Rise of the Red Queen: A Why Choose Academy Romance (Major Arcana Academy Book 2)

by Ana Calin

  “This isn’t the first cock you’ve seen,” he says with darkness in his voice. “I still can’t get out of my head how you sucked Silas off in the woods.”

  “I knew you were watching. And it made me cum so hard.”

  His square jaw clenches behind his dark stubble, and blood floods the wide crest of his dick. I lick my lips. I’ve read enough magazines to know that means he’s turned on big time.

  “You may hate that I sucked off another man,” I say, feeling like I’m growing into another person. I can’t believe I can be so wickedly forward with a man. “But be honest with me. Are you jealous, or does it turn you on, thinking about it?”

  “Both.” He strokes fast now, the muscles of his thighs flexing under the leather.

  “Grab my hair,” I whisper.

  He frowns, his bronze skin flushing as he builds up. “Are you sure?”

  “Grab me.” I manage to prop myself firmly on my feet, and push my chest forward to make a point. “And fuck me between my tits.”

  Did. I. Just. Say. That!?

  Maverick can’t believe it either. He slows down, but my hard nipples protrude through the silk, and when his eyes fall to them he resumes masturbating furiously.

  “That huge cock of yours is gonna give me its juice anytime now,” I say, staring at him like I saw hookers do in movies. I can’t believe I’m acting this way, but it feels so good, so freeing, that I don’t want to stop. “I want it on my tits.”

  His lips part, and I know he’s lost control. He reaches out to me and grabs my hair, pushing me down as much as the chains allow. Now I’m fully naked and almost on my knees, though not quite, my arms outstretched to the sides and upward, my knees a good few inches from the ground. Maverick grabs my tits with his rough hands. The callouses on his palms feel so incredibly good.

  He breathes in sharply as he squeezes my tits for the first time, and I relish the sensation. I look up at his face, seeing him insane with want. He pushes his cock between the tight swells of my tits, and I know this is how he’d pierce my pussy, too.

  “Fuck me until you cum,” I command. I can’t believe this is actually me saying all these things, provoking him like this. Where is the shy virgin from only a few months ago, the girl who loved only Silas and pictured a fairy tale wedding with him? Now one thing is certain—I’ll never have that wedding, not necessarily because Silas won’t have me, but because I know I’ll never be able to leave Maverick behind, not completely.

  I breathe in deeply, his scent of leather, and horny beast. I look down at his bronze cock sliding between my milk-white tits, and my clit pulses like crazy.

  “Oh, fuck,” he growls from his chest, cum squirting from his cock and pouring all over my chest. It’s a lot of it, and it trickles down in all directions, coating my breasts. I didn’t even know men could produce so much sperm in one ejaculation.

  “If you’re good,” I tell Maverick, raising my head. He stares at me with a flushed face, smelling of sweat and pleasure. “I’ll let you cum in my mouth next time.” A grin curls my lips. “And I’ll have you think about one thing while you do it—that another man fucked my mouth before you did.”

  I look him up and down, biting my lower lip. God, how I love being naked, in chains, in front of this beast in leather.

  “I have to go,” he grumbles as he retreats in the shadows. “But I’ll be back, sooner than you think. Get used to seeing a lot of me.” It’s sounds like a threat, but one full of passion.

  “Are you going to leave me like this, naked in the cold?”

  “Of course not, Red Queen. I will wrap you in myself. If I cannot be inside you, I will be all over you.”

  With that he casts a spell, his words bouncing in echoes off the walls. He circles his hand in the air, shadows moving around it, and floating to me. It’s his magic, I’ve seen it before at the hut. It wraps around my body, clothing me like veils upon veils of cashmere that feel incredible on my skin.

  CHAPTER IV

  Silas

  I barge into the Lord Protector’s study. I’m breathless, angry, my entire body ready to fight an army if I have to. Gordon tails me, clawing to the back of my shirt, struggling to stop me.

