Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance)

by Jillian Keep

  A brief look to Ala’nase let her know whatever she was missing was quite captivating, however, her hand clutched to her breast as she stared open-mouthed. The crowd around them ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

  With a bit of force as Ala had done, she pushed her way through and saw the man. Her heart stopped.

  He was different. Yet there was no mistaking him, not in an elf’s age.

  Sandy-brown skin, sleek, long hair, a handsome, cocksure smile, all exactly as she remembered them. Yet no horns. No sign of him being anything but a man – an elven man perhaps – from some far off lands, blessed with exotic male beauty.

  The robes even, were so similar. Cut low in the front over his chest, though beneath he wore billowy red pants and curved satin shoes that looked almost like slippers.

  His almond-shaped eyes found her out of the crowd, and though he gave little away, she could see it: a tiny little sparkle in his hazel-coloured eyes that was all for her, just moments before his latest casting was complete. The earth exploded before him, a spiral of rock and vine shooting up into the air as he leapt upon it, lifting him up over a story into the air where he sat, cloak billowing in the air as the students below applauded. Ala’nase more than any.

  He’s back.

  She couldn’t believe it. Not wholly, and she pushed herself away from him. From the crowd. From the swooning Ala.

  What did it mean?

  She struggled until she was free of the tightly packed mob and she swiped her eyes. She didn’t truly know why she was crying, but there was such an intense sensation of relief and gratitude and anger that swirled within her heart.

  Besides. She didn’t need to be there for him to find her.

  If he still cared.

  Chapter 36

  The last class of the day was come and gone, and Firia walked off out of the building when Mae’lin approached her. “You up for our usual study date?” he asked with his cheerful smile, unpresuming as always. The tall, slender elf was a constant comfort, and she was glad to see his arm was out of the sling.

  “Absolutely,” she agreed as her hand ran along his forearm. “All healed up, hm?”

  “Just about,” he responded happily, the two of them striding across the campus. “Your place or mine?”

  They’d gotten into the habit of studying in one another’s room as of late, only going to the library as needed as their familiarity grew.

  Varuj entered her mind, but she’d not seen him again that whole day since witnessing his show at the gates.

  “Yours. Mine’s a mess.”

  She hated the fact that she expected Varuj to be waiting in her lonely dorm room. At the same time she delighted in the idea that he was and that she would force him to wait for her. So long she had gone without him, but knowing he was back made her anger at him all the more apparent.

  More than one time that night, Mae’lin asked her, “Is there anything wrong?” Her focus wasn’t there on the work as it usually was. She realized that. Though the smiling elf before her was simply all optimistic concern.

  “Yea… Maybe I’m just coming down with something. It’s probably nothing.”

  It wasn’t nothing. Her heart was in her throat and her stomach was twisted in knots. Guilt and hope kept dancing with one another and she didn’t know how to stop it.

  Mae’lin was perfect for her. She kept reminding herself of that, over and over.

  So why did she want so, so badly to find out Varuj was waiting for her?

  Leaning in, he kissed her on the lips softly, tentatively.

  “If it’s nothing you want to talk about, we can just end things for the night. It’s about time for curfew to kick in anyhow.” She’d lost track of time, and was reminded that she’d not shared the fact she can bypass curfew, first and only amongst the first-years so far.

  She kissed him back and felt some tears begin to form beneath her eyelids. Get it together, Firia, she chided herself. She cared so little about others back in her former school, but now she couldn’t stand the idea of breaking Mae’lin’s heart.

  Grabbing her bag, she quickly hid her reddened face from him. “Rest up and I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said with all the mustered calm she had.

  The trip back across the dark campus was quiet. Few other students still traversed the grounds, for though more senior students often had means to buck the curfew, they were often too wrapped up in their own increasingly tenacious struggle to succeed to waste time.

  Climbing the stairs, she could feel her excitement build as she saw her door at the end of the hall. The answer to whether he awaited her lay just beyond that familiar door. It made her afraid for the answer, and she delayed.

