Page 27 of Daughter of the Ninth Line: Part Two

Sighing heavily, because she wasn’t going to let this go, I looked over at her. “What makes you say that?”

“She watched the ocean horizon like a married fisherwoman waiting for her husband to return.” She snorted derisively. “Honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t lose her head during some of the combat classes.” The mirth left her face, consumed by something more solemn. “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing,Vox. It can’t go anywhere, and you might have everyone else convinced you have a lump of ice in your chest rather than a heart, but I know better. You have to guard yourself.”

I strode through the dorm room, inexplicably happy that most of my Line brethren were either in class or in the food hall. I didn’t want them here for this conversation, even if they couldn’t hear me. Shay was the one person who I could be open and honest with, and I knew, even under the penalty of torture, she would hold my secrets close to her chest the way I held so many of hers.

“Something about her speaks to my soul,” I mumbled, frightened of the words, as if speaking them out loud would make them even more true. “I can’t help but be drawn to her, even if logic tells me that this can’t be anything more than a fleeting pleasure.”

Shay stared at me, her gaze roaming over my face, like she could see the truth written on my skin. Finally, she sighed. “I told her as much. Here, give me your bag and go find her. Maybe get laid. It’s been too damn long.”

I screwed up my nose. “Stop thinking about my sex life; it’s weird.” But I still handed her my bag and kissed her temple. “Thanks, Shay. You’re the best thing ever produced by the First Line.”

She muttered something that was probably an agreement, but I was already out the door on my way down the stairs. I made myself walk slowly, nodding but being unapproachable to the rest of the college. When I reached the atrium, I straightened my spine, ignoring the stares of the other conscripts as I descended the stairs to the lower levels. I didn’t even get offended when the Lower Lines stared, rather than offering the respectful acknowledgement they were supposed to give me. I just didn’t care.

Finally, I made it to the Ninth Line dorm. I sent a tendril of air under the door, searching for life inside the room, and I smiled as it found the displacement of air indicating a person was wandering around in there.

Knocking softly, I waited. There was stomping, and then Avalon was there, wrenching open the door. “Look, Hayle, I don’t want to— Oh, Vox. You’re back!”

She seemed genuinely happy to seeme. Not the Heir of the First Line. Not someone who could help them climb the social ladder. Me.

“I am. Is Taeme giving you a hard time?”

She stepped back, inviting me into her dorm, and fuck, she smelled so good. She must’ve just showered, because her hair was damp, and the scent of flowers and sunshine curled around her. “No, he’s fine. He was just trying to give me a family history lesson that I don’t want or need. The less I have to do with my Line once this is all over, the better.”

I knew so little about her, and she knew so little about me, but I didn’t care. I had time to learn. “I want to know more about that,” I promised her. “But first, I need to kiss you again, because I haven’t been able to get the feel of your lips from my mind. Have you decided, Avalon?”

Her tongue dipped out to wet her lips, the same lips that I was desperate to taste. “Decided what?”

“Where you want this to go,” I murmured, stepping closer to her, crowding her back toward the wall of her dorm room.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Finally, her delicious ass hit the wall, and I lifted my hands so they rested on either side of her head. She was caged between my body and the stone walls of this ancient fortress. “And where is that?” I asked, so close to her lips.

“To my bedroom.” The husky sound of her voice undid me, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned down and captured herlips with mine, sucking them between my teeth and scraping them gently, desperate to hear her tiny gasps of shocked pleasure. I was going to ruin her in the best possible way.

Sliding my hands down her hips, I grabbed a handful of her ass and lifted her into my arms. “Your bedroom it is.” I traced the line of her neck with my tongue. “And then your shower, the dorm couch, the kitchen, the floor in front of the fireplace.” She held my hair tightly as I bit the soft curve at the top of her breast. “There is no place in all of Boellium that I don’t want to fuck you senseless, just so every soul in the college knows you’re mine.”

I was dying, because all the blood in my body was now in my cock, and when her thighs tightened around my hips, rubbing the hot center of her body against me, I mentally cursed. I needed to be inside her, or I was going to come before I even got my pants off.

I strode into the first dorm room, immediately knowing it wasn’t her room. It was barren and empty, but that was okay. We were going to fill it so full of life that every conscript who entered the room afterward would get inexplicably hard as the stone walls of the college itself.

Seventeen

Avalon

There wasn’t a single atom in my soul that didn’t feel the effects of Vox’s kiss. It tingled in my fingertips, burned through my blood, and clouded my brain. He was everywhere, yet not where I wanted him. My body ached for him, and it was such a foreign feeling—like I was being possessed by some sex-obsessed demoness—that it was momentarily disconcerting.

Not disconcerting enough to stop, though. Not even the college itself falling in around our heads could make me tell him to stop. He continued to kiss me as he laid me down on the bed, his body poised between my thighs, and I hooked my ankles around his hips, trapping him to me.

I didn’t have to worry about him leaving, because his mouth devoured me, kissing and nibbling his way over my skin as he peeled my shirt from my body. He kissed down my neck, then further south, between the valley of my breasts and over to one of my pink nipples. When he sucked it hard, I moaned. When he blew a freezing cold breath across the peaked bud, I squealed and wiggled beneath him, pleasure shooting straight to my clit.

A little voice in the back of my head told me I was far too out of my depth to be doing this with Vox, a man who’d probablyhad more lovers than I’d had hot meals, but again, I didn’t care. We had nothing but this moment. I wasn’t trying to woo him; we were just two souls, coming together to find pleasure where we could.

He tugged at the waistband of my pants, and I used my legs to lift myself so he could tug them down over my ample ass. Time at Boellium, with its unlimited rich food and rigorous exercise, had given me curves that weren’t soft, but were definitely a little too steep to be considered fashionably beautiful. Especially not in the Court of Fortaare, and the women Vox must have slept with before.

As he moved down my body, over the soft roundness of my stomach and the harsh curve of my hips, I tried to drag him back up to my face. Away from the parts of me that made me feel insecure.

I should have known better, though, because Vox Vylan didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do. Air curled around my wrists and dragged my arms upwards until they were above my head, my fingertips touching the cool bars of the metal bedframe.

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