Wait, this wasn’t actually the Rebel Academy version of pinata with the best prizes if you hit our cock and balls?
I winced, wishing that I could cross my legs.
Floating silver candles lit Juni Crow’s classroom, which was next to Bacchus’ in the East Wing, in a glimmering glow because there were no windows. I’d guess that it was Juni’s way of making it easier to use the vampire because although they could go into direct sunlight, it gave them a crippling migraine. Who was feeding Midnight? Dad had told me that the Fallen liked to bond with the willing, taking Blood Lovers. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine either of the Princes becoming bonded to a whipping boy.
The walls, ceiling, and floor of the classroom were obsidian, but the pentacle shaped table that Midnight and I swung in the center of was royal blue lapis lazuli. The other Rebels hunched over it — Princes on one side and Immortals on the other — one with an icy alertness, and the other with the slacker attitude of The Breakfast Club.
Lucky for Sleipnir, who’d lifted Magenta onto the table and hiked her skirts up so that she could wrap her legs around his waist, whilst he busied himself studying up on her neck. Mist galloped around the table excitedly like it was his personal racecourse. Juni hadn’t arrived yet. Otherwise, both Sleipnir and Mist would’ve been strung up next to me.
Bask lay on the table gently snoring. But then, he’d barely slept last night.
Nightmares, I reckoned.
Why was there a cage in the corner? Just for a moment, I grinned with excitement, hoping that I’d see the Omega werewolf again. But the cage was empty. Did the wolf belong to Juni?
Midnight rubbed his nose against mine and smiled like this was a relaxed day at the office for him. “Thank you for the freedom you granted me in the café. It was a fine thing that you did to reward me like that.”
“Don’t mention it…I mean, really don’t. The last thing I want to think about is Lysander in that outfit right now.” I didn’t have to admit that it was because I’d added it to my Wank Bank, right? I tried to pull off casual, but I’d obviously had less experience of Bondage Small Talk because it came out as a squeak.
Midnight’s lips curved onto mine; his fang caught on my lip, and I tasted tangy blood. “Do you want to know how long it’s been since anyone’s shown me such kindness? Us whipping boys must look out for each other, see?”
Truth: Finally, I’m not alone. Maybe somebody will save me now?
Breathe, come on, breathe…
I yanked back from Midnight sharply. I counted back from hundred in my head, desperate to calm my thoughts.
How many years had I thought exactly the same as him? But I couldn’t let him know. I’d never allowed anyone to discover my desperate hope because no one had ever come to save me.
“If I’ve offended…?” Midnight said, tentatively.
I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to close my eyes and spin myself away from him. I felt him stiffen next to me.
Don’t look at him…don’t look…
My power of Confess washed Midnight’s despairing pain through me in haunting waves of piano that crested in Twenty One Pilot’s “Goner”. He was calling out to me through my magic without even knowing it. I shivered at his pain and need. Yet also, his strength that was drummed in every screamed syllable. He was holding on, desperately waiting for that single connection that could save his life.
How could I turn my back on that? Pan’s balls, I didn’t care that Midnight was meant to be my rival, I wouldn’t.
I twisted back to Midnight, catching his surprised gaze with mine. Then I kissed him, so that I could whisper against his lips, “I promised the Omega that I’d free him. I helped break Magenta through the veils, but I know that she’s still trapped. On Merlin’s breath, I’ve no idea how I’ll manage it, but I will free us for real from this academy. Hold on for me, okay? Swear it on your fangs or your gorgeous wings.”
Midnight shook. He raised his wings to wrap them around me, hiding us from sight. The feathers were soft, and my feline side urged me to snuggle into them, claiming them as mine.
“Mind you don’t make promises that you can’t keep.” Midnight licked across my lips just once. He was as cool as moonlight. “On blood and bones, keep yourself safe. You’re only a whipping boy like me.”
“Hey, foxy, the vampire’s only touching you in all the good places, right?” Sleipnir called.
“Swear to me,” I urged Midnight, “or I’ll start screaming that your fangs are getting bitey with my delicious throat. My blood’s food to the gods. It resurrected a ghost witch.”
I swallowed nervously. Was it a good idea to use your blood as both a boast and threat to a vampire?
