Page 42 of Rogue Familiar

“You should have asked.”

“Jadren.” She said his name with an edge of impatience, though she also caressed his back with sensual affection that made him want to sink into her and never stop. “Give me some credit. I did ask. The hunter refused to say. I’m pretty sure they were after me and not you, though. They didn’t even blink at Vale running off with you, and they only fought the Hanneil wizards because those guards wouldn’t give up.” She shrugged against him and Jadren imagined it had been far worse than she wanted him to know.

She was likely correct about the hunters being after her, which set his teeth on edge. In general, the hunters seemed to be tasked to recover familiars, as a guiding principle. The fact that the one had been made immune to House Phel weapons only further indicated that Seliah was their target. It could be Convocation Center that wanted her, as they had sent that proctor to fetch Seliah for training. Though El-Adrel should have filed the paperwork confirming the legal bonding, which should be the primary claim. Of course, that claim would be complicated by the fact that Jadren didn’t officially exist. The fact remained that any number of houses would be interested in acquiring or recovering Seliah—with the house of his birth at the top of the list.

“You could have stayed up in that tree,” he pointed out. She’d been relatively safe there, but could she stay put? No, not Seliah. “That lone hunter couldn’t have gotten you down on its own.”

“It said reinforcements were coming,” she argued. “Even if it was lying about that, I couldn’t stay in that tree indefinitely. Especially with you needing me and—”

“I did not need you,” he interrupted, immediately annoyed—and chagrined.

She didn’t respond in kind, simply raising her brows and sliding a slim thigh along his hip in a most distracting caress, the heated slickness of her sex grazing his skin enticingly. He didn’t shine at arguing under the current circumstances. “So, you were reclining in that thorn bush because it was so comfortable?” she inquired sweetly.

“I would have healed eventually. It’s what I do.” The words came out with a bitter tinge he hadn’t realized was there.

“Not without my magic, you wouldn’t have,” she countered implacably. “You were down to the dregs from being unable to heal at the base of the cliff. What magic you generated on your own got immediately used up for partial healing, and you were back in the same place.”

“Suddenly you know a lot about my magic.”

“Not sudden, but yes. I’ve made a study of how your magic works, how the healing progresses, and Nic gave me a crash course in wizard–familiar dynamics. It’s important for me, as your bonded familiar, to know how to support and care for you. Without an infusion of my magic, I think you would’ve eventually gone past the point of being able to recover.”

Interesting. Perhaps that method would be a way for him to die then. Her theory was plausible. Deliberately, he turned onto his back, extracting himself somewhat from her embrace.

They should really be thinking about leaving this place.

He should really figure out where they could go.

Undaunted, Seliah leaned up on one elbow, fitting herself against him, sliding her thigh over his rapidly rousing groin. She laid a hand on his cheek, drawing his attention to her earnest gaze, the lovely amber of her lustrous eyes dark with concern. “I understand why you have a death wish, Jadren,” she said softly, “but you do have things to live for.”

“You?” he retorted scathingly, only it came out in a sensual murmur, apparently too affected by the sinuous twining of her lithe body against his. He wanted her again, rather desperately, which made no sense given how they’d exhausted each other only a short time before.

“Me,” she answered with a slight smile. “I’d like to be that to you, but also for you to be able to actually live your life. You’ve never really gotten to.”

“I’m pretty sure I have been living my life, all these years,” he replied drily, though that funny, sensitive place inside him began its subtle twitching again. Something about the way Seliah looked at him made him feel oddly raw—as if she saw into him, perhaps saw the person he could have been, if he hadn’t been distorted and twisted into this false construct.

She shook her head slowly, solemnly, then bent to give him a soft, quick kiss, her dark hair falling around his face. Reaching up, he tucked the hair back behind her ear and she smiled, coming in again for a longer, more lingering kiss. “I mean live your life, Jadren, for you. Not as a puppet of your mother’s. Not as a minion of House Phel, if you don’t want to be. Not even as my wizard if you’d truly rather be rid of me.”

“Oh, now you’ll be all compliant and not come recklessly chasing after me?” He added a snort, a bit of jaded sarcasm to counter the pang her offer gave him. He’d become accustomed to the idea of her determined pursuit and the thought that she might not actually care enough to persevere pained him more than he liked to admit. So much for her declarations of love. That must be a thin devotion indeed, for her to relinquish it so readily. But then, consider the focus of that supposed affection. He knew himself to be a monster. Seliah was no fool. At some point, she’d have to recognize that loving him would be pouring herself into an empty pit.

Seliah considered his question somberly, toying with hairs of his chest, her eyes downcast. “If me letting you go means you getting to be your own person, then yes,” she said quietly. “That’s what it means to love someone, Jadren. Your happiness is more important than my own. I believe we’re stronger together, but I don’t want to fight you on that point for the rest of our lives. I want you to want to be with me, to want this.” She swept a hand down his body, the caress stirring, despite the serious, even depressing conversation. “But I want you to choose this even more. You got stuck with me. I’m very aware of how that played out. You made me your bonded familiar because you really are that fucking noble.”

She flicked up her gaze at his huff of a laugh, ardent emotion in her quiet amber eyes. “We both know you did it to save me from a worse fate,” she insisted, “that you didn’t want a familiar at all, least of all a half-feral swamp creature. I can be noble, too. I mean it: if you truly want to be free of me, I’ll go home and never come after you again.”

Why couldn’t she have come to this decision before, when he’d mustered the strength to leave her? Before he’d known the sweet succor of her body, before he’d discovered what it felt like for her to touch him with such reverent affection, to look at him with love in her eyes that he didn’t, couldn’t deserve.

“It wasn’t noble,” he told her, figuring he’d kick himself for it later, but unable to stop himself. “When I said I only bonded you in order to save you, that was an excuse.”

She gazed at him in mute question, a tentative hope in her expression. Lifting her hand, he interlaced his fingers with hers, marveling anew at the delicate feel of her slender bones. Drawing her down again, he kissed her, her hair cascading in a dark veil, screening them from the world. It would come for them soon enough, but for the moment, they were the only two beings in existence, intertwined. Whole, in a way he’d never thought he could be made whole.

“I was horribly selfish,” he confessed in that shrouding place of comfort. She needed to know the truth about him. Maybe then she’d finally wake up and see him for what he was. “I wanted you so badly, Seliah, that I took the opportunity to have and keep you when I could.” He waited for her condemnation.

She said nothing.

“You shouldn’t forgive me for that,” he told her. “You should hate me for it.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, nothing to hate,” she insisted, showering kisses over his face. “All I’ve wanted is for you to want me. Knowing this means that’s true.”

A tendril of dread curled in his gut. This couldn’t possibly work out well. “I do want you,” he said, fully aware that he didn’t sound like it. The words came out more like growl of pain, a howl in the wilderness of the beast that has no companionship because it devours anyone who comes too close. “And that is a problem, Seliah. I want you to the point of consuming you entirely. You might not survive how much I want you. You almost already didn’t.”

---