by May Dawson
His eyes flicker up to me as I bite down on my lip, meeting his eyes evenly. He always carries tension at the corners of his mouth, in the hard way he holds himself, but it eases now. “Do you want me to stop?”
I shake my head. “You have some gifted thumbs.”
The corners of his lips flicker slightly. I swear, there’s a promise in that faintest smile that says I’ll find out just how gifted one day.
But not today. Today he draws my other calf into his lap and massages that one too. The tightness of each muscle softens under his steady touch, his thumbs working in circles through the knots. As the knots give way, they release throbs of pleasure-pain. I let my eyes close, trying to pretend complete nonchalance as those throbs are echoed in my core tightening.
His fingers skate back up the inside of my calves, and I make the smallest sound in the back of my throat.
I know he doesn’t miss a thing, but he keeps going. The knots are gone now, but he continues to rub his palms up and down the tender muscles. He’s easing out the tension left behind from the knots, but he’s doing a whole lot more than that; my core tightens, aching for his hands to brush past my knees, up my thighs. My legs tighten without my will, my calves stiffening again in his hands, as my core begins to tighten rhythmically.
Mycroft ignores the effect he’s having on me. I bite down on my lip, tossing my head from side to side on the pillow. The feeling of my core tightening without his cock buried deep inside me borders on painful, and yet there’s no denying the rush of my orgasm. Part of me wants to grab him and guide his hand where I want him to be now, but part of me sees this as his gift. I need to take things slow. We couldn’t take things any slower than this.
I gasp as my core tightens one more time, sending me over the edge. My toes curl, my calves stiff under Mycroft’s touch, as my orgasm shatters. I grab his pillow and pull it against my chest, burying my overheated face in it, as waves of pleasure roll over me.
Then I relax into his bed, my legs limp over his lap.
He pulls my knee back into the same bent position it was for his examination, when this all began, and kisses the top of my kneecap. He pats my calf.
“All better?”
My lips part, because I want to ask him why he stopped where he did, but then I press my lips closed again. There’s no need to talk about too much in one night.
“Definitely all better.”
Chapter 33
Mycroft
“So that little girl found our murderer?” Ruby glances through the files I wrestled from Cutter earlier this morning. “She’s certainly proving to be a useful piece of gear.”
“She’s not gear,” I say.
Her eyes flash up to mine. I stare back at her, knowing my eyes and face are blank. I shouldn’t have said that.
But Tera is a person. Ruby should remember that.
“You think she’s innocent?” Ruby asks casually, her gaze returning to the papers she shuffles through.
“I don’t think she’s sympathetic to the True,” I say.
“You have any proof of that?”
“My intuition.”
Her lips arch up, before she tries to hide the smile. “You’re always so confident, Mycroft.”
“That’s what keeps me alive. My confidence and my intuition.” I lean back in my chair, crossing one leg over the other. As if I can relax when we’re talking about Tera’s fate. “That’s what makes me a useful piece of gear.”
She doesn’t argue that I’m a person either. “Well, I hope you—and she—will convince me of that over time.”
“We should tell her. She’ll be far more effective in rooting out the True as part of our team.”
This time, when Ruby looks up at me, her eyes are bright, and she doesn’t try to hide her smile. She looks at me as if she sees right through me.
I don’t want to lie to Tera.
It was one thing to get close to her in the beginning. The True hopes to use her to revive their revolution; we had to get to her first. To find out if she was sympathetic to them. To make sure she was used for our purposes, not theirs.
“Stay focused,” Ruby warns me. “She’s a pretty girl. But you don’t really know her—not yet.”
She doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’m being ruled by my lust, not my intellect.
It’s never my emotions that rule for me, though. In Tera, I see someone familiar. I have no doubt that she would come over to our side. She’d be willing to root out the last of the True and put down the revolution.
But every day that we use her to draw out the True, we layer lies on top of our fragile relationship, until it just might break under the weight. She might be angry now to know why we got close to her, but she’ll understand we had to make sure she wouldn’t betray us to the True.
Every day from now on, the betrayal becomes ours.
“I want to bring her on-board for the sake of the mission,” I say. “How are we going to get her to play along with the True? She doesn’t want anything to do with them.”
“Leave that to me, Mycroft,” she says briskly.
I lean forward. My voice is low and controlled when I say, “It’s a mistake to keep lying to her. One that I don’t want any part of.”
“Noted.” Her eyes meet mine. “Are you loyal to the Crown?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’re loyal to your chain of command,” she says. “Continue your mission. Stay close to her. Protect her.”
“I can’t stay close to her and lie to her,” I say.
“You can,” Ruby promises me. “Because if your mission—and hers—is compromised, I’ll dump her back through that portal so fast she won’t know which world she’s in.”
As her words hang in the air, she shrugs and says, “Who knows? Maybe I won’t know which world I sent her into either.”
