In all the ever-growing uncertainty around me, one thing has remained constant. Or, more accurately, one person.
When I lean up and press my lips to Puck’s, it’s not on some last-second whim. It’s something I should have done a long, long time ago. Even more than Merlin or Nicholas, Puck’s never given two shits what kind of witch I turn out to be. Highborne or Dark, ever since the very beginning, he’s only ever cared about who I am underneath.
He might hide it under the guise of ill-fated pranks and mischievous smiles, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Our lips part, but our breath still intermingles between us. The dirt and damp clinging to our clothes and packed into pots leaves an earthy scent heavy in the air.
Here, so close to him, I feel my heartbeat quicken. Tomorrow I might find out news that will permanently wedge us apart, but for now, all I want is to be closer to him. I want a taste of what this could be, of what I was once afraid of becoming.
“Tomorrow, during the ritual,” I say, trailing off as Puck laughs softly in my ear.
“Yes, of course. Where you’ll play the sacrificial virgin offering her powers to the goddess. It’s only all any of us has been talking about for weeks.”
“Well, I was thinking,” I start slowly, and then blurt out, “what if I don’t want to actually be a virgin?”
I feel my face burn and try to bury my face into the middle of Puck’s chest, but he grabs my shoulders to stop me hiding. “Hold on, Wren, are you telling me Edgar never . . . you two never . . .”
I shake my head. “No. We were waiting until after the initiation. But that never quite . . . played out as planned.”
Puck lets out a low whistle. “I mean . . . I figured . . .” he shakes his head too, as if trying to clear it, but his words still come out jumbled. “He’s a fool. Edgar missed out . . . you’re saying . . .”
I save him from himself with another kiss. It’s stronger this time. Our lips meet and melt together, harder and longer than before. When we break away, my heart isn’t the only one racing. He parts his lips to speak again, but this time I press a finger to them to stop him.
“Enough about Edgar. I don’t want him,” I say, and for the first time since seeing him at the end of October, I know it’s true. I have to say it again, to feel the way a sort of giddiness bubbles up in me at the sound of the words. I don’t want him. “I want you.”
And that too, is true.
I go to kiss Puck again, but he pulls back a bit. His eyes are searching mine, looking for something as his hand reaches up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
“Are you sure about this?”
I hesitate for only a second and then nod. “I am. I don’t want to wait until it’s too late.”
Puck nods too. His hand cups my chin and I know he understands what I mean.
“Then it’ll be my honor, little bird.”
At first when he kisses me next, it’s soft and gentle. His lips part and his tongue darts between mine, teasing me out until I return the favor.
This time when we break apart he keeps his eyes leveled on mine as he moves towards me—forcing me to take a step back, and then several more. He doesn’t stop until the back of my legs brush against one of the potting tables. Puck sweeps out a hand behind me, moving aside the empty earthenware before plucking me from the ground and placing me on its edge.
When his eyes do finally leave mine, they rove my body instead—drinking me in inch by inch. His hands on my shoulders tighten and his breath quickens until he has to kiss me again—this time with a passion and spills up and over into me.
Suddenly our kisses aren’t chaste and teasing, they’re hungry, fevered, wanting.
My fingers reach for the last remaining buttons of his borrowed blouse, fumbling until he practically growls and tears it off himself. His skin is smooth and surprisingly soft. The narrow taper of his waist leads to a defined V-shape peeking from the top of his waistband.
I’m not allowed to revel in the sight for long. His hands are back on me, reaching for the bottom of my shirt and then pulling it up and over my head.
He lets out a breath and kisses me again while his hands nudge my knees apart. With no barrier between us now, he draws my body up to press against his. At first, his hands move up my sides, making my skin tingle at the touch. He moves slowly, uncertainly, until I can’t take it anymore.
I pull back a bit, watching his face as I take each of his hands in mine and guide them forward to cup my breasts. He looks on, tongue darting between his parted lips as both our bodies respond to the touch.
His rough hands make my nipples harden in his grasp and a heat blossom between my thighs. Also between my thighs, his cock swells until it can’t be hidden beneath the pleats of the skirt he still wears. Its shape presses against his boxers like a creature desperate to escape the confines of its cage.
“Hardly what you thought I’d be wearing when I finally seduced you,” he says, his voice coming out deep and guttural.
I lean forward into his touch, dodging a kiss to bite his bottom lip before drawing back again. “No,” I say, “I always imagined you’d be wearing far less.”
With that, I unbutton the top of the skirt and tug it down—pulling the top of his boxers down with it.
Puck lets out a relieved growl as his cock springs out. He tugs them down the rest of the way before he’s fumbling to undo the button of my own pants. Then he’s lifting my hips and sliding his hand between my thighs to feel my wetness.
His fingers glide along the outside of my slit, making my skin race and my breath grow staggered. His twitching cock brushes against the inside of my thigh, taunting me as he presses his finger to my clit and starts to move it in a slow, circular motion. I feel the pressure start to build, growing steadily until I have to grab his wrist to make him stop before he pushes me to release.
It’s too much for Puck.
