by Jade Bones
She visibly struggles with the lies she has been told, searching for truth within them. We can’t help her; the future is filled with just as much propaganda.
Climbing to her feet, Bethany retrieves a small bag from beneath her bed. "I'm going to Mikael's room. The gates are warded to keep the demons in at night, so they don't roam, but no one ever thought they'd need to keep witches out. I planned to sneak out when you were asleep, but there's no point now." She shrugs, and the little wave she gives us as she leaves is both sad and thoughtful.
If we fail to escape this place, I have to do something to help my kin. Timelines be damned.
And if we return, I must avenge them.
"Aeden," Mal's voice is soft but determined, and when I look at her, her eyes are shining. "Can you stay?"
My heart thuds, and I realize I haven't yet put my shirt back on. Mal's eyes drop to it, flames flickering in their reflection.
"It won't burn you," I murmur, because it won't—at least at first. If I lose my control, it will consume us both.
I move to put my shirt on all the same. Mal crawls across the carpeted floor, hand reaching for my wrist, and stills me. The fire roars, and before I can stop her, she straddles my lap and stares down at me.
My breath catches. "You're drunk," I murmur, catching her wrist as she reaches, bewilderingly, for my face.
I still don't trust her, but I'm finally willing to admit a secret of my own: I want her too badly to care.
"I'm not," she retorts, perfectly sober, and her voice lowers to a whisper. "If Bethany and Mikael can do it, why can’t we?"
Never trust her.
Look but don't touch.
I have no answer for her, and so when she leans forward to kiss me, I twist my fingers into her hair and pull her close.
NINE
Mal
Aeden stills beneath my touch, and the first hint of uncertainty rippling along our bond compels me to stop. But soon he shifts against me, hips riding up as his hands fall to my waist, and the press of his lips turns brutish and rough.
One hand finds the back of my neck, the other squeezing my hips, and he tugs me viciously close. The hard ridge of him between my thighs ensures I can't mistake his interest, even if I could ignore the searing heat of his kiss. His tongue flicks against mine, teeth nipping my lower lip as he sits higher up to meet me.
I would have thought his flaming heart would burn, but it doesn't. Through it, I feel... him. His thoughts, his emotions. When my hands dance across the flame, skimming the line of one smooth muscle to the next, it's as though his mind surrounds me.
All I can sense from him is want. Dark and all-consuming.
And a hint of something else, like fear.
I ignore it, fumbling with gloved hands for the buckle at his waist, until I remember the tear in my glove. I freeze. Aeden pulls back far enough to look at me, eyes dark beneath the curtain of hair that has escaped his loose knot.
"What is it?" he asks in a voice overwhelmed with restraint. For a second, I hear a growl beneath the words, like some kind of wild animal.
"My hands." I pull them slowly back, and it's as though the movement is an insult to him, he snatches them back so quickly. "I don't want to shove you out of your body, right now."
"Trust me," he says, voice low. "Nothing could do that."
He tears my gloves off and presses my hands to his skin. He's warm, like fire, and even though I have two palms pressed against him, nothing changes.
His heart flares, and I realize the truth: my demon is an anchor, bearing a spirit as true as the face he wears every day, and a flame that burns in two planes. His mouth returns to mine, soft and insistent, and I remember how he had looked from the spirit plane—steady and true. Unwavering. My magic won’t affect him unless he wants it to, and it will never hurt him.
I didn’t know anchors existed. What does it mean that the demon I drew to me on Summoning day is one?
Perhaps my magic is no curse after all.
"Come on, Mal," he whispers against my lips in a voice I've never heard from him before. "What are you waiting for?"
My fingers clench into his shoulders, nails driving into his skin, and all he does against the pain is laugh. Standing in one smooth move, my legs hooked over his waist, he carries me to the second bed and throws me down onto it.
"You're mine tonight,” he utters, voice caught on another low growl, and tears my shirt open.
