“I’ve got it!” Aisling cried out.

Of course she did. He knew she’d figure something out. He’d never doubted it.

Niall put down the spellbook he’d been poring over, and leaned across to where Aisling jabbed her finger at a page.

“This says that crystals need to be charged by the light of the moon, or their power will diminish over time.” Aisling read the page with excitement. “We never did this. We never even knew you could charge a crystal. No wonder the unit is malfunctioning. But at least this means the solution might be relatively simple. I just need to move the crystals under a window, where they’ll have some exposure to the moon of Scitis. Hopefully the re-charging will still work through the storm.”

“How will you touch them without getting hurt again?” Niall looked in concern at the red welt on the tip of her index finger.

“I figured that out, too. I don’t move the crystals individually. I cast a charm around the whole unit, and move it as one. Once the crystals are charged, I should be able to touch them without a problem, and we know we’ll be back in business.”

“You’re a genius.” Niall leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead, before she could back away. Her warm skin sizzled under his lips. He placed a finger under her chin, tilting her face up, her lips just an inch from his—

Aisling tore herself away, her eyes wide. “Niall …”

“I know, I know. I’m fae, you’re a witch. No sexy times for us, even though you’re driving me crazy.”

“That’s not—” She looked shocked.

“It’s fine.” He stood up, deliberately brushing his arm against hers, feeling the delicious flicker of energy across her skin. Let her try to keep resisting him. “Come on, let’s get these crystals charged.”

Aisling didn’t say anything as she rushed out of the room and went straight to the kitchen. She got all the way there before realizing she’d forgotten to bring the spellbook, and had to rush back to collect it. Niall grinned as he watched her cheeks flush as she bent over the book to turn the pages. She’s as frustrated as you right now. It won’t be much longer before she succumbs.

As Niall watched Aisling work the charm on the pantry to remove the unit, he saw something she could not. Tendrils from the walls wound themselves outward, their blue tips curling through her arms and into her hands, which glowed with a brighter aura than the rest of her body.

The house was feeding AIsling’s power with its own. The more she practiced her magic, the more it fed into her, until her body shimmered with the blue aura. Without a bracelet, Niall couldn’t tell how much atern she stored, but he suspected she’d just taken in something like 2,000 units, enough to last a fae on Scitis at least half his or her life.

Interesting.

“Got it!” Aisling cried in triumph, as she slid the white cloth onto a large serving platter, crystals and box and all. She pushed past Niall and dashed into the library, where she placed the unit on the table in front of the window. Luck was on their side, for according to the chart Aisling had made, it would be a full moon that night. A couple of days at the window, directly in the path of the moon’s light, should have the unit fully operational again.

In theory. Niall hoped like hell Aisling was right.

* * *

Two days later, Niall was reading in the drawing room when he heard Aisling’s cry of triumph.

He’d taken one of the thick magical volumes from the library, and was thumbing through the pages, searching for something on energy transference, anything to explain how Aisling’s body had somehow suddenly become alight with atern. If he could figure that out, he wouldn’t even need the ray to work. The possibility had plagued him these past two days, and he couldn’t talk to Aisling about it without arousing her suspicions. He had to confine his investigations until after she went to sleep, except for when she was occupied with the food replication spell.

All his searching had so far yielded nothing. These witches didn’t even have a unit of measurement for atern – they conceived of the magic in a completely different way. The magic books were a shambles of notations and doodles and scattered, half-finished thoughts. It was impossible to find out what he wanted to know.

Niall closed the book, staring out the window into the grim storm surging over the garden wall. Beyond that, the lights of Scitis glowed across the horizon, the university tower gleaming with a thousand twinkling lights. Somewhere out there, Odiana was working hard with her team on another ray, or some other device of ultimate destruction. His fingers itched to write to her, to tell her that he’d seen the house push atern into Aisling. But a niggling feeling in the back of his head told him to hold off, though for what reason, he couldn’t say.

Aisling’s face appeared at the doorway. “I did it!” She waved a packet in the air. “I got it working again!”

“I knew you could do it.” Niall crossed the room and tried to embrace her, but she was too busy shoving a spongy cake into her mouth.

“Mmmmmmfgg mmmmmphh.” Aisling’s whole face was alight with joy. Niall had never seen her like this before. It almost made him feel jealous of the … what were they called?

“What was that you said?” He leaned forward, holding his hand behind his ear. “Was it, ‘Niall is one handsome devil and I’d like to—’”

Aisling swallowed, then thrust out a packet toward Niall. “Here, shove one of these in your mouth, so I can have a moment of peace.”

Niall took one of the packets in his hands. The treat was coated in plastic, one of the habits of humans he was all too glad the fae hadn’t adopted. He peeled back the wrapping, and pushed out the treat. The buttery cake sprung beneath his touch. Gingerly, he bit off a corner.

Whoah. The saccharine sweet taste danced across his tongue. Flavor exploded in his mouth. Sickly-sweet cream flowed over his tongue. He chewed slowly, not wanting any part of the delicious treat to be wasted.

“Good, huh?” Aisling grabbed another.

Niall wallowed, grinning at her. “Can I have another one?”

“Sure.” She passed him a second packet. Niall tore it open and stuffed the treat into his mouth. “You need to fuel up for my sword-fighting lesson.”

Damn. He was hoping she’d forgotten about that. Niall didn’t want to teach her how to fight. Shooting the bow was one thing, but getting close in with a sword was something else entirely.

But Aisling was looking at him expectantly, her face frozen in a half-smile.

