Niala 65

Ever got the feeling that someone was talking about you, like an itch in your ear? I had that feeling. Gaff tugged on my shoulder again, and my mind just couldn’t focus. I’d given him so much of my mana that I felt drained. That fever settled over me, hot and persistent. I hated my molt. Maybe if I let my wings and tail out, managed to fly a little in the undergrowth, it would feel better because I had this boundless chasm of energy within me fighting to get out, even though my fires ran low.

“You’re starting it, but focus more. The light isn’t around you. You’re not harnessing light. That takes more energy than just making the light yourself. Why tame nature when you are nature? Your fire IS light,” he said.

I growled beneath my breath, and the sound of it came out than I thought it would be. Gaffriel gave me a funny look. My wings twitched to make that snapping noise.

I rubbed over my throat. The screaming I’d done the day before left me sore still. He looked like he wanted to say something as his hand drooped.

“Sorry, just… I’m tapped, Gaff,” I said.

I didn’t want to be tapped. The kind of tiredness that sleep and food couldn’t fix clutched me in its grasp. On top of that, my emotional exhaustion compounded everything. I worried about my ada—now adas, and I worried about Gaff, about how serious he had suddenly become, and my fires. I hadn’t used them for anything serious since our escape, well, aside from melding. As my mind reeled back to William Syllivan, I became lost, staring at my hands again as droplets fell over my fingers.

“Rain?” I caught myself asking, feeling my voice crack.

“No Ni. You’re crying.” Gaff didn’t move to hold me, but he sat down nearby, upwind of me, I noticed. He angled his wings a little to check it before he sat. He must have really been suffering.

“I’m so sorry I pushed things so far last night,” I said, shuddering.

“Let’s not talk about last night, please.” His voice trembled with a longing groan. A hunger warmed in his voice, one that said he wanted more; I wanted more, too.

“Fine. Let’s talk about… How we’re going to find them, and how long we’re going to wait for Kiromir,” I said.

“Sure. We wait until you’ve got the hang of this and can travel the rough light on your own. Then we can talk about the other stuff because I’m waiting for Kiromir as much as you are, Ni. I owe him so much, and the least of which I can offer him at this moment is a little compliance and consideration for you,” he said, avoiding looking at me.

“It’s not all Kiromir. That’s not what stopped you.” I knew it when I said it. Something else went unsaid that I waited for.

“I was pushing you too hard because I was scared. I wanted to grab you first before someone else. Every guy can see how amazing you are. I… I took a lot of liberties I shouldn’t have. I imposed myself and I—I didn’t want to lose what we had and ended up doing just that, then changing it and now—Now I’m afraid that I’ve started something that I can’t stop and then I’m going to hurt you and hurt the flock. We’re in deep shit, Ni. By the time this is over, I might not be here anymore. I’m the slower and weaker of us. I’m less valuable. If something happens to me and I was the one that bound you… What you said to the creeper in that cell was true. You’d live forever alone and either suffer or have to go back into the cycle, crushing everyone.” He threw himself onto his back in the leaves and covered his face with his wings, drowning me out, and it looked uncomfortable.

“Okay, but why did you want me that bad? You know I’d stay with you.” I curled up tight to myself and hugged my knees.

“It’s stupid.” His voice came in a croak.

“How stupid?” My curiosity piqued.

“Marginally stupid.”

“A substantial margin or—”

“A heavily consequential margin of considerable means.” He cut me off.

“Okay. Tell me.” I demanded.

“It’s stupid, so let it be.” His muffled voice got a surly edge to it.

I huffed and moved my hand to my wrist, tugging my wristband’s lace with a slow sliding noise of leather on leather.

“No,” He said, all joviality gone. I kept pulling.

“NO!” He went serious, but I wanted to push him this time. A grin spread across my lips, and the lace came undone, the edges of it splitting open, and I started to tug it off my hand.

“Fuck you, no!” He jumped to his feet, moving away from me with his hand over his mouth.

“Tell me, or I’ll tag you,” I said it and meant it. Despite the exhaustion and heat over my face, I found the energy to tease him, and the joy of it filled me with drive.

“You wouldn’t dare,” He shouted back, horrified.

I jumped to my feet then. “Challenge accepted.”

