Serena jerked back so fast she almost tripped over her own slippers.
Her face was the color of a sunset having a panic attack, red from the neck up, ears included, the kind of full-body blush that started in the chest and colonized every square inch of visible skin with the enthusiasm of a wildfire discovering dry brush.
Gavriel blinked.
Once. Twice. Three times. His eyes were unfocused, swimming with the particular glaze of a man dragged out of deep sleep by a sensation his brain had registered and his consciousness hadn't caught up to yet. The blinks were slow, heavy, each one a system reboot that loaded approximately twelve percent of his operating capacity before giving up and trying again.
His green magic snapped around her like a reflex.