A memory rises, faster than I can push it away; a rip that tore open the sky, unpredictable waves slapping our ship around, Marines slipping in salt water and blood as we battled Stymphalian raptors diving from the sky, their razor-sharp beaks ripping heads from bodies.
She’s a cold bitch. My jaw works faintly, before I get it under control.
“Do you understand me?” she prompts, when the silence between us has stretched too long.
“Yes, ma’am.” There’s no respect in my tone, no matter how polite my words.
“You can go, Mycroft.” She holds up the copied file. “Thank you for this.”
I stand, and the chair legs scrape across the hardwood floor of her office.
She looks up at me, her head cocked slightly to one side. “I hope you’re not losing your touch.”
I don’t bother to answer her. I move to the door, open it, close it behind me. In the hall, I set off briskly through the undergrads. They won’t see anything but Radner’s TA meeting with her.
Even though people know my history and Airren’s, we still have our cover. I know what they see when they look at the three of us.
Radner’s TA.
Rawl House’s freshmen-floor RA.
The rich playboy who’ll do anything to prove himself to the veterans.
Three men. One trap, for a girl who deserves better.
I burst through the doors at the end of the building, and jog quickly down the stairs, moving toward the privacy of the ruins.
The memory of how I touched Tera last night, and of how she responded to my touch, haunts me. The way she threw her head back, her shining white throat vulnerable. The soft noise she made when she gave herself up to me.
The promise between us of more.
I’ll stay close enough to protect her.
But I’m not going to touch her while I’m lying to her.
I can’t betray her yet another way.
I hope when she finds the truth—because she will— that she forgives us. I hope she forgives the Crown. Radner is making a terrible mistake, one that could push Tera over to curiosity about the True. We don’t deserve her loyalty.
>
I don’t deserve her loyalty, and that’s the thing that makes me crazy.
Chapter 34
Tera
Cax leans against the library table next to me, one hand in his pocket. My eyes lodge on that hand in his pocket, his jeans that fit the shape of his lean body so well, and then travel up; he’s wearing a tan linen vest and a navy dress shirt, open at the collar. It would look ridiculous on anyone else, I think, but Cax is Cax. His own person.
“You’re late,” I say, by way of greeting, as I set my pencil in my book to mark my place.
“Don’t say I’m a bad tutor yet.” His other hand is behind his back. He sets a big paper bag in front of me, right on top of my casting text.
“What’s this?” I ask, my eyes going up to meet his gaze.
He makes a disapproving cluck. “Has it been that long since anyone gave you a present that you’ve forgotten how this works?”
Inside the bag is soft green-blue tissue paper wrapping up a bundle of fabric. I pull it out, and then realize there underneath are new shoes: short black boots with a blocky heel and silver details.
“What is this?” I ask again, no less confused now that I’ve seen it.
“You need something to wear out tonight.” He shrugs.
My fingers hesitate, on the edge of tearing open the tissue. “Cax. You can’t just buy me things…”
“And why not?” He raises one eyebrow at me.
He’s so close that I can breathe in his cologne and the faint licorice scent of his gum.
“What if I want to buy you things?”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Call it a thank-you-for-bringing-down-a-murderer gift.”
“Is there a card for that?”
He glances around at the other study desks in the library. “Everyone on campus should be appreciative of you, Tera.”
I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were him. As I look up at him, I realize he said that loud. That other students have heard him, although they’re pretending not to; the way they rustle the pages of their textbooks in sudden, deadly silence gives them away.
A beat later, I ask, “Where are we going?”
“Would you open my gift?” he asks, his voice teasing. He plucks it from me, as if he’s about to tear it open himself. “I want to know if you like it.”
I’ve been wearing the same busted pair of sneakers since I came here; they make me stand out in this place where everyone wears beautiful, tailored clothing and handmade shoes. I want those boots so badly that it makes me embarrassed.
I don’t want Cax to think I like him for his money. So I shake my head, glancing away. “I can’t accept this.”
“Well, I’m going to give it away if you don’t take it.” He waves the bundle in front of my nose. “I’ll try to find someone you really don’t like.”
I pull a face as I turn back to him.
“Maybe that girl in your History class that Mycroft told me about,” he threatens.
“You guys talk about that?”
“We talk about everything,” he says.
Everything, huh? Like just how easy it is to make me orgasm, the virgin with the hidden pulsing lust? A faint blush warms my cheeks, and Cax grins. That jerk.
I pluck the bundle back from him. “Okay. But don’t buy me anything else. Please?”
He shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sorry, but if I’m going to be seen with you, we’re going to have to do something about that wardrobe.”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe I’ll do you a favor and let you spend your money, then.”
“Please do.”
I rip open the tissue paper. Inside the bundle is a simple black dress, soft under my fingers. Folded with it is a pair of jeans and a cozy white sweater, trimmed with lace at the bottom.
He shrugs. “Thought you could use something for class sometimes, too.”
“Cax,” I say.
His lips purse to one side. I wonder if he can hear the question—the same one I’ve asked before—why?