“NO!” His wings flicked out in a swipe, and so did my own—it felt like lashing did. His wings snapped, not as loud as mine did, but I still lashed and flinched.

He paused in realization. “Did I just… did I just make you…” He’d never once managed to get one up on me. I used to make him lash by shrugging my shoulders, but he grew resistant to me over time. Though, never once had he lashed or withdrawn his wings with such emotion to stir me.

“Oh, now I have to hear!” I slipped my tail in and bound after him. He was fast, and chasing him now didn’t feel like it did months ago, weeks ago—days ago. The joy in me came from the thrill of it, and I could smell him, the fire, the leather, and heat that dappled amid his sweat. Usually, I wouldn’t torture him that much, wouldn’t tempt him if I could help it, but damn if I didn’t want to make him squirm as badly as he’d made me squirm for the past year.

He flexed, leaped, caught a branch, and I saw his arms with their developing strength as they shifted over branches to get him higher up a tree, though he wasn’t as nimble me. Then, following after him, I leaped and crawled with springy grace as his arms hoisted him. Watching that made me feel some things in places.

NOPE!

I took a deep breath, sinched my band, and looked up to him crouched near the canopy, glaring down at me. “You going to tag me?” I clenched my hands to get it out of my mind like sick poison. I wanted up there, wanted to throttle him so badly.

“No. You going to tell me?” I pouted.

His glare turned into a smirk. Mischief danced in his eyes. “Only if you say it.”

“Say what?”

“Tie amma vai,” He sang down to me in my native tongue, despite the grammar.

“Syn en vai,” I grumbled back.

“DIDN’T HEAR YOU!”

“SYN EN VAI!” My voice strained as I said it, sending the cry up in echoes around us.

“DIDN’T HEAR YOU! MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME UP!” he teased.

“VAI AMMA TIE, SKEN YAR!” The words hit my throat hard, and I wanted to come up there and slap him so badly. But, instead, his eyes went wide, and he jumped to another branch just in time because the world around me blossomed with blinding light. I stumbled and nearly fell, reeling as his arm caught mine. Then, I tried to gather my thoughts, wondering what I stood on—a tree branch… right where he had been.

What?

“Maybe just grab onto the branch for a minute.” He told me as I panted hard. Then, as expected, everything felt like it had spilled free of me, and he stumbled down to help me cradle myself near the trunk of the tree before slipping away.

“Chata ryel nah….” I whimpered. My vision wavered, and I realized he’d baited me.

“Want me to tell you still?” He grinned. I contemplated knocking him off his branch. I considered the fifty feet or so; he’d live. I didn’t like that he’d baited me into taking this strange rough light.

“So, Lowak…” He started. He moved over the branches to get comfortable. The green-dappled sunlight danced over his face in a light breeze as the leaves moved. He sat a little higher, a little upwind, so I had to deal with the brunt of his scent. Then, I had the brilliant idea of tugging my wristband up and rubbing my own ault over my nose to drown him out.

“Yeah?”

“You called me a carrot, and the first thing he ever told me about you was that ‘The girls that tease you often turn out to like your fire the best.’” His playful grin twisted.

“I mean… you do look like a carrot.” Of course, I didn’t comment on the fires, but I guessed I proved him right.

“He also told me that the creator chooses your bondmate for you and that if you were there and I was the only thing you could count on, that maybe you were meant for me. Even if I wouldn’t be a bondmate, the creator chooses those who enter your life. So I always felt like you were a gift.”

I wanted to tell him how dumb that sounded, but I couldn’t make myself.

“So, this is how your rough light is done? You just want something really bad, to go somewhere, a location in mind, and just… make sure your mind has Acir running through it?” I asked because it seemed too simple.

“Yep. I think… I’m not going to question it.” His crooked grin irritated me.

“So, we can go look for Kiromir?” Hope blossomed in me so powerfully that my aura twitched.

“We need to be better. I need confidence to know that you’ll be able to get away if I’m caught.”

“If you’re caught, I’ll stay.”

“Yeah, you didn’t even think about me being able to take rough light away. You assumed I couldn’t do it. So until you have that confidence and I know you’re not going to get hurt, we’re staying here and waiting.”

He had a point. I just didn’t like it.