by Cate Corvin
Ten minutes later, I was heading the first study group of the semester in the library, and she was sitting in the back with her feet propped on the back of another chair. I was ninety percent sure she was doodling hearts surrounding a calligraphed Aislin Knightley signature in the back of her notebook, but hell, the girl had earned a break.
On the fifth morning, I was already cranky from not having the time to slip away to Club Bathory, and Sura’s irritation with me was still grating on my nerves.
When it came right down to it, what he’d done had felt far worse than what Will had done, in a weird way. I would’ve expected something shitty from Will.
Sura’s betrayal had blindsided me completely.
Lux was still poring over their books at breakfast, everyone’s eyes shadowed from a sleepless night of studying. It was crunch-time now, and I knew that more than a few of them-namely, Silas and Juno- weren’t too happy that Podunk Princess had stolen the rank of prefect from them.
Well, fuck them. I’d put in the work to get there.
Tenebris filtered in, looking just as worse for wear as we were, but some of them in a different way. Apolline’s cheeks were pale and hollow, and the glint of gold was still smudged across her chin. Dusthead bitch. I only had one semester left to ruin her.
Sura came next, his eyes sweeping the cafeteria and immediately landing on me. Intense heat and wariness vied for first place in his expression.
I’d chosen to take a table alone, after telling my team I was going to plan out the schedules. I was planning out the schedules, as a matter of fact, since Aislin had made a detailed dossier over the winter break for me with a thorough breakdown of everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and I could just about kiss her for it.
But of course I had an ulterior motive.
I met Sura’s gaze and smiled, ready to tug on that bond between us, but then Will walked in, his face strained but set. He’d made midwinter valedictorian for Tenebris, but the prefect pin wasn’t on his lapel.
Pheric Grant came next, wearing the pin and looking shell-shocked. The murmurs of Tenebris were already becoming squawks and protests. Apolline crossed her arms mutinously, her jaw jutting out as Pheric held out his hands to explain.
What the hell had my stepbrother done now?
Sura was at his shoulder, and a range of expressions crossed his face: irritation, chagrin… understanding.
Pheric sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he crossed the cafeteria to me, looking more nervous than he had any need to. “Hey, Holmwood. I’m the prefect for Tenebris now, so… I guess I’m supposed to wish you luck and a fair game.”
I stood up and shook his hand, still watching Will over his shoulder. “Luck and fair play, Pheric. What happened with him?”
Pheric’s watery blue eyes darted to my face, and away again. “He confessed that he was the guy in your… the video. The Headmaster stripped him of rank and he’s on academic probation.”
Holy shit. Will didn’t look entirely upset; on the contrary, his shoulders were squared for once, and despite the tension in his features, he looked like he’d achieved a peace he hadn’t seen for the entire last semester.
Pheric returned to Tenebris. Will sat with them, but his eyes met mine across the room.
I knew why he’d done it. Step one to becoming a better person: owning up to your bullshit.
I gave him a tiny smile. Not a lot. Just enough to let him know he was finally on the right track to burying Snotty Rich-Boy and letting out the Guy He Could’ve Been.
But Sura, now…
When we were nearing the end of breakfast hour, I caught Sura’s gaze and crooked my finger, exerting my will over him without having to say a word. He pulled against me, but not hard enough to force me to double-down on the effort.
I saw him lean over and say something to Pheric before jerking his head in my direction and getting up from his chair.
God, now that I knew what he was under that skin, it was almost impossible not to get heated just watching the guy walk over, his brow drawing together in a forbidding scowl.
“What do you need, Tori?” he asked, but he didn’t sound as angry as he looked. The opposite, in fact. Like maybe he was pleased that I’d called him over.
He’d better let go of that emotion quick, because he wasn’t going to like me at all after my next command.
I leaned over my table, banishing the image of his glorious naked body from my own mind. “How was your night, Sura?” I kept my voice low enough that no one else would hear me. Lux, the closest table, was at least fifteen feet away and chatting loud enough to obscure our conversation. “Sleep good?”
