Storm Born - Richelle Mead by Richelle Mead

Author:Richelle Mead [Mead, Richelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-06-23T13:26:54+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

To his credit, he didn’t really manhandle me too badly that night. At dinner, he kept a hand on mine or an arm around my shoulder but little more than that. As he pointed out to me

in a quiet moment, anyone could make a brazen display of fleshiness. What really indicated intimacy was how two people interacted with each other, what their body language said.

So I worked on looking comfortable and happy in his presence, and from the shocked expressions on people’s faces, we must have done a pretty convincing job.

He took me to his bedroom after that, looking smug and presumptuous to those watching.

But when we got there, he actually gave me my first lesson. Honestly, it was a bit disappointing. I’d been ready for fireworks. What I got was a lot of practice on quiet meditation and focus. He claimed if I couldn’t control my own mind, I couldn’t control the power.

So I spent the next couple hours with him working on this and found my most difficult challenge was in not slipping into trance or astral travel. Those behaviors came so automatically to me in still moments that I kept lapsing. The kind of meditation he wanted me to do involved turning my senses outward rather than inward, which seemed strange to me since I had thought magic came from within.

We finally ended the lesson with him giving me a heavy gold ring that he’d put part of his essence into. It was an anchor. Now if he left the Otherworld through a thin spot, he could transition to mine without appearing in a corresponding thin spot. He would simply travel to wherever the ring was. It would save both of us extraneous travel time.

What it also meant was that he planned on coming to my world for some of the lessons. I had mixed feelings on this. Certainly it would be more convenient for me. But the fact that he could even jump with an anchor like that indicated how powerful he was. That realization was just a teensy bit unsettling, as was the thought of him in the human world at all. And yet, by being there, his powers would diminish. He would be safer—or rather, humanity would be safer.

Back home, the following couple of days were more of the same: fights, fights, and more fights. Yet, as Dorian had predicted, some of the traffic dried up. I liked to think this was because my reputation was scaring would-be suitors away. More likely, my new connection to the Oak King made my assailants think twice about incurring political fallout.

As it turned out, I had to deal with my own share of fallout over this alliance—from Kiyo.

“Are you sleeping with Dorian?”

He stood in my doorway, his dark hair backlit by the late afternoon sun. He wore a white lab coat with KIYOTAKA MARQUEZ, DVM on the pocket. He must have driven here straight from work.

“Good news travels fast,” I said. “Come on in.”

I offered him a drink and a seat at my kitchen table, but he just kept pacing around restlessly.

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