Jewel blearily blinked her eyes open. Across the apartment, the towering window of Lain’s apartment showed the bright blue of a cloudless morning sky, tinged with just a hint of gray along the horizon. It was still early, then. While Lain’s window was tall enough to make hanging curtains a fool’s errand, it at least faced west, saving them from the light of sunrise, and the pile of bedding they shared was far enough in the loft to be at least partially shadowed all day.

  Jewel stifled a yawn and shifted a little bit, settling down for a few more hours of rest, and the motion disturbed Lain, who made a grumpy, wordless little noise and moved with her.

  Jewel smiled and put her head back down, closing her eyes, ready to drift back off to sleep–and then her heart skipped a beat.

  Her movement had disturbed Lain.

  Lain, who wasn’t across the nest of bedding from Jewel, as they normally slept, was instead curled up against the front of Jewel’s body, wrapped in Jewel’s arms. The shorter woman even had her read resting on Jewel’s chest.

  Jewel’s bare chest.

  The girl tried her best to stifle that scream of shock that started working its way out of her chest, and was only partially successful. The final product was a strangled squealing that finally forced Lain’s eyes open.

  Without lifting her head from her… pillows… Lain gave Jewel a weak glare.

  “What are you squealing about?” she muttered, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Y-you… I mean, we… Did we?”

  Even as Jewel stammered through the question, memories of the night before, all tinted by the rosy lens of fine wine, started coming back to her.

  Lain laughing, a sound more gentle and musical than any she had ever heard the thief make before.

  Lain placing her glass on the table, the ruby red liquid held within looking dull and pale compared to the sheen of her lips.

  The gentle music filtering through a dim room, Jewels’ surroundings all but forgotten as she stared into Lain’s eyes.

  Lain leaning forward, Jewel’s heart racing, their lips meeting.

  #

  Lain made a low sound deep in her chest, a noise of lazy contentment somewhere between a dry chuckle and a moan. She barely remembered any more of the night before than the other girl, as she had been drinking wine fortified by reagents designed for gifted more resilient than her, but the end of the night… Those memories were crystallized in Lain’s mind. “Yeah, Jewel. Yeah, we did.”

  Jewel swallowed, and Lain found her eyes tracing the slender, almost delicate lines of the girl’s neck. The motion emphasized the dark bruises Lain’s mouth had left on the graceful curves of Jewel’s neck, and just considering the silky softness of her skin made Lain’s mouth water.

  “O-oh…” Jewel batted her eyes, and absently, Lain pulled herself a little more tightly against the taller girl, taking advantage of the several inches of height difference between them. Jewel may have been much thinner than Lain, but she was also softer, her curves obscenely comfortable to lounge on.

  After a moment, Jewel asked, “Did this happen… uhm… Fast? Like, sooner than you expected?”

  Lain chuckled, and didn’t lift her head from her new favorite pillows. “As I recall, you threw yourself at me like… your first night here.”

  “Well… Yeah.” Lain could all but hear the blush in the girl’s voice.

  “And then you asked me out last night.”

  “I did… I guess I didn’t realize the Mast and Rose would be so…”

  Lain felt her lips stretch in a wide smile. “Romantic? Intimate?” The exact words she had used the night before.

  “O-oh. Yeah. It was just… I wasn’t expecting it to be so nice!”

  “It really was, wasn’t it?”

  Dreamily, an image floated through Lain’s mind–Jewel, lifting a glass of pale pink springblossom wine to her lips. The way she lowered it, every movement smooth and graceful. The way the very tip of her tongue emerged from her barely parted teeth to run over her lower lip, as if savoring the taste.

  A shiver ran down Lain’s spine, and only when she heard Jewel’s pleased little gasp did she realize her fingers had tightened a little on the taller girl’s curves without any active thought.

  Lain finally looked up, and found Jewel’s face, mere inches away, studying her closely with those bright amber eyes. Her mouth barely opened, and her tongue flitted over her pale, flowerbud lips, the gesture unconsciously languid, an echo of her own memory, and Lain found herself tipping her head back, lifting her face towards Jewel’s, until their lips just barely brushed together…

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  #

  It had to have been at least an hour, judging by the movement of the light outside, before the two girls lay together again. Lain was all but collapsed to her stomach after her limbs had given out, her head turned to one side so she could gasp for breath, while Jewel lay on her side, plastered against the thief’s flank. Idly, she traced her fingers along the smooth ridges of Lain’s back, feeling the liquid smoothness with which her muscles moved, responding to Jewel’s feather-light touch with little flexes and shivers.

  “C-crosssssss…” Lain groaned, the word dragged out into a moan of simple satisfaction halfway through. “How… How do you know how to do that…?”

