“I didn’t know that,” she argued. “In the moment, all I wanted was to kill you and damn the consequences.”
“You’re a determined little monkey,” he agreed, adding his pillow to the pile on the floor. “You have a knack for following through on whatever idea takes you. I’ve always admired that about you, inconvenient as it’s proved to be at times.”
“Inconvenient?” she echoed on an astonished breath. “You call me trying to kill you inconvenient?”
He patted his bare chest. Streaked with dried blood and other unmentionable fluids, yes, but perfectly intact once again. “A minor detour. In fact, given your murderous impulses, I’m likely the perfect wizard for you. If I piss you off and you decide to hack pieces off of me, at least with me they’ll grow back.” The headboard cushion had to go, too. Finding the serrated blade Seliah had used, he pried out the arrowhead, handing the silver instrument of destruction to her. Then he wrestled off the headboard and added it to the pile.
“What are you doing?” Seliah asked, turning the flashing silver arrowhead thoughtfully in her hand.
“Disposing of the evidence. Anything else with blood or other bits of past-me on it?”
“This.” She set the arrowhead aside and retrieved a bundle, blushing as she handed it to him. He unfolded the stiffened bunch of lace and ribbon. It was the black lingerie she’d been wearing. “When I pulled the arrow out,” she explained defensively, “your blood sprayed everywhere. After you passed out, I wiped it off of me as best I could, but…” She raked a hand through her tousled hair, fingers stopping short as they hit snarls caked with dried blood.
Now that he was able to focus better, he could see the smears on her skin. It also aroused him to an immediate and alarming degree to know that she was entirely naked under his shirt, that he need only slide a hand up her long thigh to find her hot, unprotected sex. The scent, taste, and sensation of touching her the night before rushed back, increasing the already nearly unbearable need. So, he firmly turned his back on her, adding the unlucky lingerie to the pile. “I’ll introduce you to the grooming beasties once this is dealt with. What did you use to wipe off with?”
Wordlessly, she handed him a cloth. With resignation, he recognized it as a favorite old scarf, and philosophically tossed it on the pile, too. Then he dumped the mattress atop it all, leaving the bedstand bare. Freeing a fire elemental from its lamp, he gave it instructions, then set it loose. Seliah drew up beside him, watching silently as the elemental gleefully reduced the pile to ash. It was clearly another expensive Elal-brand elemental, well-trained and responsive to a wizard’s touch, carefully and thoroughly burning only what he’d asked to be burnt. After it finished, he freed an earth elemental from the bathing chamber and set it to devouring the ash.
“That’s amazing to see,” Seliah breathed.
“Elal magic. There’s a reason your buddy Nic’s family is so rich and powerful.”
“Won’t someone wonder about the missing bed and stuff?”
“Nope.” He tapped the wall, hoping the house would cooperate for once. “I need a replacement headboard, bed, and linens, please.” For a long moment, nothing happened, and Seliah raised a sardonic brow. Then the wall shimmered. The previous bedstand shifted, morphing into a new four-poster bed, the linens spinning into place over a newly produced mattress. Carvings spun and settled, showing a pattern of arrowheads all along the posts. “Very funny,” he muttered at it.
“That’s incredible.” Seliah couldn’t quite believe this sort of magic was possible.
“That’s why my family is so rich and powerful,” he informed her. “Come in here.” He went into the bathing chamber, taking stock of himself in the high grade House Byssan mirror as he washed up, surveying the damage as he had so many times over the years. He’d grown up in these rooms—when he wasn’t confined to his cozy cage in the labs—and had confronted the evidence of his mother’s experiments on his body many times. This wasn’t so bad. Even when he checked out his back, triggering the enchantment that had the mirror show him his back side, it seemed to be healing nicely. Ridged pink skin still showed divots where that moon-magic arrowhead had torn the chunk out of his shoulder blade. No wonder the cursed thing had hurt so much. Experimentally, he lifted his arm, finding the range of motion still limited. Ah well, a few more hours should fix that.
Seliah stood in the doorway, watching him, clearly hesitating to enter.
“Come on in,” he told her. “It’s a bathing room, not a torture chamber.”
“One never knows in this place,” she retorted, bristling.
“Heh. That’s my girl.” He did admire her spirit and tenacity. She’d need both before they escaped the doom-ridden house of his birth. “Water elemental, for cleaning.” He pointed to the bottle. “Strip off, trigger it like this. It’s been preset to know what to do. “Fire elemental to dry off. Same mechanism.” He pointed to each bottle in turn. “Grooming imp, to fix your hair. Makeup imp, for obvious purposes.”
“I don’t need makeup.”
“You do, because you’ll be attending our bonding ceremony today, which will include pomp, ceremony, and witnesses, so you’ll want to look your best.”
She gazed at him in open-mouthed horror. “Today?” she squeaked.
He hardened himself against the stab of sympathy. “Yes, it has to be today. Maman capitulated last night and it’s best to get it done before she changes her mind.”
“Is that why I was in your bed last night?” she asked, expression growing tight. “These are your rooms, you said so.”
“The one has nothing to do with the other,” he answered, suppressing a surge of aggravation he didn’t understand. She didn’t need to make it sound so horrifying. “Wizards don’t necessarily fuck their familiars,” he added, being deliberately crude and congratulating himself for shocking her when her cheeks darkened with color. Never mind that he’d implied as much to his mother to get Seliah somewhere other than a lab enclosure. “Even if they do, they don’t necessarily share a bed or bedchamber.”
“Gabriel and Nic do.” She lifted her chin defiantly, amber eyes bright with answering annoyance. She looked impossibly adorable in his too-big shirt, delicate and wild. He wanted to see her naked. He walked out of the bathing chamber.
“Your idealistic, foolish iconoclast of a brother is the exception to the rule,” he said over his shoulder. “Toss my shirt out, would you? I need to summon servants to bring us clothes and food, and I can’t have questions.”
“About being bare-chested with me?” she asked, pulling the door mostly shut, then holding out the shirt from a slim hand thrust through the crack.
“About new scar tissue healing from a mortal wound,” he corrected. “Secret, remember? Which, by the way, don’t tell anyone. Seriously.”
She peeked through the crack, only one amber eye and a slim, bare shoulder showing through. “I won’t. Your secret is safe with me.” Her smile flashed before she disappeared again.
