by Eve, Jaymin
He laughed, lifting me with both hands and pulling me onto his lap. “You’re just so responsive.”
I shoved him. “You know I hate being tickled.”
More of his laughter rumbled across the room and I felt my heart swell. Just having him close like this was the best way I could think to spend my birthday. After Mab’s shock appearance last night, I’d continued on to the Atlantean mansion, and the six of us had watched movies for hours. Lord of the Rings—my usual birthday movie marathon.
When Asher finally got me into bed, he’d loved me until I couldn’t breathe or remember my name. He knew exactly how to touch me to drive me crazy, destroy my control, and my soul.
Fuck. I didn’t care. It belonged to him anyway.
“What time is it?” I asked, straightening my top. I’d started the tickle wars, but he’d finished and won in spectacular fashion. Definitely my fault for insisting no powers be used. I was disadvantaged against his long-ass arms, and without my abilities…
“Just past 1 P.M.,” he said, pulling me back to the bed, his body covering me, as a low moan escaped my mouth.
His lips pressed firmly against mine. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, pulling him closer, our tongues tangling together as we kissed like it was the first time we’d ever touched. It didn’t matter that I’d kissed Asher so many times now I couldn’t count them. The butterflies in my stomach never faded.
The need I had for him only grew stronger.
A heavy knock on his door barely even startled us. “Come on, you two, stop screwing.” Jesse’s voice got lower as he muttered, “…and making the rest of us nauseous.” His voice grew louder again. “Get your asses out to the pool for lunch and a swim. The birthday girl needs to eat her cake.”
“You want this or cake?” Asher murmured against my mouth, tracing a hand down my body, caressing the edge of the tiny panties I wore.
One finger slipped under and I moaned as he glided across my skin and down through the wetness pooling there. As one finger slid inside, my eyes closed and I decided that next time this was the game I’d play. Tickling was dead to me.
“Asher! Maddison! I will break this door down.”
“Fuck off, Jess,” Asher said, his eyes locked on me, a wicked smile on his lips as he pushed a second finger slowly inside.
“We’ll be out in a minute,” I gasped, sounding breathless, but fuck, Asher was driving me insane.
I heard grumbling, and the earthy lion shifter energy faded as Jesse walked away.
“You love teasing me,” I gasped, my body moving as I swiveled my hips, needing the release that was hovering close by.
“I love you,” he replied, before he shifted his thumb, and stroked across my clit. Pleasure exploded, the swirling sensations in my gut spiraling out of control as the world flashed black and white at me. I managed not to scream, but I was far from quiet as I rode out the orgasm.
“Gods,” I groaned, falling back, limbs jelly. “One day my heart is going to give out when you touch me like that, and I’m not even going to be mad about it.”
Asher’s eyes darkened even as he laughed, fingertips brushing across my bare skin. “You’re fucking adorable, but no more talk of dying. I’m not entertaining that thought. Not ever again.”
It probably was too soon. Asher and I had both died, sorta, last year. Our mortal bodies had been destroyed to allow for our rebirth as god-ish entities, with a ton of new powers that were still developing and changing daily.
One in particular had been on my mind. “Have you noticed anything odd when we’re close to each other?” I asked him, not sure if I was crazy or not. “Especially when we’re touching.”
Asher propped himself up on one arm, his broad chest very distracting, so I forced myself to focus on his face—not that it was any less distracting. “Like what?” he asked, his gaze like a caress as he ran it across me.
“Uh…” I cleared my throat, “I have occasionally been picking up on your thoughts. And I’m almost certain you’ve also heard mine.”
It started late last year, Asher answering me when I was positive I hadn’t said anything. At first I’d dismissed it, thinking maybe I had spoken out loud, but when it happened five or six times, I knew it was something more. I was sure I’d heard a couple of his thoughts too. Just random snippets, almost like a whisper across my mind, but it was there.
He was watching me closely, expression unreadable. “Does that mean something to you?” I asked softly. I’d caught up a lot on knowledge of the supernatural world, but I was still miles behind everyone raised in this world. That’s what twenty-two years of thinking you were a human would do for you.
“It’s not completely unheard of,” he finally said, “especially for dragon shifters with true mates. Possibly Atlantean mates have the same gift. We are somewhat closely related to dragons. Our energy.”
He leaned over and cupped my cheek. “We already know we’re true mates, we just have to figure out how to trigger the bond.”
I nodded, my head hazy as it always was when he was close. “And maybe we should ask Jessa and Braxton about the mind reading thing…?” I paused. “Or Rayge?”
Rayge was a dragon shifter—not confirmed, but I knew it—that I’d met in Germany. Asher refused to tell me what their history was, just saying that it was in the past and it was something he’d rather not revisit. I couldn’t let it rest though. I’d only spent a few hours with Rayge, but I already knew he had too much going on to waste his life drinking in some tiny supernatural dive. Right now it wasn’t a priority to find out his story, but I would be dealing with it once the god situation was over. For now, I’d continue to casually slip Rayge into conversations in the hopes that Asher would accidentally reveal some new information.
