Her soft-hearted wizard. Easing back enough to frame his face in her hands, she caught and held that wizard-black gaze with hers. “No one is taking me away from you, Gabriel. And I do love you, with everything in me.”

He let out a breath, softening under her hands. “I love you, too—and it makes me crazy.”

Laughing, she stepped back, triggering the magic toggles to seal her gown, the fabric tingling as it adjusted to fit her figure perfectly. She hopped a bit, tugging on one boot, then the other. “I refuse to take the blame for that. There’s considerable evidence that you were crazy long before you met me. Like the moment you decided to decimate House Phel’s coffers to pay the application fee for me.”

“I should’ve known you’d have made your way through all the house ledgers by now,” he said wryly.

“To be fair, there wasn’t all that much to get through.”

He winced. “Sorry about that.”

“No need to be. I intend to make your investment in me well worth it. But first things first. Let’s test the alternate form change. That proctor will find nothing to justify questioning our bond.”

“All right.” Gabriel’s magic braided around her. “Ready?”

“Yes, wizard,” she purred, deliberately using the name that indicated they were drawing lines of power.

His magic tightened on her in response, a silver web that he’d laid into her with deft and devastating thoroughness as he sensually tormented her. It was as if all his cool water and shimmering moon magic had become part of her body, underlying her skin with an intimacy unprecedented in her life. She didn’t know how it felt to other wizard–familiar pairs, but this went far deeper than the bonding, as if Gabriel had wrapped his mental fingers around her very soul instead of simply taking her by the hand.

She shivered at this final loss of autonomy. Not that she’d go back and change anything. Gabriel had already muddied the waters with the Convocation by insisting on a reciprocal wizard–familiar bonding that had confused the proctor’s oracle head. Demonstrating that Gabriel could push her into alternate form would be the incontrovertible proof they needed. Despite her brave words, Nic had no desire to be returned to Convocation Center for punishment and retraining.

“Something wrong?” Gabriel asked with a frown of concern.

“No. It’s just… a disconcerting feeling. I’ll become accustomed to it with practice.” She hoped. And if she didn’t, she certainly wasn’t going to tell Gabriel. The last thing he needed was something else in their wizard–familiar relationship to obsessively fret over. “Do it,” she told him.

The silver net flexed, strumming her nerves with a sensation very like orgasmic agony. The first time he’d shifted her into alternate form, she’d been out of her mind with frustrated desire, so she’d attributed the sensation—what little of it she’d been cognizant enough to track—to their erotic play. This… this was something else entirely. Sensual in nature, but with visceral intensity. Her body convulsed with it, then dissolved.