His spirit might remain within his body, but he acts as though possessed, moving with a singular focus until he’s stripped me naked from the waist up. Lying below him as he braces himself on either side of my chest, I realize I've never had the chance to study him like this.
The window to his flaming heart isn't some cavernous pit displaying bone and sinew—it's translucent, like stained glass concealing a jewel. The small window isn't a gaping wound, like my shock has told me on the instances I've seen it before, when I tried so hard not to look. Instead, it's protected by some kind of inner shield that doesn't allow my fingers to penetrate, even as I skim them across.
Aeden watches me, eyes heavy-lidded. I'm sure he is still vulnerable like this, even if not quite so instantaneously as I assumed, and the fact he is letting me touch without restraint is a heady power. My fingernails tap against the shield, and his heart pulses faster in response. From this angle, the glimpse I have of the bones of his ribcage are like the encasing of a jewel, and when I start to see his heart like that, everything shifts.
He must sense something from me, because he's no longer content to wait in silence. His mouth drops to my neck, teeth fierce as he nips at my skin. And then he's moving lower, fingers dipping beneath the waistline of my borrowed leggings and dragging them down.
"I want your nails in my skin as I taste you," he mouths against me, seconds before his mouth descends on my clit.
I can't help driving up in response, gasping as his tongue flicks across me. We've barely started, and I'm already desperate for release, aching for him. I can't decide if I want his cock or his tongue, because it's horribly unfair that he's still mostly clothed, but I don't ever want him to stop what he's doing.
"There," I whisper, more of a whine than a word. "Please."
His tongue teases me, slowing down as I beg him for more. He grins against me, one finger sliding inside my pussy as he licks me softly when all I want is hard and fast.
"Aeden," I murmur, thrusting up against him. "Stop being a bastard!"
He laughs, the huff of air torturous against my over-sensitive clit, and then he's above me, leaning on one elbow as the fingers of his right hand continue to stroke me.
"You can have me as a reward," he says, voice quiet, inches away from my ear. "But you have to come first."
I moan in protest, but he only strokes me slower, teasing me, reminding me who has the power. I reach for him, desperate to take back some control, but invisible ropes grasp my wrists and draw them back above my head. His tongue laves my nipple, and there’s a reprimand hidden in the edge of teeth against my skin, the slide of his thumb across my clit as two fingers enter me again.
"Please," I mutter senselessly. "I can't hold back."
“Then don’t.” He sits up, withdrawing from me long enough for an invisible touch to take his place.
The control he must have to be able to create this, as a demon, is incredible.
I gasp as the touch, trickling like silk, traces down my body until it falls against my pussy. His magic twists, becomes like a tongue, and flicks against my clit as Aeden stands beside the bed and undresses—painfully, achingly slow. His cock springs free, brushing the hard line of his abs, and he takes himself in hand and slowly begins to stroke. He watches me, his eyes never leaving mine even as his magic caresses me.
It's moving at the same speed as his hand.
When he speeds up, so does the sensation between my legs. When he slows, the hint of fingers inside me almost withdraws completely. My brow draws down in desperation as I meet his e
yes—and I see there that he has been waiting for me to understand. For me to realize how tied I am to him right now, to his need, his touch. He laughs, low and wicked, and it's too much.
I tip over the edge, caught by the fierce power in his expression and the relentless kiss of his magic against me.
In the pure euphoria of the moment, my hands twitch, fingers brushing against each other. There's a moment of fear—followed by uncertainty reflected in Aeden's eyes—because this is the worst possible moment to lose everything my body feels.
But then the world tips sideways because I don't lose my senses. Instead they grow. I cry out as every sensation triples, as though my spirit hasn't split from my body but truly become one with it instead.
The invisible ropes fade away, and Aeden's hands appear on either side of my face. I can't open my eyes to see his expression. Every touch sears me like fire, my spirit crying out in ecstasy. He's anchoring me to this world so that, through the fog of spirit-grays and misty true forms, I see them both. I can feel the body and the soul united together.
