Page 5 of Shadows and Flames
I watched him, concentrating on filling my mind with only this. He unfastened my trousers easily enough, and once my cock was out, he gave it a few jerks that made my hips buck involuntarily.
When he finally took me in his mouth, I didn’t have to feign the grunt of pleasure. Danner sucked and licked in a way that my body remembered, responding even when my mind was somewhere else.
“Oh for the love of?—”
I heard Tomás’s grating voice and turned my head in the direction of the common room. He and Noruh were leaving together, and they didn’t stop walking. But judgement filled their eyes as they watched me get my cock sucked in the middle of the corridor. I couldn’t bring myself to care. The acolytesweren’t permitted in this part of the Well, and I had certainly witnessed those two in similar positions many times.
I raised a brow at them as they passed and took another swig from my bottle. They quickly turned down a corner, and I was left alone again. My best friend had been trying to goad me into leaving my room for something other than my duties for months, and now he wanted to tell me how to do it. He’d told me to search forher, and I just kept returning to the Well without catching even a glimpse. For nearly six months, I returned to the Well empty-handed. Again and again.
Then, Tomás told me to try moving on, so that’s what I was doing.
Danner’s slurping and moaning were nearing obscene, and I felt the release barreling down my shaft. I watched him fist his own cock while his head bobbed over mine, and for a second, for a moment, I was lost in it. I grunted as I fisted his hair and thrusted faster and faster into his mouth until my lids clenched closed. My toes curled, and my cock went almost painfully stiff before it shot down his throat.
My head craned back to the wall while I caught my breath, and when my eyes opened to stare at the ceiling, that sinking feeling in my chest came back with renewed weight. It was even fucking heavier.
Danner groaned with his own release, his seed splattering on the floor between us. I glanced down and saw him wipe it up with a rag he pulled from his pocket, and I grunted.
We didn’t speak to each other—we usually didn’t afterward—and quickly sorted our clothes out before parting. Though my limbs felt less tense, my mind was still dark, perhaps even more so than before.
My room was a quick walk two floors higher. I quickly fished my key out of my pocket and shut myself in my own solitude. Ibreathed in and out, and after reaching for my necklace out of sheer habit, I ran a frustrated hand through my hair.
I was taken again with how sparse it was in here. When I’d been in her home, in her childhood bedroom, it was neat, but there had been so manythings. Some from cities that I had recognized, some not. Books and artwork and drawings of the people that she’d encountered and loved.
Had that wall of drawings in Versillia been destroyed with the rest of the estate?
I sat down before my small hearth and let flames erupt from my hands. The firewood I’d replenished after my morning lessons caught quickly, but I didn’t pull my left hand away as the fire transferred. The palm with my brother’s name stayed in the flames, and I wondered if he could feel it, wherever he was.
The cut in my soul, the wound that existed since Leandro died, had healed. Or, at least, I thought it had until I returned to the Well when she’d told me to go.
I’d grieved my father and twin fiercely and for a long time. But at a certain point, I pulled myself out of it. Got back to working, training. It felt like the days had purpose. But now, it was like everything was tedious. The alcohol softened the edges of it, but it never really disappeared.
I stared at the flames enveloping my fingers, my wrist. They lapped at my skin, and try as I might, I couldn’t help but remember how her darkness felt on my body. It cooled the edge of my heat and allowed for the brightest, purest parts of it to shine. To blaze.
At some point, as I sat there, my eyes began to fill and spill over. This had become a nightly ritual as well. Throughout the day, I focused on teaching the young fighters their forms and exercises, then I trained by myself or with whichever Shadow was available. I ran the forest outside. I trained again until my body finally felt tired enough to stop.
And when there was nothing left to do for the day, I retreated here, and the thoughts of all I’d lost would barrel through my mind.
Another pull from the bottle, and the memories became watery, less tangible. My twin and his jokes, my father and his easy nature, my mother and her steady guidance, and?—
A silent sob wracked my body, and I set the bottle on the stone next to me. I pulled my hand out of the fire and scrubbed both over my face.
What else was there?
Tom and Noruh were staying around the Well for me. I knew they were. But soon they would realize that their attempts couldn’t pull me out of this.
I—I wasn’t sure anything could pull me out of this.
And, eventually I would be able to take contracts again. They would leave, and I would venture out, but Iknewthat the hollowness would follow me.
And I still loved her.
So, here, alone, I hugged my knees to my chest, and hummed to myself. My favorite song that my mother would sing to me played in my head, and then, voice cracking, I picked up the somber melody. The lilting scales still soothed the deepest part of me, and when the words ended, I picked up another song while staring at the fire I made with the power the Goddess had given me.
Chapter Three
ELIÁN
One year after her