  Leaning against the doorway she swiped her finger beneath her eyes and took in a deep breath. It was torture to wait, but her heart couldn’t handle the disappointment.

  Besides, if he was there, she wanted to seem put together. Unfazed by his abandonment.

  Yet pushing in, there was nothing. Just air. Just her room, as lonely and as messy as she had left it.

  She couldn’t have imagined a greater disappointment, and nearly sank into immediate melancholy, except…

  There was a knock at the door, soft and gentle, barely audible.

  She composed herself, straightened her hair, cleaned up her face, but went to the door and opened it. Opened it onto an empty corridor.

  Her heart could scarcely take anymore let down, but when she felt the familiar touch of that damnable man-demon, she knew he had been waiting.

  “I’ve missed you,” he husked into her ear, his arms moving around her waist as he embraced her from behind, the door slowly closing shut as if of its own accord. She could even smell that all-too-familiar scent of his, so exotic, such a pleasant musk.

  Her emotions were sweeping her away. In her youth she had been so stoic, so collected. She hadn’t cared about anyone but herself and her family.

  Yet these new needs and desires muddied her mind, and her breath grew shallow. This is what she wanted. The pain, the anger, the fear, it all melted away and left only lust in its wake. The demon, the cruel tease, the damnable fiend…

  He was tearing her apart, away from all that was right and good in the world. Her life should be so simple, so blissfully rewarding, and yet he tormented her.

  “Then you shouldn’t have left me,” she shot back. “I never thought you’d come back and face me again.”

  She felt him still, her words biting into him more deeply than she’d ever managed before, and he pulled back ever so slowly. So gently.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, that same curious accent on his voice, that familiarly odd way of speaking. “I saved your father, did all I could for you,” he remarked, looking to the back of her head with an expression of hurt confusion.

  “And then you ran off! If you remembered, you told me you needed Luka to get back in here undetected!” All of the strange emotions kept brewing to such intensity, and the only one of them she truly understood was anger. It felt good to be mad at him, to make him hurt.

  To have control.

  Varuj recoiled ever so slightly from her verbal assault, stunned by her anger. “You were facing a test all by yourself!” he said, his own emotions rising, she could see it in his expression. That handsome, flawless face of his, so strikingly gorgeous. “I sent Luka back to you as soon as I was done, so that he might help you in my stead should the need arise.” His dark, deep voice tempered, his own emotion repressed as he explained himself.

  He reached out for her, turning her about to face him. “I could not risk seeing your dreams and mine go up in ashes when I could find another way to return in time.”

  “And now you have! Showing off, finally, to an adoring crowd. Making sure everyone knows just how powerful you are. How did you even manage getting in, huh?” Her eyes were wide with fury and it was so cathartic.

  His brows furrowed. “I had to impress them to get in! They wouldn’t allow a late student in without a great deal of showi
ng off, bribery and persuasive talk,” he pled with her. Though he did his best to calm himself, reaching out and taking one of her hands, clasping it between his two warm palms. “I worked hard so I could return to you, with your affairs in order and no more worries to distract you from our life and goals.”

  Tears burned her eyes and she tried to fight them back. Her face was red and she had no way to express what she wanted. What she hoped to achieve with her anger.

  It would kill her to lose him again, yet she wished he would disappear at the same time. She could be so, so happy without him. Without his complications.

  Firia was at a loss for words and her body trembled as the anger dimmed.

  Varuj slammed a hand to the door over her shoulder and leaned in. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off him. Feel the warm wash of his breath as he pressed against her. “I longed for you,” he said, his voice nearly a hiss. “I missed you dearly. What I did, I did for you. For us. To take care of your father, see him safely secured, that I might return here and be by your side forever more.”

