He didn’t so much as blink, but a subtle tightening in his body told her she’d surprised him. He studied her, as if debating what to say. Hoping he would take his cue from her, she was more than glad when he focused on the true reason behind his visit, and not what they’d just shared.
“Why do the Aellei concern themselves with the Storm Lords?” he asked quietly.
Good question. Now how much to tell him? “Actually,” she paused and stepped back, managing not to grimace at the wetness between her thighs. Unfortunately, his silvery gaze positively gleamed as it darted towards her groin, making her clit throb with feeling. Damn it.
“What the Aellei do is not your concern.” Not yet. “For now, know we are weighing our decisions. Your fight with ‘Sin Garu grows, spreading like a disease throughout worlds.”
He nodded. “Obviously it has, or we wouldn’t have fought a Djinn and a Nocumat.” He crossed his arms and widened his stance, as if bracing for battle. “If I’m not mistaken, the Nocumat is Shadren, is it not?”
“Yes, he is.” With just that one question he subtly reminded her just how far apart their worlds really were. What he considered a monster, she considered a friend. Well, maybe not Oxcen, but his sister certainly.
“You controlled it—him—easily.”
“Actually, the threat of his mother controlled him.” She couldn’t help a satisfied smirk at Oxcen’s worry. The little creep. Maybe next time he’d think before offering to help a Dark Lord.
“I fail to see the humour in the situation.” Aerolus spoke softly but his body was rigid. “Oxcen nearly killed my brother.”
She waved away his anger. “A childish prank. Oxcen was only being himself. You want to blame someone for the River Prince’s near miss, blame the Dark Lord.”
“’Sin Garu.” He stared at her from that impressive height, his brows drawn in thought. “The Aellei fought alongside the Dark Lords in Tanselm.”
“A thousand years ago.”
“Together, nonetheless. Dark Lords and Shadren, and now Djinn and wraith as well.”
“Now hold on a minute.” She glared at him. “My people may have fought with the Dark Lords in the past, but a lot has changed since then. I don’t dispute that the Dark Lords grew tainted under too much raw magic.”
“And the Aellei and Djinn?” The hard, judging look in his eyes had passed, replaced with a tangible curiosity and interest in their shared history.
This Aerolus she knew very well, the scholar and sorcerer in training. She gave him an approving nod. “In our past, many cultures clashed, many worlds collided. What you Light Bringers failed to understand was that as a result of so much upheaval, the Dark Tribes split.”
“I know that, Alandra.” Her name on his lips made her blood tingle. “The Aellei vanished, rarely heard from anymore. However, your brethren, the Shadren, turned against all things Light, as did the Djinn and the wraiths.”
“Technically, you’re not talking about the wraiths, but the ice wraiths. And no, the Shadren didn’t turn against all things Light.” She walked uncomfortably towards a small cabinet in the corner of her sanctuary and removed a clean dress.
Without regard to Aerolus, she slipped easily out of her soiled clothes, murmured a spell to clean herself, and slid into a new white dress with a sigh. “That’s much better.” She turned to face him. The odd look on his face stopped her. Surely he wasn’t going to act funny about a little nudity, not after what they’d just shared? “What?”
He cleared his throat. “Nothing.”
“Where was I?” She strolled to her most comfortable chair, an overstuffed ball of nor seed covered in a soft, brown alien hide she’d found in Seattle. With a nod to the small ring of stones on the floor, she watched a green blaze appear, soothing as well as warming her tired mind and body.
Aerolus simply stared, lowering himself into a similar chair that suddenly appeared across the fire from her with a small wave of her hand. “Thank you,” he said courteously. Aerolus was never less than a gentleman, which made his earlier behaviour intriguing.
Stop that train of thought. Right now.
“You were talking about how I was wrong about the Shadren, and I suppose, the ice wraiths and Djinn?” he encouraged, as if talking to a child.
“Don’t patronise me, Aerolus.” She sighed, wanting to snuggle into her seat. She felt so relaxed, so at peace here under the warmth of Aellein fire, with him by her side. All the restless nights of the past few months, the lack of sleep, the large energy expenditures transporting between worlds, despite the Mir charm, they all seemed to come crashing down on her as she struggled to focus on the here and now.
Aerolus stared at her, his face inscrutable. Then he smiled, an honest, open expression of emotion that would have jolted her heart had she not reminded herself to remain detached.
Distance, I must remain polite, but distant. No more sex, and definitely no more shows of vulnerability in front of the Storm Lord.
“What?” she asked suspiciously as he continued to grin.
“Nothing. Just that purie seems even more fitting now. That chair fairly swallows you whole.”
She grimaced, once again feeling as if he’d somehow gotten the upper hand in a game she thought she was winning. “I’m going to forget you said that. Now do you want to know the truth about your supposed enemies or not?”
She yawned, awaiting his answer as she stared sleepily into the fire. When had she last slept? A few weeks ago? At least not since her interference with Oxcen and ‘Sin Garu.
Aerolus rumbled something, and she had to blink several times to put him in focus. Then she felt herself being lifted.
“No, no, purie, lie still.” Despite her plan to remain aloof, she couldn’t help curling into the warmth beneath her, the steady pounding of his heart more soothing than anything she’d experienced since being forced from her world.
“Shh,” he whispered. A soft stroke grazed her cheek. “Sleep, Alandra. I’ll be here when you wake.”
Hearing the truth in his words, she tangled her fist in the magic of his being and held tight, at peace as she hadn’t been for a very long time.
Chapter Three
“What exactly do you mean you don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back?” Arim stared through the disturbingly sincere brown gaze of his nephew, clearly seeing untruth in the making.
Cadmus shrugged, spurring the niggle of irritation in Arim threatening to break free. First the academic voyeur next door, now his nephew. Did no one in this plane tell the truth? And how convenient his other recalcitrant relative, the normally steady Aerolus, just happened to disappear moments after Arim’s discovery of an Aellein presence.
If he hadn’t known better, Arim would have thought to question ‘Sin Garu’s involvement in this mess. Yet his intuition told him otherwise.
Having successfully pushed both Darius and Marcus to their respective brides, he’d thought the most difficult portion of his job done. Who knew Aerolus and Cadmus would prove to be the more difficult of the Royal Four?
Having to remain in Tanselm to help drive the remaining Netharat back into the darkness from whence they’d come, Arim had been too busy protecting the Storm Lords’ latest additions, namely Samantha and Tessa, to keep an open eye on Aerolus and Cadmus.
But with ‘Sin Garu apparently sucked from earth into Light knew where, he’d thought he had time to settle the Prince of Fire and the River Prince into their new kingdoms before venturing back to Seattle. He was beginning to wish he’d never heard of this dreaded city.