“Does that mean you’ll stay with me tonight?”
Cameron hummed, his eyes moving up and around to look at anything but Alric. “I don’t know. I mean the last time I did sleep like the dead because you managed to keep me so toasty warm. And you didn’t once complain about my cold feet.”
“Because I kept your feet between mine all night so they’d stay warm.” Alric rubbed his face against Cameron’s, kissing and nipping along his jaw until Cameron tilted his head up to give him better access to his neck. He loved that about Cameron. The man just soaked in the affection Alric offered as if he simply couldn’t get enough. “Stay with me,” he whispered over and over again, punctuating each one with a kiss to Cameron’s body.
“Mmm…I love it when you beg.”
“Whatever you wish so long as I get to keep you right here in my arms.”
Cameron huffed a laugh and turned so that he was facing Alric. “As if there’s any other place I want to be. I’ll stay.”
They lounged for a little while longer, slowly kissing and simply enjoying holding each other. When Alric started to worry that he’d drift off to sleep, he roused himself enough to climb from bed and shuffle to the bathroom. He turned on the water in the shower, allowing it to warm while he went back to drag Cameron to his feet. They showered together, though the washing turned to kissing and eventually jerking each other off.
When they finally made it back to bed, they were both exhausted to the bone and smiling like idiots. Tucked under the heavy blankets together with Cameron curled against him, Alric sighed heavily. The world waited for them outside his bedroom doors with all its decisions and painful consequences. Alric was content to let it wait for just a few more hours. For now, he was content to have his world be the sound of Cameron’s soft breathing and the steady beat of his heart.
“Good. Again.”
Cameron focused, more than he’d ever focused in his life with the possible exception of finals. He tapped into the spell elements arrayed next to him, drawing on their power, speaking the warding spell once more. He was warding himself, in fact, and Lisette would come by and smack it with a wooden cudgel. She wielded that thing like a samurai. It was not in any way, shape, or form a light tap. She was honestly trying to break through it, and Cameron had to be firm on his design to make sure she couldn’t.
He glanced at his sister, saw Cassie with the same look of determination. Hers had failed last time on the second hit, and she was a bit pissy about it. But Cassie was the type where the more you pissed her off, the more determined she became to perfect it. From here, her ward glimmered as if woven by fireflies, and it looked as strong as steel.
Glancing the other direction, he checked on his grandmother who had the same sort of ward up, the same determination on her face. Halmeoni had picked up on magic just as fast despite her age. She absorbed magic theory as if born to the role—as she had been.
Lisette came by with her stick, eyes narrowed as she studied each ward in turn. Whack, whack, whack! “Good. I’ll come through again, hold steady.”
Whack, whack, whack!
Lisette turned on her heel, like a model on a runway, her motion sharp and smooth. Cameron thought she was coming back for another round but instead she marched directly to his and stared at it for a long moment. “Cameron. There’s something a bit different about yours. To be precise, I’m seeing something in it that I didn’t expect to.”
“I, uh, noticed the color difference.” Cameron stared around at his own ward, head panning as he took it all in. His grandmother’s was sparkly bright, but his was more muted, more like Cassie’s. Well, not muted—more like a thread of dark crimson flowed in with it all and kept it from sparkling as brightly. He wasn’t sure why all three of theirs looked different in color. But he did know that the red didn’t make sense as none of the elements had a red tinge to it. “I’m not sure where it came from? I’m using the same elements.”
“You are,” Lisette said in a tone that made it clear she didn’t agree. “And you’ve added one more, apparently subconsciously. Things are going that well, hmmm?”
He stared at her amused expression and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what Lisette was on about. “I’m sorry?”
“You and Alric.” She gestured to the ward in general then pointed to a particular strand of that crimson-red. “That is Alric’s dragon force.”
Cameron stared at the same point and felt his brain go spinning off in a freefall. That was Alric’s power?! Oh god, what? Why? How? Cameron didn’t know whether to be pleased by this or—you know what, freaked out sounded good to him. He’d be freaked out.