  “He took her,” I blurt as the Lord Protector takes human shape from the shadows behind his desk, turning to look at me. He heads over, meeting me halfway. “I don’t know how he found us in the forest, but—”

  The Lord Protector punches me hard in the face, my head snapping to the side. I swear there are green stars circling my head. When I face him again, the Lord Protector glows like a dark sun made of shadows. Folds of darkness float around him, his hazel eyes shining in contrast with it.

  “Traitor,” he growls in the vibrant voice of the Grim Reaper. “I should have your head. You’ve got no one but yourself to blame for what happened, you were fucking seeing her in secret! Knowing full well what could happen if you lost control.”

  “Lord Protector,” I say through my teeth, battling my anger. It’s a struggle not to start a fight with him. “We don’t have time for this. Maverick found us, he took her. At first I thought he’d take her back to the Academy, but he didn’t. I’ve been lurking around there until now, and it’s almost dawn. Lord Protector, if he didn’t bring her back by now, he won’t bring her back at all.”

  His bright hazel eyes flash. If Maverick were standing in front of him now, I have no doubt he’d strike him dead.

  “Please, let’s find them first,” I tell him. “Then you can do whatever you want with me, but think about the stakes if we don’t act now. He could have already...” I can feel the despair light up my face, I’m not even able to finish the sentence.

  Shadows surge around the Lord Protector like a solar explosion, the shadow rays shrieking, sounding like evil spirits piercing my brain.

  “There’s something else we have to see to first,” he grumbles. “We have to make sure the Headmaster doesn’t find out she’s no longer at the Academy.”

  “What are you talking about? We have to make sure Maverick doesn’t deflower her, that’s our priority.”

  The Lord Protector’s face sharpens in the middle of his shadows, his eyes glowing. So this is what it feels like to look death in the face.

  “The idea of him pushing his cock inside her angers me as much as it does you, Silas. But even if he deflowers her, that’s damage we can minimize—even though it won’t be easy. But if the Headmaster discovers she’s no longer there, that she went against his orders, he will throw her into the pit without a right to appeal. It was the bargain when he accepted her at the Academy, that she obey the special rules he set for her, no matter how absurd those rules were.”

  My lips draw in a hard line. He’s right.

  “So how do we cover her?”

  “Come on.”

  The shadows slide around me, pulling me inside their whirl like a vortex. Before I know it, we’re inside the portal to the Flipside.

  Zillard

  THAT TALL SILVER-HAIRED fae is hiding something. I can smell it. I can smell her fear, the secret she’s keeping. I read it in the way she hunches over her desk, the empty seat next to her a permanent question mark that hovers over the entire class. Everybody is wondering about Lucia Reid’s absence, and it’s on Giselle Midwinter’s shoulders to dodge the mystery.

  What’s strange though, is that both the Headmaster and Vanessa claim they’ve seen Lucia sick in her bed with their own eyes. That’s supposedly the reason why she can’t attend class, and the two seemed convinced about it. But I suspect there’s powerful magic at work. Magic powerful enough to deceive two of the greatest mages of this Academy.

  But I won’t plant the seed of doubt in the Headmaster’s head, not just yet. My hunches are usually spot on, and this time my gut tells me I can get more out of this if I keep it to myself, at least for now.

  So I follow the fae when she leaves our final class in the evening, her back hunched over the books and gadgets she clutches to her chest. She keeps gla
ncing behind, sensing that she’s being followed. But I’m the son of Hades, it’s my specialty to sneak around without being caught, as quiet as a shadow—just like the Lord Protector, when he slipped into that portal with me, and snatched the Book of Prophecies from my hands. I’m not sure he even knows that I figured it out.

  But Zillard Dark never loses, not even against the Lord Protector Grim Reaper, one of the most powerful supernaturals that ever existed. By the time this is over, Ramses Delacroix will bow before me in recognition of my talents. I will best him, and I’ll make sure everyone knows it.

  Giselle Midwinter’s footsteps shuffle in the empty hallway leading to her dormitory, fading in the night. You can only perform Voodoo at the witching hour, which is why this class took place so late. When she reaches her dorm she looks left and right like a thief, dark rings under her otherwise soft brown eyes. She unlocks the door, slips inside, and makes to shut it when I slam my hand against the heavy wood.

