by Eva Chase
The flood of cool rushing over my skin was delicious. I surfaced with a laugh and floated on my back while Imogen entered more tentatively by climbing down the ladder. She took the last short distance with a little leap and a gasp that turned into a grin.
The water warbled around me, and the sun beamed over my skin wherever my modest bikini didn’t cover it. I glided along with a light kick, soaking all the sensations in. A few parts of Villain Academy were awfully nice, I had to admit.
Imogen cruised past me, and I turned to swim after her farther across the lake. As far as I could see, dense forest stretched along the rise and fall of the rocky shoreline. I couldn’t make out any cottages or other buildings. The lake was huge, but apparently we had it all to ourselves.
As we headed back toward the shallower water, a pleasant burn forming in my arms and legs with the exercise, another group came ambling down to the shoreline. A couple of guys I’d seen playing football with Connar before… and Malcolm, unmistakeable from the golden gleam of his hair. My pulse stuttered.
I had the impulse to make straight for the dock and get the hell out of there, but I summoned my resolve instead. I was just as much a scion as he was—and any student had a right to enjoy the lake. Why should I let his presence chase me off? I’d even kept the upper hand the last few times we’d sparred in the interesting new form of combat we’d found ourselves engaged in.
And if it was hard not to notice his impressively muscled chest as he pulled off his T-shirt and strode into the water, this was the perfect opportunity to work on that.
Imogen had noticed the new arrivals too. She glanced over at me as we came to a stop a few feet from the dock. I made a face to her as if to say, Not happy about it, but what can you do? and started treading water.
“How’s your summer project going?” I asked. I wasn’t sure which Nary student Imogen had been assigned to or what her plans for the kid were, and to some extent I hadn’t really wanted to know. She was the only even sort-of friend I had here at the moment. But it was probably better to know just how malicious she could be toward the Naries than to bury my head in the sand.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a bit of a groan. “I didn’t know what to pick as a goal, and what I went with is so low key I don’t think anyone will be impressed.” She dropped her voice, mindful of the fact that one of her competitors might be among our fellow swimmers. “I got one of the music program girls. I’m just encouraging her to listen to and then learn how to play songs by one of my favorite bands. It seemed like something I could pull off.”
And not particularly harmful. The tension that had gripped my gut as I’d asked released. “You’re expanding her musical horizons,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah. I know I’m not going to win—there’s never really any chance of that. I only come because my dad’s got to be on the grounds during the summer anyway, and maybe the extra work will help improve my skills.”
The lake’s currents had been shifting around me the whole time, but right then one seemed to condense, teasing around my bare torso like a tracing of soft fingers. My skin tingled, and I caught myself just before my gaze jerked toward Malcolm.
Who else could it be? I didn’t have to give him the satisfaction of showing I’d noticed his efforts.
He and his friends had stayed where they could stand on the lake bottom, the water up to their shoulders, with shouts and laughter as they tossed what looked like a frisbee conjured out of water between them. Malcolm had his back to me at the moment, but I guessed he’d gotten a clear enough sense of where I was before he’d taken his current position.
I paddled a little farther out, where I could also more easily keep an eye on him without being obvious about it. With a casting word I hid in an exhalation, I swiveled my hand by my side under the water. We’d see how well he could concentrate with currents caressing across his chest.
“How about you?” Imogen asked as she drifted after me. “Are you happy with your progress? We’re already almost halfway through.”
I thought of the foundation I’d seen laid out this morning, ready for the rest of the building to commence. The staff on the job might be working slowly, but the clubhouse was coming together piece by piece. “I think it’s going well. I’ll tell you the details when it’s done.”
She arched her eyebrows, and I wondered if she could already guess that I might be responsible for the activity on the field.
Malcolm hadn’t shown any sign of reacting, although his spell was still licking across my belly. I drew my fingers down through the water to send my spell stroking over the planes of his own abdomen, just as the conjured disc soared toward him.
Malcolm’s arms twitched, and the watery frisbee flew past his reaching hands. I suppressed a triumphant smile.
He must have redirected his own spell in retaliation, because a few seconds later, it flowed up my front, over the fabric of my bikini. The caressing sensation swept across the curves of my breasts and kissed my nipples with a jolt of pleasure that made me gasp.
Imogen knit her brow. “Are you okay?”
Fuck. I hoped he hadn’t heard that sound. “Yeah,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady as the current stroked over my breasts again. “I think a fish brushed my foot. Silly thing to get startled by.”
Despite the cool of the water, a flush was rising in my cheeks. Nope, if Malcolm thought he was winning this battle, he could forget about it. Without letting myself second-guess the idea, I raked my fingers even farther down.
Even from some twenty feet away, I heard Malcolm’s breath catch as the current would have flowed over his groin. The throw he’d been about to make went wide and crashed into the water.
His friend shook his head with a chuckle and conjured a new disc. “You’re off your game today, Nightwood.”
