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As her magic filled up the prism, it started sparking, and she cursed.

I saw Kai shaking his head at her theatrics.

“You are favoring form over function,” Gabriel told her. “Focus on the root of this exercise.”

Her cheeks reddened a little, obviously not liking that she was being called out and that herperformancehad failed her.

She did manage to stabilize her magic, though, with taking Gabriel’s advice.

As she held steady alongside Nexi, it was Zephyra’s turn. When she called her power, it was in a violent, unstable burst that had her silver curls and the cloak over her peach romper flying every which way as it created an aggressive gust of wind.

“Oops,” she laughed to herself.

When she stabilized her magic, Gabriel continued on down the line.

When we got to the Light Fae couple of Aerlyn and Thalen, the two of them always very heavy with the PDA through the Academy halls and celebrating what they termed theirepic loveevery chance they got, they released their magic together. They even looked so much like each other, both with long white hair down to their asses, both always wearing old school robes, like those that the Light Fae Advisory Assembly did.

As they did their thing, a wave of confusion rolled through Ariana. Worried she was concerned about using her power, or maybe on the verge of starting to feel a backslide after all her major achievements with it recently, I swung my head toward her as she stood on Kai’s other side.

She was looking over at Selyra, one of the sorceress. She was all about glam and stood there in a stunning floor-length black sequin dress. Even with a pair of stilettos. During a lesson in Combat Hall… I mean… it was what it was. And I was all for people living their truths, but in this case, I guess I was feeling an edge toward her, because she was openly flirting with Ariana across the semi-circle. Her eye-fucking scanning gaze over Ariana in those jeans that molded to her cute little ass and then in just her black lace tank right now, was so damned obvious. Not just obvious—rude and obnoxious.

But then it hit me. I guess with my emotions heightened from earlier, I was off base more than I ever normally would be.Of course.Selyra didn’t know. Nobody knew about the four of us, that we were an official thing.

Still, everyone in the Academy knew how shy and withdrawn Ariana was to the student body, so Selyra had to also have put together how uncomfortable her overt display would be making my Halo.

Then, to my absolute surprise, Ariana reacted.

In a really smart and strategic way. Not in a wallflower,please-don’t-look-at-meway.

For once Kai was oblivious to what was happening around him because he was so focused on the prism and the class in general. It wasn’t just his enthusiasm for the class, it was him absorbing everything he could, like with all that research he still had over our dorm room, him preparing for what was to come with the Cassius of it all.

But that obsessively focused attention was cut into as Ariana brushed her lips sensually over his cheek, then slid her hand underneath his tee, touching his delicious abs skin-to-skin.

He jolted and eyed her, then took in the Selyra thing—the woman was now forming a V with her fingers and sticking her tongue between them. Seriously?

Kai ran with it, checked Gabriel was focused elsewhere—on Rennick, a sorcerer who dressed very glam-rock and had stunning curly rainbow hair—and then I watched him ease Ariana’s hand beneath his waistband and have her fondle his cock.

It was only for a moment, before he eased it free, kissed her on the cheek, did the same to me, then smirked out at Selyra in that self-satisfied way of his.

She grumbled to herself, then averted her gaze.

Thankfully, she was next up with the prism anyway.

Kai, Ariana, and I looked out at one another then, realizing what we’d just done.

We’d taken the first step toward making our relationship public.

Once Vorzyr was with us, we could do that fully. Properly.

And I couldn’t fucking wait.

Because it wasn’t about public perception, it was about putting something out there and celebrating it beyond our bubble of it that stated that we believed in it enduring, that our love was here to stay and grow.

“Nyx.”

I started at the sound of Gabriel calling my name, and pulled from my thoughts.

Damn.