“We’re going to the pub tonight,” he says.
“Why?”
“Why?” A smile tugs at his lips. “Because cider is delicious, because the band is good, because dancing with me is fun…”
“You seem like the type to step on my toes.”
“I think I’m pretty suave.”
“If you were, you wouldn’t say things like I think I’m pretty suave.”
His small smile cracks into a full-fledged grin. It makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Well, try me out, Tera.”
“Why are we going to the pub, though? Really?” I glance around, but no one seems to be listening. In a whisper, I ask, “Does Airren think the True will be there? The people that set that bomb—”
He leans down to whisper in my ear. “We’re taking a night off from the True.”
“All of us?”
“All of us,” he confirms.
I don’t know what to expect. I certainly never went to any pubs in my life before I was thrust through the portal. But I can imagine myself dancing, I guess, and chatting with the guys as they get loose-tongued over their beers, and I like imagining all that.
I pick the dress up by its shoulders and hold it against my chest. “Think it’ll look good on me?”
“I haven’t seen anything that doesn’t.” He finally stands, his hand still in his pocket, to turn around and pull the chair out beside me. “Let’s study for a bit before I corrupt you. Airren’s already awfully judgmental about my skills as a tutor.
When I walk into the dorm that night, Stelly twists away from her desk to tell me something and then jumps out, her eyes brightening. “Did Cax actually?”
“You’re really depressed about my wardrobe too, aren’t you?” I ask, tossing the bag on my bed. “You guys should have told me.”
“We figured we had to win you over before we started trying to change you,” she says lightly. “What do you think? Do you feel won over?”
I roll my eyes because I don’t want to answer that. The answer might come a little close to the painful truth that I can feel lodged under the bright warmth in my chest.
Stelly’s friendship, and the something-more-complicated-than-friendship developing with Mycroft, Cax and Airren, is definitely winning me over. It’s almost everything I’ve ever wanted. Friendship. Family. The only other thing I need is magic.
I’m looking forward to this egg hatching, too. I turn my back to Stelly because I’m afraid my face will give away just how much I’m coming to like having her around. I scoop the egg up from its warm nest on my desk; it’s a surprisingly solid weight in my hands, and I feel the animal inside the egg move slightly; it’s so big now its movements push against the thin, translucent shell. I can make out the faint edge of a tail.
“Let me do something with your hair tonight,” Stelly says. “You always wear it the same way.”
“Are you criticizing me or being nice?”
“Both.”
I sigh and pull the elastic from the bottom of my braid. “All right. You and your brother can make me over. I admit—I need it.”
“You’re gorgeous,” she promises me. “We can just help you…blend.”
“Does the dirtside show that much?” I ask the question lightly, but it hangs in the air.
“I swear you said Earthside when you came here,” she says.
“Maybe I did. I don’t remember.”
“I know a lot of people around here say dirtside. But my mom raised me to respect Primus.”
I haven’t heard Primus since middle school, where the official name for the first Earth was used in our textbooks and classes. No one ever says Primus. Except, apparently, for Stelly.
“That makes sense,” I say, into the suddenly awkward gap between us. “It is your family business.”
“Cax and I have both been through a few times,” she says. “It’s a big place. Good and bad. Just like here.”
“It’s not like here.” I exh
ale softly, trying to sort through my memories. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know much of anything about either world.”
“Every world is complicated.”
Her fingers quickly unbraid my hair, and my scalp tingles as she quickly brushes through my hair. Her bright chatter wins me over, and when she’s finished my hair, I try to create an up-do from her head of thick blond waves.
I am not talented with hair.
“It looks like a snarl of angry guinea pigs.” I say, stepping back and looking at the mess I’ve wrought of what was supposed to be a chignon with curls. “I’m sorry.”
“How many guinea pigs?” she asks. “I like one guinea pig to keep it low-key for the pub, but for the masquerade balls, I try for four or five guinea pigs. I wouldn’t want the hamster girls to upstage me.”
“You’re not mad?”
She examines herself in the mirror. “No, I’m going out like this. Cax thinks you can do no wrong—I’m about to show him just how awful you can be.”
Of course that makes me think of all the people who’d paint me as a villain, but Stelly pats her snarl of hair and then slides a jeweled stick into the mess, which just makes it look more preposterous. I bite back my smile, but then Stelly looks over her shoulder at me, her lips pursed and her eyes wide, and I can’t help grinning back at her.
“Let’s go meet the boys,” she says, jumping up.
The two of us get changed. Stelly wears a little red dress and a pair of cute heels. She stops and whistles at the sight of me in the black dress, which has a conservatively high neckline but which clings to my curves. The sleeves are black lace, and when I look in the mirror, my lips curve up in a smile I can’t help. Cax has picked out a dress that makes me look like Earthside’s vision of a witch. But here, of course, no one would think of witches wearing anything in particular. Here, magic is real and wild and everywhere.
I’m going to find my magic again. Someday.
