09-10-2026, 02:59 PM
The casual display of power hit Adrian like a slap.
A perfect little bead of fire flickered and hovered above Rachel’s palm, dancing for a fraction of a second before she snuffed it out. It was a parlor trick, a minor spark, but the implication was an open-hand slap across his ego.
Adrian stared at her hand, his expression frozen for a few seconds too long. His jaw clenched, the carefully cultivated mask of effortless charm fracturing under a surge of raw, bitter disbelief. A month. She had been touching the weave for one month.
It had taken him over a year of grinding, agonizing discipline just to pull a fraction of that current through his veins and even now, it was a volatile, intermittent thing that mocked him. He had bled for every inch of progress, locking himself away in silent rooms, beating his mind against an invisible wall, while this fragile, trembling creature sitting across from him conjured fire after a month.
It wasn't fair. The realization grated against every core assumption he had.
"A month,” Adrian repeated, the words slipping out thin and sharp before he managed to catch himself, dragging a heavy hand down the lower half of his face.
He let out a dry, humorless breath, icy gray eyes fixing on her with a mixture of disbelief and genuine, unfiltered frustration. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to manage that? A year. More than a year of tearing my mind apart, and it still fails me half the time.”
Fuck. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He prided himself on control, on never letting the churn of his inner thoughts show on his face. But the sheer absurdity of had broken the defenses of his discipline. He looked away, staring down into his black coffee as if the dark liquid might offer some explanation for the cosmic joke of it all, his shoulders tight with the lingering ache of his own stalled ambitions.
A perfect little bead of fire flickered and hovered above Rachel’s palm, dancing for a fraction of a second before she snuffed it out. It was a parlor trick, a minor spark, but the implication was an open-hand slap across his ego.
Adrian stared at her hand, his expression frozen for a few seconds too long. His jaw clenched, the carefully cultivated mask of effortless charm fracturing under a surge of raw, bitter disbelief. A month. She had been touching the weave for one month.
It had taken him over a year of grinding, agonizing discipline just to pull a fraction of that current through his veins and even now, it was a volatile, intermittent thing that mocked him. He had bled for every inch of progress, locking himself away in silent rooms, beating his mind against an invisible wall, while this fragile, trembling creature sitting across from him conjured fire after a month.
It wasn't fair. The realization grated against every core assumption he had.
"A month,” Adrian repeated, the words slipping out thin and sharp before he managed to catch himself, dragging a heavy hand down the lower half of his face.
He let out a dry, humorless breath, icy gray eyes fixing on her with a mixture of disbelief and genuine, unfiltered frustration. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to manage that? A year. More than a year of tearing my mind apart, and it still fails me half the time.”
Fuck. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He prided himself on control, on never letting the churn of his inner thoughts show on his face. But the sheer absurdity of had broken the defenses of his discipline. He looked away, staring down into his black coffee as if the dark liquid might offer some explanation for the cosmic joke of it all, his shoulders tight with the lingering ache of his own stalled ambitions.