Serenna crunched her hands into fists, deciding she’d draw on the entire Lagoon and spout all the water into the air to stage her escape. She jerkily revolved in a turn, a marionette on a frayed string. Keep your eyes on his face, you stargazer. The exit was behind Fenn. She simply had to dodge around him. And past—
Fenn’s scarlet eyes shimmered in a firestorm of roguish delight. “This is an unexpected but welcome surprise.” His carnal stare extended through the space between them, clutching Serenna like a vice.
Her stomach swooped from that predatory look. Clever plans dissolving, Serenna battled the urge to run, shamefully wondering what would happen if she were caught.
Excruciatingly confused by what she wanted, Serenna’s voice cracked over a hoarse protest. “Lykor made me come.”
Grin spreading wider, Fenn tilted his head. His loose hair dripped at the ends, leaving droplets of water sparkling on his waist. He stepped closer, the smolder in his eyes pinning her in place. The room started to spin as he pulled Serenna into his gravity.
“And since you’re here…” Fenn grazed her wrist, skating his talons up her arm. “Perhaps you have an interest in coming again?”
Serenna sucked in a broken breath, her heart pounding significantly faster than the beating drums. She shuddered when Fenn’s claw curled around her shoulder, encompassing her with his unnatural warmth.
The flush from Serenna’s cheeks raced down her spine, kindling coals far too low in her belly to be unease. Her wandering eyes drank in the beads of water glistening on the rippled planes of Fenn’s abdomen like they were parched. And then lower.
Serenna gouged her nails into her palms, anchoring her stupid fingers to her hands so that she wouldn’t reach out. She swallowed, focus riveted on the scraps of clothing plastered to Fenn’s hardened body. The temptation to touch him had her clenching her thighs, a futile attempt to smother the heat stoking in her core. The outline of his arousal twitched, as if preening under her attention.
Head emptying faster than water discharging from an open dam, Serenna’s eyes flew back to Fenn’s face. “What?” she breathlessly asked, thinking he must’ve said something.
Fenn gave an amused chuckle, jutting his chin toward the cavern’s depths. “Do you want to take a dip in the pools?” He slid a claw across her shoulder, fingers wrapping around the base of her neck. “If you’d prefer privacy,” he said, his deep cadence strumming a wild chord in her chest, “I know a place.”
Serenna was nodding before even processing his words. Her heart nearly burst through her ribs when Fenn extended his fangs. She blinked. “No! I mean…” Serenna cleared her throat, the pause not providing enough time to recover her wits. “Lykor wants us to go to the Slag.”
“So…not a no.” Fenn’s palm swept down her back, a distracting pressure guiding her closer to him, a gentle ebb tugged by the sea. “I don’t think the lake of fire will be as pleasurable as the location I have in mind.”
Ignited by his blazing fingers, Serenna felt primed to combust. She forced herself to stare straight into the flames dancing in his eyes. “We’re supposed to search for the Heart,” she whispered, trembling under his touch.
They were having a perfectly normal conversation. That’s all they were doing. Her skin was so hot because of the proximity to the thermal pools. Not because Fenn had circled his claws around her waist. They were discussing their orders. Though Lykor could choke on his commands for all she cared.
For whatever reason, Serenna’s hand developed a mind of its own, planting against Fenn’s chest. Obviously, she couldn’t think clearly—the fumes from those smoking sticks were muddling her thoughts.
As his heart beat against her fingertips, Serenna’s attention tumbled down the length of Fenn’s body again, determined to catalog every inch. He was concerned about our height difference? I’d be more worried that he wouldn’t fit— Serenna ruthlessly sundered those dangerous thoughts. Something primal—something she refused to consider—sent the blood roaring in her veins.
It was just the atmosphere with everyone engaged in this lascivious activity. She interrupted Fenn and that’s why he was so worked up. And now she was too, but that wasn’t her fault.
