Page 24

Raelan

THE ACADEMY GROUNDS ARE DRIPPING in decorations for Samhain. Pumpkins of all shapes, colors, and sizes line the walkways and sit stacked in piles; charmed candles float in midair; and the cool breeze smells of cider and caramel apples and spiced mead.

I’ve not had a drink since the schoolyear began, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel like downing an entire mug—or two or three—of mead. Anything to take Alina off my mind.

Things haven’t gotten any better. Every day is a struggle, every brush of her scent against my senses an assault the likes of which I barely survive.

Tonight she’s wearing a dress I’ve never seen on her before—which is probably a good thing. It’s long and black, and the bodice is pulled snug with laces. A necklace hangs about Alina’s neck, a silver songbird pendant coming to rest in the slight depression between her breasts, which are pushed up high enough that I’m struggling to keep my eyes away from them. Her blue eyes are lined and smudged with black, her lips are painted crimson, and her hair hangs loose and wild around her shoulders.

When she stepped out of her room this evening and I got my first full look at her, I had to shift my stance in an effort to hide the hard-on she gave me.

If she’s trying to kill me tonight, she’s doing a fucking phenomenal job of it.

The academy grounds teem with people—students, faculty, and plenty of visitors. Merchants from Wysteria have set up stands throughout the courtyard, from which they sell food and drink, trinkets, and all other manner of wares.

Alina and her roommates talk and laugh easily with one another, sweeping through the stands and picking up snacks and souvenirs as they go. One stand is selling caramel-dipped apples, and Alina purchases one for herself.

Watching her lips glide over the sticky caramel almost has me tossing her over my shoulder and carrying her back to my room.

This is not good. Really not good.

I’ve done a damn good job recently of keeping my distance from her. After that last kiss in the alleyway, I’ve not let myself taste her again. But tonight I feel myself slipping, and it’s going to take all my willpower to keep my hands off her waist and out of her hair.

Not like she’s doing anything to help the situation.

Her eyes keep finding mine, and her crimson lips have a perpetual smirk on them, like she knows quite well what she’s doing and isn’t afraid of showing it .

After the women have finished meandering through the stands and pop-up shops, Lyra says, “I’m ready for a drink. Anyone else?”

“ Please ,” Meave says.

Alina just shrugs. “Sure.”

Poppy’s cheeks go red. “I-I’ve never drank before...”

In Wysteria, the drinking age is eighteen. Granted, some of us were slipping into taverns and flirting with barmaids at much younger an age than that.

“How about you, Raelan?” Lyra asks. Like Alina and the others, she’s dressed in black, and her bright red hair bursts out from her head in a mess of wild curls. Juniper is perched upon her shoulder, and Lyra reaches up to give her a thin slice of green apple.

I try and fail not to look at Alina. As soon as my eyes flick to her, drinking in the shape of her body beneath her black dress and the curve of her soft brown throat, I know I’m going to need something— anything —to take this edge off.

“I’m in,” I say.

Lyra lights up. “Yes! Let’s go.”

We get in line at the mead table. Even from way back here, I can see the man who’s serving up drinks—a massive minotaur with thick spiraling horns and a golden hoop ring dangling from his nose. Seeing him, I realize that he must be the one I stole the clothing from the night I crept back to the academy in the dark, completely naked. I’ve heard talk of Coven Crest’s minotaur groundskeeper, but this is my first time laying eyes on him.

As we work our way slowly to the front of the line, I realize how big he is. I stand taller than most of the students here, but he stands well over a foot above me. His arms are like tree trunks. Hell, he could probably lift tree trunks and not even break a sweat.

Behind him are casks of mead, and he serves up drinks with a slight frown and an air of general disinterest.

“Five for us,” Lyra says when she gets to the front of the line. “What’s on tap?”

The minotaur regards her through slightly narrowed eyes. “Mead.”

Lyra’s brow arches in the corner. “Well, what flavors?”

“Mead,” he replies again.

Alina and Maeve chuckle at Lyra’s expense.

The minotaur serves us up five mugs of steaming mead and exchanges them for a few eldertokens. When we’ve walked away, Lyra scoffs, “How unfriendly. Who even is he?”

“The groundskeeper,” Poppy says. Her gaze is turned down, and she regards the mead in her mug like it’s a concoction from potions class.