I’d braced myself, but I still wasn’t quite prepared for the rush of heat as the current shifted against me again. It slid over me until it reached my thighs and trailed over then just below the spot where they joined. An ache formed there, begging to be satisfied, even as I kicked my legs to try to disrupt the spell or at least distract myself from its effects.
I curled my fingers into a cupped shape, and Malcolm let out a sudden cough that might have been disguising a groan. The water flicked right up over my clit, and I closed my eyes with a clench of my jaw to hold back a whimper.
“Rory?” Imogen said tentatively.
“A little dizzy,” I managed to answer. “Must be an aftereffect of the heat.”
“Do you want to get out?”
Before I had to answer, the purposeful current fell away, leaving only a faint echoing of sensation in its wake. When I opened my eyes, Malcolm was motioning the other guys out of the lake. “I’m cooled off now. Let’s find something more interesting to do.”
He was giving up. I’d won again. This victory didn’t feel all that sweet, though. An unsettling heat was still coursing through my body.
He wrapped his towel around his waist awfully quickly, I noticed. As soon as the guys were well on their way, I pushed myself toward the dock. “I think that’s enough for me.”
Imogen climbed out after me. I tugged my towel around myself, but it didn’t mute the tingling of my nerves. Malcolm and the guys had stopped halfway to the Stormhurst Building. My body balked at the idea of walking past him feeling this exposed.
Imogen started off, and I hesitated at the end of the dock. “You know, I left something in the boathouse the other day. You go on ahead.”
“Okay.” Her glance was curious, but even if she suspected there was more I wasn’t saying, she wasn’t going to push the boundaries of our tentative friendship by hassling me about it. She walked on, and I ducked into the dark interior of the boathouse.
By the far side, a motorboat bobbed in the water with a faint squeak of the cables that held it partly suspended. In the stall near me, a couple of kayaks floated. A canoe was propped on the wooden aisle that ran between the two stal
ls. Lifejackets hung from hooks along the wall over a rack of paddles.
I leaned against the rack, pulling my towel tighter around me. Humid air and the smell of damp pine wood enveloped me. I just needed a few minutes to gather my composure and shake off the effects of Malcolm’s teasing.
My pulse had only just started to even out when the boathouse door swung open and Malcolm barrelled in.
“You,” was all he said, his voice a rasp, and then he’d reached me, catching my chin to tip my mouth toward his.
I should have pushed him away. I shouldn’t have liked it. But every inch of my body sang out in relief with the crash of the kiss.
My mind went blank with the rush of need. My fingers tangled in his cropped curls, digging in tight, my other hand sliding down his bare chest. He groaned against my lips. His hand caught my thigh. My towel dropped to the floor as he lifted me onto the paddle rack.
My legs splayed around his waist. His mouth trailed along my jaw and to the side of my neck with scorching heat. “We can fight more later,” he muttered against my skin. “Right now—you’ve been driving me fucking crazy.”
I couldn’t find the wherewithal to disagree. The flames we’d been kindling between us blazed through me, and every press of his lips sent them flaring higher. It didn’t mean anything other than getting a release.
“I’ve been driving you crazy?” I couldn’t help shooting back. Other than that first kiss, he’d been the one lighting the first sparks. I’d have left him alone if he hadn’t kept working magic on me.
But I couldn’t point that out, because Malcolm was tugging down the strap of my top. His mouth closed over the peak of my breast with a shock of pleasure ten times as intense as anything I’d experienced in the water. I gasped and tipped my head back against the padding of a life jacket.
After a rough swipe of his tongue, the Nightwood scion leaned in to claim my lips again, his hand rising to continue his attentions on my breast. His body pressed against mine, still damp from the lake but even hotter than my own felt. His breath seared over my cheek. “God, I can’t wait to be inside you.”
Those words cut through my haze of pleasure like a butcher’s knife. My back tensed, and my thoughts tumbled back into sharper clarity.
This was Malcolm Nightwood—my tormenter, my enemy. I’d spent the last few months doing everything I could to keep him out of me. I didn’t want him penetrating my body any more than I’d wanted him delving into my mind. The idea sent a chill through me that washed away all the heat of the moment.
I yanked myself away from Malcolm, stumbling as my feet hit the floor. Before I could make it more than a couple of steps, he caught my wrist with a chuckle.
“Where do you think you’re going? I think we’ve had enough of a chase.”
He tugged me around, and I pulled against him. My feet slipped on the wet boards. Malcolm’s grasp slowed my fall, but my ass still hit the floor. He bent over me, kissing the crook of my jaw, one hand cradling the back of my head as the other ran down my body. The strength radiating from his well-built form as it loomed over me set off a flash of panic.
“Get off,” I snapped.
He chuckled again. “We’re nowhere near finished.”
I smacked at him, and he snatched my wrist before the blow landed. A fresh wave of fear raced through me. It must have coursed into Malcolm, since he was the one who’d caused it, but he brought his mouth to the side of my neck without any sign of caring. My pulse stuttered.
“So you’re going to rape me?” I said, and spat out a word full of magic. “Off!”
