by Riley Storm
“I mean it,” she said, raising her hands over her head as he removed the flimsy white undershirt. “It’s like I want you so badly, it’s blocking the magic.”
“That’s a hell of a compliment.”
She smacked him gently in the chest with a fist as he chuckled. “Kasperi, I’m serious. It’s right here,” she said, touching her chest. “I can feel it, but for once, it’s under control.”
“I don’t have the answer to that question,” he admitted softly. “All I know is I want you too. So badly I can barely control myself right now while we talk.”
Amber knew she was killing the mood by talking, but her surprise was so great. Could she really do this without the collar?
Pulling close, she kissed him, letting her actions do the talking now. They sank to the floor, her bra following the rest of the clothing to the mat. Kasperi’s eyes lit up at the sight of her chest. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but the way he stared at her, as if she was the finest specimen he’d ever seen, certainly was nice.
Reaching down, she fumbled at his belt, stripping it off after a few failed attempts that had them both giggling. With him on top, she only got the pants to his knees, but it was enough for her to grab hold of his cock and slowly stroke its lengthy shaft until it grew hard in her hand.
Amber worked him slowly, gently, but with firm, confident motions, watching his face. She loved the way his eyes rolled back into his head, mouth dropping open as he breathed through it slowly, soft groans reaching her ear in the otherwise silent room. Hesitantly, she cupped his sack with her other hand, gently massaging him.
Muscles across his chest and down his arms flexed and swelled up as he tightened and relaxed with every curl of her fingers. The sight of him reacting to her touch only furthered her arousal, burying her magic deeper inside her.
Kasperi overcame the sensations she was wickedly and delightfully inflicting upon him and slid a hand up the inside of her leg and across the apex. Even through the thick sweatpants, the light flick of his finger sent a tremor through her body at first contact.
“Time to even this up a bit,” he growled, pulling her sweatpants down and off, until she lay completely naked, exposed to his eyes, his hands, and—a moment later—his mouth.
“Oh, shit,” she yelped as steel-like arms wrapped around her upper legs and all but lifted her clear of the mat, bringing her to his mouth, until only her shoulders rested on the ground.
Then he buried his face between her legs and began to run his tongue across her opening. Slowly, tentatively at first, working her in to the sensation before increasing the pressure and the speed. It came like an avalanche, building up speed, moving faster and causing her to shake.
Then the magic came back in a rush as she exploded. Tiny sparks of red erupted from her fingertips as Kasperi pushed her over the edge. Her orgasm was quick and thunderous, thrashing her body with spasmic throes of bliss. Amber threw her arms out wide on the mat, trying to stabilize her body until she calmed.
The plastic hissed and little bits of it melted as magic fire continued to spark, the excess magic working its way free until she collapsed into that wonderful state of post-orgasmic bliss. Barely able to talk or speak, she slipped from his grasp to pool in a heap of boneless skin, limp and able to do little more than breathe.
Kasperi wasn’t finished with her, however, and he used those moments to finish stripping while she recovered. Now he rested on his knees between her legs, ready and waiting. Almost of its own accord, her hand reached out to grasp him.
“You’re done burning things, right?” he asked hesitantly, eying the singed and melted mat on either side of her, then looking back at his hard dick.
She giggled, turned her hands over twice, then nodded. “Looks like you’re good.”
“Okay,” he said, still tense with nerves as she gripped him, feeling him harden some more from her touch alone.
“You need to relax,” she stated, pushing him back until he sank onto his haunches. “Let me help with that.”
Without waiting, she sat up and leaned forward, tongue flicking out and around the tip, still stroking him gently with one hand.
“Amber, you don’t have—”
“Shut up,” she ordered, not bothering to look up. Instead, she focused her efforts on pleasuring him, taking him into her mouth a few inches at a time, until she’d gone as far as she could. The angle prevented her from watching his face, but the noise he was making and the way he stroked her head with stiff fingers said all she needed to know.
A few minutes later she came up for air, admiring his face, the smooth lines and freshly shaved cheeks. Her hand ran across his short hair, feeling it flick by underneath.
“I’m ready,” she said, holding tight around his neck.
Kasperi grabbed the small of her back and lifted her from the floor before pushing her back into it. They locked eyes, two sets of soft, pale green focused on nothing but one another.
Her legs slowly spread as he placed himself between them, one thick arm next to her head, the other gripped around his base, guiding him to her opening. There he paused, waiting for that one last okay from her.
Words wouldn’t come, stuck in her throat, but Amber nodded her permission. Her eager permission. Good lord, she hadn’t realized how badly she wanted Kasperi. Had it been like this for long? Since the first day? She couldn’t remember thinking much about him sexually, yet now she felt she was releasing desire that had been pent up for ages.
Blinding ecstasy struck before her thoughts could analyze the situation any further, as he entered her for the first time, pushing slowly.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, twisting the plastic mat cover in her fingers. “Fuck, you’re big.”
“Is it too much?” He paused, then withdrew slightly.
