Page 61 of First Ritual
Oddly, his brisk order lessened my embarrassment. Still swallowing at the thought, I fisted my hands at my sides and took a breath. “Okay.”
I wasn’t aware my eyes had squeezed shut before his long fingers curved around my fists. Eyes popping open, I jerked from Wild’s touch. My nose was nearly touching his chest.
I glanced up.
“Relax,” he said low.
I inhaled again. And again. “I don’t know how to relax with this.” I mean, I’d done this multiple times. With the entire coven. Him. Children. Yet with each meeting, I became more discomforted by people probing into my magic. Into me. The thought of Wild taking a peek was worst of all. I mean, look what happened last time we’d opened our magic to one another.
Wild slipped his hands down my wrists to work my fists open. His skin was so warm and my skin tingled everywhere he touched.
“Follow my breaths,” he ordered.
“What if this makes things worse?” I whispered, syncing my breaths with his—a standard centering technique for magus.
“Then it makes things worse. This affects me more, remember?”
“True.” My tension eased further at his reply, and now his drowning eyes were closed.
“Should I be offended that reassured you so much?” he grunted.
I chuckled, my eyes shutting again. “You can choose to be as offended as you please.”
“Open to me, queen,” he growled, then cleared his throat at Sven’s snort. “Sorry. Are you ready?”
Instead of replying aloud, I peeled back my defenses to open my three affinity channels, then trickled magic down to wait like a deer at the edge of a meadow.
“Her magic doesn’t seek you out…,” Sven observed aloud.
Wild’s growl filled the space.
“… which puts Wild in a bad mood.”
I worried at my lip. My instincts were flaring. “Maybe we shouldn’t—"
Wild removed his defenses.
Battle affinity lashed out in an explosion. My scream was choked short as his magic whipped out to seize hold of my tentative tendrils.
I was ripped toward him. Slammed against his body. Held magically.
Magic wound around my wrists, lifting them overhead. I kicked out and found my legs bound an instant later. His drowning eyes bore into mine.
A second later it began.
I writhed as his magic hooked into mine along all three of my affinity channels. Probing. Drilling.
He was trying to get into the essence that made up my magic. No! I bucked, incapable of shouting. I couldn’t see through the black haze that surrounded us.
Where was Sven?
Wild was trying to enter who I was. Which was impossible? And I wouldn’t let him.
Except I could feel his magic boring holes in mine like he was creating entry points, mining for my center.
He couldn’t be allowed to get there. I knew that inherently.
Wild’s face was before mine, and through the rapid rise and fall of my chest—my panic—I forced myself to think.