He growls and I bite back a chuckle.
I’m just debating whether to offer to hoist him when he apparently realizes that if he climbs onto the bed beside me and uses the extra two feet of height it gives, he can easily touch the opening. Before he leans forward to pull himself up, he flips back around to me. I straighten to look as solemn as him.
“I’m not finished with you, Elemental. I’ll return when you least expect it.”
“I sincerely hope you do.”
And I mean it.
Then he’s climbing back through from where he came, and I wait until he’s disappeared to stand on the bed and put the small metal square back in its place.
And smile in total confusion.
CHAPTER 9
Open your eyes, Nym.”
I do and Eogan’s face is the first thing I see. My heart lunges and soars all in one inhale—we’re back in the Valley of Origin. I can taste the magic misting the air.
Tiny jeweled water droplets cling to his dark lashes. The drips shiver as he smiles before they release to join the millions of others floating around us in rainbow-lit colors. His brilliant green eyes smolder down at me, his heartpulse alive against my hand, sending my stimulated lungs clamoring for my throat.
I swallow and the storm in his gaze crackles in amusement. “You have no idea how extraordinary you are.”
Suddenly I can feel the hunger pouring off of him as thick as it’s leaching from me.
My jaw drops. The clouds in the distance roar and the floating droplets ascend to create new clouds of their own as a gale picks up, whipping my hair back.
Eogan raises a brow, and that thing in his eyes blazes. As if the same lightning storm above us is now poised at the edge of his heart, determining whether or not it will engage. I hear his breath shudder as my mind forms a definition for the look in his eyes: Craving. Conflict. Apology. The pulse in his neck quickens as his gaze slides down to my lips. He pushes a hand along the side of my throat and into my hair, then runs a thumb down my jawline as he tilts his face to hover an inch from mine. His finger stops beneath my trembling lower lip.
My world pauses.
His eyes flicker up. An agonized smile, and suddenly he’s clearing his throat. But his voice is still husky when he says, “Look up.”
“Nym. Look up.”
I open my eyes.
“Nym. Nym.”
I blink.
And wake up, only to have my heart wrench through my rib cage as Eogan’s face evaporates along with the memory of our afternoon spent in the Valley of Origin.
They’re replaced by Rasha invading my vision. “Finally!” She’s bending over me with an expression of relief and pushing open the small rain-speckled window.
Two seconds later the whole room rolls to the left and she loses her balance and tilts into me before the ship rights itself. The loud, incessant droning sound grows even noisier—like a swarm of bees that invaded an oliphant nest.
“Sorry.” She shoves herself off. “The ship flies rougher than I expected. Seems they still have some problems to work out.”
I sit up and look back to the window, and then I turn over to press my face through the open pane to the day-lit endless mass of glittering gray.
The familiar saltwater taste pricks my tongue and skin with that Elemental ache the sea invokes. That melodic whisper that strums like the notes of a death toll and solstice waltz all in one. But before I can grasp onto the sound, it’s gone, and I can’t recall the sensation.
I push the covers down and peek up at the metal square in the wall, half expecting to see the boy’s face from last night. But the bars look as unmoved as before. Where did he disappear to? And why did he stow away in the first place?
Suspicion says he couldn’t pass up the opportunity for an adventure or a chance to get a look at his, until recently, enemies. I smile. Good for him.
Glancing at Rasha, who’s busy smoothing down her hair, I stand and promptly cringe at the flaring soreness in my legs. “What time is it?”
“Afternoon. Didn’t you hear the men bring your meal this morn—?”
Her gaze lands on my arm. On the makeshift bandage covering it.
“Oh Nym,” is all she says.
I force down the guilt that flares just as a knock sounds down the hall. We both jump, and I scramble to cover my arms before a Bron guard appears in the doorway.
“The dining area is now open if you ladies desire to join the other delegates there.” He scowls at me.
“About time,” Rasha says. “A day and a half’s a bit dreadful to coop us up in these rooms, handsome. That is”—she sniffs and her voice goes airy—“if one can call these closets a room. We’ve been locked in these quarters since we took off—very inconvenient. I mean, look at me!” She swags a hand down her brown silk dress. “All but two outfits are in the storage bay! I made Lord Myles put a bag there for you as well,” she says to me. “You’re welcome.”