Chapter Eighteen

The night was a restless one, filled with Aien’s moans, and the spice of spell-component scented sweat as his body worked through the magic of Isyl’s potion. There was little that I could do but make him drink in order to replace the fluids that he lost and wipe the cloth over his face and chest in an effort to keep him cool and comfortable.

I found that I could distract him from it with my hands, my mouth, and my body on his, confusing his senses with a combination of pleasure and pain. In the morning I awoke, therefore, bare, and in a tangle of sheets stained with tides of sweat and passion. Aien lay on his back, his face turned my way, the light that crept through a kink in the curtains picking out that faint silver-white scar that ran down his cheek, and his arm propped upon cushions.

He was beautiful in the soft morning light, and I lay for a long time, as he slept, lulled by the rhythm of his breath, and watching the sunlight creep over his skin. He was exhausted from the night,