  “Not so fast, Midwinter,” I hiss.

  “What in the cursed realms—”

  “I’m here to see Lucia. She’s ill, I hear, maybe there’s something I can do for her.”

  “Don’t you think the Headmaster already offered?” She stresses the title as if holding it like a shield in my face. “He sent the Academy Healer, and not even he could help her. The Lord Protector is sending special herbs tomorrow, she’ll be all right. But thank you.”

  Giselle tries to push the door shut, but I force my way inside, causing her to stumble backwards.

  “I would never use my strength against you, Giselle,” I say darkly. “You’re a girl. But if you stand in my way, you leave me no choice.”

  “You can’t just come in here, this is a girls dorm,” she shrieks. I wonder if she’s so loud in order to draw some kind of alarm for Lucia, but as she backs away from me, and I advance towards her, I realize the room is empty. As expected, Lucia isn’t in her bed.

  I plant my legs apart and sink my hands in my pockets, satisfied with my discovery. “Well, well, well. It looks like someone played one hell of a trick on the Headmaster and the Board.”

  Giselle clutches her books to her chest so hard that her white skin seems made of alabaster. Poor thing, she’s so scared.

  I tap my chin with my fingers as I pace the room, the other hand in my pocket. I know full well it’s intimidating as hell to Giselle, having the son of Hades stalking inside her dorm like a predator playing with its prey. I can sense the magic placed over the room, powerful enough to keep Lucifer himself at bay if he tried to break in when Giselle wasn’t here. So no member of the Academy could enter her dorm when the fae wasn’t here, but one can force their way inside when she’s present.

  “You know, ever since the Headmaster and Vanessa said they saw Lucia, I knew something wasn’t right. But this is indeed impressive. How did you manage to fool them?” I stare at her in a way that’s meant to make her sweat with fear. “Or wasn’t it you who arranged for the confusion?”

  Tension fills the room as she stares back at me, rubbing her books with her fingers while she ponders what to say.

  “Go with the truth, Midwinter,” I encourage. “It’s the easiest and best solution.”

  “If I tell you the truth.” Her voice is small and thick with fear. “You promise not to tell the Headmaster? Or Vanessa? Or Pandora? Or the Board?”

  “For the right price, I won’t tell a soul.” I grin, already plotting a wicked plan in my head.

  “I don’t have anything to give you.”

  “Perhaps you don’t. But the person who set up the glamour surely does. Because it was glamour that fooled the others, wasn’t it? A glamour powerful enough it must have been set up by the Lord Protector himself.”

  Giselle swallows audibly, and I burst into laughter.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Close the door,” she says. “Please. Someone might hear.”

  I close the door and return to find her placing her stuff carefully on her desk. I walk over to Lucia’s side of the dorm, my eyes falling on the books still open from the last time she was here. I swipe my finger gently over them, and over the other items on her desk.

  “Books, charms, and even a skull,” I murmur. “Is Lucia into séances?”

  “She’s interested in them, yes.”

  “Strange. She never struck me as a ghosts and spirits girl.” I slide a finger inside the skull’s mouth, and swipe over a small trace of white dust. I put some of it on the tip of my tongue. “Hmm. Teleportation powder.”

  “You can identify it by taste?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “It’s not exactly a common skill.”

  “I am not a common man. I am the son of Hades.” I head back to her, circling her slowly like a panther. “You promised me answers,” I remind her.

  She glances at Lucia’s empty bed.

  “Come on, Giselle, spit it out.” I step into her private sphere, making her grip to the desk behind her with both hands. She’s scared witless. “Or I’ll go calling out loud into the entire Academy that Lucia is missing, and that you’ve been covering it up.” I bend close to her face, watching her pretty brown eyes widen. “You know that would get you kicked out of the Academy, don’t you? You would be disgraced in front of all the supernatural families, and your entire clan would become outcasts. Do you grasp the magnitude of this, Giselle? Do you realize what you’re about to cost your people?”

