Page 75 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

The dream came back to me with a fierceness I did not expect, carrying a pain I found hard to bear. I had forgotten it—the happiness, the love, the life I could have had in Darkwatch if everything had been different. It fled from my mind in the moments after waking.

He looked down at me with a worried expression. "Are you okay, Sera?"

The question surprised me. I had made no outward sign of distress. I didn't think I was shaking. "I'm fine," I lied. "Why?"

He studied me for a long while, as though looking for something amiss, but then he relaxed. "I don't know. I just…" He ran his hand through his dark hair, pushing the strands back only to have them fall directly into place over his forehead again.

I loved his hair—the way it always seemed out of sorts, but in an absolutely perfect way.

He was still studying me as I reached up and slid my fingers through it. I thought I had always wanted to do that. Maybe since the beginning of time, before creation had even dreamt of this dark-eyed god, there had been my desire to tousle his hair.

"I got the strangest feeling," he finally finished.

"What do you mean?" I asked absently. My thoughts were thoroughly preoccupied with the way his hair slid through my fingers and how good it felt just to have him in my hands.

"I had the impression that you were sad, but—" he smiled, "—now you're so happy I can almost taste it."

I wrinkled my brow and gave him a disbelieving look. "What in the world does that mean?"

"I don't know," he admitted as the smile faded from his features a little.

"So, is this an ability you have? To taste people's emotions? Like Rae can see into people’s minds?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I’ve never had a sage’s abilities before. And it wasn't precisely a taste. It's hard to explain, but It’s like I can feel what you’re feeling."

I moved on from his hair, trailing my fingers down his jawline and over the cleft in his chin—raking a nail down the faint hint of where I knew that comma-shaped dimple would appear beside his mouth when he smiled that smile.

"You have all the elemental magic and then some, right?

So who's to say you don't also have a sage's ability? "

"Fair point," he said, thoughtfully.

"So, perhaps whatever it is that gives you more power than most people—"

"Only most people?" He raised a brow, feigning wounded pride.

"Well, I don't know how powerful you are comparatively," I pointed out, laughing.

He gave me a pretentious smirk. "Very powerful, comparatively, Sera darling."

"You're trying to impress me."

"You set me up to do just that."

"I suppose I did. I do like the idea of you being better than everyone."

He laughed, but my words were all too true.

I loved the idea of his power—beneath my hands, him looking at me with that dark, worshipful gaze.

It oddly felt like it gave me some kind of power to be on the other end of that look.

"Tell me about your magic," I said, giving him my own worshiping look as the exploration of my hands continued down his neck.

He took a breath, catching my hand as it slid down over the broad plane of his chest. "I am powerless when you touch me like that."

He brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them so tenderly, so sweetly, that it made my heart ache with fierce longing for that other world—that dream that could never be.

He narrowed his eyes—as though he sensed the pain that had lanced through my chest. I was suddenly sure that he had.

"What do you want to know about it?" he asked.

"Well, for starters, what can you do?" I asked, excitedly. "Like, how do you extinguish a lantern with your finger?"

He smiled. "That's just a little push of air."

I sat up, resting on my bent knees. "Show me something."

He sighed, but he sat up and held his hand out, palm up. A droplet began to form in the center until it was a pool of crystal-clear water.

When it was nearly overflowing, the puddle exploded into a thousand drops that spread out across the room. The air chilled, freezing the droplets into fat snowflakes that began to fall all around the bed.

I smiled, watching the flurry around us.

In an instant, a warm wind kicked up. The snow disappeared into little clouds of vapor as sparks of fire danced in the air. Objects around the room began to lift; a cup, one of my boots, a tin of soap, the unlit candle on the nightstand, my shirt. They all rose and slowly circled the room above us.

I looked at him, narrowing my eyes. "Show off," I teased.

He laughed, and the objects clattered to the floor.

"What else?" I said.

He gave me a look as though to say is that not enough? But I only waited, knowing his little tricks were the tip of the iceberg of power that lay under his skin.

"Well, that was fire, air, and water. There is earth, but that’s not something you want to play around with when you're on the second floor of a ramshackle little brothel. Life, you've seen. It allows me to heal, and I can make things grow, revive dead plants and make them whole again."