“Well, he’s rude. It’s Samhain. Can’t he even smile ?”

I hang back, walking behind Alina and her roommates. The mead in my mug sends up steam in the cool air. It smells strongly of alcohol, a potent scent that stings my nose despite the light honey undertone.

Suddenly, I’m thinking this might not be such a good idea. I’m Alina’s protector, her knight. I’m not supposed to drink on duty .

But all it takes is one more glance at her as she lifts her mug to her lips, her throat bobbing as she swallows, and I’m convinced that I’m going to need something to help me survive tonight.

So, while the women continue to drift through the crowd, watching the fire dancers before stopping to warm themselves before the bonfire, I down everything in my mug.

The alcohol warms my throat and chest, and it only takes a short while for me to start feeling the effects. The sharpened edges of my consciousness feel smoothed out, and I even find myself smiling at some of Lyra’s bad jokes. She seems to appreciate it, if the way she eases closer to me and puts her hand on my forearm is any indication.

Alina, on the other hand, doesn’t seem pleased. She watches Lyra with thinly veiled anger. Her blue eyes, made more startling by the black makeup smudged around them, narrow as Lyra’s fingers drift across my arm. Lyra seems not to notice—or she’s pretending not to.

The fire witch is difficult to pin down—she still surprises me, and it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on behind her sharp crimson eyes.

“You know, Raelan,” Lyra says, turning her gaze up to meet mine while the light from the bonfire dances over her hair, “I think you might actually be fun.”

I can’t stop the sharp laugh that slips out of me—it’s the mead talking. “You think ?”

“Well, you’re always so stuffy.” She wrinkles her nose at me. I can tell the alcohol is already getting to her too. “You just need to lighten up a bit. Stop being so uptight.”

Music drifts through the air, accompanying the crackling of the flames. Something like mischief glows in Lyra’s crimson eyes. Then she’s wrapping her fingers around my hand and relieving me of my empty mead mug, setting it on a nearby cart laden with pumpkins and gourds. “Come on. I have just the thing for you, sir knight.”

I take a step, then pause and glance back at Alina.

Her eyes are narrowed, her lips puckered into a stern frown.

“Alina, can I take your knight for a minute?” Lyra asks, her voice lilting, as if she’s completely blind to the look on Alina’s beautiful face. “Just one dance, then I promise to bring him back.”

Everyone’s eyes shift to her.

Alina’s cheeks turn a slight shade of red, though I can’t tell if it’s from the cold, the mead, or the complicated emotions flickering across her face.

The smile that pulls on her mouth looks painfully false. “Of course.”

“Yay! Thank you!”

Now Lyra is tugging at me again, pulling me toward the mass of people dancing on the other side of the flickering bonfire. And despite everything, I allow her to yank me into the fray.

I’ve done plenty of dancing at taverns and festivals and in those stuffy classes taught to squires at the castle, so this reel is familiar to me.

I just wish Alina were the one dancing across from me instead of her roommate.

The music carries us through the dance, guiding our steps across the leaf-strewn grass while the scents of autumn twine through the air around us. I’m aware of Alina and her roommates drifting closer, watching us from a short distance away. Every time I glance in Alina’s direction, she’s staring daggers at me.

It makes my dragon squirm.

I reach for Lyra, spin her in a circle, smell the woodsmoke on her curly hair as it bounces around her shoulders. She’s smiling, laughing, leaning closer—

“Lyra, stop .” Alina is suddenly between us, halting our dance mid-step. I steady Lyra when she stumbles. “That’s enough.”

Lyra blinks, looking between me and Alina with obvious confusion. “What? You said we could—”

Before Lyra can get another word out, Alina snatches my hand in hers and pulls me swiftly aside, dragging me away from the dance and the big flickering bonfire. When I glance back over my shoulder at Alina’s roommates, I find Lyra wearing a small sly smile, and I wonder if perhaps she was baiting Alina all along.

If that’s the case, it seems to have worked.

Alina leads me around the far side of the bonfire, her thin fingers clasped firmly about mine. She’s never held my hand like this, especially in so public a venue, and the touch sends my chain growing warm about my throat.

As we move through the crowd, I feel a tingle go down my spine. When I turn my head, I catch Tristan watching us from a distance away. A few young men and women linger about him, talking and laughing, but his eyes are on us .

