by Layla Heart
For her to choose one of us means that that kingdom will be the one to rule all the kingdoms, that the royal lines of the others will stop being...
Peace under a single ruler, but at what cost?
“Bane! Rune! Kit! And, seriously, Finn?” Dad is standing in front of the building, frowning as he looks up at us. “Get down from there. Now! Roofs are not made for sitting. How many times am I going to have to tell you that?” He shakes his head. “Honestly, if your parents could see you now...” He glares up at us. “Get down.”
Kit lets out a laugh as he stands up, his wings magically unfolding behind him, ripping through his shirt, and he jumps down, showing off a silly trick before he lands neatly next to Dad. Rune partially shifts into a dragon, keeping most of his body humanoid, but his torso and his wings are from his dragon form, then he jumps off too and lands next to Dad.
I stand up too, taking a step back and then jump down, my legs shifting to wolf-legs halfway down, and I land easily, my legs bouncing upon impact before going back to human. Then I grin at Dad. “Well, my parent did see what I was doing.”
Dad rolls his eyes at me, sighing deep. “Yeah, you’re lucky your uncle didn’t, though.” My family is part of the royal line of the werewolves. My uncle, Dad’s older brother, is the king, but after losing my cousin a couple of years back, I’m now next in line, since Dad gave up on his title when he became headmaster at the academy.
“Guys! Really?!” Finn is still standing on the roof, glaring down at us. “Showoffs. Ugh.” Then he climbs back through the window in the roof, disappearing from view. He has to take the stairs inside to get down from the roof. Finn is fae, they don’t have wings or the ability to partially shift into an animal, which can be annoying for him, as we sometimes forget about it, since it’s so natural for us. But then, he has his own things he can do, which are much cooler than a set of wings or becoming a wolf, a lot scarier too...
I glance Dad’s way. “I didn’t know Litha would be coming here today.”
Dad doesn’t look my way, instead looking at the main building on campus, where most of our classes are held and where his office is, before he answers. “We weren’t sure she’d come. Her parents didn’t agree for her to be here, and I hadn’t heard otherwise from them. But it seems that she’s here, yes.” Then he straightens up and glares at each of us individually. “Try to not get into too much trouble this year, would you? I’d prefer no chats with angry kings and queens. Also, breakfast is in half an hour in the main hall, I expect you all there. Tell Finn that he can’t get out of it, he has to show up.” Then Dad walks off to the staff building, which is also where he stays when he’s on campus.
“Seriously?” Kit groans. “I don’t want to eat with the others. I hate the staring.” Then he glares my way. “He’s just showing us off. It’s unfair.”
Rune wraps his arm over Kit’s shoulder. “Of course he’s going to show us off, we’re the crown princes. Just...” Rune looks at the house behind me, the building where the four of us are staying, since we can’t just mingle with the common royals. “I hope Finn will be okay.”
Poor Finn. His great-grandfather, the grandfather of the current King, waged a devastating war against the dragon shifters, forcing them off their lands, giving them the ‘choice’ to go into servitude for the fae or to flee. A lot of dragon shifters were killed during the war, some having stayed behind in servitude, while others have fled to other countries or are hiding in places that you can’t find unless you know to look for them.
This, of course, hasn’t made the fae very popular and Finn has been getting the brunt of the anger ever since we’ve known him. He can’t help what his great-grandfather did, what his grandfather did, or what his father is currently doing, he hates all of it, but that doesn’t stop people from taking their anger out on him. The only thing he can do is to try to be better and hope that he can change things as soon as he comes into power...
Rune’s family has been in hiding ever since the fae took over their land. Nobody knows where they are staying, I don’t even think Rune knows, it’s all being kept hidden with strong magic. Dragons are pretty good at hiding what they love most, their lairs, and that’s what his family has been doing, staying hidden away. That he’s been allowed to attend the academy, even after the assassination attempt still surprises me.
