Reaching Answers

by Erin R Flynn

1:30-3

  Professor Puth

  Tuesdays and Thursdays were other classes:

  Physics 102

  8-9:30

  Professor Richardson

  Magical Advancements102

  9:45-10:45

  Professor Campbell

  Potions 102

  11-12

  Professor Kramer

  Lunch

  12:15-1:15

  Runes 202

  1:30-3

  Dr. Craftsman

  The only real difference besides moving onto the next semester of all my classes was the new potions teacher, Professor Kramer. White had assured me he wasn’t associated with the council in anyway and was actually their first choice originally, but the council had flexed their muscles and Edelman had picked his battles, letting McGrath have the position.

  Well that had backfired onto the council in a lovely way.

  The ripples of which I was still enjoying and pissing people off all over the place. The warlock elders were busy with it all the time, and McGrath was still trying to get me messages he would burn the elders if I helped him.

  Idiot. I didn’t need his help to burn the elders.

  And I wanted a predator like him to fry too.

  So with the humans in prison he would stay, and that made me smile every time I thought about it.

  18

  By the end of the first week of classes, I’d learned a lot outside of the curriculum. Some of it interesting and other stuff disturbing. A few hurtful so overall, it was too much and my head was spinning.

  A per usual.

  While anyone was better than McGrath to teach potions, my new professor had a serious crush on me. It was genuine and not with any nefarious purpose, but it made me uncomfortable. A man in his forties shouldn’t be that hot for a twenty-year-old he was supposed to be an adult figure for.

  Then again, his thoughts weren’t his fault and he had no intention of acting on them. That was clear in his mind. He had no clue I knew any of it, trying to be respectful and using a telepathy blocking charm around me so he acted appropriately.

  Those simply didn’t work with me anymore. So as long as he kept behaving as he should, we wouldn’t have a problem. Craftsman was not happy though, as he had caught lots in Professor Kramer’s aura when focused on me.

  Oh boy.

  I also learned that besides Holly’s stunt, the vampire council had made a formal request to Artemis to block a murderer from being on campus with their poor, poor people. Funny, because they had no problem with Jordan Holmes and those guys who were actual murderers and were convicted of a bunch of heinous crimes.

  But me? Me, they went after without any proof or convictions.

  Geiger had a field day with that. For real, he was almost giddy. His fighting spirit had been renewed, recharged, and kicked up to the max now that his mate was back and safe. I was happy for them, and seeing them together helped me stayed charged to keep going and free more fairies.

  Which, I’d learned I could now do ten with the same power already. That had been another shock and left me a bit extra depleted, but ten every other day was better than five. And so far things were going well on that front, everyone in shock but glad to be free.

  I also learned that Mel still wasn’t going to talk to me and try to resolve what had happened. She barely grunted at me when she had to deal with me in class and let Instructor Larson completely handle all my training. Yeah, that hurt, but we were getting to the point where it would stop hurting and there would be no repairing that relationship if she didn’t stop blaming me for how I’d saved her life.

  Because everyone agreed, I’d saved her life. She would have gone after Ainsworth and died.

  As one last solid for her, I petitioned the wolf council to let her be the executioner when they finished getting every ounce of information from Ainsworth and convicted him. It seriously went against their customs, but I thought they might truly consider it because of all I’d done to help them too. Alpha Geoff submitted the same request without me even having to ask and that carried a lot of weight.

  I really liked that man and the hobgoblins lavished his pack with goodies for helping out. Even if it didn’t go our way, he did me a solid in trying and I wouldn’t forget that.

  I learned that Holly had taken my warning seriously and had stopped trying to learn what species I was. She’d started brushing it off at every pass and was now spreading a theory that I was a new form of shifter species, some mutation that left me with no council. She kept coming up with ridiculous animals that people look down on like frogs, but her pushing that rumor was honestly the nicest thing she’d ever done for me.