When he sees me looking, I expect him to turn away, ashamed at having been caught staring. But he doesn’t. He holds my gaze, and something about the way he does it makes my dragon gnash its teeth, though the alcohol has softened its anger.

I send him a sharp glare in return, and eventually, Tristan glances away. I don’t believe Alina even noticed him looking.

Even now, she’s still holding my hand, though there’s no need—I’ll follow her wherever she wants to go. Not that I’m complaining.

She leads me back toward the castle, but instead of taking the stairs to the grand double doors, we veer off, following a winding path toward the gardens along the back of the academy. There are fewer students and visitors here, but floating candles still guide our way, drifting along like glowbugs in the dark autumn night.

“Your Highness,” I start, trying to get my wits about me enough to stop whatever it is that’s happening right now.

“ Stop calling me that.” Her blue eyes burn as she glares at me over her shoulder. And they’re sharp enough that I lapse into silent curiosity.

Where is she taking me?

At this time of year, many of the raised beds have already been harvested, with withered stalks left behind to rot and feed the soil over the cold winter. The dry plant matter crinkles in the breeze drifting around us as Alina leads me toward the greenhouses lining the back of the garden.

When she does at last release my hand, I find my fingers longing immediately to take hers up again, to be twined through hers, woven together like threads in a tapestry.

Get a grip , I tell myself.

I really shouldn’t have had that mead. It’s making my head pleasantly funny—in a way that is certainly not appropriate around the princess.

And yet I can’t bring myself to resist when Alina pulls open the door to the greenhouse and beckons for me to step inside after her.

As soon as she closes the door behind us, the autumn sounds—a gentle wind, leaves rustling on branches and across the ground, the far-off din of festivalgoers—fall silent. The greenhouse is bathed in silver moonlight, and it’s pleasantly warm, with a humidity to the air that makes me loosen the collar of my high-necked tunic.

The sharp look in Alina’s blue eyes softens as she regards me, the tension in her tight shoulders releasing with a sigh.

“What are we doing in here?” I ask. In the silent greenhouse, my voice feels too loud.

“I—” Alina bites her crimson lip and casts her gaze down into her mug of mead. From here, I can see she’s barely had anything to drink. “I just wanted to get away.”

I tip my head. “Because of Lyra?”

Her eyes meet mine again. She holds my stare for a moment, then turns away from me and sets off into the greenhouse. The plants housed in here are still vibrant and full of life, protected as they are from the bite of autumn’s cold. Alina drifts through them slowly, reaching out at times to rub a petal between her forefinger and thumb or to bring her nose close to breathe in the rich floral scents. The skirt of her long black dress drifts along the ground, whispering against the earth as she walks.

“Back home, I spent a lot of time in the garden. It provided a respite, a sanctuary where I could just get away.”

My fingers long to reach out and twine through her hair. In an effort to resist doing just that, I slip my hands into the front pockets of my trousers, my boots thudding softly on the dirt as I follow along behind her. “I didn’t know that.”

“No, I imagine not.” She reaches out to touch another petal. I hope she knows what these plants are; some look poisonous. “You didn’t know anything about me.”

I knew plenty about her, not least of all the fact that she’s my mate. But I don’t say this, don’t even allow it the chance to dance along my tongue. Instead, I glance away.

“I knew of you,” I finally bring myself to say. “I saw you around.”

Actually, I tried very hard not to see her around. The last thing I wanted was to be caught in close quarters with her, to be put into the position I now find myself in daily.

A brief moment of quiet passes. Then, without turning to face me, she asks, “And what did you think?”

My eyes narrow. I’m not following. “About what?”

Now she turns to face me. Her black-rimmed eyes are focused but soft, her crimson lips looking almost black in the cold moonlight. “About me.”

The way she looks at me is different from anything I’ve seen from her before. She’s not angry at me, isn’t putting on a polite show for those around her, isn’t showing me anything except her truth .

And what I see on her face makes me want to pull her close, to wrap her in my arms and never, ever let go. To hoard her like the precious treasure she is.

I draw myself up and take a breath.

“Truthfully?” I whisper.

Alina gives me a firm nod.

“I thought you were beautiful. Almost unnaturally so.” The mead helps pull the truth from me. I flex my jaw. “I tried to avoid you, actually.”

Alina blinks. “What? Why?”