  She trembles, her face white and her lips purple.

  “Look, I’ll make this even easier on you,” I purr, tracing her jaw with my finger. She gets goose bumps, but not the good kind. As the son of Hades, I drive chills into people, and I’m being particularly thorough with her. “I’ll ask you a question, which I want you to answer with yes or no. But make your answer the truth, or I will make sure that you and your entire clan suffers.”

  For moments she just stares at me. Then she licks her purple lips, and manages a nod.

  “Was it the Lord Protector who cast the glamour?”

  She hesitates for a moment, but then she tells me the whole story.

  Silas

  FINALLY, MAVERICK IS back at the hut. I’ve been watching it for days, knowing he had to return at a certain point. He would need magical stuff, and he has nowhere else to get it except here or at the Academy. He’s wearing a specific glamour that makes him seem someone else to the Lord Protector’s other scouts, but there’s no fooling me, a first class supernatural with the blood of a god in my veins.

  I draw deeper in the shrubbery, fighting to keep my form of stardust. It doesn’t come natural to me as it does to other magical creatures, it’s a struggle to keep my flesh dissipated into sparkling powder. I would have gladly relinquished the glow, but it’s the only extent of shape shifting I’m capable of.

  Maverick finally re-emerges, a big bulky guy in leather and metal, his beard longer and thicker than usual. He has the eyes of a madman, too, carrying two leather suitcases in which he must have packed the items he needs most. He looks like a man whose mind is taken with disease—the disease of lust. The bastard has a fixation with my Lucy.

  My stardust layers quiver all over—if he already took Lucia for himself, I swear I’m going to kill him, if it’s the last thing I do. By the cursed realms, I can barely keep myself from taking human shape right now, and lunge to attack him, naked and armed only with my bare hands. My rage and experience as demigod of warfare would be enough to tear him apart. But if I act on this impulse I’ll never know where he took Lucy. She’d be left without protection, without a way out, held prisoner against her will.

  His dark eyes sweep over the shrubbery, and I force myself to settle down under the leaves. His focused gaze lingers on the place for a few moments, but time is pressing, so he starts back to the well. It seems that’s what he used as a portal, which means that he’s keeping Lucia on the Flipside.

  I follow him, slithering through the grass like stardust snakes. He reaches the well,
drops the suitcases and raises his hands, casting a spell. This is the same well that has been sealed off on the Flipside, the well where Lucy dropped the lust potion. Clever from Maverick to use it as a portal. There would be no one there in the middle of the night, except maybe rebel students seeking to get some for their crushes.

  In moments like this I’m deeply thankful for the shortcomings of our magical worlds. Teleportation is only possible between points in the same realm, but we need specific portals in order to cross from one realm into another. If Maverick were able to teleport from the Flipside here, it would have been much harder to find her.

  He sinks into the portal with the suitcases, and I follow. As soon as we emerge on the other side, I draw behind a thick gnarled tree, and re-assume human form.

  I breathe out in relief, bending forward with my hands on my knees, but I can’t take more than a few seconds. I have to follow Maverick. He leads me through the forest to the Lord Protector’s mansion on the Flipside, a dark gothic place haunted by ghosts and spirits. Both the Lord Protector and I use this portal when we visit the Academy, but he leads me deeper into the underground.

  There are catacombs under the mansion, deep mazes reaching into the Earth crust like the roots of an ancient tree. They reach far beyond the portal.

  Maverick slows down. This must be where he keeps her. He puts down the suitcases, takes out a bronze key that glints in the semi-darkness, and opens an old dungeon cell. I can hear water dripping behind the scraping iron. The wet rock walls emanate cold, and rage makes me hot inside. How can he keep her in such conditions? At least half of her is still human, the chill could get inside her bones, making her seriously ill. Nothing that he, Maverick, couldn’t heal, it’s true, but it would still be major discomfort for her.

  He walks inside, leaving the door open. Isn’t he worried she might escape? No, she couldn’t, he’d overpower her at the slightest attempt.