“It wasn’t your choice,” she pointed out calmly. “Besides, I—”
“I agreed,” he interrupted. “It was my choice.”
“Grudgingly, and only because you’re so invested in everyone being equal. You can’t rail about familiars not having the freedom that everyone else does on the one hand and then get all dictatorial about their decisions on the other.”
He set his teeth. “It’s not because she’s a familiar. It’s because this is Selly, and she isn’t…” Trailing off as Nic’s brows rose, he cursed himself for digging himself even deeper into a bog.
“There’s just no good way to finish that sentence is there?” Nic asked after a beat, her tone oozing false sympathy. “Let me save you. What I was about to say is, while your thinking is sound, I think your instincts are off. I seriously doubt there’s any danger of Jadren bonding Selly. In fact, I’m certain of it.”
“Why?” It relieved him to hear that from her, especially as Nic knew so much more about the ruthlessness of the Convocation and its wizards.
She shook her head. “Logically, there’s the fact that he hasn’t bonded a familiar yet. There’s something going on there. Also, less logically… my gut tells me so.
“That’s what my gut says, too. I just worry I don’t have a good reason to trust something so irrational. What if it’s only indigestion?”
She chuckled in sympathy. “That cream sauce last night did seem a bit off. I’ll speak with the kitchen staff. But what you’re feeling is not irrational and it’s not indigestion. Your wizardly intuition is real. Trust it.”
He’d done that before, following his intuition in how to rescue Nic. “But there’s your second point—the swarming minions of our enemies who wouldn’t hesitate with Selly. My intuition, wizardly or otherwise, is prompting me to find our lost pair before anyone else does.”
“Then let us proceed to the arcanium, wizard,” she purred, a gleam in her eyes.
Giving her a disbelieving look, he cocked his head. “Questions of indigestion aside, I can’t believe you’re up for more sex after last night’s epic recharging of the arcanium.”
She lifted her chin, gazing nobly into the distance, hand over her heart. “My duty to house and wizard demands much of me, but I will soldier on!” Simpering mischievously at him, she dropped the pose. “In all seriousness, while sex magic is excellent for recharging the arcanium and for building power for major incantations, that shouldn’t be necessary for this effort. It would be good for you to practice using the arcanium’s focusing power without sex. I confess, I am a bit sore from all the wicked things you did to my helpless body last night.”
Because she kept her knowing gaze trained on his face, he made sure not to wince, though he couldn’t help the flush of combined heat and a tiny bit of shame. “I did go farther than ever before.” He didn’t pose it as a question, but he waited expectantly. This went both directions. If she wanted him to embrace his darker nature and follow his baser passions, then she had to be honest with him about whether he had gone too far.
“I loved every moment,” she answered the unspoken question, a flush of her own gracing her high cheekbones. “And I’m fine. I visited Asa first thing this morning to be healed, so you don’t need to feel guilty about having left any marks on me.”
Now he did wince at the thought of the Refoel wizard-healer seeing the results of their long, impassioned, and violently erotic interlude. “Did Wizard Asa, er…”
Nic raised one raven-winged brow. “Comment? Express censure or voyeuristic curiosity?”
He blew out a breath, aware she was needling him and yet unable to quite get himself to a place where those possibilities didn’t bother him. “Just tell me what he said.”
“Very little, beyond the normal interchange between healer and patient.” She rolled her eyes. “Gabriel, Asa is a Convocation wizard. A few love bites and bruises from chains between wizard and familiar are hardly going to shock him.”
Not trusting his voice or words, Gabriel simply nodded. He didn’t love the idea of Asa seeing the results of unleashing his dark nature on Nic’s beautiful skin, but the alternatives were for Nic to not get healed or for them to stop doing it. Neither was truly an alternative, so he’d have to learn to handle it. “Good,” he said, finally, in lieu of anything more articulate. “Let’s go see about searching for Selly then. And Jadren.”
Perhaps he imagined it, because he wanted to see it, but Nic gave him a look of quiet approval and understanding. She tucked a hand through his elbow, walking with him back toward the manse and their secret tunnel to the arcanium. “Asa also tended to Maman this morning. She’s doing better, physically.”
“I’m sorry I forgot to inquire.” He’d been too caught up in his own concerns.
Nic smiled warmly, squeezing his arm. “You have a lot on your mind. Besides, Maman is in good hands. Alise is staying with her, reading and talking to her, and Asa looks in every so often.”
“And her mind?”
Firming her chin, Nic gazed at the north wing of the manse where her maman was housed. “We don’t know yet. Papa keeping her in her feline alternate form for so very long may have done permanent damage. Now that Alise has severed the wizard–familiar bond between them, we’re hoping Maman will gradually recover herself. Only time will tell.”
“I suppose that we could always ask Alise to sever any wizard–familiar bond again, if we’re wrong and Jadren has bonded Selly—or if some scurrilous Sammael minion has.” He left out the possibility that anyone from House Elal might have bonded Selly. Nic had enough to think about without worrying about further betrayal from the house of her birth.
Nic slid him a wary glance. “Perhaps.”
Her non-committal reply didn’t surprise him. The discovery that the wizard–familiar bond could be severed was potentially explosive. It would turn the rigid Convocation hierarchy upside down—if the news got out. For the time being, only a handful of them knew about the procedure and only Nic’s teenaged wizard-sister could perform the feat. The Convocation had killed people and demolished Houses for far less. Nic, always wanting to err on the side of keeping their heads down, would likely argue that they shouldn’t use the technique, at all, ever.
And, since that argument wouldn’t lead them anywhere productive, he left it at that. Besides, first they had to find Selly, before they could think about anything more.
~ 7 ~
