by Kendal Davis
I caught Ciara’s regret as she looked at her two bonded mates. It was easy to see that she was sorry to learn that she would not be in their beds tonight. We had never discussed it, but I knew perfectly well when they were together, as it resulted in magic blazing from her. She looked at me gravely as she disappeared.
As the Hall emptied, I sent my own awareness to find her. She was in her own bedroom. Without looking around at any of the other professors, I teleported myself to join Ciara.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped as she saw me appear in her room. “I realized a while ago that you might be able to come here on your own, given our bond, but I got used to the idea that you never would.”
I stood still, not touching her as I wanted to. “Perhaps you gave up too early.”
Ciara shook her head. “No, you’ve made it quite clear that you don’t want our bond. Do you know what will happen to it if it goes unclaimed?” She was trying to sound as if it were an academic question.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “But I came here tonight to see if you understood what just happened. You were not called to meet with the Eternal Assassins because there were no new inductees. You realize that, right?”
She let out a sigh of released tension. “Yes. I’m glad you came to tell me though. It is good news, for it means that they are leaving Finley alone.”
“They?” I almost growled the question.
“All right, we. Does that suit you?” She was growing angry with me. “I never wanted this, but that doesn’t mean I will shirk it. That’s not who I am.”
“He isn’t strong enough in his powers,” I said matter-of-factly, going back to the question of the rumpled young man who had clearly stolen Evana’s heart.
“To kill people, you mean?” She might have meant it to be a simple question, but it came out strangled with agony.
I couldn’t help it. I went to her and pulled her into my arms. When our skin touched, it was as if a shock ran through me. How had I gone so long without doing this again? I’d been missing her as if she was the very air I breathed.
My hand twitched toward the lock on her door, sending a spell that bolted it with a firm, definite sound. I knew that Evana would be here momentarily, and if she walked in, we would never find this time and place again. She was a good enough friend to Ciara that she would understand and choose to bunk in with Lily. I knew the situation would be trickier if those two women’s roles were reversed; Lily never gave quarter, even when asked.
“Are you locking us in?” Ciara’s voice was husky. She might be furious at me, but she still wanted me. The thought of it made me pull her closer, enjoying the way her softness fit against my hardness.
“Is that something you want?” I couldn’t help toying with her. Only a fraction of a second later, though, I regretted my flippancy. “Yes. I need you, Ciara. I needed to see you tonight, of all nights.”
“Why?” She was whispering, but she still held back. “Because we are both sworn to evil already? There are no secrets between two members of the Eternal Assassins.”
“Of course there are.” I couldn’t lie about that. “We each serve for very different reasons. You want to advance your own safety and goals. I chose to be an Assassin to keep the world safe.”
“That’s insane,” she scoffed, her hand stealing up to run gently along my arm. “Killing is the opposite of safety.”
I caught her hand in mine and brought it to my lips. Her slender fingers were warm. “I knew Hellebore before she was Queen,” I admitted. “But I never loved her. I’ve never had a soul’s mate until I met you.”
When Ciara looked up at me, her eyes were shining with emotion. She wanted me, yes, but she would not back down from her righteous fury.
“The Queen must be a mortal,” I said. “That much of what the Directors taught you was true. There is no fae that can handle the powers she does and live through it. Our immortality does not survive the sort of interactions she has with the mortal world.”
“Taking life is not something to brag about,” she protested.
“No.” I allowed my hands to drop from her. She was right.
I looked around the room, wishing there was something that would allow me to start fresh with this woman whom I loved so dearly. All I saw was the simple gold bracelet that she had brought from her own world, sitting in a lonely spot on her dressing table. The sight of it renewed my hope that we could somehow find a way to let our bond succeed.
She saw where I was looking. “You are always asking me about that bracelet, but it’s like you already know more about it than I do. I’ve told you, it was nothing but a gift.”
“It is a shackle,” I said frankly. “The Queen arranges all things, even in your world. For it is her own world as well, of course.”
“Just as you are hers,” she said bitterly.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I hadn’t realized it until I said the words aloud. “I’m yours, Ciara. I’ve thought about nothing besides you, day and night. I would rather claim our bond and then lose everything than allow it to go unclaimed and hurt you.” I stepped toward her again, reaching for both her hands at once. She was hesitant, but I pulled her arms up to encircle my neck.
“You can’t make me do anything,” she murmured with a smile.
“Don’t we all know that?” I kissed her gently, feeling magic spring up between us. “Don’t we all know that you are the most powerful student ever to come to the Academy? She sees it, too.” I did not want to tell her that the Queen saw much less when the bracelet was off Ciara’s beautiful wrist. No need to give too much away.
She did not answer, but she softened in my arms as if she was allowing herself something she wanted desperately. Her hips met mine, so that I caught my breath roughly. “Let yourself feel this, my love,” I murmured. “It will be fine in the end. I have a plan.”
She did not ask what it was.