  So I took her and her family off the blocked list with the hobgoblins for a month, sending her a huge basket from the bakery with a note saying that. I didn’t sign it but she knew it was me. From her thoughts, she knew it was me and was considering not fighting me anymore, as I might be a better… Well, not friend. We would never be friends.

  Not enemies. That was the best we might ever get.

  I doubted even that. But it was nice to have peace between us. For the moment.

  I learned that Professor Campbell had stepped up her dislike for me. Sure, she didn’t remember finding out about my relationship with Craftsman and all I’d told her, but the feelings were still there. And she’d built on them. She blamed me for her relationship being strained with White, Pillay, and a few others of the faculty.

  She fully believed that I had swayed them to my alarmist and over-the-top way of thinking, and that had done the damage since she was the realist. Funny, since she had her head so far in the sand, it was a miracle she could still breathe at all. All that she’d seen, all the evidence in front of her, and still she couldn’t see the truth, believing the lies that made her feel safe and less stupid she hadn’t missed so much.

  Idiot.

  And the last important thing I learned was that Hudson and I were done with our slow. We’d barely gotten to see each other over break, we’d both been so busy and we had to keep our relationship quiet. The moment we’d seen each other on campus, the bond between us had roared to life even with our dampeners and had been driving me crazy.

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one from how he’d snagged me after dinner Friday night and carried me off, growling for a barrier. I didn’t even hesitate, needing him just as badly and done with the cute foreplay and clothes on-only stuff.

  Well, for the moment. I was honestly enjoying him being so adorable and that stuff with him. We needed to keep doing that for sure.

  We just needed sex too. Yeah, with our hormones and crazy chemistry, we were going to lose our minds if we kept trying to hold back any longer. So we were on the same page on that.

  He barely got us inside the building that housed most of the normal, human-type college classes and lectures before he found an unlocked room anyone could have stumbled upon. Well, not after I used magic to lock it but still, he could have gone up a couple of floors to be safe.

  Or not. From the way he plopped me on the desk and yanked off his jacket so fast seams tore, I was guessing he wouldn’t have lasted a few flights of stairs.

  I wasn’t judging. I was just as bad, my shirt practically in tatters after I got my coat off. Somehow we knew to switch, and I worked on his belt while he ripped my bra off and focused on my jeans next.

  Which he tore off of me. Straight up tore off of me like paper wrapping, he was so strong.

  So I was gonna have to portal back to my room. Yeah, whatever, time for sex.

  Our mouths mashed together as we hurried to get off socks and shoes and whatever else was left. Once we were fully naked—or so I hoped—he was the intense and amazing Hudson I remembered dying for, his fingers immediately going to my pussy and teasing me as he tried to devour me. His tongue mapped out my mouth as I gave as good as I got.

  “Fuck, I’ve so needed you, my princess,” he groaned as I got close. “Soak my hand.”

  “You want me dri
pping? You better lick it up if I give you all the orgasms my body can handle, you pushy dragon.”

  He growled before chuffing in approval, loving when I used my telepathy to talk in our minds. It was so extra intimate and we’d both missed it, but we were there again. Or mostly.

  Mostly was good.

  “I’m going to lick every fucking inch of my mate. I’m going lick, suck, bite, nibble, and fuck you until you barely have the energy to open a portal to get us to my room. And then I’m going to do it all over again and all night until you pass out and beg me for that kind of treatment all the time. That’s how badly I need you.”

  Yeah, sign me up for that.

  I orgasmed so hard that my body practically seized around his fingers. He didn’t even give me time to think about recovering. Yanking my leg so I fell onto my back, he lifted up my lower half and bent down, attacking my pussy without any warning.

  It was magnificent. I cried out in bliss and begged him for more. I climaxed the moment he sucked on my clit and didn’t stop for several minutes as he kept going. Spots blocked out most of my vision at one point, and I was pretty sure I whimpered for him to be inside of me before he made me pass out.