But then... if the fate of all the kingdoms will depend on Litha choosing one of us to marry, making that race the definitive ruler of the four kingdoms... I guess that it makes sense to make sure that he’s near the rest of us, so that he gets a chance to get his family out of hiding and back into power...
“Bane.” Rune puts his arm over my shoulder. “Stop thinking so much, you’re getting wrinkles. You’re not your dad, you’re just you, you don’t have to think so much. It’s not all on you.”
I let out a short laugh, smacking him on his back. “You would say that.” Especially because he can be such a worrier himself. Then I look back at the building, and Finn steps out the front door. “I guess we better tell him about the breakfast thing...”
Rune groans, I feel the sound vibrating in his chest against my arm. “You tell him. Your dad is making us do this.”
“Really?” I glare his way, but he just smugly grins at me. “You’re playing that card now?”
“Yep, I will, all four glorious years we’re here.” He tugs on Kit and then drags us both towards Finn.
Great...
3
When the headmaster says that we have to show up for breakfast, it doesn’t mean just as students, it means that we have to dress up all nicely so that he can show off that we’re attending his academy and that our families think it’s safe enough for us to do so, even with the rising conflicts in some of the countries. Ugh.
Sure, as an incubus, I like the attention on me, but not when I’m being shown off like some prized animal or something. There is no pride and honour in being paraded around.
A light knocking on the dressing room door makes me look up. “Yeah?” I growl as I put my tie on, I hate ties, they always tangle.
The door opens, and Rune steps in, all suited up already, and not for the first time, I go rock hard for him in seconds. Rune smirks as he comes closer, not saying anything, just reaching out and fixing my tie. His hands move in a controlled way, strong, steady, and when I look up into his stone grey eyes, they’re steady as a mountain. As he touches me, the tension seems to leave my body for the first time since I went back home for the summer.
His hand moves up, cupping my cheek, and I involuntarily close my eyes. “That’s better.” His voice is low, coarse, like gravel, which makes sense, with him being an earth-dragon and all. “Rough summer?”
I nod. My kingdom may not be all taken over by fae like his is, but we’re bordering on the Fae’s other side, and there have been increased confrontations at the border. All summer, my parents alternated between fucking their brains out to deal with the stress and the politics and asking if I’d ‘seen my fated wife already’, and if I couldn’t go out and find her, stop this mess forever. Being back here, with the guys, being where I really feel at home, I finally start to feel like myself again.
But now Litha has shown up, changing everything again. I can’t even get away from all the politics at the academy this year.
Rune’s thumb lingers on my bottom lip, and while I’d love to disappear from the world for a while, let out all this frustration on him, I know that we don’t have the time, and I’m not in the right mindset. Bane may think that the three of them are the only ones I don’t fuck around here, but Rune has regularly been my partner for years now.
I take a step back, swallowing hard, my dick straining in my slacks. “We should be going soon.”
He nods, smiling softly. “That’s why I came here. The others are waiting for us downstairs.”
I growl, pushing at his chest. “You could have said that immediately, you dick.” Instead of trying to mess with my head. Instead of making me feel go
od... I stalk out of the dressing room, down the hallway, and see the other guys waiting near the door, impatient.
Rune slips past me, his fingers lingering on my arm. “You know you love my dick, don’t try to deny.” And he’s off again, not helping the state of my cock. Fuck. Being an incubus can be fun, but unlike in our kingdom, people here seem to actually expect me to show up to classes and meeting and such at reasonable times, meaning, on the time it starts. Dawdling for a quick fuck in the staircase is not appreciated, no matter how much I’d like to do it.
When we walk to the main hall, we pass a lot of student houses and other buildings, as ours is the furthest away. All around, people either greet us or glare at us, or, I don’t know, look at us with that strange look that looks somewhat like lust, but not specifically for our body, but more for who we are. Like worshipping, they stare and stare, but never come closer.
