Page 41 of Guiding Desire

“Did you feel that? You almost lost it because you lost your focus.”

“I can’t feel anything. Just warmth.”

“Focus on the warmth. What does it do?”

“It’s…warming my whole hand?”

“Let it come into you. Try to pull it to your mouth.”

Orrey had no clue how he was supposed to do that apart from licking Senlas’s hand. He decided to go with inhaling through his mouth for the time being.

“Yeah. Slow and steady. Very nice.”

This time, Orrey actually felt it, that sensation of almost zapping someone, electricity playing over his tongue. It startled him so much that he pulled his hand away from Senlas’s.

“Oh, sorry. That was… Is this why I’ve always attracted static electricity?”

“What do you mean?” Senlas put his hand right back on Orrey’s back.

“Well, I’ve always zapped people, you know.”

After a pause, Senlas sighed and mumbled something Orrey couldn’t make out. “That would have been your Conduit power manifesting. The kind you thought Conduits don’t have.

“You see, I suppose if you wanted to be very reductive, you could say that all Conduits are weak Guardians. Z-class Guardians, if that existed, and most of your kind have electrical pulses for a power.

“Conduits’ secondary power is being able to drain our overload, something we simply can’t do ourselves. Or absolutely not at the rate we’d need to be able to use our powers independently. Our instructor explained it like a trade-off in which we Guardians get the spectacular powers, but if we want to use it for a long time without dying, we need to think of them as only one part of a whole. And Conduits’ powers are what complete us.”

“That’s very different from what we learned in school.”

Senlas snorted. “Yeah, I gathered. ThatMy Secret Guardianshow? The favorite line in there is,My power is weighing on me, I need you under me, in me.”

“You just did a voice.”

“I’m still practicing my jokes for you, kitten.”

Orrey’s cheeks heated, not from the warmth he’d channeled from Senlas, but from that pet name.

“But…there will have to be sex?”

“Will have to be? No. I’ve been coping with meds for the most part for a while, and now, with you, I don’t think I’d be able to be with someone else. I don’t want to try.” He sighed, pulled his hand away from Orrey’s back to rub his own face. “I really want to get in your pants though. Badly. I want to be inside you, if you’ll let me. But I’ll not force myself on you, never.”

Orrey swallowed. “But in custody-ship—”

“Kitten, let me stop you right there. Forget about custody-ship. I don’t need rules or laws to treat you with the respect that anyone else should be treated with, regardless of who they are. I won’t force or coerce you, and when you tell me to stop, I will, always. Anything else would just be…monstrous.”

In the subtle darkness of the room, Orrey nodded. With those words, he found that so much he’d dreaded had been lifted off his chest, and the next breath he took was easier.

“Thank you. That helped.”

“Fucking Hounds, kitten; it should have been a given from the start. I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clear.”

“No, it’s fine. I may have…well, I simply didn’t know anything. But sex is, what, more effective? For the channeling, I mean.”

“Yes, more effective and faster, especially with one Conduit. There are several theories why that is, but no one is really sure, seems to be the educated consensus. For emergency channeling, like when I told you I had a tantrum as a kid and went into shock—they will pull in several Conduits, and they’ll just use touch in combination with meds.”

Orrey nodded, his rough cheek rubbing against the pillow uncomfortably.

“Do you think it would be all right for me to kiss you again? I’d like to try the channeling one more time.”