Through a massive effort of will, I manage to ask, "Why have you stopped?"
The hands disappear and his body presses against mine, skin to skin, the weight of it dizzying as my spirit tries to fly free. But through both planes, his heart calls to me, just as it had when we were dancing.
His fingers dip lower, touching, stroking, before he finally enters me. My eyes snap open, and I find his face slack with pleasure, dark hair falling across our faces. He thrusts into me slowly, pinning my arms above my head, until I can feel it on both planes. My body acquiesces to his touch while my spirit follows my body's desires.
How have I never known how much my body wants? In this form, anchored to Aeden’s heart while my spirit soars free, it’s like a full-on bell is clamoring in my head. I couldn’t ignore this anymore if I tried.
My body craves his touch, and in this realm Aeden’s body cries out even more than mine. The web of his desires shrouds us both as I shift in and out of this spirit sight, anchored but unchained. His aura is consumed by his need to touch.
But then, like it always does, my power begins to grow comfortable, and the desire to take grows strong. I’ve never wondered before, but I wonder now—what exactly does my magic want to take?
Guided by instinct, I trace my fingers through the aura surrounding Aeden, pluck free a thread, and beckon it towards me.
Drunk, the thread sways closer, and when it hits my nostrils it smells of camphor and fire.
Aeden stiffens above me, eyes squeezed tight as his body shakes with the effort of restraint. “What are you doing?” he whispers, and when his eyes snap open they’re dark with desire.
“I think I’m feeding on us,” I whisper back, too overwhelmed by my surging magic to make sense of any of it.
Aeden frowns, but it lacks heat, and he quickly shakes his head and growls, “I don’t know what that means, and I don’t fucking care.”
His mouth drops to my breast, sucking and nipping, one hand squeezing tight into my hips while the other continues to brace himself beside me. There’s a flickering light surrounding us that has nothing to do with his aura. His heart flares, heat and flames rising equally, and although it's becoming difficult to focus on anything but his cock inside me, I think I see what's happening around us. An inferno rages, Aeden's magic latching hold of his fiery heart and igniting it.
It doesn't burn, and through the haze of pleasure I let myself drift, body arching in delight while my spirit wraps itself in his delicious aura. There’s no danger here, not with his heart anchoring me, and for the first time when I'm out of my body I don't feel like I'm drifting in a sea of untouchable ghosts.
Aeden is more than just an anchor. He's my guard, following me across each plane and making sure neither my body nor my soul is lost.
Then he sits up, lifting my knees so they hook over his arms, and I forget about everything but pure sensation. He drives into me with a single-minded focus, measured and deep, each thrust sliding across the part of me that makes me moan even after I already came. I remember what he said, the way he demanded roughness from me, but I can't reach him so my fingers end up clenched in the sheets beneath me. My legs shake, quivering as he thrusts into me again and again, relentless.
"Think you can last?" he asks, a shaky edge to his voice even as he grins down at me.
"Yes," I insist, despite how my muscles tighten again, heading towards another orgasm even though I'm only minutes from my last.
"Liar," he whispers, and he fucks me harder, rougher, eyes glinting a little in the flame.
I throw my head back, bottom lip clamped between my teeth, and the sound that comes out of me is something like a sob. Aeden drops my legs, hands landing beside my shoulders, and he braces himself on the bed as he fucks into me erratically, so close I can feel it coming, and dives over the edge.
My magic shimmers, full to bursting from the energy it consumed, and then fades away.
Long after, when Aeden is holding me and the sleepy languor has well and truly caught up, he says quietly, "I found an abandoned dorm room."
I shake my head. "Stay here."
He shouldn't, we both know this. Even if it was just the danger of professors finding us like this, we're putting Beth in an awkward position. And there are so many other ways this can go wrong. But Beth clearly chooses to flirt with the risk of getting caught, and she chose to leave us alone. She must have known what would happen.
