Page 47 of To Crave Madly
Oh, god. Did this bond constitute as matrimony? Shit. Was I married to the Devil? Wait. No. Stop the runaway thought train. How did my life become so crazy? I missed the simple girl I used to be. All she had to worry about was the next feature cocktail on the new menu and which shoes to buy. Now… well, now I had to worry how to get through each day alive and whether having a relationship with more than one man was not only sensible but if it was actually fucking doable.
“Lori?”
I looked up and saw Fenris’ rich brown eyes staring back at me intently. He had such beautiful eyes that were always filled with such emotion. I could stare into those chocolate depths for hours and never decipher every minute detail in them.
“Hey,” I called, suddenly nervous. I really wanted this to go well so that I could stay learning with Fenris. He seemed nervous, too. Perhaps he was going to miss chastising me for not concentrating.
“Hey yourself,” he replied smiling warmly. He kept staring at me, looking at my face like he was committing it to memory. I could sense a sadness in him that had me wanting to reach out to him and just wrap him in a giant hug. I took a step toward him and was about to do just that, but he quickly turned away and broke the eye contact that had the butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
“So, I thought we would try something a little different today.”
Okay, so we were clearly moving on from that awkward little staring contest. I swallowed my nervousness and –
Bang!
Something hit me square in the chest, knocking me off my feet and slamming me backwards into the floor. My breath wheezed from my suddenly injured lungs. What the fuck was that?
“Ow…”
“Oh my god. Lori, are you okay?” Fenris’ face appeared above me, worry etched into the lines of his face.
“What did you hit me with? A cannonball?”
“I’m so sorry. I wanted to catch you unawares to see if you could control the blast, but I must have caught you too unawares.” He held his hand out and helped pull me up. If that were Cassian, he’d have just rolled me over his shoulder and flipped me to the ground again. I was glad Fenris wasn’t the kind of guy to do that.
“Why the Hell did you do that?”
“Rae said you caught a Necro Orb when you acted on instinct so I thought this would help.” His shoulders slumped and his eyes found the floor. “I’m sorry. I just wanted us to succeed and instead, I let my fears cloud my judgement.”
I’d heard a little about his father from Saskia. She’d filled me in on his arrival into the base and how he lorded it over Fenris. I hated that I hadn’t been there to stand up for him. When I met Octavius Crowe, I was going to give him a piece of my mind and make him choke on it.
“Why don’t we try again? I was probably too distracted for it to work. What with Lucifer leaving and this new tutor arriving, I’m a bit all over the place. Which probably means my magic is as well.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips and he gave my shoulder a friendly pat. “Okay. Let’s try again. You’ve got this.”
I returned the friendly pat. “We’ve got this. Come on then. Show me what you’ve got.”
“If you say so,” he sang in response.
And then proceeded to hurl a gust of wind at me that knocked me on my ass. Again.
It went on like this for what felt like hours. But I had gotten better at blocking, catching, and deflecting the magic that he threw at me. I was exhausted. My muscles ached, my bones ached, hell, even my head ached.
I flopped down on the mat and leant back on my elbows as I tried to catch my breath. “Why do we keep doing defensive magic? When can I learn to throw some balls at you?”
He let out a surprised laugh but cut the sound off quickly as he sat down next to me. “To be able to defend yourself is more important for you right now. It will take time to learn how your magic feels to you. It feels different to everyone, so only you will know when you are in touch with your magic. And that takes patience.”
Urgh. Patience was not one of my virtues. “What does your magic feel like to you?” His smile dropped and I suddenly panicked. I’d asked too personal a question. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupted. “It’s just not usually something you ask a mage. It’s quite often intimate to each individual.”
I reached out and took his hand in mine, interlocking my fingers with his as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “You don’t have to tell me. I can live in unsatisfied curiosity.”
His lips drew into a warm smile, drawing my attention to how close they were.
“It feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket by someone who loves me and cares for me deeply. Or what I imagine that to feel like.” His words trailed off and my heart clenched painfully. This lovely man had never known what an embrace from a loved one felt like. The very thought helped to nurture that little seed of hate I already had growing for his father. But what of his mother? Where was she? I suddenly had an image of a young boy with a mop of brown hair sitting alone and I struggled to hold back the tears.
Fenris swiped his thumb across my cheekbone, catching a solitary tear that had escaped. “There’s no need to cry for me, Lori.” His hand strayed to my jawline and I could feel the roughness in his fingertips as he stroked them across my skin. I didn’t think he was interested in me, but I would have to be blind to mistake the desire I saw flaring in his eyes now.