“Because...” Because I can’t control myself around you. Because of the things I want to do to you. Because I want you so badly. “Because it wasn’t my place to find you beautiful. I had no right.”

Her lips tug up on one side. “And now? Do you feel the same way?”

That one’s easy. “I do.”

Regardless of the bond that draws me toward her, regardless of the way my dragon writhes whenever Alina catches my eyes, I’m still just a knight, and she’s the princess, the woman who will one day be queen. And I’m just me. I’m certainly no king.

“Then why kiss me?” She takes a step toward me, and my eyes flick toward her breasts. I have to force them back to her face. “Why touch me like you have?”

I take a step back as my beast reacts to her, straining against the magic holding me in my human form. “We’ve already been through this,” I grunt out. “You kissed me—all three times now, if I’m not mistaken.”

“But you wanted me to. ”

She moves nearer still, forcing me back. My shoulders connect with the glass wall of the greenhouse, and there’s nowhere else for me to go. This is the second time she’s cornered me like this. My mentors would be ashamed. But my dragon vibrates with excitement.

“You may not have kissed me first,” she continues, voice low, “but you didn’t try to stop me either.”

“I’m a weak man,” I say, trying very hard to focus on her face and not the sinuous movement of her body beneath the tightly laced black dress.

“So, you admit that you wanted to. To kiss me.”

My heart pounds harder, and I curl my fingers into fists, pressing my fingernails into my palms, using the slight pinch of pain to keep me grounded in this moment.

“Don’t lie,” she whispers.

If only she knew how much I’ve been lying about.

I grind my teeth, then finally say, “Yes.”

“And you wanted to do other things too. You told me so yourself.” Alina is only a breath away from me now, the toes of her heeled black boots touching mine.

This time I don’t respond. I can’t. I’m trying too hard to force my dragon down.

“Raelan.”

The word is a whisper, a breath. It makes goose bumps rise along my skin despite the warmth in the greenhouse.

“What do you want to do to me?” she asks.

I shake my head firmly. I can’t voice my desires out loud. To do so would be to breathe life into them, to allow myself to think they’re mine for the taking.

But they’re not .

Alina should be mine. My dragon is insistent that she already is, and at times it almost has me convinced. But my beast doesn’t understand customs, rules, the hierarchy of society. It doesn’t understand that my mother and sisters need a roof over their heads, a stable life they can feel comfortable and safe within.

“Alina, I can’t,” I finally say.

“Why? Tell me.” Her words have a sharp edge now, like she ran them over a whetstone before they slipped off her tongue. “Why have you been so cold again? Why are you shutting me out?”

“Because of your grandfather. If he finds out—”

“Are you going to tell him?” she asks, tipping her head slightly to one side so her pale blue hair slips across her shoulder.

“Of course not,” I bite out.

“Neither am I. And no one else”—she casts a quick glance around the greenhouse—“is here to see.”

Slowly, I start to harden, my tight hold on my carnal desires beginning to slip. I shouldn’t have had that mead. It was foolish, juvenile. But perhaps, in a way, I was hoping for this. Maybe I wanted it to give me an excuse to do what I so badly desire to do.

To do with her. To do to her.

“Careful,” I tell her, my voice dropping low as I try to force my beast into submission. Thus far, I’m failing.

“Of what?” Alina reaches out, placing her warm hands on my chest. I’m certain she can feel my heart galloping against her palms .

That single touch sends my dragon breathing fire through my veins. It snaps the tenuous thread of self-control I was desperately clinging to. And I can almost ignore the pain blossoming along my neck beneath my chain as I wrap my hands around Alina’s waist and draw her in.

And this time, for the first time, I’m the one who kisses her.

Her mouth tastes of sweet caramel apples and honey-flavored mead. Her lips are soft and warm and a perfect fit for mine.

But it’s the sound she makes as I bite her lip that sends me to my edge. It’s part whimper, part moan. At the same time, her fingers curl into the fabric of my tunic, grasping at me as if I’m an anchor amidst a violent storm.

What she doesn’t know is that I’m not the anchor—I’m the storm. And I’ve been holding myself back for three years, since she first came of age and I realized who—and what—she is.

I want so badly to have my way with her, to claim her, to make her mine. But I can’t. And I remind myself of this fact even as I turn us about and press her against the glass wall of the greenhouse.

