Not to mention the fact that not only did she have air magick inside her, she had water magick. Fire and water were natural repellants and should have cancelled out the air/fire thing.

But, no, it didn't.

Now, even days later, when Adam reached out and she took his offered hand, sparks and shivers of awareness curled through her. With Theo, even though they also shared an earth water attraction, she felt little, and even that bit of little had disappeared two days ago.

It was Adam who had woken her body from its self-imposed sexual coma. It was Adam who intrigued every inch of her body.

Yet, he'd made no move in her direction since that afternoon. Nothing more than a heated glance had passed between them, or the occasional brush of bodies in the hallway that made her knees weak.

Clearly, she was the only one feeling the attraction and it stung her pride.

After all, it wasn't like they didn't have the time or opportunity. All they did all day was practice magick. She taught Theo and Adam tricks to make them stronger, to prepare them for any confrontation with the Atrika. The Atrika possessed natural shields against elemental magick, but that didn't mean it couldn't be used as a weapon when wielded a certain way. Put a little twist on a bolt of elemental power and it could be quite effective against a daaeman.

When she wasn't giving magick lessons she was poking at the elium. Unfortunately, most of the time it made her sick to touch it.

Adam came to a halt in front of her, hesitated, then pulled her up flush against his chest.

She stiffened and tried to pull away. "What in Houses are you doing, Adam?" Her jostling only made him hold her tighter. Her air crushed out against his hard chest and her hands clenched on his broad shoulders.

She went still and desperately tried to ignore her body's responses to his proximity. The last thing she wanted was to give him the satisfaction of knowing how he affected her. Not when he'd teased her and then rejected her so thoroughly. Despite his words, Adam didn't find her attractive after all. That was fine. Houses knew she should be used to being found unattractive by now.

He grasped her hand, his opposite arm curling around her waist. Claire fought the urge to pull away from him and bolt from the room. Where was Theo, anyway? The man disappeared so often. Too often. Right now it was damned inconvenient.

Adam flipped her hand over and stroked her palm with the pad of his thumb. It shouldn't have felt erotic, such an innocent thing… but it did. "Let me touch it."

CHAPTER TWELVE

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She blinked. "What?"

"The elium, Claire." His eyelids lowered a little, along with his voice—smooth black velvet. "What did you think I meant?"