my hip while the other rested at the back of my neck.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
I did.
His thumb stroked once under my hair. “Listen to the spring.”
Water bubbled against stone. I heard the small splash where it entered the pool and the softer rush of the channel outside. Nothing unusual.
Then Stellan opened his senses to me.
The garden became loud.
The first rush made me grip his shoulders. Stellan’s arm tightened around my waist and held me steady. I worked out which sounds belonged close to us and which travelled from the passages. Nothing blurred together. There was simply far more of the world than I usually noticed.
Water rushed under the floor in several separate streams. Rose stems creaked as they turned towards the gate. Far beyond them, metal touched stone with a thin scrape.
A guard shifted his sword.
Someone breathed through his mouth. Adrian’s slower breath came from farther away. I could pick each sound apart as easily as voices in a quiet room.
Under all of it, my heartbeat filled my ears.
I opened my eyes. “That’s unsettling.”
Stellan’s hand stayed warm at my neck. “You’re trying to hear everything. Choose one sound.”
I closed my eyes again and found the spring. The other noises dropped back. Water moved somewhere under my boots, warm from the rock and rising towards the pool.
“I can hear where it comes from.”
“Good. Now the roses.”
I followed the dry movement along the wall. One flower opened near my shoulder. Its petals brushed each other with a whisper I would never have noticed alone.
Stellan plucked it from the vine.
The tiny snap sounded sharp. The rose touched my cheek a moment later.
“You cheated,” I said.
“I gave you something worth listening for.”
He drew the flower slowly along my jaw. My skin caught every change in pressure. The velvet surface of each petal felt distinct, followed by the cooler edge where the rose turned.
I also felt the exact shape of his fingers around the stem and the faint movement of his breath against my temple. Borrowing his senses meant borrowing his attention. For those few seconds, every part of it rested on me.
His borrowed senses made the touch spread farther than it ought to have. Heat travelled down my throat and settled under my jumper.
“Is touch always this strong for you?”
“When I’m feeding or aroused. At the moment, both memories are close.”
His voice reached me in layers. I heard the movement of his mouth, the faint brush of a fang against his lower lip and the deeper vibration in his chest.
I opened my eyes.
