Spell It Out for Me

by Sarina Dorie

  Thatch’s smile turned wary. “You don’t have to remove your blouse or your skirt. I wasn’t asking you to do that, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  He truly was being nice and trying to make me feel comfortable. Suddenly I didn’t know what I was afraid of. I hadn’t believed he’d been molesting me before. I still didn’t. I didn’t feel right about entrapping him like this.

  “Would you mind turning away as I undress under the blanket?” I asked.

  “Oh.” He turned away.

  Maybe this was overkill. He would think I was a prude. Not that I cared what he thought. I removed my sweater and leggings. I pushed up my skirt so my thighs would be directly in contact with the chair. I wrestled with the idea of removing my tank top. I was still wearing a sports bra, and it was hardly sexy. Plus, I would be completely covered with the blanket, and Elric was right there.

  Nothing bad was going to happen. Thatch was professional. This was more to prove to Elric that Thatch, even faced with the temptations of a nearly naked girl in his office, was not about to do something immoral.

  I folded up my tank top and placed it on his desk next to my striped leggings and sweater. I tied the blanket behind my neck like a giant bib so it would stay in place and situated myself on the arctic chair. Thatch remained facing the corner where his empty birdcage was situated.

  I made sure I was completely covered. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  Thatch seated himself in his comfy chair. “Start the visualization on your own. I’ll assist if I think you’re getting derailed.”

  I induced myself. When I heard Thatch’s voice again, he sounded far away, coming from the other side of a forest made of dreams. “Are you prepared to control the pain?”

  “Yes.”

  I was aware of him pinching me on the arm—which I’d prepared Elric for—as well as how he would heal it by massaging my arm. I controlled the pain, ciphering it off into fuel. My awareness found Elric just behind me. My inner eye opened, and I observed Thatch sitting on the edge of his desk.

  I waited for my mind to warp reality and blend it with fantasy. I suspected that moment came when the blanket tied behind my neck slipped out of the knot I’d tied it in and fell onto my lap.

  Thatch’s gaze flickered from my face to my breasts and back again. He carefully lifted the edge of fabric and tucked it behind my shoulders where the weight of my slouch against the chair would hold it in place. Maybe this wasn’t my mind. It was reality? If that had been something my subconscious cooked up, it would have fantasized him kissing me while he’d done it.

  Thatch’s pinches became increasingly harder, demanding more of my attention. His caresses to heal the bruises grew more generous. Each time he touched me, I fought to retain control of my affinity and my body.

  “Use your head, Clarissa. Figure out what is imaginary and transcend it.” He pressed his lips to mine.

  My body arched up into his hands. He cupped my breasts and kissed me. The scratchy blanket fell away. Power filled my affinity.

  His hands were cold against my feverish skin. Pain bit down on my arm. He pinched me harder than he’d ever pinched before. A mixture of pleasure and pain surged through me, stirring my affinity.

  “Control your magic,” he said against my mouth.

  I cried out.

  The sensations outside me stopped, but the magic inside me continued to tumble in a frenzy. A clatter and crash jolted me awake. Elric held Thatch around the throat and pressed him against the wall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Professor Pain in the Ass

  “What is the meaning of this? Why have you barged in on Clarissa’s lesson?” Thatch tried to shove Elric off him, but Elric held him against the wall.

  “How dare you touch Clarissa like that!” he snarled.

  I jumped to my feet, stepped on the blanket, and tripped into the side of the desk. Pain flared in my knee and elbow, but I channeled that flare into more palatable energy inside myself without even thinking. My bare feet encountered the lumpy obstacles of vises that had apparently been flung off Thatch’s desk a moment before.

  The pain of stepping on metal torture tools didn’t register, but it did make me wobble into the chair.

  This had been a bad idea. Why had I listened to Elric? He had probably seen Thatch use a vise on me. At least, that’s what I assumed had happened. Then again, it was possible Thatch had kissed me.

