23. Alana

TWENTY-THREE

Alana

I stride towards the edge of the rooftop, my hands gripping the stone balustrade. The breeze does little to soothe the fire burning within me, the rage and desperation that seem to consume every rational thought in my head.

My body still vibrates with pleasure.

I enjoyed it.

Did I?

Did I enjoy taking her life?

I close my eyes and picture Elodie's face. The way her skin broke open as I sliced through it, and the glint of her thick, silver blood as it trickled down her throat onto the stone below her breathless body.

I did that. I ended her, and I didn't use my magic to do it. I didn't need magic. Which surely means I am so much more than they think I am?

Even Eldrion didn't see it coming. He would never have expected me to do it. He was shocked. But he was also turned on; the way he fucked me proves that.

Behind me, I hear his footsteps, slow and measured. "Alana," he says, his voice barely audible over the wind. "We need to talk. You took it too far."

I whirl around, my eyes blazing. "What do we need to talk about? Finn has an army of shadows at his command, an entire legion of darkness that will stop at nothing to see us all destroyed. And you stood there, doing nothing, willing to let them walk away."

He takes a step towards me, his hands held out in a placating gesture. "I was not going to let them walk away. I was going to?—"

"What?" I square up to him, power quivering beneath my skin.

I adore the way he is looking at me right now, as if he wants to tame me and worship me at the same time.

He shakes his head and looks away from me. "Trust me," he says. "It's a slippery slope. Once you begin the slide into darkness, it's very hard to claw your way back."

"You would know." I follow him to the edge of the roof and look down on the citadel.

"Yes," he says, turning to me. "I would."

I press my lips together, holding in the anger that flutters in my heart when I look at him and think of Kayan.

Kayan, who was so appalled by me that he has vanished. Perhaps never to return.

"It is done now." I fold my arms in front of my stomach. "There is no use wishing I could take it back."

He turns to me and cups my face in his hand. "Do you wish that?" he asks, studying my face.

I inhale slowly, holding the breath in my lungs for longer than usual before shaking my head. "No," I say firmly. "I do not. It worked, didn't it?"

Eldrion lets go of me and scrapes his fingers through his hair. "It did," he says. "But you acted on impulse. It may not have done."

"Everything you've done was calculated?" I ask, my thoughts returning to Kayan.

"Everything," he replies. "Every evil thing I have done has been the result of careful consideration."

I frown at him. A laugh swells in my chest. "I think that's worse." I smile. I can't help it. "Choosing those things after weighing your options... having the chance not to do them and then doing them anyway? That's?—"

"What being a ruler means." He draws back his shoulders, and for the first time in days, I see him as he was. Without his fading wings and his lack of power. Lord of Luminael. All powerful. "It means making hard decisions. Something you'll have to get used to if you're going to take my place."

"Take your place?"

Eldrion shrugs. "You have power, Alana. I don't. It's gone. It makes sense that you would be the one to rule if I cannot."

For a moment, just one fleeting moment, a pang of sympathy settles over me. But then it is gone.

And in its place, I feel . . . excitement.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

"It's beautiful." I stand on the sheepskin rug, staring at the fire in the grate.

"Rosalie helped me." Kayan slips his arms around my waist. The fire crackles orange, and white, and blue, and green, and purple. As it dances, little shapes rise up, formed from the flames themselves. Roses, hearts, birds, trees.

"She's amazing." I press my palms to his hands, leaning back into his chest, my wings pressed between us.

I could stay like this forever, soaking up his warmth; I have never felt as calm as I do around him.

"She's certainly got tricks up her sleeve," he chuckles. "But I feel sorry for Bryant."

"Why?" I laugh, spinning around and looking up at Kayan. He is taller than me by almost a foot, and from here, his blond hair looks darker.

"She's very demanding, let's put it that way," he says. "High energy."

"And I'm not high energy?" I quirk an eyebrow at him.

He runs his thumb over my lips and smiles. "No. You're stillness, and sweetness, and everything that's calm."

There's that word again. Calm.

I sigh and reach up on the tips of my toes to kiss him. We have never been alone like this before. Perhaps because we knew what it would lead to.

I hook my arms around his neck and press myself against him. As the kiss deepens, his hands roam my back, then skim my wings, pausing to tease their lower tips.

I sigh, a moan parting my lips, and tilt my pelvis towards him.

