Page 17 of Academy of the Wicked, Year One

The hardness between my legs is getting more difficult to ignore.

The way every suck sent desire rushing through me while prickling euphoria coursed through me in waves.

Pleasure like that could have sent me over the edge if I hadn’t used my shadows to numb my senses long enough for her to finish, I would have shot my load in a heartbeat.

When even was the last time I experienced such a sexual reaction?

Focus.

I try to analyze this clinically…academically. She drank Duskwalker blood. Not just any Duskwalker blood – royal blood. The same cursed ichor that has flowed through five generations of my line, each more powerful and more damned than the last.

My ancestors were warriors and kings, death-walkers who commanded armies of shadows and spoke with the dead. Each generation passed down not just their power, but the weight of their sins, victories, and crushing solitude.

The blood in my veins carries centuries of dark magic, potent enough to kill lesser beings with a single drop.

Yet she drank deeply, desperately, and lived.

More than lives – thrives.

I’m tempted to check and see if she’s actually breathing or if this is some sort of joke being played upon us. I can see the way power ripples beneath her skin while the academy's ancient magic wraps around her like a lover's embrace.

She should be dead.

Instead, she seems...enhanced.

Across the room, Damien's rigid posture speaks volumes.

His arms are crossed tightly over his chest, jaw clenched in barely contained fury. I know him well enough to read the truth of his anger.

He’s seething.

It's not simply because she managed to resist him –though that alone would wound his pride.It's not even that she matched him in pure physical power, something few can claim.

No, what truly galls him is the possibility that in a true fight, with her magic unleashed…

She would have won.

The vampire prince has never tasted defeat.

Not in combat, not in feeding, not in any contest of power or will. He is used to being the apex predator, the unstoppable force. A being who is feared in his lands for his mere existence.

To face someone who could not only match him but potentially best him...

A small, dark part of me takes satisfaction in his discomfort. Damien's arrogance has gone unchecked for too long.

Perhaps this will teach him that even princes can be humbled.

But my attention keeps returning to the figure in my spirit's arms. The glamour that fooled the others flickers now in her unconscious state, like a candle guttering in the wind.

One moment I see the male facade she crafted so carefully, the next...

I catch glimpses of her true form in the fluctuations – hair white as moonlight, features delicate yet striking, a face that would launch wars in earlier ages.

But it's not her beauty that captures my attention.

It's the way shadows seem drawn to her, like moths to flame. Even now, unconscious and vulnerable, she pulls at the darkness around her with an awareness that shouldn't be possible for anyone not of Duskwalker blood.

My spirit shifts its hold again, and I feel its foreign contentment ripple through our connection. In all our years together, I've never felt it experience...happiness.Satisfaction, yes. The dark pleasure of a successful hunt, certainly.

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