  Oh God. What if he had?

  “Why did you do that to her?” Elric demanded.

  “I didn’t do anything that concerns you.”

  “Stop it. Both of you,” I shouted.

  Thatch punched Elric in the stomach. He grunted and punched Thatch back, who smiled.

  Someone was going to get hurt, most likely Thatch. I didn’t even know what he’d done. Elric raised a hand. Confusion and rage jolted through me. I acted before I had time to think.

  “No!” I screamed. It came out a banshee wail, a gale that whipped the papers from Thatch’s desk. “No more fighting.”

  Thatch’s eyes went wide. “Clarissa, no.”

  Electricity hummed under my skin, flickering in blue flashes. Lightning danced over my arms and legs, flaring in waves so bright I had to blink to clear my vision. Thunder rumbled. Power filled me.

  I found Thatch and Elric separated by several feet. Thatch held up his hands, a blue shield of energy in front of himself and Elric.

  Elric edged away from Thatch.

  “You need to calm yourself and gain control,” Thatch said.

  “I am in control.” I’d never felt more in control. I felt alive. All my magic had returned and more.

  “You aren’t ready to use this much magic,” Thatch said. “It’s going to use you up and burn you out. If you don’t stop right now, you’re going to go back to ground zero. Or worse. You might drain yourself completely. You might kill yourself.”

  An invisible force prodded at my affinity, but I batted it away easily.

  “Clarissa, control yourself,” Thatch said. “If you don’t, I will have to.”

  Elric shouted over the crackle. “Listen to him. He’s not right about many things, but he understands how the Red affinity works. You’re going to hurt yourself, and possibly us.”

  Thatch lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “Take a deep breath and calm yourself.”

  The electricity under my skin prickled and burned. My skin was flushed pink, and I felt feverish. The magic didn’t feel as nice anymore.

  I inhaled and exhaled, big belly breaths like they taught in yoga.

  Thatch strode through his shield, slowly, as if approaching a rabid dog. “Send the energy back into your core before you use it all up.”

  I tried to imagine it shrinking and sinking into me, but it only burned hotter and brighter. A rainbow of light radiated from me, almost too concentrated to keep my eyes open. Thatch stood at my side, a black silhouette against the sparkling kaleidoscope surging out of me. He reached around me, one hand on my lower back and the other on my belly. As suddenly as it had started, the magic stopped. The energy that was left settled like a brick in my gut.

  My knees turned to jelly, and I wobbled. Thatch didn’t remove his hands from my midsection. Elric caught my arm and steadied me.

  A wave of fatigue washed over me. I’d never been left this tired after using magic, except maybe when I’d shot lightning at Julian. I leaned against Elric.

  “This is your fault.” Thatch drew away. He jabbed a finger at Elric. “If you hadn’t snuck in here and disrupted my lesson, you wouldn’t have risked destabilizing Miss Lawrence’s magic.”

  “What did you do to me while I was meditating?” I asked.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Elric laughed, the usual merry sound replaced by something harsh and bitter. “You did plenty. You used a vise on her.”

  I wished I’d warned Elric that might happen, but I hadn’t known Thatch thought I
was ready to take it up a notch in the pain department. Elric’s next words jolted through me.

  “Then you touched her and kissed her.”

  “I did not.”

  “I saw you.”

  “No, you’re lying.” Thatch turned to me, his expression softening. “I didn’t do anything licentious. I took your pulse and listened to your breathing. You know I wouldn’t molest you.”

  I wanted to believe him, but I also wanted to believe Elric wouldn’t lie to me either.

  “As if that wasn’t bad enough, I saw what you did to Clarissa next. You fed on her pain.” Elric’s lips curled back in disgust. “I know exactly what you are.”

  Thatch took a step back. His face blanched. I knew where this was going, but I was so tired.

  My voice came out scratchy and weak. “Not all Reds are bad.”

