by Jade Bones
Well, not this time, sunshine.
“Hey, dickwad,” I yell, getting his attention. “I’m not dancing for you.” I lift my hand, eyes locked to his, and press it to my cheek.
The world goes gray, and the swirling maelstrom of magic is far more violent in the spirit plane. My body crumples, and my spirit goes flying above the balcony, buffeted by winds far stronger than weather. There’s no guarantee Aeden will hear my message, or that he’ll come for me at all. It’s a risk I have to take.
The king’s face twists in anger, but he moves too slow through the fog of magic. He can’t reach me yet.
It's harder to find Aeden without our bond connecting us, but his thudding heart calls to me, chained and almost broken. I need to destroy those chains.
I need power.
Gathering my strength, knowing it will probably give me the mother of all backlashes if Aeden rejects me, I reach for his aura and pull.
Through the haze, I sense want and lonely and an insurmountable craving for touch. My touch. His body dreams bright and hopeful.
Power swells over me as I feed on his dreams, the ones laid out at my feet like an offering. The power is hot and wild and unstoppable. I twist it like an arrow and aim it at Aeden’s chains, seconds before the shattering of metal fills the air.
The flame of our bond reigniting is preceded by a wolf’s howl.
A piece of the wall disintegrates, and Aeden bursts in, the fire of his heart turning the dull gray of this plane sunset orange. He sees me and grins, eyes flashing dark with desire, relief, and something deeper.
It's pretty hard not to swoon at that, especially as the shock apparently zaps me straight back into my body.
He rounds on the king, and then, between one blink and the next, becomes a wolf, both in spirit and in flesh. This is no ordinary wolf. His flaming heart burns brighter than ever before, glimpses peeking from between the fur as he tackles the king to the ground, and it hits me that this demon was always meant to be mine. Why else would the king call him my guardian? Why else would he have such strange power that perfectly matches my own, guarding my body when I can't?
But there’s time to think about that later, after I’ve found the key.
The sensual key deals with dreams of the body. So the question is: what body dreams of a key?
I turn to the gate.
Unlike the gate to Dremen Academy, this one doesn’t shift in and out of view, dreaming of quarries of iron ore and blacksmith forges. This gate was created from magic, sealing demons within and succubi… somewhere else.
The key shimmers in the center, and all I have to do is reach forward and pluck it free. It falls into my palm, golden and smaller than my dorm key.
“When we unlock the gate, the tower will crumble,” I explain, reaching for the keyhole. “And unlike all the other times we’ve apparently witnessed it fall, this time, we won’t strengthen any wards after it does.”
Aeden transforms back, pinning the king down with renewed strength before he turns to me, eyes stricken. “The demons,” he whispers.
Oh, fuck. I pull my hand back, but Aeden shakes his head, his expression turning to steel.
“It’s already happened,” he growls. “I’ll avenge them.”
He’s right—and it hasn’t only happened once, but again and again for Devil knows how many iterations.
It will happen again and again if we don’t stop it now.
Still, the pain of that knowledge cuts me like a knife. The voice in my head whispers round the circle grows, and I can’t help shuddering, even though I’ve no idea what it means.
The only way to find out is to see this through.
Swallowing, I turn the key and press my palm against the wall for good measure, begging every obnoxious part of the stone and mortar that remembers what it used to be to come forth, to return to rubble and wildness.
I hear it as a creaking first, an aching whine that begins in the steps beneath me and ends in a shattering earthquake all around. But I didn't begin this destruction; this destruction began with the magical vortex back in the ballroom.
The demon king might have drawn on the magic from our collective bonds, funneling it into me and turning me into the world's most superpowered sacrifice, but history didn't start this way. Someone else drew on the bonds in the ballroom once, dragging on the power that blooms between witches and demons and using it to demolish one of their prison walls.
As the tower falls around me, I make sure not to forget. What the demon king controls now, the succubi once did too.
"The power is fading," Aeden murmurs in my ear as soon as I return to consciousness, safely down on the lawn outside the academy. "We need to run."
"It didn't zap us home?" I whisper, groaning as even that small sound makes my head ache.
Aeden chuckles. "No, but it zapped Professor Shithead into an early grave. The king's gone back to wherever he goes when he isn't hunting down keys."
"We need one of those keys to get home." I force my eyes open, finding Bethany's worried face staring back at me while Aeden lifts me to a sitting position. When did she get here?
"You need a key?" Bethany asks. "Which one are you? You've got to be ethereal or sensual, if you can spirit walk."
Aeden and I both gape at her.
Aeden finds his voice first. "What are you talking about?"
Bethany blinks at us. "You destroyed the North tower. That's where they lock the demons up because it's already warded to imprison the succubi, so you're talking about one of the succubus keys, aren't you?" She trails off. "You said you weren't from around here, but I thought you were just being mysterious. How do you not know about the succubi when you're one of their keys?"
"Oh my God." I clutch my head. "I'm getting real sick of being the last to understand anything."
Bethany frowns. "Well, I only know because I'm one as well."
"What?"
