After today’s session, where I had to physically drag her out of the training room to get her to stop practicing, I glimpsed her clutching my lightning bolt necklace. The sight sent hot desire shooting through every inch of my body, and I couldn’t stop the image of her naked, wearing nothing but that necklace, from barging into my thoughts. Even now, laying alone in my room late at night on the last day of Abscission, my mind wanders to her.

I think about her more than I want to admit. She haunts my dreams, those heart-shaped lips trailing down my body, full breasts cupped in my hands, reddish hair creating a cage around my face as she rides me. Her body is so different from what I’m used to. The fae, especially females, are lithe and willowy, bodies drawing a straight line. Small breasts, small ass. But Laurel—those curves. I’m tantalized by her cleavage and her round backside. Seeing her immediately ignites my blood, and my eyes find her in any room. Even when I don’t have her in my line of sight, I feel her, keenly aware of her presence like a sixth sense. When she smiles, the world stops around me, and when she laughs, bright and melodic, I cease breathing.

If I’m being honest with myself, the energy that pulses between us makes me uneasy. I don’t know how to be the kind of male she deserves. And, aethers, she deserves so much. Everything that’s been taken from her, everything that she’s had to endure for so long—all at the hands of my own aethers-damned father—is incomprehensible. She should be with someone smart and capable, who can rule at her side and share her burden. I can’t be that for her. I’ve only played pretend at spy, pulling together a small network of allies in Velmara who’ve achieved little. I couldn’t even stop my own father from secreting away the entire country’s supply of thayar flowers. I’m not worthy of her, and she was right to shut down pursuing anything between us. There’s too much history, too much baggage, for us to be anything more than allies.

And yet, when I’m with her, all of that shame and loathing and worry disappears. I get too caught up in poking at her, trying to see which comments or grins make her laugh, or shiver, or open up. It takes so much energy to keep my hands off her, and I fail more often than not. But I’m still trying to respect her reasons for not wanting to act on this attraction, reasons that the rational part of my brain agrees with, even if other parts of me don’t.