The next morning, I sleep in past dawn for the first time since I was a child. I feel slightly disoriented, opening my eyes to a day that is already bright, the sun climbing high in the sky.
“You should have woken me,” I tell Zev when I emerge from the private sleeping area they set up for me last night. “I could’ve helped with… Well, I could’ve helped with something.”
“You needed the rest,” Zev says, setting aside the thin tablet he was frowning over when I entered the shared living space and smiling at me. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, very well,” I respond, taking a seat across from him at the table. “The bed, it moved the way these seats do. Is that your magic?”
“It is our highly advanced technology, yes,” he says, stressing all the words in his sentence that don’t exactly mean magic, but kind of do.
“I shouldn’t be using such things,” I insist, shifting uncomfortably even as the material beneath me immediately adjusts. “It’s not right.”
“No, Jubilee,” Zev groans, his tone frustrated, straining with the effort of trying to sound controlled. “What’s not right is the way they treat you, the way they hold their technology over you, convincing you it’s magic you’ll never understand, forcing your respect and admiration. Those things should be earned, not demanded.”
He’s standing now, pacing, overcome with the intensity of his emotion on the subject. I don’t quite understand it, not yet, but the passion he struggles to restrain makes my blood burn in my veins. He was the one I saw first, the one I wanted first. Alin was the one who acted, who took me first. I blush at the memory of his kiss under the stars last night, and blush at the way I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from Zev’s lips. The shape of my greedy desire elbows its way into my mind, pulling up a chair and setting up camp. If I’m being wholly honest with myself, I still want them both, even if I’ve already kissed Alin. They’re gods, I remind myself. I don’t deserve even one of them, let alone both.
“Magic is phenomena that can’t be explained,” Zev is saying, still pacing, but pulling up short with a sudden realization. “That’s it. I’ll explain our technology to you, all of it, and then you’ll finally understand.”
“Oh,” I say when he looks at me expectantly, a strand of red hair knotted around one of my fingers. It sounds impossible, his mission to educate me about their magic. Impossible, exhausting, and time-consuming. But as he keeps looking at me, a glint of excitement in his midnight-dark eyes, I can’t say no.
Science and technology were never core parts of the curriculum at the Church school, but Zev is a good teacher. He makes nanotechnology seem almost simple, easy, child’s play. And he’s right—once I understand exactly how their people live forever, how they can make objects materialize seemingly out of thin air, how they can heal the wounded in seconds, it doesn’t feel so much like magic. It feels tangible, like an idea I can hold in my hands, carry with me. What I don’t understand is how he can still believe so wholeheartedly that knowing this can lessen the sensation of smallness I feel beside him. Understanding that what they do is not magic doesn’t make me believe they’re not gods. They came to us from the skies, with technology we could never recreate in a million years, claiming to have created us. The Seven may be exploiting our respect of their kind, but that doesn’t mean it’s not somewhat deserved.
Zev has a giant hologram floating in the air between us, gesturing at various parts of the diagram, words spilling out of him so fast it’s a miracle he isn’t tripping over them. I can’t help myself, I really can’t. He’s so intense, so passionate about this, and I need to know what that intensity would feel like if he focused it elsewhere. If he focused it on me.
I lean forward, diving through the hologram between us. He’s midsentence, but I cut him off with a kiss, just a quick peck. He’s taken aback at first, but only for a moment. I’m pulling away nervously when he grabs me by the shoulders and brings me back close to him, and I have to scramble up onto the table to close the distance rapidly disappearing between us. He kisses me, and it’s even more than I was hoping for. He kisses me like I am everything he’s ever wanted, like he’s been waiting his whole life for this kiss, like breaking away from me would kill him. My fingers tangle in his hair, and his hands grip my waist tightly. Before I know it, I’m pulling off his shirt, moaning at the warm, hard muscle hidden beneath. At the sound, Zev pulls me to the edge of the table, jerking my panties off and pushing the hem of my dress up.
“What are you—” I begin to ask as he drops to his knees before me, but I’m cut short with a gasp as he presses his warm tongue against my sensitive nub.
“Now it’s my turn to worship you,” Zev murmurs, his breath hot between my legs, sending my eyes rolling back in my head. Oh, and worship me he does, painting invisible promises with his tongue. I bury my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, demanding more and more and more, even as the smallest part of me that isn’t lost in the moment reprimands myself for being so forward. As he slips his fingers inside me, one by one, I fall back onto the table, crying out as he undoes me once and for all.