His lips brushed her ear. "It is good to know you are not unaffected by my touch." His low voice whispered across her skin, echoed in her mind. "But do try to concentrate, ajiana. When we are done, I will reward us both.”

Her heart began to pound. How did he expect her to focus when he said things like that?

He began to murmur in Feyan, quiet, liquid syllables, words she couldn't make out that played in her mind like a peaceful song. The sound of his voice flowed over her and warmth seeped into her skin, making her feel drowsy. His fingers, long and capable, stroked her hands. The starch in her spine wilted, and she relaxed against him, tilting her head back against his shoulder.

"Now, Ellysetta, I will call Air. Can you feel it gathering inside me?”

"Yes.” The Air stirred almost imperceptibly as it responded to Rain's call. The magic didn't come to his hands, as she had always thought it would. Instead, it filled him from within, welling up and permeating his body, until the Tairen's Eye signet on his right hand began to glow faintly.

"I do not need much Air. The strength of the weave depends on the amount of magic called and the way in which it is woven. For now, I only need a gentle breeze, so I call just a little Air and release it in a loose weave. All the elements have their own natural patterns. Weaving magic is learning to bend those patterns to a particular purpose.”

Ellie felt the power concentrate in his hands, fed from the inner spring within him. His pale hands grew luminous as the energies gathered in anticipation of release.

"A breeze is a soft, sinuous pattern, with very little disturbance in the threads." His fingers flicked out, and thin filaments of white energy flowed out in lazily undulating lines. When the weave touched the stilled portion of the river, the water's surface rippled in response.

"Did you feel how I released the Air?”

"It felt like a sigh.”

"Aiyah. Small Water weaves feel like laughter. Small Fire feels like a blush. Your mind instinctively knows the patterns, you simply must learn how to weave them at will." With his hands still touching hers, he called Water and once more stilled the pond. "Now you try to ripple the water's surface.”

Ellie took a breath, clenched her jaw, and tried to call the Air to fill her.

"Do not fight for it. You want to summon the Air, not overpower it. Draw it to you. Breathe it in." His fingers stroked hers.

She tried to do as he said, but nothing happened.

"Keep trying," Rain insisted. "Imagine the wind blowing past you. When learning to call magic, it helps to imagine the element in its natural state.”

Ellie concentrated. Once again Rain murmured his encouragement. She imagined a breeze blowing across her face and through her hair. She imagined herself breathing the Air into her body until her lungs filled, imagined breathing it back out across the river, making the water ripple. Again, nothing happened.

"I can't do it.”

"You're still fighting your magic. Relax, shei’tani. Let it fill you." His hands moved down to her waist. "Breathe," he whispered in her ear.

She dragged a deep breath into her lungs.

"Good. Now feel the magic gather within you." He stroked her belly. making tight heat curl within her.

Hunger was welling up inside her far faster than magic, and suddenly all she could think about was carnal weaves and the hard heat of Rain's body pressed against her back.

"Let the magic flow throughout your body until it becomes as much a part of you as your own flesh and blood." Rain's hands stroked upward on either side of her rib cage, brushing against the sides of her br**sts in a way that made her breath catch in her throat.

She almost moaned aloud. Dear gods, please let me complete this exercise before I leap upon him and demand a different kind of lesson. "And now," Rain said, "release it”

Flames shot from her fingertips. Water sizzled, and the river's surface rippled.

There was a small silence. "Well, shei’tani, you do wield Fire, after all.”

Ellie refused to look at him. "That wasn't Air. I thought I called Air.”

"You did. I felt it gather in you, but you obviously released Fire instead. I must have put the idea in your mind when I told you that Fire feels like a blush.”

No, Ellie thought. He'd put the idea in her mind when he was running his hands all over her body and breathing in her ear.

"Or," Rain said, "I put the idea in your mind when I was stroking you.”

She swallowed. "I thought you said you couldn't read my mind.”

He laughed softly against her cheek. "That's not what I'm reading." His hands cupped her br**sts through the warm, corseted silk of her new gown, and his thumbs brushed across the tight, sensitive peaks of her br**sts.

Tongues of flame seared her. Ellysetta gasped. "Rain ...”

"I think we are done with our first lesson, and I did promise to reward us both.” His voice dropped to a husky murmur and his lips tracked tingling kisses down her throat. The Air weave around them dispersed, and the warm summer breeze swirled over them, fragrant with the scent of daisies and the verdant freshness of the glade. He lowered her to the soft, thick grass and leaned over her. His long, dark hair draped down around them like veils of ebony silk. Warmth infused the pale perfection of his face, melting all remnants of cold aloofness, leaving stark, burning beauty, unshielded need, and the fiery intensity of his eyes.

His hand trailed up her arm, the fingers light, dancing across her skin from elbow to shoulder, around the bend, then down to brush the soft curve of her breast beneath the saffron silk of her gown. The pad of his finger traced a spiral of increasingly small circles on the silk, traveling a scintillating path up the gentle swell. Anticipation tightened in her belly with each completed circle.