  “I want to eat you more,” he bitched. “I like the fun, flirty foreplay and puppy love over-the-clothes stuff. I do. I’ve never had that before like we’ve had.”

  “I like it too,” I promised, gasping each word out as my body still twitched and freaked out.

  “Good,” he chuffed. “I want that too. But I miss fucking you. I miss this. I want both.”

  “Pushy damn dragon,” I teased, yelping when he thrust in me without warning in “punishment.”

  Yeah, poor abused me. Uh-huh.

  “Is your mate’s pussy the best? You’ve missed it so much, you’re gonna come in me right now?”

  He lost his shit when I started talking dirty in his mind. Not that he had much control when I started, but I was expecting him to break the desk, he fucked me so hard on it. He pounded into me, my body smacking against the wood from the force of it.

  And I loved it.

  “Oh fuck. Yes, fuck. Are you trying to see how wide you can stretch me?” And spread my legs? He had me almost doing the splits and loved it, from his thoughts. He couldn’t decide if he liked watching his cock pierce my body more than getting to stare in my face or see my breasts bounce all around or how flexible I was for him.

  His mind raced with all of it, starving for me and everything my body could give him. The way he saw me made me feel like the sexiest woman alive, a true goddess he wanted to worship always.

  We finished, but he was far from done with me. He barely gave the last thrust of one orgasm and he was already chasing our next climaxes. Hudson lifted me up so my legs were over his arms and every inch of me was pressed against him. I moved my hands in his hair as I hung on and kissed him. He moved my body like I weighed nothing, pulling me down hard on his dick as he thrust up.

  “You love this position. You love when I fuck your tight pussy like this. It’s mine, my princess. All of you is mine. One day, I will claim you as my mate and the world will know you’re mine. I will stand at your side and we won’t hide anymore. I’ll drag you off like this every damn night and make love to my mate.”

  Apparently, the constantly hiding was grinding on more than just Craftsman. It was valid and I felt it too. Lucca was getting miffed with it, and I was waiting for him to offer to lock up his father somewhere so we didn’t have to worry about the man.

  The idea had merit.

  “I’ll still make you chase me. I’ll use that fairy rune and run and let River fly around Faerie to find me before you can have me.”

  “That is the hottest fantasy ever.”

  And somehow he fucked me faster. I didn’t think he had more in him but I was wrong, the pain almost as much as the pleasure, he was going at me so forcefully. We finished again and the moment he pulled me off of him, I was lying face down on the desk.

  “Wait, wait,” I gasped, my body aching. “Too much. I need—let me take us to your room. The desk is too much when you’re this rough. We haven’t been going at it.”

  He leaned over and kissed my shoulder with a chuckle. “And the others can’t give you this like I do.”

  That wasn’t completely true. Lucca could.

  I simply wasn’t allowing it. I’d mostly forgiven him and let his bear finally orgasm from that weird one sided sexfest of an apology, but I’d made it clear he didn’t get his super-hot bear sex until I got proof he would be a much more loyal mate. I thought it was fucking fair.

  He thought he was lucky I hadn’t dumped his stupid ass.

  Yeah, that too.

  Either way, Lucca and his bear were basically pacing me waiting for the signal to jump me again. It was nice that they were on their best behavior, so I didn’t think he’d have to wait too much longer. He was normally really well-behaved, and we all slipped.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make him suffer a bit when he did.

  Duh.

  “Grab our rags and me, and I’ll open a portal,” I said instead of answering.

  “Rags?”

  I snorted. “Yeah, formerly known as our clothes. We both shredded most of them.”

  “Always fun,” he teased. He was quick about it, setting a lot of it on me and then lifting me in his arms.

  I held out my hand and opened a portal to his room, relived when we walked through it and it was the right place. My magic had never failed to do what I wanted in that way, but nothing was perfect and I was still new to all of this.

  And I didn’t even know what I was doing. It just happened. It was hard to have much faith in that.

