inside, the butterflies in my stomach go haywire, and I don’t even blame them for the erratic fluttering. The teasing glint in his eyes and the half smile are a kryptonite I didn’t know I was susceptible to. But there are certainly worse ways to go than drowning in the depths of someone’s interest, and I’m surprisingly ready to dive right in.
Toreon takes a deep breath, readying himself to comply with what he’s been ordered to do, while I sit back on my heels and try not to be too eager to get a peek of his power. It’s time to try and figure out what he is and just what he can do.
19
Toreon sets all three cuffs in his lap, the black metal shiny against his ragged pants.
“I’m sorry,” I say with a shake of my head before he gets started. I can see from every tight muscle and resigned move that this is going to be brutal for him.
Bright gold eyes look up at me, and a finger draws up to run tenderly over my swollen and aching face. “Don’t waste your sorrys on someone else’s mistakes. The ones who wronged us don’t deserve our remorse.”
His words make me want to cry and lean into his touch. But his finger is gone in a flash, and even though it was only there for a second, I miss it.
“Alright, here we go…” he mutters, more to himself than to me.
“What exactly are you—” I cut off as he clasps his hands together in front of him, his gaze intent on his threaded digits. Through the cracks between his fingers, I see a soft golden glow begin to emanate, like he’s holding a lightbulb in his palms.
It seems so effortless for him to call the light in his hands, and I question what it is he’s going to do with the light that would put him in danger and at risk of being drained.
With every passing second, the light gets brighter, and then Toreon peels his fingers away, cupping both hands and revealing the ball of light he created.
I gasp, watching the power grow as I scoot closer. “It looks like you’re holding the sun.”
Toreon doesn’t respond, and when my eyes flicker up to his face, I see why. His brow is suddenly beaded with sweat, his face tense with strain. “Crap, are you okay?”
His attention stays wholly on the light he’s creating, his body beginning to shake with the effort it’s pulling from him. I watch as his eyes start to be leeched of color, the golden flecks in his irises morphing to gray, like speck by speck, he’s turning to ash as the power works hard to suck him dry.
“Sable…”
That one word spoken through a grimace is all I need to hear. I look down at my side, but my wounds there have long since stopped bleeding, just like the slice on my cheek has. Wasting no time, I dig into his pocket, not caring right now about the boundaries this may be pushing. My fingers close around the small file, and I immediately slash the pointed end across one palm, and then the other as deep as I can stand.
Suppressing a wince, I curl my hands, letting blood pool up in them until he’s cupping light, and I’m cupping life. To get a better vantage, I swing one leg over his outstretched calves on the floor and sit on his shins. Careful to avoid the power in his palms, I overturn my palms directly over his arms, letting my blood trickle down. Before any of it can drip off, my hands are there, swiping and rubbing it in, giving it all to him.
But as soon as I make the connection with my bleeding palms against his arms, heat rushes through my belly, my hands feeling like they’re being held under hot water from a faucet. Intense but not unpleasant heat seems to come from his skin as his body starts to soak up every drop I give him.
As quickly as I can bleed, he absorbs it, and I start to feel a distinct pull on my wounds like his body is begging for more. Something in him reaches deep into me and starts to wake up parts of me that have been shuttered away for practically my whole life.
I find myself panting with the sensation, and Toreon’s own breaths mirror my rapidly increasing intake. I can tell his lungs are working to sustain the use of so