18: NICK

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Grady sits across the desk from us staring longingly at his Sparklet like he’s waiting for a call that might never come. I’m having a little trouble taking off on this flight. It’s our first private session and our first real opportunity to connect one on one with him. I’m nervous and excited simultaneously.

Pre-flight check status: peejizzle.

“How was your first day?” Elaina takes the throttle. My heart balloons with appreciation for how she always knows when I need her to pilot.

“It was a heck of a lot,” he yelps.

“Not entirely helpful...” I whitetrail.

“Tell us more about that,” Elaina counters.

“Lunch was good,” he decides.

We saw what the charges did at lunch and were beyond proud over their seamless squadron formation. They were only doing it to save their blasters, but the wielders had benefited too. Wielders are competitive by nature, always trying to draw from the strongest spark source. Passive wielders struggle to advance with their abilities unless they’re somehow able to form a strong emotional bond with a sheath like I have Elaina. By majority, our current wielder crop is severely imbalanced with a few who are supremely strong but many more who are woefully weak. What the charges are offering helps right the scales by redistributing the balance of power.

“It was nice to have a meal where I wasn’t the main course,” he nips.

Elaina’s lips downdraft. I pat her hand on top of the desk.

“The Stadium was pretty glorious, right?” I tailslide.

His eyes light. “It was doggone huge!”

“Did you gravitate toward any specific station?” Elaina pings.

“I spent most of the afternoon learning blocks in Callen’s group.”

“You chose it for the hot chicks, right?” I waggle my brow. Elaina whirls her eyes. Callen’s group is always lady laden. He draws them like mosquitoes to an open vein.

Grady blushes. “At first, yeah.”

“And then?”

“And then I realized self defence around here isn’t the worst idea,” he explains.

As much as I loathe to admit it, he isn’t wrong. They might’ve levelled the plane, but there are still going to be wielders causing turbulence until they can control their spark release, and it’ll be the biggest gusters that don’t like being told no.

“I’m a little jealous, actually,” he yowls.

“Of what?” Elaina tinks.

“Charges with spare sparks can swap their release. You know what I’d do? If I had two sparks, and some jerkwad came after one…BAM! I’d throw the other at them!” he bays.

Elaina chinks a laugh, while I cringe. “You’d definitely eject them in a hurry.”

“Does it hurt?”

Neither Elaina nor I have a perfect description to offer. She has no reference point, and I’ve only ever wielded an air spark. “The general consensus is it’s like needing to take a giant dump, urgently, but not being able to.”

He snorts a laugh. “I’m not sure whether to be jealous about that now or not.”

I wink. “Definitely better out than in.”

He headtilts. “What happens to the spark though? Can they change it to what they need so they can use it?”

Elaina clappers her head. “No, it’s like junk food. They can take it in, but it’s a waste of space. It can’t be used in a functional way.”

“Gotta wait to poop it out!” I boom.

“Their bodies have to expel it naturally before the space can be used for anything else,” Elaina clarifies. “It’s a little like saturating. It has nothing to do with digestive release.”

“Sounds like taking a huge spark dump to me,” Grady sides with me, reaching out for a fist bump. I eagerly knock mine against his. “How long does it take to get it all out?”

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“It depends how much you manage to pack in there before they stop you,” I sputter. “They can stop you the same way you can stop them.”

“But they wouldn’t be able to shield it entirely,” he yaps. “The channel would already be open.”

I pitch my head. “Correct.”

“I wonder if Fiona wants to try it.”

Fiona’s not going to try that. I know who would though. “You’d have better luck with Ainsley.”

He laughs. I laugh. Elaina tings a sigh, countering with, “Cam, Sunny, or Ty might be interested.”

“Yeah,” Grady concedes. “I guess Ainsley doesn’t really need the extra fire power.”

“Oh, she needs plenty of help.” I blow out a low whistle.

Grady wrings his hands together. I can tell something else is on his mind.

“What’re you thinking?” Elaina encourages him.

“Just that I was really wrong about you guys. You really do give a lick about me, about all of us, don’t you?”

My girl beams as bright as the sun over the acknowledgment. The light of it bounces off my dark heart and skitters around like a pinball.

“We do,” we agree unanimously.

“Sometimes you’re super creepy though.”

“Why?” we ask at the same time.

“That.” He wags his finger at us. “You’re not even your own person over there. You’re like some freaky extension of each other.”

“I’m not my own person.” Elaina’s lips updraft into a wide grin. “I’m something much more than that person would be alone.”

I squeeze her hand in complete agreement with her. We’re so much stronger together, powerful in a way we’d never achieve on our own.

