Page 200 of Elemental Becoming
“You’re trying too hard,” Thane murmurs.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I bite out, trying to sound annoyed, though my voice comes out embarrassingly breathless. “It’s a little difficult to concentrate when I’m sitting on your—”
“Block, Amara, darling,” he interrupts smoothly.
Completely composed. Completely unfair.
“You keep picturing something rigid—”
“I mean, can you blame me?” I cut in, gesturing downward in disbelief at the accidental phrasing.
“Something you can force shut,” he continues without missing a beat. “But that’s not how this works.”
I gape at him, genuinely stunned by the level of restraint this man somehow still possesses. There is no way this is normal.
“Then what is it?” I inhale sharply, trying to breathe through the heat twisting through me.
“It isn’t a wall,” he says patiently. “And it isn’t a literal door. It has to be something that belongs to you. Something instinctive.”
His gaze drifts briefly toward the fire in the hearth.
“For me, it’s fire.”
I frown, trying to focus on his words instead of the distraction currently sitting beneath me.
“I don’t understand.”
I frown, trying to grasp what he means while feeling thoroughly distracted by the heat between my legs. “I don’tunderstand.”
Thane tilts his head slightly, watching me carefully. Considering.
Then—
“What’s the first thing you think of when you think of safety?”
The question catches me off guard.
“Safety?” I echo.
“Yes.”
He isn’t pressing against my mind this time. He’s simply there, waiting. Listening. Letting me find the answer on my own.
My breath catches softly. Because I do know.
“The wind,” I whisper.
Thane says nothing. He only watches me. I close my eyes, letting myself sink fully into the feeling.
The wind.
It is freedom. It is strength. It is what surrounds me when I fly beside Calryx. The force that carries me forward, lifts me, steadies me when everything else is falling apart.
The wind is not a door that can be forced shut.
It is movement.
A current. A shift. A change in direction.
