A Court of Dark and Decay

Chapter 26- Make The Mountians Shake

Nesta paused.

She was still skin and bone. She was making progress, sure, but she was nothing like the females he had been with. Frail, weak, small. 

Nesta tucked the green nightgown back into the tote. 

Not yet. 

Digging a bit more, Nesta found a  plain black nightgown, that stopped several inches above her knees. She also had a pair of socks that went to her knees, keeping her feet warm for the night. It was good enough. 

After all, she would be staying in her own room tommrow night anyway. 

Nesta changed on the bed, not trusting the floor in the dark room, and set her dirty clothes from the day on the end of her bed. 

She repeated the process of carefully exiting the room and padded down the hall to the stairs, taking her out of it's typical bun and feeling it brush against her bare shoulders as she continued down the stairs. 

She was running her fingers through her hair detangling it when Cassian rounded the corner from the hallway leading to his room, rubbing his eyes.

Nesta stopped dead. 

Cassian was only wearing a pair of undershorts. That was it.

Nesta was suddenly very hot. 

He yawned and put his hands down. "You rea-" 

Cassian did the same thing she had done- stopped dead and stared. 

The room was too small. To small for the both of them to be looking at eachother like that. Cassian's eyes went dark, dragging down Nesta's body taking in every inch of her in that nightgown. Normally Nesta would scold him, spit a snarky remark, but she had no room to talk. She was doing the exact same thing. 

There was a hunger in the air. A desperation. It seemed like the physical rope between the two of them turned into an iron chain under the intensity. 

Nesta remembered her words from earlies, how she was still not ready for the full force of joining with him. Yet something inside of her screamed at the thought of being seperate from him.

When this moment came, Nesta expected to feel some kind of hesitation. Something holding her back, holding her down from her. 

But there was only a desperation, a need stronger then the need for breath.

It scared her, how desperately she wanted him- needed him. 

She remembered the beach, the darkness spilling out of her, attacking him. She remembered the nightmare of him being ripped apart by that magic. 

Nesta knew, though, that would never happen. Her magic, that seperate entity inside of her, had only wanted out. It had wanted release, and Nesta had granted it that. Would continue to grant it that as she continued to practice with it and grow it inside of her. 

She wanted to practice right now. 

Nesta cocked her head and rolled her wrist, at the same time she willed that magic to strech the distance between her and Cassian. She pushed it, warped it, into a single finger of white flame. 

Nesta sent that flame up Cassian's spine, right between his wings. 

He braced both arms on the door frame and arched his back as that one finger split into two and traced all the way down the length of his wings. 

Nesta could see, even from across the room, the way his body shivered at that. The way his fingers dug into the wood. How he tilted his head up and parted his lips, letting out a groan that awoke a monster inside Nesta.