Burned by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #1)(35)

As I wandered over to the window to look out at the view, I realized that there were very few smells beyond the Chief Mage’s own scent and Fenris’s. He probably didn’t invite visitors here often. The realization only made me even more uncomfortable. What was so urgent that he had to call me in the middle of the night to his private chambers, that couldn’t be said in front of the guards?

The thoughts that question sparked caused my cheeks to flush and my palms to grow uncomfortably warm. Which was great timing, because the door to my left, at the far end of the room, opened, and Iannis stepped through.

“Sir.” I turned on my heel to face him, feeling incredibly off-balance. He was still dressed in the same robes from this morning, but his cherry wood hair had been freed from the confines of its queue, flowing freely around his oblong face, the ends flowing over his broad shoulders. The loose waves gleamed in the firelight, and I fought down a sudden urge to reach out and touch them. Was his hair as soft as it looked?

If that’s not the fastest way to get yourself incinerated, I don’t know what is.

“Sir?” He arched a brow as he came to stand next to me. The firelight behind him cast his features into shadow, making him look even more enigmatic and mysterious than usual. “Could it be that your time in the palace is actually teaching you some manners?”

I flushed. “My apologies,” I quipped. “I should have addressed you as Almighty Dictator.”

He frowned, not at all amused by my sarcasm. “I don’t understand why you aren’t fearful of me.”

I scowled, crossing my arms over my chest. “Do you want me to be afraid of you?”

For the first time, hesitation flickered over his features. “I demand respect,” he said firmly. “Respect and order are the only means to ensure a functioning society.”

“Maybe,” I snapped. “But respect still has to be earned, and force alone isn’t enough for you to get it. Perhaps you should try actually empathizing with your people.”

The Chief Mage was silent for so long that my skin started prickling beneath the weight of his stare. What the hell was I doing, telling the Chief Mage how to run his city? Was I trying to get my head chopped off? A bead of sweat rolled down my spine.

“I’m leaving tonight,” he finally said, “which is why I summoned you. I won’t be able to meet with you tomorrow as I originally anticipated.”

“Leaving?” Dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of being cooped up in this palace for who knew how long. I knew I should probably be excited – my chances of escaping increased tenfold with the Chief Mage gone – but the truth was I wanted him to wrap up his ‘investigation’ of me, and if he left that would only drag things out. “Leaving where?”

“That isn’t really any of your business,” he said mildly, “but I’ll only be gone for a day, so you needn’t worry that your stay will be extended too long.”

“Oh.” I let out a sigh of relief before thinking better of it, then flushed as he arched his brow at me again. “So, what’s it gonna be? Are you going to try and turn me into an ice sculpture again?”

“Hardly. Now give me your hands.”

I hesitated as he offered his own, palms up, just as he had last time. With my conflicting hormones and emotions growing stronger by the day, I wasn’t certain that touching him was a great idea. But I also wanted to get this over with, and if that meant he had to hold my hands like we were two toddlers playing a rhyming game, then so be it.

I placed my hands in his, and my pulse sped up as his long fingers curled around them. That same warm tingle spread through me, just as before, but this time it was accompanied by a familiar heat pooling in my lower belly that could only be described as attraction. I struggled against the feeling as he circled his thumbs across the insides of my wrists – didn’t the man know that was an erogenous zone? – and tried to clear my head.

“You need to relax,” he murmured.

My cheeks burned. Did he know? “I d-don’t think I can.” By Magorah, I sounded like a schoolgirl all over again, squirming under the attention of my first crush.

“Close your eyes,” he suggested. “Focus on the magic flowing through you, rather than me.”

I did as he suggested, doing my best to ignore the feel of his skin against mine and his scent, which seemed to grow more intoxicating the more time I spent inhaling it. It took me a moment, but eventually I zeroed in on the current of magic humming through my veins, and began to mentally trace its path through my system.

A sudden shock jolted me from my trance, and I gasped, my eyes flying open as power surged through me. It crackled through my nerves like lightning, and rippled down my arms. Cold fear shot through my veins as our joined hands began to glow, and I braced myself for the Chief Mage to explode into a cloud of ash as the rhino had done.

Iannis’s face tightened, his eyes glued to our hands with fierce intensity, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his nostrils. The glow from our hands dissipated, and the air began crackling around him instead, the way it had when I’d riled him up before.

I took a step back, shock and relief mingling in my veins. “Did… did you just absorb all that magic?”

“For now,” he said through gritted teeth. His voice was edged with pain, and suddenly I was filled with guilt. He shouldn’t be suffering like this, not as a result of helping me –