  Elric pointed at Thatch. “You’re a Red too, but you aren’t like Clarissa. You survive on pain. You torture others so that you can grow stronger. And you enjoy it.”

  “I do not enjoy it,” Thatch said quietly.

  “That’s not what that hard-on said as you were sucking the pain from her.”

  Thatch clenched and unclenched his fists. He looked to me. “Did you know this cretin followed you to my office? Did you invite him here?”

  “No,” Elric said quickly. “Don’t you dare take your anger out on her. She had no notion of what I was doing on her behalf.”

  How sweet of him to lie for me. Only, he didn’t understand how lying just made everything worse.

  “Yes,” I said. “I asked him to observe so I knew what was happening in my lessons because I couldn’t tell the difference between reality and what was happening in my dreams. You wouldn’t let Imani watch, and there was no way you would allow Elric to observe, so yes, I asked him.”

  A mixture of emotions flickered across Thatch’s face: shock, hurt, and anger. He regained his expressionless mask and hid under his monotone. “Get out of my office. Both of you.”

  I didn’t recall walking to my room, but I found myself there the next morning. All I remembered from the evening before was the waves of blinding pain that I experienced minutes after leaving Thatch’s office. It had to be because I hadn’t meditated and focused on containing my affinity after my explosion. Whether Elric had gotten me to my room or I’d walked there on autopilot, I had survived.

  For a moment I thought about the things I was going to be doing that day, but then my mind hiccupped back to my recollection of what had happened in my lesson with Thatch.

  Craparoni. Had he really tried to kiss me? Had he gotten an erection from draining my pain away? That was creepy. I thought he’d been teaching me how to process pain, but maybe that had never been the point all along. I shivered at the idea that he’d been manipulating me.

  Either that or Elric was lying. If that was the case, I was seriously screwed because I was going to be interviewed by King Viridios in less than two weeks, and he would see the doubt in my heart. It would be just the excuse he needed to claim I had lost.

  Why had I allowed Elric to convince me now was the time to do this? Maybe we could delay. Yes, he could make an excuse for me, and we could wait a month or two longer. It didn’t seem like a horrible plan.

  I found Elric in my room the following evening. He sat on my bed, Vega beside him showing him one of her old yearbooks. She sat closer than was appropriate to him. I wanted to be happy to see him, but it was hard to with all that had happened between him and Thatch. I felt more uncertain than ever.

  Vega making flirty eyes at him only served to further annoy me.

  Elric waved. “Miss Bloodmire was just showing me photos of my late son in some school yearbooks. It’s quite nostalgic.”

  “Are we . . . going out?” I asked.

  Vega wasn’t dressed up in a beaded gown, but she looked nice. Then again, she always looked nice.

  “I just went out and had dinner with my boyfriend,” Vega said.

  This again.

  Elric grinned at me. “The principal has given me permission to date Miss Bloodmire, but not you. He has allowed me permission to escort my date to and from the school to show her how chivalrous I am.”

  If that was the case, Jeb knew Elric was here. That probably meant I wasn’t going to get in trouble if Elric was caught lingering on campus.

  Vega would instead. Nice.

  She closed the yearbook and rose. “I have a few errands to run. I’ll be back in a few hours or a few days. Toodles.”

  She strolled out the door without threatening me or demanding anything.

  “Did you enchant my roommate?” I asked.

  “No, I’m just enchanting.” He winked.

  I sat down beside him. “Just so you know, I don’t feel like a magic lesson tonight.”

  “That’s fine. Neither do I.” He wrapped an arm around me. “Is everything all right?”

  “How am I going to prove to your family that I love you?”

  “They’ll ask you some questions, not riddles exactly, but they will try to trick you. I’ll prepare you. Is that what you want to spend the night doing? Will that ease your worries?” He massaged my shoulder as he spoke.

  I leaned into him. “That’s nice.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” He chuckled.

  I closed my eyes and relaxed into his touch. “I forgot what you asked already.”