He grinned, perfect white teeth flashing. “Nice try, baby, but we’re not talking about that scaly beast today.”
Yes! A dragon was a scaly beast, right? He’d at least confirmed that much for me.
“Jessa and Braxton, on the other hand, are definitely viable sources on this mind reading thing. Be nice to know if we could communicate when separated.”
Part of me—the human part I was sure—freaked at the thought that Asher might have free and unfettered access to my mind. Sometimes a chick just needed a little privacy. Like those times he pissed me off and I started planning ways to torture him. I’d lose my surprise attack, and that was essential to success.
On the other hand, I totally got the positives to us communicating from a distance. That would be a priceless gift. If we had that sort of bond, I might have felt his mind when he’d been “destroyed” and known he was alive. I definitely would have known later that he was only pretending to hate me to keep me safe. Saved myself a hell of a lot of heartache.
Hindsight was a beautiful thing.
“Come back to me,” Asher murmured, and I shook my head, focusing on him again.
“Sorry,” I said with a sigh, “I was just thinking that the mind reading thing, and even more important the communicating over a distance thing, might help in our battle against the gods.”
He let out a low breath against my skin. “You haven’t been sleeping well.”
He tried to hide his worry, but I felt it.
Pressing my face to his chest, I breathed him in. “I keep having dreams. I can’t remember what they’re about, but I always wake tired and … scared. It has to be about losing to the gods—a manifestation of my own worries.”
He wrapped me up so tightly that, for a moment, all my broken and jagged edges were smooth. “We will deal with the gods. Together. You don’t have to carry this burden alone. In fact, just let me take all of it. I can’t stand seeing your spark dull like this.”
Mab had said the same thing, and I took a second to acknowledge how fucking lucky I was to have so many who cared. Especially Asher, who loved me more than I deserved.
“I love you,” I said, voice thick with the emotions filling my chest and pushing into my throat.
He
cupped my face in both hands, and I met those sea-green eyes, now traced with both silver and gold. “Live with me, Maddi, please. I don’t want to be apart from you any longer.”
My heart lurched, eyes burning.
I’d refused that request a lot. I didn't want to give up my dorm, the one thing that was mine … a last piece of independence. At this stage though, it was pretty stupid to keep denying him. I struggled to sleep at all without Asher, the dreams so much worse, and on the rare occasions I stayed in my dorm, I usually ended up back at his place at 2 A.M. anyway. It was time to let go of the past and recognize that I could still be strong and independent with my mate by my side. If anything, we were stronger together. A fact that would no doubt come into play a lot in the next year.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He stilled beneath me. “You’ll live with me?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.
I nodded, a husky chuckle escaping. “Yes. You’re my future, Asher, and I’m done being stubborn about it. I don’t want to waste any more time.”
His lips crashed into mine and I welcomed him. Unfortunately for Jesse, I doubted we were going to make lunch today.
Maybe afternoon tea.
Asher pulled me up, shifting our bodies so that he held me back against his headboard.
Yeah, maybe not afternoon tea either.
Chapter 3
The assembly this year was a little different to previous years. Firstly, Princeps Jones was not here. I hated that he wasn’t; it felt like a broken tradition, one I’d only just become a part of.
“He’s so annoyed that the meetings ran over,” Larissa whispered to me as we stared up at the teacher stumbling through his information. It was a professor I didn’t know, one who taught advanced demon studies, and he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “All the leaders are still there, arguing about what to do. Romania is the place to be apparently.”
The princeps had been going back and forth to these meetings for months.
“Please tell me they at least found some sort of resolution?” I murmured back, trying not to make it look obvious.
We were still in the front row, because Larissa liked to be there.
She snorted softly. “All they decided is that until something is decided, no one will step foot in Atlantis. They’re worried a surge of power could weaken the prison locking up the gods. In a complete contradiction though, once this meeting is over, a bunch of powerful magic users, Louis included, will head there to reinforce the door. Oh, and apparently Jessa and Braxton are seeking more advice from the queen of the dragons.”
Clearly most of the supernatural community had no fucking idea how to deal with this situation. Gods. That was beyond their pay grade and they were scrambling for solutions that would result in the least number of deaths. The largest problem of all … killing gods was not easily done. Minor deities, maybe, because they weren’t powerful enough to destroy the world with their free energy. But the full gods were a very different story.
Even if you did manage to kill one—an almost impossible task—you still had to figure out what to do with their power so it didn’t explode the world. That was apparently where the Hellbringers came into it. All theory of course.
“We need to figure out their weaknesses,” I murmured to Larissa. “Everyone has a weakness. The gods also have rules. Supernaturals have forgotten, especially about these gods that have been sleeping for thousands of years, but that doesn’t mean they have none.”
“We’ve scoured the library,” Larissa said, dropping her head, her shoulders slumping. “There’s nothing new.”
Yeah, we kept coming back to the same thing. Hellbringers were the only weapon. It was the only fucking way. Hence why Asher, Connor, and I were even created. Even other gods had to follow the rules about their kind, and the Hellbringers were the best way to ensure they could kill and contain power.