When I feel him stiffening beneath my touch, I smile into his lips, and he laughs. "I'm sorry," he says. "That's not what tonight is about. I just wanted time. The two of us. After everything, I thought you might just want to be alone. To talk."

I shake my head, staring into his eyes. "Talking is the last thing I want to do, Kayan."

My hands go to his waist, and I unfasten his pants.

He swallows forcefully, closing his eyes and sighing as I push them down over his hips, then slip my hand into his underwear. We have touched like this before, but never somewhere like this.

Never completely alone, locked away from the world, able to go as far as we want to go.

As I start to touch him, he groans and tugs open the front of my dress, his lips finding my nipples and taking them, in turn, into his warm, waiting mouth. He sucks, and nibbles, and then I sink down to the floor and kneel in front of him.

Staring at me, he strokes the side of my face, tucking my hair behind my ear. "You don't have to..." he whispers.

But I'm already smiling up at him, opening my mouth, running my lips and tongue along his shaft.

The noises he makes, and the way his wings unfurl and fill the room, glowing blue, energy pulsing, makes me moan, too.

I love turning him on like this. The power I feel over him. It's almost intoxicating.

As I take him deeper into my mouth, and hold onto the backs of his thighs, I close my eyes, and wonder...

What if I could make him want me more?

It feels so good when he touches me. What if I could intensify that feeling for him? Make it bigger, and more intense?

I search for his feelings, fingers of curiosity snaking out from my mind to his. If he feels them enter him, he doesn't betray it. His stance doesn't change, and the noises he's making don't change.

He is lost in the moment, enjoying every second of my touch.

I don't need to do this.

But I don't get to play with my powers the way the others do.

I glance at the fireplace.

I don't get to make beautiful shapes out of water and fire. I don't get to coax leaves from the trees or flowers from the ground.

All I am told to do is squash my power down, rein it in, soften it, dampen it.

I stand up, take his hand, and tell him to lie down. When he does, I remove my dress. It falls to the floor and he stares up at me as if he can't believe I am here and that I'm giving myself to him.

When I lower myself onto him, and he fills me up, I lean back and his hands drift up my stomach, to my breasts.

My hair falls over my shoulders. He teases its ends.

I let my wings free, the way his were, and they flutter as the pleasure builds inside me. And the entire time, I continue searching for him.

Finally, there it is. Shockwaves of pleasure are pulsing inside his skull and in the air around him. I can see them behind my closed eyes. I can feel them.

I latch on to them and breathe in slowly, concentrating on trying to make them bigger, and brighter, and louder.

Kayan moans loudly. "Oh my stars, Alana. Fuck. What are you doing to me?"

The pleasure dripping from his voice drives me wild. So, I focus harder. I pull, and tease, and curl tendrils of pleasure inside his mind until he is writhing beneath me, and then I am dragging it inside me and letting it bleed into my own pleasure, amplifying, dancing beneath my skin until there is no telling whose is whose anymore.

But then.

Then I feel something else.

Not his pleasure.

His power.

I falter. Kayan's hips change rhythm beneath me and his breath slows. His power is there. I can see it. I can feel it. Blue energy, pulsing, and pulsing, and pulsing.

It is so beautiful.

I want to feel it the way I feel his arousal. I want to capture it, just for a second, and know what it feels like to have elemental strength inside me.

I tip my head back, my lips parting as a loud cry flies from them and swells in the room around us.

I have it.

His magic. Behind my eyes, blue bolts of light flood my body. They trickle through my veins, and wind themselves around my ribs, and take hold of my heart.

They grip tighter, and tighter, and my breath becomes shallow.

I open my eyes.

I can barely see. Blue light fills the room, swirling in the air between us, around us.

The fire is no longer alive. Only electric blue light, like waves, twirling faster and faster. I press my palms onto Kayan's chest. His power and his pleasure combine and explode like a volcano of liquid heat inside me. Trembling, barely able to breathe, I stop moving and look down at him, searching for his eyes, desperate to see if he felt the way I did.

But his eyes are still.

His body is stiff.

Dark blue lines cover his chest and arms, and beneath him, his wings are no longer blue. They are grey now.

I fall sideways and stumble to my feet. "Kayan?" I whisper, standing, unable to move, staring down at his lifeless body. "Kayan?"

What have I done?