Page 14 of Tino

We’d been woken up by Tane knocking on our door. To our delight he’d brought us breakfast, allowing us a few more minutes alone in our cabin. But he also had news that a meeting between us and all the mages here was starting in two hours, back where we arrived yesterday.

We sat and ate on the couch, still in our sleepwear, but enjoying a lazy morning in each other’s company.

“This is amazing,” he gushed and pushed a piece of lemon bread towards my mouth. I took a tiny bite, not always on board with citrusy things.

“Oh,” I exclaimed, then moaned when I chewed into some white chocolate and….. “Is that pistachios?” I asked, chewing slower as I tried to locate the taste in my memories.

“I think so,” he grinned, offering me another bite. This time I took a bigger chunk of the cake, wanting to becertainit was pistachios.

He sighed happily. “I love this.”

I looked at the lemon bread guiltily. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have eaten so much then.”

He laughed. “Gods, I love you,” he grinned and effectively stole my breath. “I meantthis,” he pointed between us. “How nice and right it feels to be with you again. I feel lighter than ever. Happier too.”

I smiled, sharing the exact same feelings. “I love it too. And you,” I quickly added, needing him to hear those words from me too, even if he hadn’t seemed nervous about telling me.

“I know,” he grinned and leaned over to kiss my lips. I met him eagerly, pleased this was something we could do whenever we wanted now.

Two knocks on the door alerted us that we were no longer in our little love filled bubble. I sighed and leaned my forehead against his, willing whoever it was to get lost.

“Wakey, wakey!” Silver sang and then continued knocking. “We need to talk before the meeting.”

“Damn,” Tair sighed louder this time. “He’s right, we really should talk before it starts.”

“But we’re not even dressed yet!” I said, loudly enough for Silver to hear, hoping he would be patient for a minute. The banging started again, crushing my hope that we could have just two minutes more of this blissful quiet.

“Just getting dressed!” Tair replied, loudly enough that I was sure even the mages at the meeting heard.

“Justnotouching! We ain’t got time for touching!” Silver warned, and damn, he could be scary.

I stood up and quickly helped Tair back into the bedroom. He could walk easily now, but I liked helping him move around, since it gave me a reason to keep my hands on him, and I rather liked that.

I opened the dresser where I’d found our clothes yesterday, hoping one of the other drawers held normal clothes. None of us hadour own clothes, or maybe Tair did, but my second set was all dirty, as was the set from yesterday. Whatever the mages had picked for us would have to do.

The last drawer finally held what I was searching for. Jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts filled the inside and I quickly grabbed the biggest size for me and the other for Tair.

“They truly thought about everything,” he said mostly to himself as we both focused on getting dressed. Silver’s no touching warning came in handy. I’d forgotten all about the no underwear and seeing my man naked tempted my hands to disobey Silver. Luckily, or unluckily, however you saw it. Tair had found some boxers for us in the top drawer and had quickly put his on.

I could only grumble and pout as I did the same, slowly seeing my Tair’s body getting covered up.

The knocking came again. “Time’s up!”

Chapter 11

Altair

We joined Silver and the others in Xari and Niam’s cabin. They all looked way more energetic than us, all except for Julie, who looked like she was battling a hangover. Not that I was going to mention that. The poor woman had just found out she was an anchor and we still didn’t know how that truly affected her, since normally mages were anchors. Julie didn’t have magic, wasn’t a born mage. Maybe being an anchor wouldn’t be safe for her. Looking at her pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes….Yeah… she was likely not cut out to be an anchor.

“So,” Silver stood and clapped his hands. The rest of us sat, with Tino and I on the floor and the rest on the couch and in two arm chairs. “We need to be on the same page before we go into the meeting. I know we can trust them, but how much are we willing to let them know?”

“Not our special abilities,” Xari said. “They even told us once themselves that we should keep that secret.”

“True,” Silver hummed. “Anything else?”

“I don’t want them to decide when Tino and I bind ourselves,” I added, knowing nothing could stop us from doing that today.

“I’m with you on that,” Silver nodded. “Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t do it yesterday.”