“Fine.” He gulped down the last of his Twinkie, which now tasted like cardboard.

“Awesome!” Aisling set the box down on the table, and dragged him out into the hall. “Come on, then.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, of course now.” She took down two of the two-handed swords from their hooks on either side of the front door, and handed one to him.

“Um, right.” Niall stared down at the blade in his hand, feeling oddly disconnected from it. He’d fought with swords his entire life, and had trained hundreds of newly recruited Venators. A blade like this in his hands became an extension of his arm. Yet, when he thought about teaching Aisling, all his knowledge flew from his head.

Why? Why did he not want her to use a blade? Niall wasn’t used to questioning himself, with finding fault in his own impulses. He knew logically that teaching Aisling to fight was a good idea.

Think of it this way: as her teacher, you’ll need to correct her stances, help her with her holds, grapple with her in the cross … all excuses to get close and personal.

Suddenly, teaching Aisling to fight didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. Niall shook his head, trying to shake off the unease in his mind. He had offered …

“I guess … I’ll need to show you the proper stance. First of all, your legs are too far apart. Useful for other things, not so much in battle.”

Niall explained some of the concepts behind fighting with a two-handed sword, then ran Aisling through the different guards, brushing his fingers against her skin as often as he dared. He showed her how to stay light on her feet, how to move her weight as she stepped or swung to give herself more power or a quicker reaction. He rested his hands on her thighs as she swung from her hips, and his whole body surged with desire. Sweat poured down her face, glistening on her skin, reminding Niall of what else they might do that would make them sweat like that.

When he could delay no more, he showed her a couple of basic defensive blocks. They drilled the blocks again and again. Trying to dissuade her from continuing, Niall flung himself at her with all the speed and force he could muster. Again and again he beat her back, disarming her or ending with his blade pressed against her throat. He expected her to balk, to beg him to take it easy on her, but every time she swung her sword up to meet his, her lips pursed with determination as she tried to match his strength with her own.

After twenty repetitions, sweat poured down his body, and his arms ached. They danced around the entrance hall, their breath coming out in short gasps. Her hair clung to her back in wet ringlets. Their swords clanged together, echoing through the massive house. He’d never seen anything so arousing in his life. His cock throbbed angrily against his leg.

“You’re getting tired,” Aisling huffed, grinning as she raised her sword again.

“Never.” Steel met steel. This time, Aisling caught his blade in exactly the right place, at exactly the right angle. She applied pressure, leveraging him into a compromising position. Wham. She slammed the pommel of her sword into his cheek.

“Argh!” Niall dropped his sword and cupped his hand over his stinging cheek. Rage bubbled inside of him. He was the master here, not her.

“I’m sorry!” She rushed at him. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.”

“It wasn’t hard,” he said, rubbing his cheek. That was a lie. “I just wasn’t expecting it, was all. Nice job,” he added gruffly, the rage ebbing. She got it right because he was a good teacher, of course.

He took up his sword again, and they ran through the defenses another twenty times. Aisling blocked him every single time.

She was good at this. Too good. Anger was bubbling up in his chest again.

“Let’s take a break.” Niall dropped his sword and stepped away from her.

“I’m not tired.”

“I am. This is probably enough for today.”

Aisling’s face turned angry. “Why don’t you want me to learn this?” she asked, tossing her sword to the ground. It clattered against the marble. “If the fae come with their weapons, like you said they will, I need to be able to defend myself. So why don’t you want me to do that? I want an honest answer.”

“I …” He wrung his hands. “I don’t really know.”

One day when you find out the truth about what I did, you’ll want to fight me. And I don’t want you to win.

“Yes, you do. Come on, Niall.”

He sighed. “I’m the warrior. I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you. In my dreams, I can never protect you. The figure in the shadows always gets you in the end. That’s my worst nightmare – standing aside and watching someone I care about die, and not being able to do anything to stop it. I already had to watch my father die like that, and my brother isn’t far away, either.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah.” Niall thought fast, annoyed he’d accidentally let that detail slip. “He’s a Quaesitor, and he was feeding me information. They discovered he was stealing secrets, and they locked him up. There’s a trial to decide his fate, but he’ll probably be tortured for information, then drained of atern until he’s dead.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, it is. But I won’t let that be your fate, Aisling. I’m never going to let you be in a situation where you’re alone and defenseless, where you may have to live with the knowledge of the lives you take. I’m fae – guilt is foreign to me. But you have no such protection.”

“You care about me?”

Damn her. It figures she’d focus on that particular bit. “That’s what I said.”

Aisling shook her head. “This isn’t how it works, Niall. You don’t come in my house and make that decision for me. Don’t you see? By teaching me how to defend myself, you are protecting me. You’re giving me the tools I need to keep myself alive, as I’ve done all these years. I won’t be bound to you in the same way I’m bound to this house. And if you insist on it being so, then I’m not sure we can continue to live together.”

Niall blinked. She was right. He hated that she was right, it was so obvious. Since he was the one who was currently the biggest danger to her, since he was the enemy inside the walls, the one who might well bring destruction down upon her in the end, it seemed fitting that he should be the one to prepare her to fight.

What are you even talking about? Your head's all messed up. You can’t show her how messed up you are, or she’s going to realize there’s more to your story than just a little guilt over your father.

“Very well.” Niall gestured to her weapon. “Pick up your sword. I’ll show you how to stab a man through the throat.”

Aisling grinned as her hands closed over the hilt. “That’s more like it.”