Amber was about to say she might need some time, but the sudden absence sparked a primal urge. “No,” she said, jaw tight, fixated on having that sensation again. Reaching out, she dug her fingers into his back and pulled him in tight, craving that delicious mixture of beautiful agony.
Kasperi sank in farther this time and she cried out. It was so good. There was a bit of pain, but it was a good hurt. A really good hurt. He was big and she struggled to take him, but her body wanted this. Needed this. So they didn’t stop. Not then, and not minutes later as he exploded inside her when she suddenly contracted around him, crashing through her own orgasm.
He didn’t slow down, needing no time to recharge and she didn’t let him. Frantically begging for him to fuck her, she got her wish. Twin fists slammed into the mat on either side of her head, supporting him while he thrust against her, hard, each crash of their hips sparking a new cry from her mouth.
“Oh Kasperi!” she shouted, the words ripped free from her mouth, her brain and her body no longer responding to her orders as he pounded her into the mat.
His growls contained no words, they were deep, guttural and utterly arousing. Never had she felt so in tune with the basic instincts of pleasure and sex, her mind unable to handle the sensations, melting in upon itself.
She saw it coming again on his face. That slight tightening, the focus as he worked to prevent himself, but she shook her head, knowing she was reaching the end.
“Don’t stop,” she ordered. “Don’t you dare stop. I’m so close.”
Without warning, he sat back, slightly gripped both her legs closed with one arm and lifted her a few inches from the mat. She wondered what he was doing until his free hand came around her legs, thumb sticking down between them until he found her clit. The combination of his thumb rubbing against her, and his cock thrusting deep inside her was too much, too powerful.
She arched way back at the same instant he swelled inside of her and shot his second load, filling her once more even as she shuddered. She ripped her hands away from him as more magic escaped them, stronger this time, but not enough to cause danger.
Moments later, both of them utterly spent, they collapsed back int
o the mat, Kasperi on his elbows and wrists, gasping for air above her. The heat of his body washed over her in waves, a pleasing sensation, even as the cool of the room finally surged in and nipped at her exposed sides.
“Kasperi, I…” She trailed off, noticing a strange look in his eyes as he lifted his head.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s coming.”
Amber cocked her head, and she heard it too. Footsteps on the stone corridor outside.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she yelped, pushing him off her, then belatedly remembering what they were doing as his cock slid out of her, covered in both their mess.
Awkwardly, attempting not to spill on the mats, she slipped her underwear on, the sexiness of the moment blasted completely into ruin as they scrambled to get dressed and cover up the evidence of their coupling.
Then, still tugging her sweatpants into place and wearing only the white shirt—bra in one hand, sweater in the other—they bolted for the other door like a pair of teenagers trying to escape before a parent came home.
“Hey!” The voice of one of the caretakers shouted behind them as they made their escape, giggling and laughing to one another as they bolted down the hallway, hand in hand.
It wasn’t the most comfortable run of her life, and it was definitely the longest run to the bathroom post-sex she’d ever made, but when they got back to his quarters and finally relaxed, all it took was one look into each other’s eyes for them to break out into peals of laughter once more.
Something had happened there, and even with the weight of the collar back on her neck, she barely felt it. Things were different now. A new emotion had entered the fray, one she’d been sorely lacking, without even realizing it.
Hope.
23
Amber sat cross-legged on the ground nearby while he went through a slow warm-up, holding each position.
“I thought there were specific rooms for you to practice with those?”
Kasperi glanced over at her, rising from his crouch into a slow, side-stepping spin with double slash. “There are. But other people go there. Including those that think you’re a poo-poo head. I don’t want to deal with them, so we come here, where we can both practice.” He indicated the steel collar sitting in her hands, and not around her neck.
“I need to start being around others soon,” she said, tossing the circular metal band back and forth from one hand to the other. “It’s easy to control around you now you know.”
He made a noise, focusing on himself for a few minutes, closing his eyes and moving through the last of his paces.
“Something inside of you changed,” he said. “That’s why it’s easy to control around me. When we were in here the other day, you let me in. We crossed a boundary, and you realize now I’m no threat.”
Amber scratched her cheek. “You think that’s why it’s always there? It thinks everyone is trying to hurt me, to cause me harm, and it’s protecting me?”
“I mean, think about it,” he said, launching into a four-move pattern at full speed, covering nearly ten feet in the maneuver, increasing the distance between them. “Every time it’s ever manifested, you’ve felt threatened in some manner. Physically, mentally, abusively. It’s never caused you issues while you were laughing with your co-workers, or getting your hair cut.”
“That’s…an interesting reasoning,” she admitted.
Kasperi let her chew on it for a bit, mainly because he wanted to do the same. Was it plausible that her magical outbursts were simply defensive efforts, not some sort of darkness trying to get out, to inflict harm?
“How come I always seem to want to hurt people, though? You know there’s a darkness inside me, Kasperi. I don’t think it’s that simple. I think it’s provoked by negative emotion. With you, it was always that I felt like your prisoner. That you were holding me against my will, even as you protected me. Like a good-cop, bad-cop sort of thing.”