I mentally slapped myself. Oww, that smarted.
Midnight’s eyes widened in alarm, but I didn’t know if it was at my threat or fear of being unable to control himself around my throat. I would taste epic. “You have my oath.”
“Desist kissing my vampire,” Lysander snarled. “If there’s anyone assaulting another around here, it’s your common wretch of a whipping boy. One warned you what would happen if you didn’t discipline him.”
“Listen to that,” Magenta said, coolly. “Why, Midnight is quite screaming the classroom down with his pleas to be saved from our ruffian of a mage.”
When Midnight laughed, I startled. Well, wasn’t that a nice sound? Just like the sound of Magenta’s quiet sarcasm in my defense.
“Shall we go out and brave the world again?” I asked. “You have your knight, Sir Fierce, now to protect you. My prickles are at your service.”
Midnight rested his forehead against mine. “My fangs are at yours. And I’m your knight, see, you’re my king, and Magenta will be my queen.”
My skin tingled, and my heartbeat raced. What had I done? In vampire culture, had I more or less made Midnight my slave, warrior, or asked for his hand in marriage?
I had a sense that it was a combination of all three.
100, 99, 98, 97…
I closed my eyes and I continued to count, as Midnight dropped his wings away from me.
Magenta scooted around on the table to check me over with an assessing eye and a comforting smile. I pinked at the thought of how I must look strung up. Sleipnir’s hair was aquamarine today and styled punky (he’d taken long enough messing around with it), whilst mine hung in messy curls…upside down. I should’ve transformed into a fox and just gone with the whole waiting to be skinned look.
Yet even though Magenta was in Sleipnir’s arms, it was me that she was gazing at like she craved to devour me.
“Finally,” Lysander huffed. “Now we’re ready for our lesson. My uncle mustn’t have bad report of my whipping boy management.”
My skin prickled. If I hadn’t been tied up, Lysander would be seriously close to Mr Fierce’s first attack on behalf of Midnight.
Fear the hedgehogy wrath…
“Wow, that’d be devastating like everyone discovering that you love wearing French maid’s outfits. Wait, that already happened. So, what’ll he do? Take away your shiny Prefect’s badge?” I smirked.
Yeah, I managed a smirk even upside down. It was a skill.
I didn’t expect the way that Willoughby gently rested his hand on Lysander’s shoulder.
Why did I feel like the asshole?
Lysander shrugged off Willoughby’s hand. “Something like that.”
When the door slammed open and Juni stormed inside, Bask startled awake and tumbled off the table. Mist snorted, racing to Sleipnir and jumping like he was at the Grand National into the pocket of his blazer. Juni adjusted her feathered cap, before tapping her shoe
“Are you waiting down there to lick it?” Juni arched her brow.
Horrified, Bask scrambled to his feet. “I didn’t come on it this time, so not a chance.”
Magenta slid off the table, crossing her arms. “Ah, the patented start to all magic lessons: The Coming on a Shoe enchantment.”
Juni studied her back, unblinkingly.
“I learn something new every day as well, Crow, but I never know with the Immortals if they’ll have their pants up or down.”
Was it possible for someone’s eyes to bulge out of their head because Lysander looked close to losing his eyeballs...?
Juni ignored Midnight and me like we were no different than the hovering candles, whose flames wavered as she passed. I’d never been used as classroom equipment before. How would it compare to being used as building, office, or agricultural equipment? And possibly I was going crazy because it wasn’t like different grades of equipment were now my career choices.
“What’s with the Spanish Inquisition?” Sleipnir asked, gesturing at us whipping boys.
Juni didn’t even look round at Midnight and me. “It’s tradition to use whipping boys to test out potions and in Divination.”
“It’s the hanging upside down thing that I draw the line at.” I flapped my arms. “Just because I might’ve had a brilliant dream once about myself, a wand, and a vampire, doesn’t mean that I was… Okay, I might’ve been tied up…just a little…but it wasn’t in the middle of a classroom with a witch professor watching, along with other students. I did once have a nightmare though where—”
“Are you finished?” Juni inquired.
