like fog through your fingers - chp. 8
Lightly, Julian laughed. “That’s the second time tonight you’ve had to save me.”
“Why do you mention it?” Aredhel asked, teasing him. It was good to hear Julian laugh after their confrontation with Valdemar; she had tried not to let on, but she had been worried about him. “Are you keeping score?”
“Do you think I’m embarrassed? Quite the contrary,” Julian said, flashing his charming grin. “You’re very loyal, aren’t you? I haven’t the faintest idea what I did to earn it, but I… I haven’t missed it, you know. All the ways you’ve protected me today,” he said, jovially. “It’s devastatingly handsome.”
Why is that, of all things, the smoothest thing that anyone had ever said to her? Her heart fluttered weakly in her chest. For as long as she could remember, Aredhel has been treated like something fragile, but Julian looks at her and sees strength. She’s thankful the corner of the gardens they’ve found themselves in is dark; she can feel a pleased blush creeping up her throat.
“Well, I have good news and bad news for you, then,” Aredhel said. “The good news is I do not intend to stop protecting you any time soon. But that’s also the bad news.” She fought past the blush in her cheeks to favor him with a playful grin. “You’ll have to endure my handsomeness a little longer.”
Julian dared to bat his eyelashes at her, and the smile he returned was positively wicked. “And if I can’t—what then? If it’s too much, if I start swooning.” Eager-eyed, breathless, he added, “You’ll have to carry me back to Portia’s, in the end.”
Aredhel grinned. “And what makes you think I’m capable of carrying you?”
Julian lifted his hands to smooth over her collar, then rounded her shoulders as if feeling out the strength in them. “You had no trouble pinning me to the bookshelves earlier,” he said, pleasantly. “Besides, you’re a magician. Creative type. Surely you have some handy magic for that kind of thing.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Aredhel asked, bewildered but undeniably pleased, not quite believing her luck. “If I just—what?—tossed you you over my shoulder, carried you off like a conqueror stealing a maiden to celebrate the victory? If I swept you up in my arms like a bride?”
Julian tugged his bottom lip between his teeth. “I wouldn’t complain, certainly.” His eyes drifted to her mouth, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Especially not if the implication is that, wherever and whenever you last set me down, you’re going to ravish me.”
[ Julian x OC!Apprentice ] [ Role Reversal AU ] [ 90k+ ]
[ available only on AO3 ]