He was already recoiling when the wallop of energy slammed into him. It threw him not just off of me but staggering a few feet back. I scrambled up into a sitting position, pulling my knees up defensively and hauling my bikini top back into place.
Malcolm was staring at me, his chest heaving. “I—You wanted this.”
He took a step back toward me, and I flinched. He must have been able to feel the shudder of my anxiety as well as seeing it. He froze, his stance going rigid.
“Not with you,” I said, not quite able to smooth the quaver from my voice. “Not like that.”
A waft of answering fear flowed into my chest. Fear of what I’d do next? Fear of what he’d almost done?
His expression had stiffened too. “I didn’t mean—” he started in an uncertain tone, and then his jaw clenched. “You’re the one who started this.”
That was a fair point. I pulled myself onto my feet, groping for my towel. The feel of the thick fabric draped around my shoulders steadied me.
“I did,” I said. “And I’m sorry I did. So now I’m stopping it. Don’t touch me again, in any way, or I’ll break every bone in your hands. Are we clear?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. His face had paled and flushed at the same time, turning it blotchy. “I wouldn’t have forced you,” he said finally, his voice ragged. “Just so we’re clear on that. I thought you were into it. I thought it was all more messing around.”
My teeth gritted. “Then you weren’t paying enough attention. I was fucking terrified.” And he had no real excuse for not being perfectly aware of that other than he’d ignored the emotion because he’d been too caught up in his own desires.
Which he knew just as well as I did. He took another step, away from me this time, with an audible swallow. I couldn’t see that there was anything else to say here. Hugging my towel around me, I hurried out of the building.
I made it most of the way to Ashgrave Hall without running into anyone. But when I reached the green, Declan was just crossing it, heading toward me. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of me, the worry that flashed across his face enough to tell me how out of sorts I must look.
“What happened?” he said, marching over. “Are you all right, Rory?”
There’d been a time, early on in my education here, when he’d asked a question like that and I’d thrown it back in his face because I’d known he wouldn’t help me. Now, I could see the determination to defend me all through his posture, gleaming in his eyes. It made my throat close up.
He wasn’t supposed to be defending me. He was supposed to be pretending he barely cared about me at all. I could ruin his life because of all the impulses I’d given into just as easily as I’d set Malcolm and me on that path toward near disaster.
There were a lot of problems here at Blood U, but I couldn’t say I had no part in them.
I dragged in a breath. “I’ll be okay. Really. Thank you. I’m sure you’ve got more important things to worry about.”
Declan’s jaw worked, but he schooled his expression to be more detached at the same time. “If you change your mind—”
“I know.” I managed a small smile that seemed to convince him. He hesitated for a second longer and then continued the way he’d been going. I dashed the rest of the way into the shelter of the dorm building with a lump of guilt expanding through my stomach.
Chapter Seventeen
Rory
The cry rang out loud enough that it pierced my closed window and reached my ears through the hum of the air conditioning system. I jumped up from my bed where I’d been flipping through a magical text from the library and leaned close to the glass. From that angle, I couldn’t make out the cause of the disturbance. A few students on the ground nearby had turned to look at something out of my view—something to the east. Where the clubhouse was being built.
My heart lurched. The spells I’d laid down hadn’t given me any warning, but I knew better than to count on them to work perfectly. I dashed out the door and down the stairs, wishing for the thousandth time that the school administration had invested in elevators.
The second I came around the building, I knew my fears had been right. Several students were gathering around the construction area where the framework had just started to go up. I spotted Benjamin and a couple of his friends among them, his shoulders tight as he gestured toward the site with jerky motions. I hesitated and t
hen let myself drift over for a closer look.
Lots of people had heard that cry. I wasn’t the only one who’d come by to see what the fuss was. My presence wouldn’t be too conspicuous.
As I approached, my spirits sank even lower. The boards that had gone up over the last few days lay splintered and ragged across the ground. A large stone, practically a boulder, lay in their midst, as if it had caused all that damage smashing through from who knew where.
That wasn’t how it had happened at all, of course. Someone had destroyed the frame purposefully like magic, leaving that boulder to give the Naries a plausible if unexpected explanation.
Beneath the scattered boards, the concrete foundation was split with cracks, some as wide as my thumb. I winced inwardly at the sight of them. Shit. That whole slab would probably have to be dug up and laid all over again. Were the Naries supposed to believe the randomly falling rock had smashed the cement hard enough to cause all that damage too? A few damp spots gleamed on the cement in the mid-morning light—maybe they were supposed to think a sudden swelling of groundwater had contributed?
It didn’t really matter what they believed. Either way, so much of the progress they’d made on the building was ruined.
One of the girls from the architecture program was sputtering angrily, and the other boy offered her a hug, looking like he needed one too. Benjamin picked his way around the site, shaking his head, his expression stormy. From where I stood several feet away, I murmured a few words to test the wards I’d put up. They didn’t respond to my magic at all. Whoever had done this had picked them apart first, so carefully the spells hadn’t triggered.
A couple of the other Naries who’d been helping the architecture students had joined the onlookers. “What the hell are we going to do now?” one of them moaned.