“Ehhm, nope, that’s why you interrupted me.” Mouth, a life time’s supply of strawberry dipped chocolates, if you just stop talking… “I was telling you about this nightmare, where suddenly all my clothes disappeared—”
“Do you wish all your clothes to disappear now?”
My mouth snapped shut. Then I shook my head.
Juni sighed. “Whipping boys are secured. It saves time holding them down later.”
Woah, later…?
“Hey, aren’t we all reassured now?” Sleipnir growled.
When Willoughby grasped Lysander’s arm, whispering to him, Juni’s eyes narrowed. She spun, marching to the Princes’ side of the pentacle table with a sharp clicking of her heels. Her eyes danced with such malicious glee that for the first time, I pitied the Princes. We Immortals had Bacchus as tutor, who scared the spikes back into me, but maybe the Princes weren’t babied with treats and tucked into silken sheets, like I’d imagined?
Wait, maybe they were but in a whole more disturbing way.
“Why would you interrupt my lesson, Princes?” Juni demanded. “Have the Immortals been teaching you their delinquent ways?” Then she cocked her head. “Have they corrupted you into making a Dick Bet?”
Damn my prickles and call me a hamster, why had I ever lied about that when Juni had caught us?
Oh yeah, because there hadn’t been another way to explain why the three of us had been standing around with our dicks out. Maybe I should’ve told Juni that we’d been trying out bukkake, only none of us had wanted to kneel and have cum splash over us because we’d all wanted in on the action?
That was the level of competitiveness that she’d respect.
“A…Dick Bet?” Willoughby flashed Bask a glance like it must’ve been his idea.
Bask merely fluttered his eyelashes back at him.
Flirt.
“You don’t need to be coy. I witnessed the Immortals’ explosive contest.” Sleipnir smothered his chuckle in Magenta’s hair. Wow, Lysander was the same shade of red as me now. Embarrassed twinsies. “Guess who won?”
“The god in his own head. The mage in my head.” Willoughby pointed at us each in turn. “And the incubus in truth.”
Bask whooped, spinning around and wiggling his ass in a victory dance. I grinned. After watching him alone on his mattress that was separated from ours during the night, which had reminded me uncomfortably of mine in the attic, it was brilliant to see his joy.
Even if it was over his (so not true) dick being declared larger than mine.
Juni tipped Willoughby’s chin up with her finger, and he fought not to flinch. “Excellent: you’ve earned a Privilege Point for the Princes. Now, you’ve wasted enough of my lesson. Pull down your pants, and let me judge who wins between Crown and you.”
Lysander backed against the wall, clutching his pants like they’d suddenly be ripped down. “Never have I heard such an affront to my royal personage. I shall do no such thing. There’s….” He gestured at Magenta. “Witches and the like in the room.”
“Am I not a witch?” Juni asked, carefully.
Was it just me or had the room become much darker all of a sudden?
“You’re a professor. But she’s…” Lysander stared at Magenta as if for help.
“Wicked? Beautiful? Awfully good at chess?” Magenta offered.
Magenta didn’t seem as helpful to fae princes as she was to everybody else. But in the unwritten code between guys against witches, I mentally slapped myself again, before diving in to save the snooty bastard. I coughed loudly to distract Juni.
“I can’t feel my toes. It could be lack of circulation because the ropes are too tight or gangrene or frostbite or… Could I lose my foot? My beautiful, beautiful foot…” I wailed.
Midnight stared at me in amazement.
“Traditionally, whipping boys were gagged as well as bound.” Juni clicked her fingers, and the ropes loosened around my ankles. Wow, that was actually better, even though it’d only been a fictional problem. I wiggled my toes. Juni circled Lysander, running her hand over his shoulders. Then she leaned closer like she intended to tuck a stray strand of his hair behind his ear, but instead, she plucked it out, and he winced. “Hand out.” She laid the emerald hair like a thin snake on his palm. “Divination needs an offering. All magic is about give and take. Like all life, magic consumes. We devour energy from each other. What are you prepared to sacrifice for magic?” She glanced at Midnight. “What will your whipping boys drink without fuss?”
“We must have become invisible.” I frowned. Being treated like equipment was definitely not one of my kinks. “Hello, can anyone hear us? It’s the ghosts of whipping boys past. We’re here to haunt the prejudiced. I’d like a beer and my friend here would like…?”