Bane bumps his shoulder into mine and points at one of the windows in a tower in the main building. “The lights are on.”
During an ‘inspection’ of the grounds late last year, when Bane’s father let us on the grounds for a few days so that we could explore and learn the layout before it would crowd again, right before we had to go home for the summer. We found that that specific tower, and that floor, held some ancient prophecy texts, and some newer prophecy texts too.
We couldn’t find much about our own prophecy before Bane’s dad caught us, but what we had seen... We knew we had to get back there as soon as we could, explore more. There are always parts of prophecies that aren’t told, that are kept hidden, parts that are too vague, or too precise, or that the oracles think may be too dangerous to release to the public. We want to find out which parts of our prophecy weren’t released.
But it seems there is someone in there right now, looking through those files, looking through what we want to find. “Do you think it’s because Litha is here?” It feels weird to say her name, we never called her by her name, even though we knew it, it felt wrong, she was too big for a simple name. But now I’d seen her, now I knew who she was, her name fit her.
Bane shrugs, his eyes going up to the windows again. “We’d have to find out.”
“Tonight?” I keep my voice low, the others don’t need to know what we’re up to.
Bane nods. “As soon as it’s dark.” We may have more freedom at the academy, they still don’t appreciate us going hunting through books and files that we’re not supposed to see.
“Do you think it’s because your dad knows that we know about what’s in that room? And now that she’s here...” My stomach flips just remembering what Litha looked like, the heat in her gaze, scorching. I wouldn’t mind being on the other end of that passion...
“I don’t think so. Or he would have moved things away back then.”
“What if he already has?”
Bane shakes his head. “He wouldn’t do that without telling me. He’d tell me something like that, even just to let me know that looking again would be useless, to tell me off.” He sighs. “If it’s Dad up there... Maybe he has a reason. If it’s not him... Who else would want to go there?” There is that dark look in his eyes again. Bane really thinks too much, takes it all onto his shoulders. He’s always been more grown-up than the rest of us, always thinking ahead, always being levelheaded, and he always looks so lonely, even when he’s with us, like he’s lost in his own world.
Ahead of us, Rune and Finn are joking around, teasing each other. Rune showing his silly side, making Finn laugh out loud, something that’s rare to ever happen.
I glance to the side, maybe Bane is always so serious because he knows what’s at stake, not just because he’s one of us, a crown prince, a fated prince, but because he’s his father’s son. The headmaster is stern but reliable, providing a way for all our races to mingle on school grounds, trying to keep the politics out of our lives. But Bane isn’t like the rest of us, he knows too much. Always being around his dad, he sees the things that none of us ever see, the politics his Dad has to deal with every day.
I was the first one to arrive at the academy this morning. Everything was still quiet, and the headmaster had been waiting at the gate, not even surprised when he saw me. After dropping my bags off in my room, not that there was much to drop off, as my things had already been sent ahead last week, I went back out the door and sat on the steps in front of our hall.
Finn was the second one of us to arrive, his body tense, his eyes dark, lines in his face I hadn’t seen before. When he first saw me, he’d flinched and I knew that I wouldn’t ask him about his summer, not with that look in his eyes. He looked haunted. For him, going back home is like torture. None of us like going home for the summer, being at the school is safe and comfortable, but for him, going home is even worse. His father, his family... He hates them, and he still has to go back, face those people every day for months, against his will.
After a short greeting, he went out the back of the house, to the training field, and I listened on as he worked his frustration out on the training dummies there, his sword hitting the wooden dummies loudly.
While watching him work out would have been a sight for sore eyes, his shirt clinging to his strong frame, his muscles moving under his skin, I knew that he couldn’t be disturbed.
So, I stayed on those steps, the sounds of his frustration the only noises for a long time, until Bane arrived and he decided that we all needed to hang out and have some fun. So I went inside with him and Finn also came back in.