Bethany glances at the door. "Okay, there's seriously no time, but I'm pretty sure you're the sensual key since ethereal should be dream walking. And everything I’ve learned about this is from my dreams... so that's probably me." She grimaces. “If you’re sensual, then your key takes a dozen different forms depending on who wants it and for what. You’ll need the right key for the right lock.” Her grimace turns sympathetic. “So we’ll need another key to help you return.”
The key to return. The one they gave me that disappeared as soon as we arrived here.
“Obviously the idea is that you won’t return,” Bethany continues. “But the magic has a backdoor so you can escape if the sacrifice is going wrong and you need to start again." She shrugs at my wince. "Or escape in general, in this case." Her gaze turns thoughtful. "The succubi are warping the locking ritual into trials, but I don’t know why they don’t just make us blast them out.”
"No time," I remind her, hunting through my shirt for a sign of the key, even though I won't find it.
Wait. I don't have the key, but I might have the painting I found it in.
"Beth—we need to get to the West Wing."
FOURTEEN
Aeden
The painting is, disturbingly, exactly as it was in our time. Except for one thing: on the painted classroom table lies an object that wasn't there in the future.
"My amulet," Mal breathes. "I left it on the table there."
"So it's a portal," I suggest, peering closely at the painting. "Do we trust it?"
"Do we have a choice?"
Bethany gives us a fond look as Mal reaches out, brushing her fingers across the canvas. "I won't remember you, of course," she says, watching as a shimmering key appears around Mal's neck. "But come and find me in the future, won't you? At the very least, I'd like a warning that we're apparently breaking the system now." Her eyes glint. "I've wanted to do that before. I know I have."
My head swims with thoughts of the past and future all merging around together, and it's almost a relief when the key starts to glow. The faces of the people in the
painting twist, spirit forms emerging to watch us, and I realize they’re demons.
Am I looking at a succubus and her two incubus guards?
"We'll find you," Mal promises, and everything disappears.
When my room reappears around us, the air still lingers with the scent of smoke. Studying the light streaming in the window—well above noon—I'd say we've only been gone a few hours.
The door bursts open to reveal the most unusual group I've seen in a long time. Alaztair, Violet, Stacey, and Daerek stare at us, their faces overtaken with relief. As Violet ushers everyone in and shuts the door, Daerek gives us a slow clap that doesn't mask the genuine happiness on his face.
"You made it out," he says, eyes flashing. "What was the trial?"
"Dancing," Mal butts in, raising one eyebrow. "Can you believe?"
Stacey's jaw drops. "Dancing? Are you serious right now? Tell me you're fucking with me."
"Actually, it makes sense," Violet says, grinning at the look on Stacey's face and gently tapping her jaw until it closes. "The trials are designed to poke at our magic until it's at its strongest, so if Mal is the sensual key, I can't think of anything better."
Mal closes her eyes and rubs her temple. The room is getting more crowded by the second, but she manages to back up and drop onto Alaztair's bed. I notice the way his lip curls in distaste—and, interestingly, how Violet's expression goes carefully blank.
"So, are we keys? Or are we collecting keys?" Mal asks, still with her eyes closed.
"Both," Violet answers, kneeling down onto the floor. One by one, the others follow until I'm the only one left standing.
The wolf in me wants to patrol, but I can't. So I remain still.
"Our power, through sacrifice, seals each of the locks—so far we know of the physical key, the sensual key, and the..." She coughs. "Sexual key." She shrugs defensively. "They're succubi—what do you expect? But while the locks themselves are magical, there are also physical keys that we use to harness that magic, and to let us in and out of the ritual. Those are what the succubi keep dangling in front of us, testing us."
It's all very dreamlike, but as Violet says—they're succubi. Perhaps I need to stop trying to think things through with straightforward logic. Besides, it's not like I can trust my rules anymore.
"Testing us for what?" I ask, remembering the arrogant warmth of the voice in my head.
"Allies?" Violet suggests. "Maybe just to prove whether we'll turn on them again. We did lock them up, after all."
"In a past life," Mal points out.
"Yeah, I could be a totally different person by now," Stacey adds. "What right do they have?"
"Have you heard her voice?" I can't help but ask, my own turning fierce at the memory. "If you can say that to her face, you're braver than any of us." I grin, wolfish. "Or stupider."
Stacey shudders and falls silent.
I notice the way Daerek instinctively reaches for her but falls back at the last second. This time, the grin on my face is wide, uncontrollable. "When are we going to acknowledge the elephant in the room?" I ask casually.
No one looks me in the eye.
Stacey clears her throat, and I raise an eyebrow. Perhaps she is brave after all.
"Our bonds are stronger than others," she says, meeting my eyes. "There's nothing wrong with that. Given the power they need from us, I'm not surprised. That's why Mal's power has been so strong—when the key found her, it hooked into your bond and encouraged it to grow."
Any last shred of guilt slides away, and suddenly all I want is to be alone with my witch. When I look up and meet Stacey's eyes again, they're glinting with amusement, like she can read my mind.
"We should leave them to it," she announces wickedly. "It's been a long day. They can join us for research later."
Alaztair chuckles and stands up. "Don't howl too loud, wolfy."
