The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

“Lie,” I said, rubbing my chin on his chest. “You like it when I talk dirty to you.”

He shuddered as I bit his nipple. “Okay, Sam,” he said, and I didn’t think I could love him any more than I did right then.

LATER, AFTER we cleaned ourselves and stripped the bed, we lay side by side, heads upon the same pillow, breaths mingling, noses brushing together. It certainly wasn’t home: the bed was too soft, the room creaked differently, the sounds of the brothel weren’t the same as the sounds of a castle. But Ryan was here with me, and that was as close to home as I’d ever needed.

And it was about to be taken away from me. At least for a little while.

“I hate Randall,” I told him seriously. “And Morgan.” It was the first time either of us had spoken in a while.

“I don’t think you do,” he said, tracing my eyebrows with a finger. “You say you do, but you’re all talk sometimes.”

“I feel like that was an insult.”

“Probably. But it wasn’t. Mostly.”

“How comforting.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t like it. But I can kind of see his point.”

That… wasn’t what I expected. “Say what now?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Sam. At least hear me out.”

“I always do.”

“You’re still sort of glaring at me.”

“Yeah. That’s probably not going to change.”

He laughed quietly. “I don’t doubt it.”

“Speak, Foxheart, before I kick you out of bed.”

The mirth slid from his face. “You didn’t….” He sighed. “You didn’t see yourself. Not like I did. After what happened with Myrin. You don’t know what it was like to have to find you buried under all that rubble. To see your body twisted. To see you breathing so slowly that I thought you weren’t breathing at all at first. Do you know what that was like?” His eyes were bright. “And then… to see those scars upon you.”

I tensed, trying to fold in on myself in an attempt to hide them away. We were still nude, and for the first time in days, I hadn’t even thought of them. Sure, I’d felt them pulling when we’d fucked, but it had been negligible, a whisper at the back of my head.

“No,” he said, reaching up to cup my face, stopping me from curling away from him. “Sam, don’t do that. Don’t hide from me. You know I don’t care about them.”

“You sure just made it sound like you did.”

He was frustrated. I could see it on his face. “Not like that,” he said. “I don’t care what you look like.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Sam.”

I winced. “Sorry.”

“They’re part of you. I hate how you got them, but I’ll never hate how they look. But maybe Randall and Morgan are right. Your magic. It’s… big, Sam. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen, and from what it sounds like, bigger than even they expected. And if Randall of all people is telling you that, we should probably listen to him.”

I scowled at him, even though I knew he was telling the truth. And the problem with him telling the truth was that I was keeping so much from him. From everyone, really. And not because I didn’t trust them. No. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course I trusted Ryan. And Randall. And Morgan. And even if the latter two had lied to me about so many things, I knew they’d done so in order to protect me.

Which is what I was telling myself I was doing for them.

I almost believed it too.

“You’re my cornerstone,” I said. “We shouldn’t be separated. Not this soon.”