Page 120 of Mantle

I glanced over at him and saw him fiddling with his Soulweld Ring.

Ariana noticed right away then shifted to wrap her arm around him.

The professor caught sight of the intimate move during class, but Kai flashed one of his dangerously fucked-up death stares and she backed down.

Yeah, things were tense as hell.

I flipped back my hair and settled in for the lesson, preparing to get typing on my tablet in front of me as I tuned back into what the professor was saying.

“As we’ve discussed in this course ever since the beginning of the year,Arcane Symbologyisn’t merely about memorizing sigils, symbols, or the like. It’s understanding the complex language at their root. Every symbol, every line and shape you draw, carries intent.”

Professor Nera Vaelthorne paced at the front of the room with her razor-sharp grace in an all-black outfit that glinted as she moved around the space—a tailored blazer, fitted dress pants and a bustier beneath. Her black pixie cut was as sharp and precise as her voice.

“Intent, wielded without comprehension, is chaos waiting to happen,” she said, with the kind of quiet authority that always landed like thunder. “Which is why Arcane Symbology is not merely theory. It is responsibility. A responsibility unlike any other in truth.”

I snuck a look at Kai out of the corner of my eye.

What I saw from him had me grimacing.

Not again.

Normally, Kai would be typing furiously and taking detailed notes. Even concerning things he was already familiar with. He was all about perfecting and pushing things to the next level of understanding.

But right now he had his head held in his hand and he was staring into space while somehow managing to snap out of it just as the professor looked his way so she mistakenly believed he was actually paying attention.

Motherfucker,he was good.

Ever since he’d told us about the necromancer, Sylas Morgrave, discovering a way to snap the leash the Maven Coven had used to keep Kai under their thumb, our boy had been… off. Withdrawn.

But in spite of that, he hadn’t actually pulled away emotionally from any of us.

Him and Ariana had come to Nyx and me and told us about the death warning and the magical branding that Kai had been suffering from his awful parents. Then they’d even both vowed to keep things open and not to treat their issues as a burden on our foursome, but something that we’d all carry together happily and supportively. Because that was what we fucking did, what we’d all now learned to do. When the world came for us, we stood as one—good fucking luck to it when going up against that.

I let his current state be and didn’t push it.

Because I knew now that he’d come to us if he needed to. He wouldn’t hold back this time.

And he did need time to process what was coming. I just wasn’t sure that even he knew which was heaviest to him—the fact that he’d have to die for Morgrave’s spell to work,orthat he’d actually be free of an unwanted obligation he’d been saddled with since birth.

I jolted as he suddenly spoke. “I know I’m irresistible, but tone down that sexy draconic primality while we’re in class, V. I’ll let you slam me up against the wall in your dorm room if that little fantasy will calm you enough to make it through the next hour.”

“With that little spiel, it sounds like it’s you who’s having trouble keeping his gorgeous cock in his well-tailored pants.”

The corner of his mouth turned up, liking that a whole lot. He loved it when I rose to it and gave it right back to him.

He loved it with Ariana a whole lot as well.

And with Nyx. Their relationship no longer possessed the power imbalance that it had beforehand, because Kai had mellowed and Nyx had come out of his shell. Sometimes he seemed to think it was because of the Soulweld Ring we’d made for him, but in other times he recognized that it was actually down to him, his work with Crossborn, what he brought to our foursome.

As Professor Vaelthorne began drawing magical symbols for us to decipher on the projection screen at the front of the room, I was about to give Kai a little something more to chew on, when an ice-cold sensation shooting through my left arm pulled me up short.

I grunted as it evolved to a freezer-burn type of sensation, before then become raging flames—or at least feeling like it. The irony wasn’t lost on me for a motherfucking moment.

As I swung my head to get a look at what the hell was going on, Kai was already snapping into action, his hand on me, holding my arm. “Your tattoos,” he breathed.

My eyes shot wide as I looked to see several of my black and crimson dragon scale tattoos being burned off me where I fucking sat.

Ariana and Nyx were off their seats in the next moment rounding me right next to Kai.

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