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VORIAN
Humans were mages.
It was the only thing that I could focus on. Lucas had slapped a hand against Kaelum’s mark, and just... used it. Effortlessly. He’d been suddenly a mage, saving Kaelum’s life.
And destroying any hope I’d had for my own.
Beau’s confusion didn’t help, but I forced myself to stillness while the zintari venom burned through my veins. I breathed deep, closed my eyes, and relived the moment once again, when all of Thorzan had changed.
Lucas’s tiny pink fingers splayed across the mark as it flashed bright, and then he shoved me away. The shocked intake of breath all around me, and the ensuing silence.
“The human Lucas is Kaelum’s mate, and he activated his mark. That has not been done on Thorzan since near the time of my birth. Only mages can activate a warrior’s mark, and they died out.” I took a step closer, leaning down to meet his worried green eyes that kept dipping to focus on the injuries left by the zintar. “This changes everything, Beau.Everything.”
“I don’t have magic. I don’t... I don’t know anything about it.” His hand jerked in mine for a moment, as he once again instinctively reached toward the still sluggishly bleeding gouges. “We should take you to a doctor. I’m... I’m sorry I’m not magical. I wish—”
“Try,” I urged him, guiding a hand to my undamaged forearm, and the mark there that let me slow my enemies.
He jerked his hand away the moment it touched my feverish flesh, but then, hesitantly reached back out and brushed his fingers against the mark.
He’d touched them before, during our encounters. If he were going to activate one of my marks, would it not have happened then? But then, knowing my half-brother, I imagined he and Lucas had been going at it like nondti in heat. Stars knew he and his little friend Jax had always been thoroughly open in their affections with each other. How had it happened with those two, at that precise moment? Why?
“What—what did he do?” Beau asked me, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and biting down hard. He stared at the place where his hand was on my mark, and just shook his head. “I don’t feel anything. There’s no... I don’t know, Vorian. I don’t know how to—or even what I’m supposed to be doing.”
His huge green eyes were glistening with tears, so I pulled away, again straightening myself, closing my eyes, and breathing deep. If I could wait, the venom would burn through and my head would clear. There was no purpose to distressing him, my sweet little human. If he was not a mage, that was not his fault.
It was not evenafault.
I wasn’t a mage, nor was anyone else I knew. It was an accident of genetics, so far as I could tell, and perhaps I knew little of genetics, but I had learned from watching Crux’s fumblings that it was a complex subject.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice catching, and it took me a moment to realize my error, opening my eyes and blinking at his luminous green ones, a tear falling from his golden lashes.
He thought that my attempt to calm myself was a rejection.
I went to step toward him, but remembered the gashes on my chest. He probably wouldn’t appreciate being covered in my blood any more than he liked me taking a step back.
Damn it all!
Why was communicating so difficult, even with those whom I wanted to like me?
Especially with them sometimes.
I cupped his cheek in one palm, before realizing it was still dirty from balancing on the jungle floor. It left an obscene smudge on his soft skin, marring his beauty. That was what my touch did to him. It was why I never saddled anyone with my affection.
Being Kaelum’s mate and mage was about to make Lucas the human one of the most celebrated creatures on Thorzan. Caring for me had landed Beau in a box, eating travel rations and sopping up the scraps of affection I dared show him when Crux wasn’t looking.
“You—” I started, but then realized I had no idea what to say. How to make it better. I shook my head and held my back stiff and straight as I told him, “You have done nothing. It is not your fault you’ve been saddled with me for a warrior. No doubt with a different warrior, you will not have this problem.”
His eyes went wide, but clearly that had also been the wrong thing to say. “No! No, I’m sorry. Don’t send me away. I can try again. I can do it right—”
The fear in his voice had me pulling away, reeling back. Was he—was he afraid of me? He, one of the only people I had ever tried my bestnotto instill fear in? He, the softest sweetest creature, whom only a monster like Crux would want to hurt?
I could see the whites all around his eyes, hear his raspy breathing, and it had me backing against the door, holding up my hands as though he were a raging zintar and I a helpless non-warrior. “Beau—”
“No, I’ll try again,” he said, reaching out a hand.
I couldn’t deal with another failure. Not with this, not with Beau, not now.
With humans proven to be capable mages, no doubt the palace would send guards to take Beau away, to bond him with a worthy warrior. Onetheythought worthy. That grinning fool Jax, possibly.