With a fevered look in his eye, he pulls me off the table and spins me around to face away from him. With one hand, he pins my stomach and bare breasts to the table, and with the other, guides the head of his penis into place. He lingers there, throbbing, until I tilt back and open my hips, pressing back.
He enters me slowly at first. The head of his cock pushes against me, building pressure until I tilt my hips just a little more and this time it pushes inside.
“Oh fuck,” Puck whispers.
We take in a breath together, but he doesn’t stop. It’s both pleasure and pain—though mostly pleasure—as he starts to thrust his cock slowly in and out of me. His hand snakes around to the front of my legs, slipping between them to rub my clit as he plunges further in.
A moan escapes me as he does, at the feeling of him inside my sex. He presses harder. He moves faster. He thrusts until his cock is throbbing against my cervix, and he can’t fit any more of himself inside me.
Sweat drips from Puck’s face and chest to fall on my exposed back. His hands press into my shoulders, then move to pull my hips closer to him. His breath shortens, as do his movements.
At first, I think I’m too much in my own head to come—when he leans down and kisses the spot between my shoulders while still thrusting. The tenderness of it sends me over the edge. That tension that’s been building between my legs, causing my hips to buck back and my insides to convulse. I can feel him even more acutely, feel every inch of him sliding in and out of me as the orgasm wracks my body.
Pleasure sweeps through me into Puck, and he can’t hold back anymore either.
He pulls out just in time to keep from coming inside me. His hand works the shaft of his cock until, with a final grunt, he spills across the small of my back.
We’re left trembling together in a greenhouse far steamier than it was when we arrived.
But the deed is done, evidenced by the red liquid leftover on the towel that Puck finds to clean me with. I might play the part of the virgin tomorrow, but only in spirit. Puck’s made sure of that.
Chapte
r Thirty-One
At some point in the early hours of the morning, the storm finally stops. I know it because when I wake, my head still cradled against Puck’s chest in the pile of cold-weather tarps he crumpled into a makeshift bed on the greenhouse floor, it’s unusually quiet.
I try to shift carefully so I don’t wake him, only to see his eyes are already open. He glances down at me and seeing I’m awake, reaches down to push damp strands of hair away from my forehead.
“I was wondering when you’d wake up,” he says, nodding towards the door. “We should probably get out of here before Professor Heather catches us on his morning rounds.”
I sit up a bit and stop to stretch the sore muscles of my neck and back. When I glance back at Puck, he’s still looking at me—admiring me in a way he hasn’t before. Something about it makes a lump rise in the back of my throat.
“Puck . . .” I start, my words catching.
“Yes, little bird?”
I lift my eyes to meet his. “I need you to promise me something.”
He draws back a bit. I don’t like the rush of colder air that fills the void between us and have to pull the plastic tarp closer to my skin.
“Something tells me I’m not going to like it.”
“No, you’re not,” I say. I force myself to take a deep breath. With my upcoming meeting with my mother, it can’t be put off any longer. If I wait . . . I might not have the strength to ask it of him again. “If it turns out I’m a Highborne Witch, I need you to forget me.”
His eyes grow wide and his mouth opens in protest, but I cut him off. “No, really Puck. You can’t go sneaking off into Highborne territory to meet me. You’d be killed. You’ve already risked enough.”
I reach out to touch the side of his face, but he shrinks away from me and jumps to his feet. Even in the midst of my confusion, the little hussy in me is disappointed to see he put his pants back on while I was sleeping.
“You’re completely daft if you think for even one second I’m going to agree with that.”
Puck plants his feet and crosses his arms across his, gratefully still bare, chest.
Now it’s my turn to scramble to my feet. Since Puck didn’t have the decency to dress me as well, I have to do it while holding the tarp around me to keep my jiggly bits from, well, jiggling. No matter what anyone tells you in the movies, no one wants to see that much.
“I just want to protect you,” I say, once I’m safely up on my feet and still mostly covered. “It’s not your fault my life is such a mess.”
“And you think I didn’t know that when this all started?” Puck says, stepping closer. He’s not so angry now. That mischievous smile has started to return, probably thanks to the reflection of my bare butt he just got a glimpse of in the glass behind me. Damn tarp betraying me already.
“I just—”
He grabs me by the shoulders and plants a kiss on my lips to shut me up. I have to say, as annoying as it is, it’s highly effective.
“Not another word about it,” he says. “I’m going to be the one doing the protecting from here on out. I’m in this for the long haul, Wren Davies, no matter what side of witchcraft you happen to fall on.”
There’s a rustle at the door and both of us freezes. Since there’s really nowhere to hide, I just tighten the tarp around me as best as I can and brace for the worst.
But it isn’t Professor Heathers who bursts inside.
It’s Merlin and Nicholas.
I know from the looks on their faces that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
“What is it?” I ask, almost forgetting to hold the tarp up over my most sensitive areas as I step forward to greet them.
“There’s been a change of plans,” Nicholas says, painstakingly averting his eyes as I give them an accidental peek at my chesticle area while doing some readjusting.
Merlin is not so coy. He stomps forward, already removing his scarf and jacket and throwing them my way.
“Cover up. We have to get inside the academy—NOW.”