And I want Aeden to stay.
The arm around my waist draws tighter, dragging me closer to him as his breathing slows.
"Mal?" Aeden mutters, clearly half asleep.
"Mmm?"
"Don't turn on me." The last words are a mumble, lacking form, but I catch them even though they don't make sense.
"Of course I won't," I answer, equally tired.
Aeden doesn't respond. His hand slides lower, tracing my curves until it's hooked over my hip, his fingers inches away from playing with me again. Possessive. Fierce.
His heart is warm against my back as we both fall asleep.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, a warm, furry body snuggles in close. I smile in my sleep, pulling Sassafras towards me. He’s far larger than usual, but my sleep-addled brain can't understand why, and I don't bother. I drift back off to sleep, love pouring off me in waves and being returned tenfold by my strange, unreadable demon, wherever he is.
TEN
Aeden
Memories of Mal's body beneath mine overwhelm me. Her skin beneath my lips, the way she tastes. It's enough to make me forget the walls that slowly close in around us. Almost.
We hurry through the winding corridors to the practice room where the other competitors are dancing. By mutual concession, we agreed to Beth's advice this morning: don't underestimate your competition—this academy breeds viciousness. Although the competition isn't until tomorrow, it's time we participated with the others. To discover what we're up against.
And pray we hold what it takes to grind them into the dust.
Magic crescendos within my blood the second we walk through the doors. Giant waves of it roll across the ballroom, sweeping through the participants and cocooning them in a dance of its own. It's heady, almost painful. Enough to send me into a violent sneezing fit. Mal stops dead beside me, and I shiver as her own magic flares in response.
She loves it here. I pretend not to notice, but the way she talks with Bethany makes it clear. In barely two days, she has relaxed into this place like she never did back in our time. Perhaps it's that the constant threat of her unholy power being revealed is absent—gloves are part of the normal attire. Or perhaps it's that whoever has the power to control her is no longer here.
Which means I can relax too.
Maybe we should stay here.
Lazy fire kindles in my gut at the thought of last night, remembering what it was like to hold her without worrying about how she might one day betray me. There was no reason to re
lax, except how badly I wanted to. What if I could have it for real?
Then I remember the succubus' warning, and my blood turns cold. I can't relax, not now, perhaps ever. At the thought, the wolf inside me stirs, lifting its head. It’s only done that once before—when Mal’s magic took over my dorm. Shivers of unease run down my spine.
"Welcome! Miss Potts, Mr. Panz." Lady Keller waves us to the front of the room where several teachers lounge on embroidered couches. "Please, show us all your moves!" She lets out a shrill giggle, and my immediate response is to give a display of strength, to let the flame of my heart rise like jewels cascading upon a dragon's hoard.
But we're undercover, and so I turn my attention to Mal's hands as they come to rest on my shoulders. It isn't difficult. The second our eyes meet, everything else falls away.
"Let's show 'em what we got," Mal mutters with an amused twist to her mouth, her slow drawl coming on thicker as she embraces the challenge.
I wonder if she even remembers we're trying to win to get out of here. Then we fall into line beside the other dancers and I no longer care.
We spin and waltz around the room, falling into an effortless pattern of musicality. Every motion comes with the memory of Mal's spirit crossing against mine, of her leading me in the most intimate dance I could imagine—save the one from last night. My heart comes alive, lit with a different kind of fire altogether.
I want to yield to her.
The thought comes from nowhere, ignited by the effortless way we move together, all thoughts of friction and combat forgotten. Is this why I've fought so hard against the looming trap she represents? Because I want nothing more than to give in, no matter what the trap springs?
Mal's expression flickers, like she can see into my very soul, even with her hands still gloved. Her eyes flick to her fingers, currently hovering lightly over my shoulders, and she slides her glove free.