“I was always the good cop,” he said, making up his mind. “You just didn’t accept it. Like you weren’t ready to accept something else, until the other day.”
“Did you just make a remark about me taking your dick?” she asked, looking up at him abruptly, her face promising retribution if he was.
“No. What? That’s not what I meant,” he said, shaking his head, sighing. “I meant that I’ve known something about you. About us. That I haven’t shared, because I didn’t want to put more pressure on you, not until you were ready to hear it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked dangerously, gripping the collar tightly in one hand.
Kasperi didn’t want to share this yet either, but the past two and a half days had been wonderful. Magical, even, to use a clichéd word. He wanted to tell her, to let Amber know so she could understand what was raging in his heart and in his mind. So that she knew it wasn’t just the thing between his legs that wanted her, and that he thought she was more than that.
“You and I are…a mated pair,” he admitted, watching her face carefully, to see if she knew what that meant, of the ramifications of it.
Amber stared at him blankly. Nothing. “We’re what? Is that some weird term you shifters use to describe the fact we’ve slept together a few times now?”
“Uh, not quite, no. It’s…more than that, Amber.” He walked over to her, laying the swords down as he took a knee, so as not to tower over her more than normal.
“You’re scaring me, Perri.”
He smiled at the use of the nickname. He’d told her she could call him that instead of his entire name, but this was the first time since then that she had. It was her way of searching out, asking if everything was okay.
“No need to be scared. I just mean that, well, shifters, we’re a bit fickle about the people we come to care for. Sex is one thing, but from birth, we’re bonded to another soul. A random person out in the morass of humanity. Slowly, over the course of our lives, the strands that bind us grow stronger, pulling us toward one another. Until we are joined.”
Amber took all that in, but still didn’t speak, so he continued.
“We only ever take one mate. There is only ever one true mate for us. We might care for others, but there is only one we’ll ever truly feel complete with.”
“Well that sounds gimmicky,” she said at last.
He snorted. “You can shoot fire from your fingertips, I can grow fur and change into the shape of a bear not seen on the earth in ten thousand years. What’s your point?”
“Um.” She flushed a bright red, having no counter. “Okay. Let’s say you’re right, even though I don’t believe you. You think it’s because of that, that I’m no longer trying to hit you with my magic? That we’ve, what, crossed some sort of boundary now that we’ve fucked?”
He shrugged helplessly. “Yes. I don’t know, but why else would it have so abruptly changed? You’re working hard at it, yes, but your progress otherwise has been linear. With me, it was exponential because of that.”
“Maybe,” she said, looking away as the door opened and the Magi walked in.
“Good,” he said, pointing at the collar in Amber’s hands. “You’re making progress every day.”
Kasperi stood, helping Amber to her feet as their instructor approached. He noticed the blades on the floor and his face grew angry, jaw clenched tight, nostrils flaring.
“What are you doing with those ancient things?” he snapped, gesturing at the blades. A thin nimbus of green formed around them and then with a flick of his hand, the Magi hurled them across the room to embed in the wooden racks surrounding the center column.
“Practicing,” Kasperi retorted plainly, not bothering to hide his contempt.
“Where are you? The Magi asked, stomping up to Kasperi, peering up at him from the depths of his hood, the slight hunch to his shoulders making him seem shorter than he was.
Kasperi hated seeing how physically frail the man had become. He was still a shifter, and still stronger than any human, but he looked near
pathetic compared to his kin. Too much time spent with magic, not enough training his body. A better balance should be made.
“I said, where are you?!” the Magi shouted when Kasperi didn’t respond.
“In a training room.”
“What sort of training room?”
Kasperi sighed, seeing where the conversation was heading. “A magic one.”
“Exactly! A magic room. A room to train magic. Yet here you are, whirling those things around when you can’t even cast the most basic of spells.”
Trembling in anger, only barely able to restrain himself from lashing out and connecting a right hook against Korred’s jaw, Kasperi took several calming breaths.
“How many times must I tell you?” he said icily, “I do not possess magic. Give me an artifact. I can wield that better than anyone in the Manor. Quite likely better than you. But I cannot conjure magic on my own.”
“Fool!” the Magi roared. “You just don’t practice enough. She is a prime example of what happens when you practice. Look at how far she has come. Able to control the magic, to keep it within now. That is excellent progress for less than two weeks’ worth of time. You would do well to mimic her efforts.”
Kasperi started to reply, but the Magi cut him off.
“You will give up those shitty things and learn to cast magic. To understand what real power is, Kasperi.”
“I can’t!” he shouted. “Do you understand that? There is no magic within me. None. Nothing at all. You are old and senile if you cannot understand that!”
A small, frail figure slipped between the two arguing titans, palms up, one toward each of them. “That’s enough,” Amber said ferociously. “Both of you.”
Kasperi glanced down, seeing the red glow in her hands. The glow of magic. He tensed, preparing himself in case she couldn’t control it, but Amber just closed her eyes, focusing, and the glow faded.
“Excellent work,” the Magi said. “Let’s up your training intensity.”