“A chocolate ice cream milkshake with cherries but no extra cream,” Midnight flashed his fangs as he gave a small smile, “because I’m sweet enough.”
I snickered, and Midnight’s eyes lit with delighted surprise like he hadn’t joked with anyone for a long time. Before the Immortals, I’d had almost no one to share secret jokes with me, so I got the shy blush that now crept across his cheeks.
Juni’s mouth tightened. “What drink?” She repeated like Midnight and I hadn’t even spoken.
Lysander’s gaze darted to mine and then away. “The rules state that they’re only allowed water or juice, but it hardly would hurt to allow them this once…”
“Water it is.” Juni twirled, marching back to the center of the pentacle.
Lysander sighed. Why was he disappointed? I was the one who wouldn’t be getting my beer.
“Tea is merely infused water.” Magenta waltzed around the table, meeting the startled Juni in front of where I hung. The scent of yew trees wound around me, as comforting as the stroke of her hand, circling my hip. “I know that it’s decidedly the best thing for Divination if you’re intending to add that hair.”
“Do you now?” Juni’s expression had gentled, however, as she studied Magenta. When they stood close together, it was impossible to miss the family resemblance between them. “How many times have you woven its magic?”
Magenta looked down. “I believe that you and I were raised differently. When you’re the Blessedly Charmed who’s so unique that the creation of all nature around you relies on your power even as a babe, then you’re shut away and allowed only to read about magic, rather than trained and taught to freely use it. Rather a mistake, when you see how it turned out, wouldn’t you say?”
Juni blinked. “I can’t imagine a witch being treated like…a mage.” I flinched at the contempt in her tone. “You’re family. I don’t have anyone here. We could be like sisters.”
Magenta’s smile was sharp, “My dea
r, I’m your elder by many generations.”
Juni gaped for a moment, before regaining her composure. “But who’s the student and who the professor?”
Magenta inclined her head. “Well played.”
“Don’t think that I can change the rules for you. Mother has control in this academy, and I don’t even get to choose who I love.”
Magenta’s eyes widened, and to my shock, she clasped Juni into a hug.
Behind her, Sleipnir made gagging sounds.
At last, Magenta held Juni at arm’s length. “Under no circumstances pray to Hecate to save you,” she insisted, “because that bitch will screw you over.”
You tell her, girl.
I’d already been strangled, branded, and had my singing trolled by Hecate. I knew there was a reason that mages prayed to the god, Pan, instead.
Juni shook herself free of Magenta, straightening her dress. “I shall remember that. Now, did you order tea?”
A Wedgewood porcelain tea pot with cups and saucers in blue and white appeared on the Immortal’s side of the table. Magenta gasped, clapping her hands. So, that was what her face looked like when she orgasmed. I’d better remember that for the many, many multiple times that I intended to make her look just the same.
Magenta rushed to the set, tracing her fingers along the white birds that flew around the pot. “This was my dad’s,” she breathed. “He’d have afternoon tea with me in the Bird Turret.”
Midnight’s wing wrapped around me again, and I gave into my feline need to snuggle into its warmth because I couldn’t help shivering with the memory of all the times that my dad had sneaked my favorite lemonade to drink with me in the attic.
How could dad be gone?
Don’t think about Hartley and mum’s cold faces and the way that their gazes wouldn’t even meet mine in the sea of black suits on Saturday.
Pan above, he was truly gone, gone, gone…
Juni paced to face Magenta across the table; she rubbed the edge of a saucer. “The service has been in the family for years. Like you, I guess.”
When Magenta continued to trace the birds; her voice was dreamy and caught in the past. “I’d always follow the robins’ flight — round and round — but they never escaped the pot. They were trapped to service, just the same as every witch.” When she clasped her hands over the tea pot, Bask hissed in shock, leaping forward to pull her away, but Sleipnir held him back. Electrocuted and burned would’ve been a double whammy. My heart pounded. “You warmed the pot. I’m impressed.”
Rebel Academy: Crave: A Paranormal Academy Romance Series (Wickedly Charmed Book 1) Page 24