  She could make out the dim glow of red in his eyes, and as she gazed at him she saw it wasn’t anger. Not exactly. The passion that ran through him was conflicted, like hers, but she saw it clear as day: desire. “We’re bound together. And I love you, Firi,” those last words a low husk that reminded her of her father’s sweet words and Varuj’s fiery passion.

  Biting in her lower lip she stared at him intently. The anger had ebbed and left something far more dangerous in its wake, and she pushed forward. Her mouth met his as her hands went to his hair and she tasted him with all of that pent up longing and rage.

  The fire and intensity with which he returned her kiss nearly bowled her over. It wasn’t like the sessions with Mae’lin, muted passions of two young, inexperienced students. There was anger and longing the likes of which Firia couldn’t even truly understand, and Varuj didn’t have the elven man’s composure.

  Two arms went around her, his tongue thrust deep into her mouth, and he nearly crushed her between himself and the wall as he let loose his own pent up feelings. His body was so hard and burning against her, loins so swollen in what seemed like a mere heartbeat of kissing her.

  She hated herself. Hated what she was doing.

  But she knew there was no going back. She didn’t want to. Not then.

  The long nights, dreaming of this man, of this demon… It tormented her, truly, but the lust it had awoken within her belonged to him. No matter what reproductions she could try to have, it would never be able to compare with the raw passion she felt for him.

  She couldn’t change that, no matter how she wished it to be different.

  Instead she embraced it all, the nip of his teeth upon her upper lip, the digging bite of his nails as he rubbed his fingers through her hair so that her ponytail was undone and her dark hair came flowing down.

  He had none of the shyness or reticence of Mae’lin. His hand moved from her hair, across her neck and in under her robe as he grasped her shoulder with his nearly searing touch. That raw physical contact was so sweet, so burning, she felt him grip her side with his other hand, as they gasped for breath whenever they could in their frenzied make out.

  She’d never felt so alive, and her body ached for him. For more. To feel his touch all over her and fully be able to appreciate it.

  She admitted she was terrified. Horrified, really, of what she was doing, but she wanted it so badly. She thought back to the night they met, to the way he had touched himself. It was his way of expressing interest: That was how he had explained it, and the reminder sent a shiver through her nerves.

  He was a beast. Huge and terrifying. The mask he wore of the good-looking man was a farce, and she was the only one who knew it.

  Firia had summoned him, and she had seen what lay beneath the surface, and still her arousal beat out her terror.

  She moaned as her hands felt him out, exploring his body in a way she’d never dared to before and she was surprised by how powerful and alive it made her feel.

  Her mind was a haze, but she could swear she felt the mental image of him match what she felt, and when her lashes fluttered, eyes flicking open a moment, she swore she saw him big. A hulking monstrosity as he was when she first summoned him. Looming over her as they kissed and touched… her hand slipping inside his robe, which came undone so very easily, letting her roam about the smooth, hard muscled flesh.

  All the while his own powerful grasp did the same to her, letting her robe slip down over her shoulders as he reached in and touched her bare stomach. She heard his deep gasps for breath, the low grunts and groans of excitement and pleasure.

  She should stop. Her brain was addled and fright balled up in her abdomen, but she couldn’t let go of him. She wouldn’t move away from him as he slowly peeled her clothing off of her.

  She’d never been naked in front of anyone since she’d developed, and the baggy robes did little to reveal her form. Embarrassment crept into her, some modesty making her want to cover her small chest, the slim curve of her stomach, the swell of her rear. The robe pooled around her feet and left her so near to nudity.

  Nothing but a sheer top and light pants hid her from his hungry gaze. It was as near to nude as she’d been, but she reminded herself of the weeks he’d spent with her…

  She had no idea how much he’d been able to see. She had tried to fight that curiosity and ignore the worries all together, but now there was no denying it. Her pale flesh prickled under his touch, but her own exploratory hands didn’t still.

  They roamed across his hard, ruddy dark flesh, felt the firm abs, the edge of his own satiny pants. Even grazed the bulge of his manhood, so hot and pronounced, throbbing so thickly.