I barely have time to wrap the scarf around my nether regions and shrug his jacket over my shoulders before I’m hurried to the greenhouse door. Before we even open it I hear a strange noise coming from outside. I’d written it off earlier since it’s nothing compared to the roar of the storm, but now I’m not so sure.
Unless I’m mistaken, it sounds like distant shouts.
“What’s going on?” I ask, drawing the jacket tighter around me.
No one answers right away. Merlin is too busy delineating tasks.
“We’re going to have to be quick about it. Puck, you stay to the back and keep an eye out for stragglers. I’ll go on ahead.”
“Stragglers? What are we—” I’m cut off as Merlin throws open the door and plunges out into the cold. He takes a few steps out into the snow and turns back to wave me on.
I stand still in the doorway, glancing down at my bare feet. My shoes never did make it back with us last night.
“Hurry up!” Merlin calls back, seemingly oblivious to my hesitation.
Nicholas, meanwhile, just bends over and throws me over his shoulder—forgetting for a minute that doing so has put my bare ass on display to the world—and then heads out after Merlin.
I guess this is what I deserve after doing the same thing to Puck earlier.
As soon as we’re out in the snow, the sounds grow louder. They’re muffled still, from beyond the wall, but it’s unmistakably the sound of angry voices.
Behind us, Puck locks up the greenhouse and then follows in our snowy trudge back towards the school.
It’s close to sunrise now. The edges of the sky have started to turn a lighter shade of gray-tinged pink. My breath clouds up around my face as I try to wiggle the scarf down to cover at least a little more of my modesty. As I do so, I catch sight of something appearing over the side of one of the walls. It’s gone as fast as it appears, and I’m about to write it off as a figment of my imagination when I see it again. It appears further down, but this time it remains there long enough for me to see what it is.
It’s a face. Hooded in white and red.
I stiffen in Nicholas’ arms. “What the hell’s going on?”
Nicholas steps over a particularly large snow pile and almost drops me straight into it. When he rights himself again, Merlin is already nearly at the door leading into the main building. He waves back at us frantically, his eyes cutting between us and the outer wall.
“Crusaders,” Nicholas grunts, finally, once he’s gotten his footing again.
Puck rushes up behind us, offering me his shirt to tie around my waist so I don’t flash the entire school once were inside.
“Fuck,” he whispers, overhearing. “How many?”
Nicholas shakes his head, pressing onward. “No idea, but enough. The whole school’s been put on lockdown.”
He glances down at me briefly, and then back up at the school—his expression impassive. “You should’ve been inside.”
“Yes,” Merlin agrees, finally stepping aside to let us in the back door. “I agree.” He stares Puck down but doesn’t elaborate. As soon as Nicholas has set me down inside the doorway, he motions towards the staircase at the end of the passageway.
“We’re all gathering in the great hall. Unless you’d like to join the rest of us in your current state . . .” here Merlin looks me over, really looks me over, “then I suggest you hurry upstairs and get back down here as fast as possible.”
There are times to argue with Merlin, but now is not one of them. With the echoed shouts of the Crusaders outside still ringing in my ears, I do as he says. Puck tries to follow, but Merlin stops him.
“Nicholas,” he says, without looking away from Puck still clutched within his grasp. “Accompany Wren upstairs. She shouldn’t be left alone today.”
Nicholas nods and hurries after me. I don’t hear what else Merlin says to Puck, but the tone of their voices echoing after us is clear enough.
Since I neve
r did see any of my old belongings, all I have to change into is my spare uniform—the very ill-fitting one that both wants to ride up and give me a wedgie and shift down to give me serious grandma-butt. I’d just about kill for a shower right now, but I can’t leave Nicholas shifting uncomfortably at the top of the staircase.
I only allow myself one glance out my window towards the front of the school, but what I see there makes my stomach turn.
There’s so many of them. Too many to count.
By the time I’ve headed downstairs alongside Nicholas, the rest of the school is already shifting anxiously in the great hall. Puck waves us into a corner to join him while Merlin tries to round up the last few students as they filter in.
A general feeling of unrest hangs in the air.
We’re so wound up that when the front door flies open I’m not the only one who lets out a high-pitched shriek. Abacus strides in with none other than Veronica in tow.
Her red hair tangles at the back of her neck as she struggles against his grip.
“I told you—I have to go home to get part of my costume. The ceremony’s tonight.”
Abacus practically throws her to the ground at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t know if you noticed,” he hisses back, “but there’s an army of Crusaders outside the gate.”
He stops at the bottom step, glancing around as if he’s just noticed all the students and teachers pressing in around him. “No one goes in or out of that gate until I say so. Anyone stupid enough to disobey will have to face the consequences alone.”
Abacus Grave wears a grim expression as he joins the headmistress by her side at the top of the stairs.
Headmistress Evanora waits a moment for the last of the quiet conversation to die down before she speaks. She looks tired, her hair thrown up sloppily at the last minute, and the corner of a patterned nightgown peeking out from between the lapels of her wrongly-buttoned coat.
Dark Witch: A Paranormal Academy Romance (Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1) Page 28