  He leaned in and planted a kiss on my lips before drawing back. “You Reds and your touch magic, always getting distracted.” He crawled behind me and massaged me with both hands.

  I melted under his expert fingers. His arms were my sanctuary, and while I was in them, I was able to forget about all the things that had been troubling me.

  Ten minutes later we were both naked in my bed when I asked, “What if Vega comes back?”

  “Unlikely,” he said.

  “But what if she does?”

  “Then she’s going to be very jealous, isn’t she?”

  I giggled. “She’d be more jealous if we made love in her coffin.” I glanced over toward her bed. She’d taken the coffin home for the summer, wherever home was for her.

  Elric stroked my hair away from my face, his expression serious. “Are you ready for me to make love to you?”

  “Would it help prove my love to you?” I asked.

  “It would only prove your lust.” His lips swept across my forehead, my cheeks, and my chin, each tender kiss making me long for his lips on mine. “But I think if you allowed me to make love to you, I might be able to prove my love. Touch is important to you, and it might show your heart that I belong to you.” His irises shifted from orange to gray.

  It was the same stormy color as Felix Thatch’s eyes. I glanced away. “I bought some condoms.”

  A small part of me felt like I was betraying Thatch as I said it. Elric kissed me, and all thoughts of Thatch disappeared. Unsurprisingly, Elric had never used a modern condom. It was up to me to do the honors. I opened the packaging, Elric reading one of the boxes.

  “Lamb intestine. Sexy,” he said in a sultry voice.

  We both laughed.

  It was fortunate I had substituted as a sex-ed teacher, and I now knew how to apply a condom on a banana. I could only hope, now that I had very little magic, could mostly control my powers, and was going to be having sex with a Fae prince, things would turn out better than the condom lesson had gone.

  Everything started off perfect. With each kiss I became more aroused. He managed to fit inside the sheath even though he was larger than a banana.

  The first indication during intercourse that something was wrong was the smell of smoke. The second was Elric’s pained expression. The third was the burning sensation inside me.

  It all happened so quick, within a few seconds. My first guess at the uncomfortable sensation was that I needed lubrication. My second was that my affinity was doing something horrible to me. My third guess was that
Felix Thatch had hexed me so that I could never have sex with a man.

  I was wrong on all accounts. Elric understood first.

  “Get it off me.” He pushed me away. “I’m on fire.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Coitus Interruptus

  When people talked about wanting hot, steamy sex, I had a feeling this was not what they were talking about.

  Elric pushed me off him. I rolled away and fell off the bed. The burning sensation in my vagina immediately subsided.

  I peeked over the side of the bed. The condom bubbled and smoldered against his erection. His breaths came out in short little rasps. He tried to pry the condom off himself, but his fingers blistered. This was like the mermaid’s reaction to cold iron. It was the reason he wore gloves when he touched plastic or electronics.

  I pinched the edge of the condom and attempted to peel it off for him, but it was hotter than I expected, and I let go. Shielding my own pain, I put up mental barriers to siphon the pain into my affinity and turn it into magic. I tried again. The lamb intestine stuck to his skin. He screamed as I ripped it free. Only a section came off, and it took his skin with it.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said, repeating it like a mantra.

  By now, the condom had turned black, bubbling like molten tar. He fell back onto the bed, trembling. His skin was raw and blistered underneath. He bled from every section of condom I scraped off him. He whimpered pathetically. It made it that much harder to focus.

  I had done this to him—my insistence on using condoms. I should have waited for Clarence Greenpine’s order to come in. They would have been made for Fae and Witchkin. But I had thought this one would be fine because it was made from lamb.

  “We need to get help,” I said. “Where are your guards?”

  “Too far.” Elric moaned. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  My poor prince hadn’t gotten a princess. He’d gotten an evil witch instead.

  I wiped my hands on my blanket to remove the sticky sludge that stuck to my fingers. “What about Jeb? He’s powerful. I could go to him.”