  He didn’t relent, didn’t stop and ask her if it was okay, as Mae’lin would have done every step of the way. Varuj knew what he wanted, knew what she wanted intuitively, and just ran with it. Letting his own large, strong grasp roam over her without hesitance or pretense. He didn’t skirt or brush against her bust; he cupped her breast, squeezed it firmly, with such passionate desire.

  Varuj kissed and explored her in such a way that she was left with no doubts as to how he thought her the most gorgeously stunning woman in all the world. His every touch, every squeeze, every caress spoke of his unchecked male desire as she found her hand rested upon the string that held his pants tied closed.

  She couldn’t even think any more. She didn’t want to.

  For months, all she had done was think. Was study. Was worry and ruminate and learn. Her intuition and her confidence had been shattered over and over by the Academy’s rigid rules, and this was her escape.

  Him.

  A demon.

  For a while she felt like she might burn up, her body contorted as it begged him for more. He gripped her so firmly, so securely, she didn’t feel afraid or insecure. He was guiding her, and that made her more comfortable, even as she tugged that string. Her heart stopped in her chest as her gaze fell downwards.

  Somehow it looked bigger than she even remembered it. That long, slightly curved shaft, bulging with veins – bulging with lust for her – so ruddy and dark against her pale skin. Perhaps it was just the juxtaposition, of seeing it so close to her, not against his hand, but against her stomach.

  It was a moment like no other, and she had made it happen when she tugged that drawstring. Yet it was all him that hoisted her up so firm and securely in his grasp, carried her with such ease to her bed and laid her out as he bent down to one knee over her, his mouth hungrily devouring her cheek, her ear, her neck. The hot, moist kisses insatiably unending as she felt one of his large hands roam up beneath her shirt and touch her teat bare and unhindered, squeezing her supple young flesh so that her nipple protruded out between his thumb and index finger.

  It hurt, but somehow, it was a good hurt. Her body arched, and she wasn’t sure if it was into the pain or away from it, but in the end it didn’t matter.

  The feel of
his hand on her bare flesh, testing out her pert breasts…

  She never figured it could feel like this. Never thought that it might be something so amazing. Her mind hazed over and her eyes fluttered open, looking over his body with such urgency.

  He’d not appeared before her in such a manner since the day she’d summoned him from his realm. She’d thought it reassuring to see him in that more human-like form, yet to have him hovered over her, his body so big and bulky, the muscles hard and well-defined…

  Though he was demon, his physique was all man. Pure masculinity, from the bulging pecs and biceps, across the ribbed six-pack of his abs, the thick, throbbing cock, with the dangling, heavy sac beneath, all nestled over thighs that could’ve crushed her.

  Yet his face… those large horns, the fangs, the fiery eyes. She heard her bed creak beneath them from his great heft, but nothing stopped him from touching her, kissing and groping her. His dick bobbed with his excitement, smearing sticky pre-cum over her lower stomach, followed by his free hand raking its sharp claws over her flesh towards her waistband to tug them down.

  She was so scared. He was massive. Huge! She wanted him to go back, to be a simple elven man again. To be that man that comforted her in her bed and knew her deepest secrets.

  Her body arched as he tugged down the only thing that protected her untouched sex. It sent a shock of fear and anxiety through her, but lust addled her mind.

  His size was so intimidating, but she couldn’t stop touching him, whimpering as his hands were all over her body. Feeling out soft skin, exploring her nubile form, and she couldn’t stop herself from making soft, kittenish sounds of need.

  She felt his fingers return to her body after discarding of her panties. Those sharp claws of his tracing upon her stomach as he lifted his mouth from her neck to gaze longingly over her towards that waiting quim.

  There was no denying that whatever desire she felt was at least equalled in him. Not with the way his fiery red gaze locked onto her slit, soaked in the sight of her laying beneath him, nude but for her flimsy white shirt pulled up over her breasts to reveal them to his fondling touch and fiery gaze.