The second part of the tremor started, and the building moved from side to side.
I followed Jallina out and turned my head to look at the Spine.
“Yellow.”
“What? No, Kimber, come on. Get away from the building, you’re going to get crushed. Drez isn’t here to help me this time.”
“I don’t need help to stop this.” I smiled benevolently.
“What?”
“This is another magic tremor.”
“Yes, I know, and there’s—” She stopped dead and stared at me. “Oh.”
I grabbed her hand and walked over to a bench across the street in the park. I sat her down and faced the mountain.
“Even happiness and hope aren’t the only things that should bring down the mountain,” I whispered, tossing the words into the magic and allowing them to be pulled along.
I dropped down to one knee and touched the ground. “Stop. Sleep. Rest. It’s not time yet.”
The magic flowed to my fingers, and I reached out with magic—and the power I had been granted by Rilen and Roran—and tugged on the strings flowing by. I pulled them to a halt carefully.
The tremor settled around us, and the shaking stopped. Once I was sure the Spine was resting again, I stood up and turned to Jallina.
She grinned. “Well. Damn. You fought so hard last time, and Drez and I were exhausted until the next day!”
“I had no power,” I said. “I couldn’t do anything. I’m so glad that you and Drez were there. Only mated couples can lend power.”
Jallina patted the bench, and I sat, smiling.
I looked at the Spine. I wasn’t tired at all, and it felt good to be able to handle the magic again.
“Do you know when the Spine will fall?”
“No. I’ll know when the magic feels right, though.”
“How many tremors have you stopped?”
“Five. The first I didn’t realize I was supposed to stop, and that’s why so many people were hurt. Each has its own color, and they come in about five-or six-day cycles.”
“And that’s why they took this chance to head north. They knew they’d be back in time for the next one. They are coming back, right?”
“Of course. They just need time to attend to duties and appoint a keeper.”
Jallina sighed. “I still can’t believe…”
“Believe what?”
“I’m not even sure whether I want to mention the twins, the magic or the temple master!”
*
I settled into my bed for the third night alone.
It was strange to dislike being alone, but I did. For ninety-two years, I’d had my own bed. After just two weeks with Rilen and Roren, even my normal bed felt too small and empty without them.
I didn’t want to sleep in Master Dorian’s quarters without them there.
For as many nights as I had been in the bed, sharing his mates with his permission, not once had the temple master slept there with us.
Each morning I woke, he was seated in the chair, my clothes for the day next to him.
Each day, I had to get out of bed naked—because the twins almost never let me keep my bedclothes on—and walk to the chair naked.
Master Dorian would watch me dress and send me on my way.
I didn’t understand him.
I didn’t understand what he was doing, or why.
Still, if my biggest humiliation to sharing his mates was to have to flounce around the bedroom naked, I felt like it was a small price to pay.
Nearly asleep, the bedroom door banged open. I shot up in bed, magic at the ready.
“What are you doing in here, girl?”
Rubbing my eyes, I managed to pull up a magical light and the sheets that had nearly gotten away from me.
“Master Dorian?”
“I asked you a question.”
“Master, it’s nearly midnight, I was trying to sleep.”
Entering the room, the light flared. He stood in the center, hands on hips, staring at me. “What did I tell you?”
I ran a hand down my face. “Master Dorian, could we please discuss this in the morning?”
“I gave you an order.”
I dropped my head back and stared up at the ceiling, groaning. “Please, Dorian, I need my sleep.”
I slapped my hand over my mouth.
He had never given me permission to address him informally. It was a massive breach of etiquette, even if I was only half awake.
There was dead silence in the air, but no sense of anger.
A voice came from the foyer along with the sound of indelicate feet pounding through the dormitory. “Mistress Kimber! Mistress—”
Dressed in full livery, one of the university students I’d come to know over the past month slid to a stop in front of the open door. He stared at Master Dorian and didn’t know what to do.
“Maytan, why are you here? It’s so late.”
“Mistress, Master, I am sorry. The meter has sounded.”
Fear shot through me, and I jumped out of bed, holding the sheet around me. “What? No. There has to be a mistake.”
“We’ve checked over and over. Everything is working properly. It says four hours.”
I glanced at Master Dorian. He looked troubled by this as well. “You’re doubly sure?”
“Absolutely. The professor said to invite you down to the lab if you need confirmation.”
“No, I trust you. I can’t make heads or tails of that thing. Thank you for the warning, Maytan. Please have the professor send a brief in the morning about the implications of this.”
“Of course, your grace.”
He bowed and hurried away.
Master Dorian continued to stare at me. “You did not answer my question.”
I walked to the chair where I had laid out my clothes for the next morning. I’d really had enough of his bullshit, and I wasn’t going to kowtow anymore.
Dropping the sheet in defiance, I stood there naked and stared at him in the doorway.
“I am not going to answer your question, Master Dorian. I am tired of you treating me horribly. I might be the youngest and most inexperienced master in this temple, but I am a master. As I recall, you did not vote against me. Now, if you don’t mind, please leave. I need to get dressed and figure out what I can do to do stop this next set of tremors.”
“You have power—”
“I had enough power yesterday to stop one. If there is another coming, I need more power. I don’t have my bedmates here to insure that.”
He stared at me.
His gaze was hot, lustful.
For a heartbeat, I thought he might take me to my bed and do the job himself.
I shocked myself by not objecting to the idea of a hot, hard, fast fuck from the bastard.
A moment passed, and he growled and walked out of my room. “Dress, girl. Meet me in the practice room.”
I pulled on a pair of panties, satisfied that he was gone.
The practice room?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kimber
The room was lit up like it was midday instead of midnight.
I strode in, my own sword banging against my leg.
“Master Dorian—”
The sword whistled through the air. I bent to my right to avoid the blow and spun to pull my blade out.
I caught the return blow on the edge and saw who had just attacked me. “Master Dorian?”
“Are you going to go back to calling me that? I thought you’d be sick of giving me the title, giving me honor that’s rightfully due.” He pushed hard against my blade.
“It was an accident. You startled me awake.”
“Protocol is not something we sleep on.”
I unlocked the swords with a spin and stepped back. “You are a cranky, mean bastard, Master Dorian. I despise the fact that you are probably the only one who can teach me how to use my magic and my sword.”
“You are an undisciplined child.” He stepped forward and raised the sword again to an opening parry position.
“I am not a child, and I’m not undisciplined!” I raised my blade into an answering counter-parry. “I was in your room while you were screwing your mates that day because I was there to beg you to teach me!”
Slipping from a counter-parry into an attack stance, I didn’t hold back. I was angry, and I whirled the sword in controlled chaos, attacking him and making him retreat from me.