“You know that’s the ultimate goal, right?” I course-confirm. “We need Synergy to fully unleash our potential. It’s the only way we can ever be both sheath and wielder. Two halves of a whole spark.”

“I can’t imagine ever wanting that, let alone needing it.” He shakes his head. “My mom was alone her whole life. She’s always been fine with it.”

“She wasn’t alone,” Elaina reminds him. “She had you.”

“How’s she taking all this?” I ask. “Planning a midnight escape? A faked death?”

His mother tried to doctor his birth certificate to keep him from coming to the academy. The Order is likely keeping an eagle eye on her now.

“I’d know if she’d bother calling me,” he growls, looking down at his Sparklet again.

This transition isn’t just difficult for our charges. It has profound impacts on their families too. Being conscious of that, we’ve set it up so on Friday afternoons their families can come to the academy to reinforce those needed bonds. It’s the only option available until the charges tame their sparks. After that, they can spend weekends off campus like everyone else.

“Is she coming on Friday?”

“I haven’t asked her yet,” he whimpers.

“We’d love to meet her,” Elaina plinks. “She had a heavy hand in nurturing you, after all. I’d say that of all our charges she fought the hardest not to lose you.”

He blushes, remembering his extraction with discomfort. “She hasn’t lost me.”

“It probably couldn’t hurt to remind her of that,” I chastise him.

“Whose side are you on anyway?” he barks.

“Hers, obviously.”

Elaina pouts. “We’re on your side, Grady. Always.”

“I’ll ask her.” He snuffs. “If she ever calls me.”

“The Sparklet works both ways,” I backwind.

“You’re a little bit of a blowhole, aren’t you?” he snaps.

“Just a little?” I tut. “I’ll try harder then.”

He lowers his hackles. “Careful. You know what they say about biting the hand that feeds you.”

I blast a laugh. “Wrong spark element, but I get the drift.”

“I should get going,” he yips. “Fiona’s probably sitting alone at the Registry. We’ve got some homework to dig into.”

We both grin. “Same time tomorrow?”

“We have to do this every single day?” he whines.

I pull my hand to my heart, feigning fatal turbine failure.

“At least for this week,” Elaina compromises.

He nods and heads to the door but pauses to look back at us. “Thank you. Truly.”

My girl practically swoons right out of her chair. My breath hitches in anticipation.

“Hey Grady...” I whitetrail.

“Yeah?”

“Can you lock the door on your way out?”

He wrinkles his muzzle but does as I ask. I don’t even wait for his footfall before reaching over to grab Elaina and lifting her onto the desk in front of me.

“I’ve been thinking about you on this desk all day,” I prepare for liftoff.

“Oh?” She flutters her eyelashes at me. “What were you thinking exactly?”

“I was thinking I wanted to kiss you here.” I lean forward to press my lips against hers.

She wraps her fingers in my curls as she deepens the kiss. Her air spark dances around my tongue on its journey into me while I wind my arms around her waist. She swings her thighs apart and pulls me between them. We’ll never be close enough.

“And here.” I move my kisses in a trail along her cheek to her neck where I nip at her delicate skin with my teeth.

“Where else?” she tinkles, knocking her chime tube against a joystick so hard it’s already straining uncomfortably in the confines of my jeans. It’s going to have to wait. I have more kissing to do.

I keep my eyes locked on hers as I kneel down to slowly push the dress up her thighs. Then I yank her forward with one hand while the other drags her panties right down to her knees where they fall ceremoniously to the floor.

“That answers an important question,” I sputter softly, pushing her so she’s laying down on the desk in front of me.

“What?” she pings.

“Whether you had on any underwear at all.”

She chinkles her chimes, and I take the moment to haul the dress the rest of the way off. I want to see all of her, feel all of her, taste all of her.

“More kissing?” she murmurs.

“So much more kissing,” I promise.

Every moan she makes earns her more kisses, more tongue, the pressure of my attention increasing as my hands begin a dance with my tongue, one clappering the dickens out of her chime tube in rhythm with my mouth while the other wobbles her wind sails. When she sends a sweeping gust of her air spark into me as she reaches her pleasure, I nearly jet in my jeans.

There’s a knock on the door, and I groan in frustration. Guess it’s going to be a blue balls party of one. Elaina pulls herself off the desk in an hurry, gathering her dress to haul it back over her head. I readjust myself in my jeans and kneel down to retrieve her underwear from the floor. She’s not getting that back.

“Hi Cam!” Elaina chimes cheerily after swinging the door wide open. “Come on in. We’ve been waiting for you.”

The look on Cam’s face lets me know she knows how much of a lie that is, especially considering Elaina pulled on the dress backwards. I smirk while clenching my panty prize tighter in my fist. Three more sessions. I can surely survive just three more sessions.