Last night, I’d sat cross-legged on my bed, cupped the blessed iron seal of Solomon in my palms, and sent a vivid mental command through our bond.
If he’d done what I’d demanded… well, that was a second pet theory solved.
“Oh, real good, thanks to you.” There was a low purr in his voice that made my skin tighten and tingle. “Anything else you need, Mistress? Study break in my room?”
I smiled up at him, unable to stop myself for searching for horns under the glamour. It was well-made, I’d give him that; impossible to tell what he was beneath it.
And he’d just confirmed my theories.
Pet Theory One: Sura either wouldn’t, or couldn’t, struggle against any commands of a sexual nature.
Pet Theory Two: I could send him commands from a distance through the Solomonic seal. Last night I’d repeated the experiment, demanding that he jerk off while thinking about me as a reinforcement of our link.
Clearly, it had worked. “No, not in your room.” I jerked my chin, and he took another step closer, his legs brushing the edge of the table. “You know where I’ve always wanted to try?”
There was a glint in his eye, and for a second, all I saw was the glitter of hellfire in his eyes, sadly hidden by the glamour. “Where is that, Tori?”
I bit my lip, only half-acting now. I needed to remember that even with our bond, he was still an incubus, and his natural essence could affect me as much as I could affect him. “You know the cloud-fort in Ermengol’s training grounds?”
He raised an eyebrow, and I could almost see the incubus beneath it. “Oh, I see, I see.”
“What’s that?”
To my surprise, instead of returning to Tenebris’ table, he pulled out one of the chairs of mine, spun it around, and straddled it. He leaned in over the chair back, his mouth tipping into an amused and entirely too appealing little smile. “You’re going to command me to go up there, and I’m going to miss class because I’ll be too busy jerking off all by my lonesome. Then you get to sit back and watch me fail the semester.”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Close, but not quite what I had planned. “Oh, boo. You’re onto me.”
“But you know what, Tori?” Sura licked his lips and the tiniest spark of that hellfire burned in the backs of his eyes. Warm desire washed over me, my bones suddenly feeling molten. Fucking incubus. “I don’t think I want to play your games. I’ve finally found a way to break the connection between myself and Sitri, and if you think you’re going to re-forge it for your revenge, you’ve got another thing coming.”
His good humor had vanished as he spoke, until he was leaning in towards me and hissing the words.
What did he mean, found a way to break the connection to Sitri?
“I was sorry,” he gritted out. “I am sorry. But you’ll have to fight me every step of the way to get what you want. Unless you feel like consecrating that little amulet now and releasing me. Then I’ll do whatever’s in my power to make it up to you.”
If a lifetime of hands-on knowledge hadn’t taught me well enough, Knightley had spent two semesters hammering it into our heads: demons would twist anything to get what they wanted. Human emotions were malleable putty in their hands.
I had to keep my eyes on the goal. “I don’t think so, Sura.”
He remained where
he was for a moment longer, then he sat back, his glamour smoothing out again. There was no hellfire, just the onyx eyes of Sergio Enver, a face that had never existed in the human world.
“Last chance, Tori. Sure you want to do this? The struggle will suck for you just as much as it’ll suck for me. We can save ourselves the trouble by sucking each other, instead.” He quirked that little grin again.
A vivid mental image popped into my head: Sura’s brawny body arched over me, his mouth buried between my legs while the soft, slick head of his cock slipped into my mouth. The tingling in my stomach became a full-fledged, sickening rush of heat.
“Don’t tap into my mind,” I said, enforcing the command with my will. The vivid sights and sensations of the image faded, but it felt like something was poking at the edges of my brain, trying to get in.
Sura’s smile faded, and he frowned, concentrating harder. A headache was already forming at the back of my skull from trying to keep him out.
At least I had the Belphegorian ichor. Next time I saw Càel, I was going to do everything in my power to show my appreciation for his gift.