My eyebrows shoot up, but no one looks surprised. Daerek even claps me on the shoulder. "The sensual key needs a guard when she leaves her body. Can't believe you kept it from us so long."
I shrug him off, but another weight is lifting. By the time the door falls closed, I feel like a new person.
Leaning one arm against the closed door, I take a deep breath, bracing myself for the possibility that Mal won't want me now we're back here. When I turn, such thoughts flood from my mind.
Mal reclines back on my bed, a purring Sassafras kneading the pillow beside her, and watches me. It almost looks as though her eyes are shadowed, but that's just because they're dark with desire.
"I've had a long day," she says pointedly, lips quirking into a smile.
"You deserve to relax." I try to keep the purr out of my voice and fail utterly. Her smile grows wider as I cross the room.
She tilts her head back to look at me. "And how do you suggest I relax?"
I lean forward and hook my hands under her knees, tugging her in one quick movement so that I'm standing between her legs. Her breath hitches. "I can demonstrate, if you like." My eyes dart to Sassafras. "But the cat has to go."
Sighing, she gives Sassafras a nudge. Immediately indignant, he pauses mid-wash and stalks out of the open window, onto the series of interconnected ledges that act as a cat-run. The energy between us surges as Mal's fondness grows, and I feed it back into her as power, bit by bit. With a wave of her hand, her magic blooms and tugs the window closed.
Almost not daring to believe it, I'm certain of one thing... I don't only have Sassafras to thank for this surge.
Mal smiles at me, and it's just a little too soft and sweet for what I'm planning. I grin slowly, waiting until a hint of hesitation appears in her expression.
Then, I kneel.
My witch doesn't even mean to open for me, I'm sure of it, but her legs fall wide as I slide my hands beneath her knees and hook them over my shoulders. Her breath quietens—the control both forced and desperate—but I can hear how ragged it falls.
My thoughts abruptly return to the forest when she ran from me, breathless and afraid, until I caught her against the earth. She isn't running now. I tear at her clothing—still the tight leather and billowing fabric from the past—until she's naked and laid out before me.
Look but don't touch.
What a fucking stupid rule.
I make her wait long enough that a soft whine drops from her lips, and then I swipe my tongue across her clit.
Her hands find my hair, twisting in the strands while her legs tense with the effort of keeping still, of not grinding up into me. I slide two fingers inside her, teasing her, and vow to make sure she stops that as soon as I can.
I don't want her holding anything back.
"God, Aeden," she murmurs, bucking against me as I twist my fingers in a slow tease.
"Louder," I tell her. "Let me hear you scream."
She bites off another moan, going quieter instead, and I make a second vow—this is another delightful habit I'll drag out of her before we're done.
I sink into the rhythm of it, my entire body attuned to every shift of her senses. When her bare fingers brush against each other, her spirit tries to jump free, and I anchor it here instead. Fire rages from my chest, licking the side of the bed, warm without burning as it focuses on its task—on what it was always meant to do, I suppose. Mal's spirit hooks into it, our bodies writhing as one when I slide my free hand down to palm myself.
What must it be like to narrow your focus to a single anchor? To be encompassed, body and soul, by what you choose?
The rising pleasure in Mal's voice answers that for me.
And it anchors me in turn. I surrender to every sound she makes, rewarding her honesty with teasing touches that set her whimpering and shuddering beneath me. She clutches me, back arching off the bed, and then comes beneath my tongue.
With only a few strokes of my hand, I follow.
I rest my head against her thigh as our breathing returns to normal, slowly becoming aware of the touch of her fingers in my hair. Part of me wants to
stay like this forever. Part of me is already stirring again at the thought of round two.
I don't doubt we're both ready to go again immediately, but it's been too long since we had a proper meal. We emerge from the dorm ravenous for food, and I'm almost ready to suggest a race down to the dining hall, except for the person hovering in the corridors beyond the dorms.
Professor Eaken's eyes light with a vicious gleam, and he pounces. "Miss Potts," he says, shaping the syllables with undeniable triumph. He holds up a brass instrument, the magical aura singing like an arrow straight for Mal's heart. "How very interesting that I should find you here just when my sources tell me of an unexplained magical signature."
The pretend concern on his face makes me snarl, but he doesn't even look at me. It's only Mal's gentle touch on my arm that stops me from transforming.
She steps forward, and before I can realize what she's doing, pats Professor Eaken on the shoulder.
Her glove is still torn.
The professor's face twists into rage and confusion, and then—suddenly—nothing. His spirit form lunges free and hovers, grotesque, above him, revealing his true nature: twisted and ugly.
My eyes fall to Mal in time to see the very convincing expression of horror on her face. I think I'm the only one who would notice the amusement beneath it. Then, she screams, and pulls me from the corridor while Professor Eaken chases us and yells impotent threats.
"I thought you had to hide your magic,” I mutter to her as we race each other to the dining hall.
Mal glances back at me over her shoulder, eyes twinkling. "I've realized there's another option." She turns forward and picks up speed. "I can fight."
I grin, wolfish and mean, and give in to the chase.
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