  Maybe faith wasn’t the right word. I had faith in my magic. It was still too new to accept as my norm. Lots still made me flinch or worry. I would think that was normal.

  Prudent at least.

  He tossed me on the bed, his chest heaving, and not from carrying me. He was part growling and snarling, his thoughts showing me what he wanted.

  “Do you really deserve that?” I taunted as I threw up a barrier and magically locked his room.

  “No, I don’t deserve shit because I’ve fucked up too much,” he admitted, meaning it.

  Right answer. We were still making up and he should understand that.

  However, Hudson was a good guy among too many dogs in the world, so I did spoil him too… Like right then when I took down my hair, facing away from him so I could show him my nape.

  And then submissively offered myself to him. I stuck my ass up right there and let him see all of what he wanted, both of us knowing the lower I sank my shoulders in his bed, the hotter he got.

  Sure enough, I didn’t even get a chance to so much as wiggle my ass at him and he was on me. He pressed my legs together so I was up higher and moved on either side of my knees, thrusting in me so forcefully, it took all the air out of my lungs.

  “Mine!” he snarled.

  He was normally a bit pushy and possessive, but I could hear in his thoughts this was over the line for him and he knew it was because he’d almost lost me. Otherwise it would have worried him. Which meant it didn’t worry me then.

  We needed what we needed and Hudson was amazing at giving me what I needed. There were a lot of men who wouldn’t have fought to win me back or worked to fix what had happened with us. But he had.

  I could be what he needed as a dragon too, because some of what we’d gone through had to do with my being a fairy. I understood that now.

  We had two incredibly hawt rounds that way before I tapped out that I needed a break. He mumbled an apology and said we could take a time-out before flopping onto the bed next to me.

  Sure, that was like halftime? A sixty-second time-out called in sports or however long they were.

  I was going to thump the pushy dragon.

  “So we should talk,” he muttered as he pulled me against him.

  “Do we have to?” I grumbled, glancing up
into his amused gaze. “Don’t ruin an amazing afterglow with talk, okay?”

  “Amazing?”

  “You want to argue that?”

  “Nope. I might have added some extra glowing adjectives, but I’ll take amazing.”

  “Every inch of me is mush, and my brain got rattled around too much to think that hard.”

  He flinched. “Was I too rough?”

  I didn’t want to lie. “A bit for all the time or just getting back, but I love it. You know that.”

  “I do too.” He kissed my head as he ran his fingers through my hair, chuckling when they immediately got tangled. He loved my mane of crazy curls that could not stay neat and combed out for more than two minutes.

  No matter how Izzy tried with every product known. I just had too much wild hair for something not to tangle up the moment I moved.

  “So we’re back to this?” he checked after a few moments. “Like, are we back to being back?” He sighed. “My mind’s not working fully either. Did that make sense?”

  “Only because I speak Hudson,” I teased, circling his nipple with my finger. “It feels like we are. We agreed we want to keep having our time for lunch and high school puppy love or whatever. I like that addition.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice. Fun. We can’t date like others, but it’s us and our way.”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t let it go though. “And the rest? Are we… Okay?”

  I appreciated him wanting to be completely clear but I wasn’t, so I didn’t know how to answer. “I think so. I’m still hesitant. I don’t want to compare you to the others, but Darby and Lucca were one-time problems. Yes, not telling me we were mates was how it blew up and that whole thing with your parents, but it was an ongoing and compounding issue. I’m going to still worry.”

  “That’s fair,” he accepted after several moments. “I still worry I’m going to fuck up too. Miss something I should get and not see the ramifications. And I’ll lose you for good this time.”

  “I don’t want that, but I’m glad you’re taking this seriously. That helps me move forward. We can’t be an out-there us, but if we’re going to be together then you’re an idiot who needs clear lines that we’re an us. No more making decisions for me or us. That’s what a lot of this boils down to.”