Instead, she lifted her face to mine for another kiss. I could hold back no longer. I twined my hand in her long hair and held her tightly as I brought my lips to hers. My kisses were ravenous, releasing all the desire that had been pent up within me since the moment I’d become aware of her as an elemental force.
I needed her desperately. And I knew that she would grow her magical abilities if we claimed our bond. For whatever it was worth, the time had come to decide.
I chose her.
I chose to throw all caution to the winds and take this moment, this one slice of perfection in my life. Eternity was, perhaps, overrated.
As I slid my hands beneath her shirt and pulled it over her head, I had to blink to make sense of how beautiful she was. Her curves were sheer perfection. Her nipples stood erect, hard as pebbles. The smooth skin of her neck was shining with magic.
When I pushed her plaid school skirt to the floor, she stood before me in her naked glory. This was what she was. Who she was. No secrets, no concealments.
For one moment, she stopped, checking in with me with a cautious glance. “Will she know that you have chosen me? What will it cost you?”
I silenced that line of thought with a tiny shake of my head. “It will be worth any price, don’t you know that? You are what I want.” And I settled her back against her own bed.
I stood before her, shucking off my own clothes in about a second flat. My heart pounded as I considered the course of action that I’d chosen. All I could wonder was why it had taken me so long.
I covered Ciara’s body with mine, tasting her lips again, then bringing my mouth down to her breasts and teasing her hard nipples with tiny nibbles. As she wriggled against her pillows, I moved lower, following the line of her belly until I found her most secret place. I lingered there, loving the way she moaned at my touch.
I still hadn’t brought myself to tell her the true history of Queen Hellebore’s dominance over our world. I could not put her in danger by explaining how a mortal woman could have brought the land of the fae to its knees, making us into killers of her
own kind.
But I did not have to. What we would do tonight would bring Ciara more power than she’d ever had before. She would have three fully developed bonds with three mates. Her abilities would increase by leaps and bounds. If I could give her that, it would be enough for an old renegade like me.
I might be forsworn, but I would choose correctly this one time.
Even if it killed me.
17
Ciara
I knew that Alder was hiding something; of course I did. There was no real reason that he would finally come to me and want to be with me like this. Unless he’d simply surrendered to the feelings that had always existed between us. It might be no more than that. He was fated to be my lover. He was here because he could no longer fight that reality.
Even as I understood that I was telling myself fantasies, I did not want to escape them. Here in his arms was exactly where I wanted to be. After all this time at Fae Academy, I deserved this chance to simply take a pleasure that was mine.
No more trying to understand political schemes or magical twists.
I was here.
My hands were tense with anticipation as they gripped the soft blankets around me. I threw back my head and groaned, no longer caring at all whether anybody heard me. It was just the two of us now. Alder’s mouth was hot and urgent on my wetness, delving within me with purpose. His tongue flicked against my clit, then backed off, softly smoothing, then flicking again. It was driving me wild. I knew I would reach my climax soon.
“I never knew school could be this good,” I murmured, finding a spark of humor as every nerve ending in my body thrilled to his touch.
I felt him laugh against me. “I plan to be the best professor you’ve ever had.”
I would have mustered a clever retort, but I was overtaken by the heat we generated together. As Alder slid a finger against the wetness he was tending, I gasped out loud. I knew he smiled, enjoying my pleasure. Before I could speak again, I felt every part of me gather together, then spill over the waterfall of my orgasm. I bit my lip as I moved my hips against Alder, wishing we had come to this sooner.
He moved up and rested on both arms, his lips hot against mine. “I wish we hadn’t waited so long to do this,” he said. His green eyes were intense as he spoke.
“You’re the one that didn’t want to,” I teased, with a real smile. Somehow, the tension between us had vanished. Or been transmuted into this new spark we felt together.
He smiled at me. “You can feel it, right? The way your magic is responding to mine? We will both be stronger from this.”
I held my breath for a moment. Was that why he was in my bed? Only as a practical means of becoming more powerful? Then the idea left me.
I dismissed such worries of treachery the moment, Alder touched me again. He rested on his side and ran his huge hands along my breasts and belly. “You are so beautiful,” he muttered. “I can’t think of anything but you, all the time. I…” He paused briefly, as if he were embarrassed. Then, in a gruff rush, he said, “I need you, Ciara.”
Our bodies joined together, both of us slick with sweat and glowing with earth magic. As he had done in the land of the mist, he teased me with vines that held my hands back from touching him. I lay there without guile, ready to open myself to him. When he pressed his cock against me, it was as huge and thick as I’d known it would be. Everything about the man was brash and oversized. I gave a little squeak as he pushed slowly inside me. When I did, he stopped, but I broke the vines that held me, pulling him closer, urging him on.
“I want you inside me, my man of the trees,” I said in a gasp. “I need to be as close to you as I can.”
With gentle care, he filled me with his own hard flesh, pushing and slipping until we were one. I opened my eyes to see that he was watching me with love shining from his eyes. He set a light kiss on my lips as if asking me to wait while we took this slowly. When he began to move his cock inside me, he took his time, pulling away, then entering again just as gently.
