Chapter Twenty-Three

What Have You Done?

Part Two

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Kelvaran grasped Kazia's hands, and a fire shot through her core as their auras entangled further. She felt ethereal energy surge around his body and then entwine through her own.

“Kazia!” Amelys scolded, and for a moment Kazia remembered everyone else on the stairs with them.

“Portal,” she hissed, still staring into Kelvaran's eyes. “Anywhere.”

“I can't,” he whispered back.

Kazia's temper flared. “What do you mean...”

“I'm not able to cast a portal just now.”

Kazia couldn't think straight, but knew well enough that they had to get away from the others.

“Come with me,” she said angrily.

Still holding his coat with one hand, she pulled him along behind her up the stairs, urging him to move quickly.

“Kazia!” Amelys called behind them.

“Don't follow!” Kazia threw over her shoulder as she and Kelvaran rounded the corner into her hallway.

They reached her apartment, but instead of going inside, Kazia pushed him onto the low table across the hallway from her door, then clutched his coat again, leaned close, and kissed him with unbridled ferocity.

She pulled away from him to meet his eyes with a wild glare.

“What have you done?” she asked again, but before he could answer, she had covered his mouth again.

He made a few muffled noises, but in no way did he resist as an overwhelming blaze of desire erupted from him, engulfing her and bringing her own internal heat to boiling.

Her hands moved to his waistcoat, wanting nothing more than to tear it off of him. Through the layers of his clothing, her hands registered the firmness of his slender body, mapping a mental image of what she might find beneath the fabric.

Her heart pitched with anticipation.

Still, some part of her thought to restrain herself, and she moved her hands up to slide her fingers into his hair. Grasping his head, she pulled away from him again.

“What is this?” she asked desperately.

“A potion,” he answered breathlessly.

His eyes gleamed with passion and again Kazia felt that she might fall into them forever.

“That gives you empathic abilities?” she whispered harshly.

Kelvaran nodded. “But I don't know why this is happening. Nothing like this happened last time I tested it.”

“Did you see me then?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Kazia had a moment of clarity, thinking that she should disentangle herself from him now, but Kelvaran slid his hands around her waist and pulled her forward, eager to close any distance between them.

As their lips met again, she felt him lower one hand and begin to lift the side of her skirt. She brought her knee up onto the table next to him and leaned closer.

What restraint? She already wanted him this badly, and here he was.

Kelvaran suddenly stood, lifting her and turning around to put her down on the table now.

Kazia leaned her head back against the wall and released a soft, sighing moan as his lips traveled down to her throat.

She struggled to catch her breath. There was still something...

“Kel... you have to stop,” she whispered.

She pushed him gently away, holding him the distance of her arms. With his reddened and glistening lips and eyes half-lidded with desire, he looked positively devastating, and Kazia caught her own lower lip in her teeth to bite it.

He searched her eyes in confusion.

“You... don't want me to stop,” he said.

She shook her head, agreeing even as she pushed him more firmly.

“But I'm asking you to,” she said. “This... under this influence, this isn't right.”

Kelvaran looked thoughtful. The truth of her words seemed to slowly sink through that dense fog of lust, but he seemed reluctant to accept them.

“You must resist these feelings as if it were a truth spell,” she told him.

At that, he recoiled, backing away until his shoulders thudded against her apartment door.

“Is it like that?” he asked, suddenly alert. “Am I hurting you?”

“No!” she assured him. “But you need to go. I need you to go now, before I can't-”

“Kazia?” Tamyn's voice carried down the hallway, startling them both and finally drawing them both out of this haze, if only for an instant.

Kelvaran glared angrily in his direction, then stormed away from Kazia.

“Didn't she say not to follow?” Kelvaran said hotly as he blew past Tamyn.

Reaching the end of the hallway, he paused to watch with a dark scowl as Tamyn approached Kazia.

“Kazia, are you...” Tamyn said as he took in the state of her sitting on the hallway table.

Kazia leaned her head back against the wall, still catching her breath, and straightened her clothes hastily.

“Should I... go hit him?” Tamyn asked. “I feel like Abrizhen would want me to go hit him.”

Kazia laughed.

“No,” she said, smiling up at him.

She began to relax, and although that feverish euphoria was quickly dissipating, she still felt somewhat dazed.

“No, that won't be necessary,” she said lazily. “In fact, it's possible that he thinks there is something going on between you and I. Hitting him might be seen as a confirmation.”

“That is... absurd,” Tamyn said slowly.

“Yes, but he only sees how close we've become and doesn't know why. I'd correct the matter, but I didn't want to reveal the absurdity without your permission.”

“Leave that to me,” he replied. “I've never really wanted to hide myself, it's just that Abrizhen was always anxious about your father, so we were never public. I can lay this notion to rest without mentioning him, though.”

Kazia nodded.

“Where is Neiphi?” she asked, peering down the hallway again.

“Madame Brandra sent her to bed when you... came upstairs,” he said, eliciting more laughter from Kazia. “Mistress Amelys has gone to report to Intelligence. There will probably be a nationwide search underway within hours for Mr. Cardil.”

“I hope he is alright,” Kazia said with a sigh.

“He was spying on you, and you hope he's alright?” Tamyn said with a tinge of anger.

“I think he was caught up in something he didn't understand,” Kazia explained. “I hope we're the only ones chasing him now, but I doubt that we are.”

She closed her eyes as she leaned against the wall. Her skin was still tingling all over with the exchange of ethereal energy that had passed between her and Kelvaran.

“Are you sure you're alright?” Tamyn asked. “Perhaps it's time to turn in.”

Kazia sat up suddenly, smiling again.

“I'm going to go in and have a drink,” she said decisively. “Would you care to join me? I know all about your disastrous romance. Why don't you come in and hear about mine?”

“I could certainly use the distraction,” Tamyn agreed.

 

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