We focused on the teacher again, or at least Larissa did. She felt it was her duty, with her father not here right now, to keep an eye on everything. I instead watched my friends. Calen’s head was back, lightly snoring—Ilia, sitting beside him, kept turning a soft smile on him, all this emotion in her face. My fingers itched to capture that image, so she could finally see how she was so fucking gone over him, but a photo would probably just send her running. She wasn’t great at dealing with strong emotions. A side effect from abandonment issues due to her upbringing.
She was giving it a decent try to make Calen and her work though, and I was totally digging their vibe.
Axl faced the stage, paying attention just like Larissa. I loved his new shorter hair, artfully spiked with just a few soft strands falling forward. The red was slightly stronger in the auburn lengths. Our genius. He’d definitely be able to tell us, word for word, what was said in this assembly.
I was distracted from Axl by a huge hand reaching over from the other side of Larissa, resting behind her seat. Rone. I wondered if they were going to step forward from the will-they-won’t-they thing they’d been rocking for the last two years. I hoped they would, because the spark between them was strong. Gods knew neither of them had been able to extinguish it, no matter how hard they tried.
Asher, was on my other side, lazily playing with my hand, brushing his fingertips over it. His eyes were unfocused, gazed off into the distance, and I wondered if I could push into his thoughts and tune in on what had him so distracted. We’d experimented with it yesterday, but the moment I tried to actively hear his thoughts, I got nothing but a solid wall.
We were missing something, and I made another mental note to try and get in touch with one of the supes who might help. Jessa and Braxton might be out though if they were in Faerie, visiting the dragons.
As students started to move around us, I realized the assembly was over and I’d missed ninety percent of what was said. Hopefully Larissa wouldn’t quiz me on how many students were here this year. Ilia shot a smirk in my direction, like she’d had the same thought.
“What’s your first subject today?” she asked, pushing past a few students to reach my side. We followed the crowds out the door.
Reaching into my satchel, I pulled out the ever-changing magical schedule. We looked it over together.
Monday
10am – Sword and Sorcery Year Three
11am – Advanced Herbalism
12pm – Lunch
2pm – Advanced Attack and Defense Year Three
Tuesday
9am – Herbalism
10am – Healing Magic
12pm – Lunch
1.30pm – History of Supernatural Races
7pm – Water Magic – Advanced
Wednesday
9am – Sports Bonding
10am – Healing Magic
11am – Sword and Sorcery
12pm – Lunch
1pm – Advanced Attack and Defense
Thursday
8am – Herbalism
9.30am – Healing Magic
12pm – Lunch
1pm – History of Supernatural Races
2 pm – Race Morphology Advanced
3pm — Race Morphology – Demi-fey
7pm – Water Magic
Friday
8.30am – History of Supernatural Races
10am – Race Morphology — Demi-fey
12pm – Lunch
1pm – Herbalism
2pm – Healing Magic
5pm – Advanced Attack and Defense
It was Friday today and I had a full day.
“History of Supernatural Races is up first,” I said. “I legit can’t even remember what we learned last year.”
Ilia shot me a sympathetic look. “Well, at least you aced that class. So whatever you learned, you learned it well.”
A sad chuckle escaped. She wasn’t wrong, I’d done well in my classes last year. So well that they were talking of testing me out of my fourth year, allowing me to possibly graduate early, at the same time as my friends. It would no doubt depen
d on whether I was attacked by gods before or after this year’s graduation.
“At least using your powers is pretty easy for you now,” Axl said, lingering nearby. I swore he always knew when people were talking about school and grades, needing to be part of the conversation.
“Yep,” I agreed. “Powers are easy, the book work not as much.” Who the hell had time to read textbooks these days? I was too busy trying to keep my friends and family alive.
He wrapped an arm around me. “You know I’ll help you with that. Don’t stress for one second about it.”
I hugged him back just as tightly, letting my head rest on his chest, absorbing the familiar energy and scent. Axl was the least volatile of the five, but his power was strong. And his extra special superpower was his brain.
“Thanks for all the help over the last two years,” I murmured into his shirt. “I wouldn't be topping classes without you.”
His chest shook as he laughed. “Yeah you would. Pretty sure there’s literally not one thing you can’t achieve if you set your mind to it.”
If only. “Meet you in the library after school?” I asked, pulling away. “Let me know if you figure out how to stop the random weather.”
He kissed my cheek. “You’ll be the first to know.”
I shook my head, noticing that somehow he already had a book in his hands, reading as he walked. He never tripped either. Another superpower of his.
“I’ll see you at lunch,” I said to Ilia and Larissa, hugging them both. Larissa was a year ahead of me, and we only shared one class, but had the same lunch break. That was a schedule requirement she forced her father to uphold, no matter what. Ilia was generally working for the Academy, but when she was here, we always made an effort to eat lunch together.
Calen dropped a kiss on my cheek, and then Rone and Jesse did the same. The lion shifter of our group turned away fast, still acting weird and cagey. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, brushing a hand over my hair before he was off.
Narrowing my eyes on him, he glanced back once, shooting me a half-smile. Then he turned and strode away, long legged and graceful as all shifters were.