  Jewel grinned, and she curved her fingers a little, so that it was her nails dragging along the thief’s back instead. Lain immediately gave a little gasp, and her back arched up into Jewel’s hands, warm and slightly dewy with sweat.

  “I read,” Jewel said simply–even if she had never expected the love scenes of her favorite potboilers to turn out quite so… useful.

  “Mmmm… so that’s what those books you’re always buried in are about?”

  “Some of them,” Jewel said, surprised by the wickedness dancing in her own voice. After weeks of following Lain’s instructions, trailing after her like a lost puppy, the runaway had suddenly, in the heat of the moment, found herself in charge.

  And it turned out, underneath her hard, blunt facade, Lain liked giving up that power–to Jewel, at least.

  With a little hum, Jewel bit her bottom lip, and the next time her stroking fingers reached the base of Lain’s back, she turned her hand, and very suddenly put them a little lower.

  Lain gasped, the taut muscles of her body jumping as words fled her mind again, and Julia slowly moved her fingers.

  “My thief,” the runaway girl purred, leaning down until the smell of Lain–the smell of leather and sea salt and bright mint–filled her nose and lined her tongue.

  #

  “Are you sure,” Lain asked, hours later, “that I shouldn’t know about your other gift?”

  Jewel arched an eyebrow. The two had made it out of the loft, but neither had bothered with clothes. Lain had all but collapsed onto the cushions on the floor while Jewel made for the kitchen, trying to rustle up something for the two to eat and drink before their bodies simply gave out.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Becuase,” Lain said, not lifting her head from the carpet she was sprawled on, “I’m starting to think it’s the gift of the courtesan or something.”

  Jewel paused mid-motion, a glass sunken halfway into the ever-full bucket of clean water. “Is that… a real gift?”

  “I’ve never been sure,” Lain admitted. “It might be. Or it’s just something doxies say.”

  Jewel blew out a breath, and finished filling a couple cups with water, walking out to give one to Lain before she sat in one of the slender, wood-frame chairs. Her eyes idly traced over the tight, powerful body of her… partner? Lover? Whatever Lain was to her now.

  “Well, either way, no, I don’t have a sex gift.”

  “Then what is it?” Lain asked. “Because… no one has ever…”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Jewel said. “I’m just that good, I guess.”

  Lain snorted, and finally hoisted herself into a sitting position. She took a long draw from her glass, half draining it in a single go.

  Once she lowered it with an explosive inhale, Lain said, “I think we’re past secrets, Jewel. You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

  Jewel frowned, taking a more shallow sip for herself. After years of hiding her shameful gift, it felt odd to say… but Lain was right. She deserved the truth.

  “It’s the gift of fire,” Jewel finally said.

  “Really?” Lain asked.

  Jewel frowned. “Yes, really.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Lain said, holding up her hands, palms out. “I’m just surprised. That doesn’t seem like the kind of gift you’d hide.”

  “By which you mean it’s a battle-gift,” Jewel said simply. “Not exactly the kind of thing it's proper for an heiress to have.”

  Jewel tried to push away the thoughts of how she received her gift, but they came anyway. The lantern that fell in the stables; the flames that spread in a flash, trapping her inside; the screaming of the stableboy, only a couple years younger than her.

  Her father’s anger when he saw that the fire she had braved had been received as a trial by the Primal in the old tradition, a natural incident that Julia had thrown her will against and overcome.

  Her gift of fire had become a symbol of everything her father hated in her. Her mother’s steel, tempered by a lifetime of reading about heroic deeds. A will that would risk burns and worse to save a boy to whom, in her father's words, she owed nothing.

  A fire that had to be extinguished for Julia to become the proper young heiress she was meant to be.

  “That’s crossing stupid,” Lain said, her words a blunt counterpoint to Jewel’s spiraling thoughts.

  The girl blinked, shaken out of her own mind to find Lain sitting at her feet, casually reclining on one of Julia’s legs. Her fingers, coarse but strong and nimble, traced a design on the inside of Julia’s thigh–her own brand, that of a burning tome, the brand of her two gifts combined.

  “I should’ve guessed it,” Lain said, her voice softer and more reflective than normal. She leaned forward before she continued, planting a gentle kiss right on the thick black lines of the brand.

  “You may be a Jewel, but you’re full of fire. My burning treasure.”

  Jewel felt the corner of her mouth tick up, the movement beyond her control, and her own hand moved to slide through Lain’s short hair.

  “My daring thief.”

  Lain shuddered, and she turned her head, and Jewel let all thoughts of her past and future alike fall away.