But as we went on, his thrusts were harder and faster. His breath heaved as he filled me with his hard flesh again and again. I ground my own hips against his, wishing this could go on forever. When I called out as I came, I whispered his name, knowing we were bound now. He grunted as he found his own ecstasy, shooting his seed deep inside me.
We lay in silence for as long as we could, teasing each other with our magic, generating the touch of flowering vines or petals. I used my air magic to cool him with a summer-scented breeze, which made him chuckle.
It took hardly any time before we did it again. And then again.
When morning came, I woke with a start. I hadn’t meant for us to fall asleep together. It would surely be a problem for him if he were seen coming from here, a student’s room.
“Alder, wake up,” I said quietly. “You need to get back, I think, before people see you here.”
He stood and dressed, his eyes full of regret that he couldn’t stay any longer, but what I’d said was true. After a moment’s hesitation, he spoke seriously. “We have to talk.”
I was afraid to meet his eyes now, despite all the closeness of the night. “Don’t tell me that you are going somewhere, or that this was just for one night. You know it isn’t.”
“I wish that were true,” he said. “But if I stay near you, I put you in danger. At least we had this time together, and we used it well to increase your gift.”
“We used it well because it was for us. Not for magic.” I frowned as I corrected him.
“I’m not leaving because I want to. I would do anything to stay near you. Even spend time in the mortal realm, if it meant I could watch you..”
Alder turned away, his jaw tight with buried emotions. I felt the same, but I couldn’t see why he was running scared from Hellebore. We could fight her.
“Wait a second,” I said. His words had been no accident. “Don’t go yet. What is it that you just said? That you would go to the land of the mortals. To be near me.”
His hand was on the doorknob, but he turned to look at me. We were still connected, even if he was backing away to try to protect me.
I went on, moving toward him as I spoke. “You told me once that you had been there already. But you didn’t say then that it was to see me. When I was there. It can’t be; I would have known you.”
He did not deny it. Instead, he raised a massive hand to softly tuck my hair behind an ear. “You did. And my name is still not Franklin.” A ghost of a smile lit his eyes.
As his fingers softly traced the line of my neck, I flushed in confusion. “What are you talking about? Wait...that butler, the new man. I told him we always called our butlers ‘Franklin.’ I lived in that mansion all my life, isolated, but the monarch of my own world in a way. And we did do that. They were all ‘Franklin.’” I was jabbering with nervousness.
“But I was not.” Alder spoke simply, still sharing openly with me. “I wore a different form then; that is how you do not recognize me. I inhabited the body of the mortal man who applied to be the butler at your home. People I knew pulled strings to make sure I could be there on that one day to see you off to the sky train.”
“That was the morning I came to the land of the fae,” I gasped. “And the butler, or I mean...you...told me that I might have accepted a job that would not be what I expected. I struck you down for your impudence.”
He nodded. “That did not matter. But it has not been as you thought it would be, has it? I hope the land of the fae has had parts that you enjoyed, nonetheless.”
My earth lover bent to kiss me firmly, then turned and left my room.
18
Alder
I hated dragging things out. I’d allowed myself to claim the bond with Ciara, but I would delay things no longer than I had to. I was doomed now, for my loyalties were utterly at odds with my oaths. There was no hope for it. If I stayed here with Ciara, I would be forsworn the moment the Queen asked me to work for her again.
But
if I went to Hellebore, she would use everything I knew against the mortal girl that she envied so greatly. The poor, evil Queen who had murdered so many had finally created a situation that she could not win. She’d given Ciara all four elemental affinities because she wanted to take that power for herself. But Ciara was truly stronger than her now.
She would be safe, but I could not hope for such a thing for myself.
As I walked down the long stairs from Ciara’s tower bedroom, I listened for her steps. She would try to follow me. In her earnestness, she was going to try to convince me that she could beat Hellebore in battle, and therefore we should stand together.
But she did not come.
I closed the small service door of the castle quietly behind me. It was early enough that nobody had seen me. The back garden was an eerie place to me, even though Ciara’s earth magic had restored most of its beauty. I looked around, surveying the flagstone paths and the arbors clamoring with new growth. Oversized pots of greenery flourished in a testament to her elemental powers.
When I’d been a student at Fae Academy, so long ago, this garden had been even more lushly green than it was now. I could never tell her that, for her first sight of it was as a blackened ruin, when she came here as a first-year. But there was a time, long ago, that the fae studied earth magic at the Academy. It had not been the work of my own power, as I’d been born an air fae, but these gardens had been astoundingly beautiful back then.
At the last possible moment, before I left the castle grounds for the last time, Ciara appeared. Her form faded into being, right in front of me.
“No, you mustn’t teleport here. Not without a teacher’s permission.”
“So give me yours, then.” She was so upset that her bright pink hair was swirling about her face like a live thing. As I looked more closely, though, I understood what I should have seen at first. She was not weeping. This mortal woman was furious. And she was the most powerful mage ever to come here. It was an unnerving combination.