“Better keep those walls up, then, Victoria the Horny.” I became vaguely aware that people were starting to leave the cafeteria, and some of them were looking our way.
“Go back to your team for now,” I commanded. Sweat beaded on my forehead as he resisted, getting up from his chair with leisurely nonchalance, spinning it around, and slowly, precisely sliding it back under the table.
The quivering strain in my mind didn’t fade until he’d actually started walking towards them.
He stopped next to Pheric, then turned around and walked back my way, unable to hold back a smirk. “I went, and now I’m back.”
I held back a groan. I’d said for now, which he was able to interpret quite literally.
“Let’s be real, Tori. You don’t like things to be easy, and I’m more than willing to give you what you want.” Sura held up his hands and shrugged.
“That’s entirely debatable,” I muttered, gathering my papers and shuffling them into a neat pile. Being late to class in our first week back was not the way I wanted to start my tenure as a prefect.
“Nah. You want the challenge. It makes it more satisfying for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to come back here and psychoanalyze me.”
We were almost alone in the cafeteria now. I strode after my team with Sura on my heels, and barely made it into the training grounds in time to put up my books and join Lux.
Sura, thank god, went over to Tenebris, but I felt his gaze crawling over me, lighting up my body wherever he looked.
No matter what challenge he threw at me, I had the ichor. I took a deep breath as I assessed my team.
Everyone was present and accounted for. Ermengol parked herself firmly between the two teams, her arms crossed over her chest, looking over us all. “Hmm. Holmwood and Grant. Interesting choices.”
Pheric stood at the head of Tenebris and looked utterly terrified. I almost felt bad for the guy; we were going to steamroll the fuck out of them.
Will was at the back of Tenebris, near Sura. His jade eyes flicked my way, then back at Ermengol. No doubt he was imagining what this could’ve been, if he hadn’t confessed to the administration: me against you. Light against dark.
I supposed the real question was which one of us really stood for dark, now. He may’ve actually found it in his heart to become a better person; I had no intention of ending this year without crushing Apolline and Sura.
Self-improvement could come after that.
“You’ll be working in the training grounds until your final assignments have been procured.” I remembered Professor Knightley’s spiel from my first day here: third semester’s big project was to take down a Shadowed World anomaly as a team. Something harder than a herd of kelpies, but something easier than infiltrating, say, the Clouded Court. “Third semester is when students tend to die, my little pearls of eagerness, so don’t look too excited. Keep your heads on straight, keep these lessons in mind, and you should hopefully survive to middle age.”
Nobody looked excited. On the contrary, more than a few students looked like they wanted to puke. As Ermengol would say, sad-sacks. This was what we were. Didn’t like it? Go join the humans.
“We’ll begin today with an exercise in team-building. You have free choice from the armory.” Ermengol pointed to a lush forest of absurdly tall trees on the eastern edge of the training grounds. “The objective is over there. The Sylvan Demesne.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes when a quick grin spread across Sura’s face. The cloud-forts. Great.
“Whoever captures and holds the Sylvan Citadel wins my eternal admiration and a free punch-card for shitty gas station coffee. Everyone else will be scrubbing the halls after-hours. Off with you now, precious ones.”
Pheric froze. I ran for the armory, Aislin catching up at my side.
“Heights, people. Equip with small, light weapons- daggers and short swords. Bring a staff, too, maybe we can knock some of them out of the trees.”
We equipped ourselves as fast as possible without making any mistakes. By the time Pheric had led his team into the armory, practically clinging to Will like a limpet, we were already heading out.
Will glanced at me as I passed, and then he was saying something to Tenebris, but I didn’t catch it.
The Sylvan Demesne was a sprawling forest of tall, densely clustered trees. This particular biome was known as the cloud-forts because of the network of treehouses and bridges spanning the canopy, but one of them, perched in the crown of a broad, silver-barked monstrosity of a tree, was the Citadel, a fortified base.