It took more strength than she cared to admit, but Serenna forced herself to peel her hand away. Fenn’s fingers cinched tighter around her hips, drawing her gaze back to his. Her insufferable guard smirked, like he knew his exposed body was making her brainless.
Fenn leaned in, skimming his fangs along the shell of her ear. Serenna quivered, warring with every urge to grab him again. His voice rumbled through her, his breath fanning against her neck. “So, you want to go to the volcano’s core instead of…” he trailed off, allowing her to choose.
Lykor wouldn’t know if we didn’t hunt for the Heart tonight. Serenna’s inhalations came fast and shallow as reckless desire clouded her thoughts. Some part of her scattered mind broke through the circulating haze of lust.
“I—I didn’t mean to interfere with your evening,” Serenna whispered, feeling like she was tumbling through open air. “We can start our search in the morning.”
Releasing her, Fenn cleared his throat and straightened. “Well, since we have orders, let me retrieve my clothes.”
Essence shimmered and pulsed around him. Stretching out a claw, a blue tendril exploded from his palm, streaking behind her. Fenn’s clothing flew into his fingers, hauled by force.
Holding Serenna’s gaze in that wraith way of his, he didn’t blink as he dressed. She lost their silent standoff, her traitorous eyes diving to his middle as soon as he slipped a leg into his trousers. Fenn gave her a fanged grin before retracting his teeth, crouching to tie his boots.
“Come on she-elf, we’d better leave if you’re going to insist on looking at me like that.” Rising, he bound his hair into a tail at the base of his skull. “Otherwise, I might be tempted to defy that order of Lykor’s and discover just how loudly I can get you to scream.”
CHAPTER 46
SERENNA
Serenna screamed.
At her expense, Fenn had warped them with more jumps than she assumed were necessary to avoid the reavers’ presence—just to hear her squeal. From the Lagoon, they teleported through twists and turns of various tunnels and caverns, traveling deeper into the heart of the fortress.
In the pauses between sending Serenna’s stomach catapulting up her throat with his warps, Fenn rattled off the names of the different locations. From the weapons ranges, to the smithies, past furnaces collecting heat and distributing the warmth, he followed one current of magma like a fish swimming upstream.
Fenn finally placed Serenna back on her feet. Bright light exploded around her when she opened her eyes. Teetering on the edge of a craggy precipice, she locked her knees with a gasp.
Serenna looked out over a vast lake of fire at least the size of one of Centarya’s training rings. Magma churned below in bubbles of blacks, yellows, and oranges, popping like tar. Channels of sluggish, molten rock webbed out like veins, feeding various rivulets before disappearing through underground tunnels.
A wave of heat rose over the surface, shimmering like liquid metal poured from a forge. Fed from a source somewhere deeper in the volcano’s dying heart, the Slag slowly cooled as the centuries wore on, solidifying into stone.
Scaling a path along the cavern walls like one of those pocket goats, Fenn wound up a carved trail hugging the rocky ledge. He angled toward a slender natural bridge, stretched across the length of the chamber.
Serenna balked, placing her hand against the stony wall. “That can’t hold us,” she protested, wiping her back as a trickle of sweat snaked down her spine.
Completely showing off, Fenn warped to the middle of the suspended rock. Sitting on the edge, he swung his legs over the simmering flames a hundred feet below.
To delay joining Fenn in his precarious position over the magma, Serenna surveyed the domed cavern reaching hundreds of feet above. Pitted cavities reminding her of dips in coral sporadically dotted the rocky walls. Whips of snowy air danced through the chamber like streamers in the wind, ushering in minimal relief through holes honeycombed into the rock.
Serenna reached her perception up to snatch at a coil of air, drawing on a whirlwind of snow. The flakes briefly danced around her before melting, the frosty breeze a fleeting reprieve.
When Fenn beckoned to her from his perch, Serenna tentatively followed his route—minus the warp. She paused, placing a foot on the archway. Narrow, and no more than eight feet across, she was skeptical of the bridge’s ability to support their weight.
