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I grasped his wrist, guiding his hand away from my face. Leaning forward, I gave into the desire to lick the blood from his mouth. Drawing his bottom lip into my mouth, I ran my tongue over the surface until the sweet taste of apple covered my tongue. I drew back while his eyes were still half-shut, raising his hand to my mouth and sucking his thumb as deep as I could, consuming his blood and taking it as part of me.

His eyes opened as I drew back on his thumb slowly, releasing it finally as he leaned forward. The standard custom was for him to pierce my thumb the same way he had, but he mimicked my actions. His eyes held mine as his mouth lingered just a breath from mine, his teeth pinching my bottom lip pointedly until it bled. He groaned as he covered the wound with his mouth, sucking on the flesh and taking the blood he needed for the deal.

I was breathless by the time he pulled back, my eyes closed. I opened them to find his arrogant, steel eyes burning with desire, threads of magic laced through his irises like stars in the sky.

“I still don’t like you,” I muttered, stepping back as I tried to compose myself. I braced myself, keeping a damper on my emotions. With his blood fresh in me, he’d have greater access.

But not if I didn’t feel.

He grinned, a soft chuckle leaving him as he stepped around his desk. “And I still intend to fuck you, Witchling.”

“Then I guess we remain at odds in some ways,” I said, lifting my bag from the floor and placing it on my shoulder.

“But these odds are so much more fun,” he said.

I couldn’t help the hint of a smile that took me as I shook my head at him. Turning on my heel, I fled the office and the odd warm feeling climbing up my throat.

Just the blood, I reminded myself.

17

WILLOW

Susannah paced back and forth at the front of the room. In the days since I’d begun attending Hollow’s Grove, I’d learned to tune out the tipping and tapping of her bones on the floor. She’d taken to pretending I didn’t exist, and I suspected it was out of the knowledge that she didn’t know what might come out of my mouth at any given moment.

Thatmighthave had something to do with calling her an overconfident lesson in bone density when she’d insinuated that I wasn’t paying attention.

Sometimes the truth hurt.

“Where does magic come from?” she asked as she paced, her gaze scanning over the faces in our group.

I’d learned that the legacies attended classes together, dependent on age. That the small group of students who surrounded me in every one of my classes came from one of the original bloodlines. Most of them had survived the centuries without issue.

It wasn’t lost on me that I seemed to be descended from the only two bloodlines who didn’t procreate fast enough to outlast the murders within families. That was just fine with me.

It meant my uncle wouldn’t be putting a knife in my back, simply for the fact that I didn’t have one.

“The source,” Della answered proudly.

“And what is the source, Miss Tethys?” Susannah asked, stopping her pacing to level the Blue with a studious glare.

“It’s… it’s where magic comes from,” she said, shrugging her shoulders as if the why didn’t matter.

“It comes from the world around us. It exists in everything. That’s why there are so many different manifestations of that magic,” I said, kicking back in my chair. I relaxed where the others were too occupied taking notes or staring at the member of the Covenant as if she might grind her bones down on their flesh and make them into her dinner.

“Then how do you explain the Reds?” one of the male witches asked. His blond hair was long, swaying in a single straight layer as he whipped it over his shoulder. His brown eyes were hard on mine as his posture went rigid.

“If you think that sex is unnatural, that’s a circumstance of your own self-loathing that I cannot help you with,” I said, smiling at him as his jaw clenched.

“Enough, Willow,” Susannah snapped.

I didn’t say another word, not because she’d told me to be quiet, but because I’d already made my point. I let my lips tip into a smug smile, waiting for the confirmation I knew she would give.

“Desire, lust, and sex are all part of nature, Mr. Peabody.”

The Red didn’t look my way, his hand gripping his pen a little tighter.

I wasn’t certain what the legacies had spent their childhood doing in the town of Crystal Hollow, but it certainly didn’t seem like being even remotely educated was on the list.