Right in the middle of playing a game on the TV on a console Bane had been able to smuggle from his parents’ place, Rune had slipped into the living room, the quiet way only he can and had joined us, completing the group.
Completing us.
Until Litha arrived at the academy and changed everything. We’ve been friends for such a long time, but just her showing up in our lives like this could be the end of it, and I’m definitely not looking forward to that future.
I guess that no matter how much we try to keep our lives simple, we always knew that this was going to happen at some point. We’d always known it, so why am I dreading this change?
4
I slip through the heavy wooden doors into a large hall filled with tables and people. This is the main hall, I’m supposed to have breakfast here...
When I got to ‘my’ room, I’d started looking through the backpack and then the suitcase. I had no idea what I should expect since I had no idea what my parents would have packed for me, but I’d found mostly very plain things in the suitcase, like clothes, a couple of books I love to read, very much plain and boring college items, nothing really exciting. Which was a disappointment.
After having gone through both my bag and suitcase, I’d gone onto exploring my room. I’m sharing the room with some other girl, but the woman who pointed me towards my room told me that she wouldn’t be arriving yet, so I’d have the room to myself for at least a while, settle in and everything.
The setup is simple, beds on either side of the room, with desks and shelves next to them, all mirrored. The style is old, not very modern, but the bed is sturdy, and everything seems well built. I don’t know what I expected from a magical school, but a room like this definitely wasn’t part of it, it’s almost too normal. The shelves on my side of the room had books on them on general subjects like history, but not much more, leaving space for me to put my own things on them.
Of course, as I was going through everything, I’d lost track of time, and when I’d finally left my room again, the whole building had been quiet. Luckily, there had been an adult to show me in the direction of the main hall, sighing as they gave me instructions.
Yeah, being late for breakfast on my first day was probably not a good start, and I was getting hungry too, so I hope I was still on time to eat.
I slip into a seat at the end of one of the tables closest to the door, trying to not get too much attention on myself. From a couple of seats down, the girl with the red eyes from before smi
rks at me, it seems that she hadn’t been on time either. I smile her way a little, I guess that even at magical schools, some people are just always the late ones, like me.
At the front of the hall, an older guy is standing behind a stand, talking about the new year and about improving ourselves and being the best version of who we are and doing things to the best of our abilities. Regular start of the year stuff. He does look somewhat familiar though, like I’ve seen him before, but I can’t exactly remember when or where. Maybe he just looks like someone who looks like someone or something.
Then my eyes are pulled to the side, to a table with four guys sitting at it. The table is as big as the one I’m sitting at, a table which can easily hold up to eight people, but it’s just the four of them at that table. They’re all sitting on the same side of the table, looking over the room, like they’re being displayed or something, all dressed up in suits and everything, making me feel very underdressed in my jeans and t-shirt.
The guy closest to the front of the hall looks intense, a constant frown on his face, like someone who is always thinking too much, his eyes serious. But I can see his broad shoulder muscles straining the fabric of his jacket, his strong jaw and his hair is a shaggy dark brown, sticking out at all angles, like someone ran their fingers through it during sex. Not that I would know what that would look like in real life, my parents were way too controlling to let me date, let alone be alone with a boy. But after reading enough erotic romance novels —a girl has got to get her rocks off somehow, right?— I came up with a pretty good mental image of what post-sex hair would look like and my fingers itch with the need to run them through his hair, to see if my mental image is right.
The guy next to him is broad too, but more in his bone structure, he’s all sharp angles, like a statue, but not one of those delicate roman statues, but more like blocky Egyptian ones. He looks hard like a brick and built like a wall, like he could protect you from anything that would endanger you, wrapping his body around yours and holding off any and all danger. His hair is cropped short, and, from here, it looks almost grey, though that’s probably the light. I’d love to be held by him, feel his strong touch, letting him carry me around wherever I want to go, but most of all, I’d love to know what he’d feel like under me as I touch him…
