Page 55 of Wicked Bonds
She straddles me again, positioning herself over my cock. I can feel the heat of her, the slick wetness, and I want to push inside, but I wait. I want her to want it.
She lowers herself slowly, and when I slide inside, it’s like the world I’ve known ends. Every memory, every regret, all the unfinished business disappears. There’s only her, and the way she fits around me, warm and tight and wet.
She rides me, slow at first, then faster, her hands on my shoulders for balance. Her head tips back, hair falling like a curtain down her spine. She’s beautiful, wild, reckless. I try to match her rhythm, but I’m already close.
She senses it, tightens around me, and the way she looks at me, feral and triumphant and a little bit scared, pushes me over the edge. I come, harder than I thought possible, and she follows, shuddering and crying out my name.
For a second, I think I might die all over again. Maybe I do.
We collapse together, and her body is warm against mine, and for the first time since I died, I don’t feel cold at all.
We lie there for a long time, catching our breath. She strokes my hair, fingers gentle and slow.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m more than okay.”
She laughs, soft and sleepy. “Good.”
She pulls her jacket over us, curling into my side. Her hand rests on my chest, right over my heart.
I want to say something profound, something to mark this moment, but all I can think of is how lucky I am.
So I say nothing, and just hold her close.
Because as soon as she leaves I’ll go back to being a ghost.
Twenty-Six
Rose
The thing about pretending to give a shit about Magical Theory at eight in the morning is that you have to commit to the performance. I slide into my usual seat, third row back, far enough from Professor Winn to avoid direct questions, and my bag drops to the floor with a thud that makes the witch in front of me jump. Through the classroom window, I catch a glimpse of movement. Lucien of course, stalking from over by the oak tree, probably thinking he’s subtle.
He’s been following me all week, ever since our delightful conversation in my room about how he’s basically documenting my every breath for the Coven. The vampire thinks he’s being discrete, but I’ve started watching him right back, and now I know his patterns. Morning classes, he watches from outside. Afternoon sessions, he lurks in the hallways. Evening study time, he materializes in the library stacks like some brooding Gothic novel character who got lost on his way to a Brontë convention.
Today, though, I have plans that don’t involve being watched like a lab rat.
Professor Winn starts explaining the theoretical applications of channeling magic through charged implements, which is actually kind of interesting, and for a brief moment I’m sorry to miss this lecture. More important things to be done, however. I pull out my notebook, making a show of taking notes while actually sketching the academy’s floor plan from memory. I have no friends here, not unless you count Drake, and he’s not exactly around all the time, so I’ve had a lot of downtime to wander and explore when I’m not in class and on the weekends. I know every hall, every shortcut, every building, and every room in it.
The bloodmark on my arm throbs, a reminder that the clock is ticking. Two years might sound like forever when you’re twenty-one and you can’t wait to start your adult life, but when it’s all you’ve got left, it feels very very short, and every second counts. Drake’s words from last night are still in my head, and I know I have to find the original blood oath, the real one. Like that’s something you can just Google. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me how to start looking. But I have some ideas.
Twenty minutes into class, I see my opportunity. I slip out and head for the door. And Lucien? He won’t even know because I’ve learned a little trick to keep a vampire from being able to sense my presence. My time reading in the library was actually quite productive, and it seems I’m not the first witch to have a problem with an overbearing vampire.
I duck into an empty classroom two doors down. The window is already cracked open, I made sure of that yesterday during my regular stroll after supper. The drop to the ground is maybe eight feet, nothing I can’t handle. I didn’t want to just meander my way through the halls because that would give too many peopletoo many chances to see where I’m going. Overkill? Maybe. But excess seems warranted in my situation.
I’m halfway out the window when I feel it, that prickle on the back of my neck that means Lucien’s vampire senses have picked up that something’s wrong. Shit. I need to move faster.
My boots hit the ground with a soft thud, and I press myself against the building’s stone wall. From here, I can see Lucien still standing by the oak tree, but his posture has changed. His head tilts, listening. In about thirty seconds, he’s going to realize I’m not in that classroom anymore.
That’s when the explosion happens.
Not a real explosion, Drake’s more subtle than that. But every window in the east dormitory suddenly blasts open, and what looks like a thousand sheets of paper come flying out, swirling in a supernatural wind that shouldn’t exist on this calm morning. I can hear the screaming from here, mostly surprise rather than terror, and see students scrambling at the windows trying to catch their essays and homework before they disappear into the stratosphere.
Lucien’s head snaps toward the commotion, and I see him take a step in that direction before stopping, clearly torn between investigating the chaos and maintaining his Rose-watch.
Sorry, dude. Bet you’re gonna get in trouble for letting me give you the slip.
Wickersly emerges from the administrative building like an avenging angel in sensible heels, her usually perfect hair whipping in the magical wind. She storms toward the dormitory, and after a moment’s hesitation, Lucien follows.