Knotted ropes hung from some of the trees like limp snakes. I suppressed a shudder and immediately began scurrying up the nearest rope, looping it over a foot, pulling myself up, then hauling my feet up after me to loop the rope again.
My shoulders were strained and sweat had soaked through my shirt by the time I made it to the platform and dragged myself over the side. Aislin was already up there, surveying the canopy.
I got to my knees and hauled my rope up after me, same as she was. We couldn’t get them all, but there were few enough that it’d hinder Tenebris’s progress to the top.
From the cloud-forts, it was possible to look over the entire training ground. It was like another world that existed underground. A person could almost get lost in here; I had the feeling some Fae magic had gone into warping the dimensions of this place.
“Take the Citadel from both sides,” I ordered. “Pheric might wear the prefect pin now, but he’ll lean on Will for guidance, which’ll slow them down. If they grab you, don’t get fancy, just toss them over.”
It was an eighty-foot drop. Luckily, not even Libra’s faculty was brutal enough to guarantee us a death by heights; there was a charm that would catch anyone ten feet from hitting the ground. Didn’t usually stop people from pissing themselves in terror, though.
A crossbow bolt slammed into the underside of my platform. The quiver of the wood beneath my feet traveled right through my boots. “Get moving. He sent some ahead.”
Should’ve known Will would do that.
Aislin darted left, taking a rickety rope bridge into the denser canopy with the sure footing of a gazelle, and Caleb and Ethan followed her. Juno and Silas went right, skidding over one of the wider but rail-less bridges.
I went straight, following Lara Dumont. Aislin would undoubtedly get to the Citadel first, and I trusted her to hold it for us.
Lara cringed when an arrow screamed by her face, almost losing her footing on the tiny plank bridge we were crossing. It was literally planks barely six inches across and a rope strung overhead that was meant to provide an emergency grip.
It was also the shortest, most obvious route, one that Pheric would hopefully go for when he saw us. Unfortunately, Will was smarter than that, and he’d be feeding Pheric orders.
Lara was sweating and shaking by the ti
me we made it to the first cloud-fort: a boxy treehouse with an open ceiling, overlooking a wide patch of forest floor far below us.
“I hate heights,” she gasped, clutching her stomach. “Christ, I’m going to-”
With a gag, she leaned over one of the cloud-fort’s windows and puked. I patted her back while I scanned for Will’s- Pheric’s people, and frowned. They were nowhere in sight.
“Hey, babe,” a sultry voice said, and Lara almost jumped out the window.
Sura slid down through the open roof and landed with a solid thump on the cloud-fort’s floor. When he straightened up, his presence seemed to suck all the air out of the fort.
Lara was already back on the planks, holding the rope in one hand and wiping her mouth with the other. “Citadel, fast as you can,” I said. I angled myself in the doorway, blocking Sura’s access to her, and drew my daggers.
Luckily, Lara wasted in no time in booking it back into the canopy, fear of heights or no. I held my breath and prayed Aislin was already in the Citadel.
“I see. Will sent you ahead.”
Sura shrugged, leaning on the wall of the cloud-fort and running a hand through his short hair. Weird to know that he was really touching his horns. “You know where I’ve always wanted to try? A cloud-fort. And- oh, look! Here we are.”
“I thought you were onto my nefarious plans.”
He shoved off the wall, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. The fact that he’d made no move towards any weapons had me more nervous than I wanted to admit. “I’m here to give you what you want.”
I flexed my hands, wrapping them more firmly around the daggers. He was built like a brick shithouse, which, while very nice to look at, was a serious disadvantage for me. “What I want is for you to throw yourself out that window so I can go claim my team’s victory.”
“Nah, that’s not what you want.” He took a step closer, his smile widening. Then he tapped the side of his head. “I’m up in there, remember?”
“Stay out of my head, Suraziel.” I took a step backwards, my heel on the plank bridge.