“Follow the perimeter,” she begins giving her team orders, but stops to check over her shoulder in the direction of my family in the trees. “But not that way,” she adds.
The women nod respectfully, then meet my gaze for confirmation.
My brothers and I have always been treated in two ways, respect or power play. Since Lithael came into power, the third option, fear, has become prominent. So I’m not surprised that the women look to me for confirmation. I am surprised that they feel eager for it, that they desire my reaction.
Not because of what my Seed is tugging to the surface of their consciousnesses, but because of what Kitten just did. Because we have a damn crazy mortal in our possession.
The strongest power play – played out by the weakest among us, and she didn’t even know she was doing it.
I nod to Teegan’s team, and two of them move off. They can follow the stream if they want. In any direction they want. I’ve already done that.
“Show me where this water doesn’t start from,” Teegan coos, taking lithe steps away from the cluster of logs arranged for sitting on and onto the path.
Pebbles, just smooth enough for Kitten to walk – or stumble – across barefoot trace the edge of the stream. Teegan has grace. Each of her steps, in her shiny deer-hide boots, is almost soundless. And she has the kind of hips that perch atop long legs without any ability to hide the swish and sway of her walk. Legs that are bare. Smooth. Not a scratch or a mark.
“She was dead when you got here?” Teegan asks, pointing to the blood on the boulder as we amble around a garden bed and away from where Kitten and Pax are having a heated discussion out of sight, but not quite out of my senses. I can’t make out the words, just the heavy tones and the intensity in the air. Kitten’s desire is still heavy even at this distance.
And still fanning the fire inside me.
I try to settle my emotions before saying, “Yes, long dead.” Following Teegan further along the path.
Her back is bare. Aeons, the top she’s wearing barely covers her front, and her skirt is short to the point of barely covering anything at all. It’s not like she can help the seductive tones of her voice or the way she wets her lips before talking and chews her lip while listening. She was born this way. She is a SeductionSeed.
What she can help is using her power to force Kitten’s hand into making a move that was so close to ending everything. Ending our realm. Ending our future. Ending her life.
Ending me.
And maybe it worked out for the better, but Teegan couldn’t have known that.
“Oh, look,” Teegan says when the wall of nothing comes into view, still oblivious to the way I am stalking behind her. My hands are clasped behind my back, my gaze either on the path, or numbly on one of her features. “It does just end.”
I almost chuff. Of course, it bloody ends. Aeons, I said it ended.
The path just runs out. One minute there’s path and the little stream, the next it’s a sheer wall of stone. Black like night, and worn smooth by a million years of water flowing endlessly down from the giant sequoia on top. I’ve been here – done this a million times. Looked at the stone and the tree and the stream, and none of it is helping!
The up the slope bit is weird – but we worked out Eydis played a hand in that.
The water coming out from under a tree root bit is weird – but I’ve linked that to old magma tunnels.
The wall of stone worn smooth, also weird – but given the amount of time that has passed and the type of stone it is actually incredibly feasible.
Teegan is running her fingers through the cascading water, parting it like curtains as she delicately explores the surface through her touch… Eyelids lowered and her lashes, long and fluttering, and reflecting the afternoon sun… Her lips part just a little and each breath lifts her chest, drawing my eye down to the low v in her top…
All seduction, and my ready-to-break Allure snatches up the essence of what she’s offering and throws me into the mix with it.
My hands are under her shirt, flat against her stomach, spinning her to face me, before my mind is even aware of it. Fire explodes inside of me, raging heat that has to knock down the walls I’ve built to protect Kitten before it can connect.
And it does connect. Hard and vibrant with every color of desire. The rush of my power meeting hers leaves me gasping, and the minute the connection is there, I feel her strength rush into me. The way a Saber interaction should be – she draws in from me, and I draw in from her.
I feel my power rush into her.
The water cascading over her shoulders as I pin her. My arms tangled in her shirt.
To hold Teegan – I realize.
Teegan.
Not Kitten.
Her head tilts back, and an excited gasp escapes expectant lips. Her eyes are actually closed. She’s so sure my lips will find hers.
But my power has raced through her, felt around the edges of what she has to offer, decided it’s no longer good enough for us, and already begun to retreat.
I growl. The sound so alien from my own lips that even my eyes open wider with shock, and Teegan looks horrified.
No, if I’m going to lose control of my power, it has to be with Teegan. Teegan can handle it. Teegan will survive.
But instead my power reaches and stretches around me, seeking the true source of its desire. Seeking Kitten.
“What?” Teegan gasps, trying to straighten and having considerable trouble with my arms still wrapped up in her shirt.
And the