"I did that once!" I said excitedly. I told him about the faint memory I had of the flower I brought back to life in the vase.

He looked thoughtful as he toyed with the cuff on my wrist. "I look forward to seeing what you can do, Sera. If my sense of what's behind these damned things is right, you might just put my own abilities to shame."

"So, is that all of them?" I asked, somehow embarrassed by his assertion that I might be more powerful than him.

"No," he said, looking down at his hands.

And then the room went entirely dark. In the blink of an eye, the light was simply gone. Even the window, with its bright white snow beyond, had disappeared.

My heart raced as I reached out for him. That maelstrom of darkness from my dream came back to me, and I was almost convinced my hands would glide through him. But my fingers found his shoulder, and it was solid and real. Relief flooded through me even as I told myself I was being silly.

The shadows retreated in the same instant, the light returning the room to its former muted glow.

His features were pained as he slid his hand under my hair, cupping the back of my neck. "I'm sorry, Sera. I didn't know that would scare you.”

I shook my head. "It didn't," I lied. "It was just disorienting."

He gave me a tight-lipped smile to let me know he knew I was lying. I felt incredibly guilty for the way I reacted when I knew how much it meant to him that I had never been afraid of him.

I smiled and motioned for him to continue. “What else?”

He sighed, sliding his thumb down to the pulse point on my neck. "And then there is the blood."

"That sounds rather ominous," I said. I'd heard of blood magic before. It was something Alumbrian witches were famous for, but as with all other forms of magic, I knew very little about it. Aside from the fact that it involved drinking blood, of course.

"I'll show you that one later," he said with a grin that promised something slightly more than snowflakes in our room.

"Why not now?" I asked, my heartbeat already kicking up a notch.

"Because blood magic, shared between two blood mages, is something best experienced when Aben and Britaxia aren't likely to pop in at any moment."

"What do you mean two blood mages?" I asked.

He raised a brow. "There is no doubt that you are a blood mage, Sera. Not after what happened when you drank the necromancer's blood."

"Oh," I said, and then, "Oh," as realization dawned. I considered the blood-fueled rampage I had gone on in the dungeon beneath Albiyn castle, and I was surprised I hadn’t made the connection myself.

“Is that all of them, then?” I asked. My mind was still trying to envision what blood magic between two blood mages would entail.

“That leaves only the other fire,” he answered. He snapped his fingers together and a little flame floated above them. It was orange and yellow—mundane, ordinary flame.

"This is easy to control. I don't even need to think about it. And it can be a profound ability in itself—a powerful weapon. But this—" He let the golden flames erupt from his hand. The difference between the two was stark.

The little fire had been bright—as fire always was, but the golden flames were blindingly beautiful.

They drew me in like a beacon—exerting some pull on me, some urge to be absolutely surrounded by them.

"Wait," I said as a question formed in my mind. "Bring back the other fire."

He obeyed, eyeing me warily.

I reached out my hand, hovering gently over the flame. It was hot. I lowered it, holding it close until I felt the familiar stinging pain of a burn.

Io jerked his hand back, extinguishing the fire as he muttered, "Well that's…something.”

"And the darker fire?" I asked, cautiously. I was loath to ask him about it even though I didn't get the sense that he was ashamed of it.

"It’s not another distinct magic,” he said easily, letting the dark flames cover his hand. “It's somehow born of the gold fire and the shadows together, which shouldn’t be possible with such oppositional forces.”

I watched the fire crawling over his hand.

It was brilliant, but also muted, as though a shadow had simply fallen across fire.

I could see occasional licks of bright gold shooting through the darkness, and once I thought I saw the flicker of an inky black tendril darting up through the swirling flames.

“I suppose that’s why it also doesn’t hurt me,” I said, laying my hand on his.

I felt the slow, sliding warmth of his magic.

It was the same wonderful sense of rightness and bliss that I always felt from the gold fire, but there was more— something delicious and exciting.

It made my heart beat faster and sent a breathlessness through my chest.

I abruptly wished the flames covered my entire body. It sent a sharp pulse of desire straight through me as my imagination rolled through images of him inside me, fucking me in the middle of all that dark fire.