“I can’t,” I grind out after stealing my lips back from hers, “do this.”

“Please, Raelan,” she whispers, her hands finding my face, drifting along the stubble shadowing my jaw. “I want you. Don’t you want me?”

My cock strains against my trousers, growing so hard it makes me wince.

Of course I want her. How can she even ask that? Doesn’t she see what she does to me?

Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can control myself.

I imagine spreading her legs, sinking into her, filling her pussy with my heat. Immediately, the chain binding my neck burns hotter, warning me, cautioning me. My dragon lingers just beneath the surface, coiling and uncoiling itself, waiting for its chance to escape.

Jaw flexed so hard it makes my teeth ache, I press my body against hers. “I can’t give you what you want,” I say, even though it’s excruciating to resist her.

She pulls back and looks into my eyes. “Then give me what you can .”

Taking one of my hands, she guides my fingers to the place between her legs, like she did that first time we kissed in the darkened hallway.

I grunt, squeezing my eyes closed.

Like that first time, I’m overcome with pain, with heat burning along my neck and inside my veins. But this time, I’m prepared. This time, I won’t give in. I’ll withstand the agony for as long as I can, if only to feel her for one brief moment.

I touch her through the silky fabric of her dress. She gasps as my fingers glide across her folds, and her body trembles delicately, so small and breakable beneath mine.

I open my eyes, searching hers as they sparkle.

“Have you ever been touched here?” I whisper, my breath shifting the thin hairs around her face.

Without saying a word, she bites her lip and shakes her head .

“But you want me to touch you?”

Now she nods fervently.

She’s never been touched.

My beast rejoices at this.

Mine , I think. No one else’s.

I bunch the fabric of her dress in my fist, then guide it up, exposing her smooth legs, her thighs gleaming in the moonlight. I use my knee to press her legs apart. Her eyes, blue as winter ice, watch my fingers as they move up her thigh, then dip between her legs. There’s only a thin undergarment between us now, and she’s already soaked the fabric.

My cock throbs.

I find Alina’s eyes and hold her gaze as I ease my fingers into the waistband of her panties. Her crimson lips open with a gasp as I press the pad of one finger against her swollen clit.

“Oh my—”

Her words cut off as I circle her clit, then slide my fingers lower, pressing through her folds to find her slick entrance. She’s soaking.

“Fuck,” I grunt, biting back another wave of pain as it crashes over me. “You’re so fucking wet.”

“Is that,” she whispers breathily, “a good thing?”

I push my middle finger against her pussy. It’s tight. But slowly, it yields to me. As my finger slides inside her and she draws a sudden breath, I say, “Yeah, it’s a good thing.”

I push my finger deeper. It sinks into her up to my first joint. She tips her head back against the glass, crimson lips opening with a breath. Then I push deeper, up to my knuckle. She’s so tight around me, so wet and ready. Ready for me .

But I can’t. This is already way over the line. If anyone were to find out about this, I’d be done for.

“Fuck, Alina.” I brace my forearm on the glass over her head, working my finger in and out of her as she pants beneath me. Her cum coats my finger, drips down the back of my hand. Seeking some sort of relief, I press my cock against her thigh, wishing so badly I could sheathe it inside her.

“What,” Alina gasps, “can I do for you?”

My immediate thought is to tell her she doesn’t need to do anything for me. But before I can, her small warm hand finds its way to the straining pressure in my trousers. She rubs me through the fabric, making me clench my teeth. Even my gums ache, my fangs fighting to break through.

That can’t happen. I’m not so sure I’d be able to resist sinking them into her throat. Though with my magic held at bay with the charmed chain about my neck, I’m not sure if the claiming would even work.

No. I can’t. I won’t .

Sliding my finger out of her, I drag her slick wetness up to her clit, massaging it beneath the pads of my fingers. Her hand stills on my cock, like she can’t focus on touching me while being touched like this herself.

I lean back slightly to look at her face. It’s bathed in cold moonlight streaming through the glittering glass ceiling. Her eyes are closed, her brow furrowed delicately. Her lips are open as she pants. I lower my head and press my mouth to hers, and she moans against me .

Still kissing her, I adjust to slide my finger inside her again, then use my thumb to rub her clit. Her hands come up to grasp my shirt, clinging and gripping like she’s adrift in a turbulent sea. A light layer of ice dances across her fingers and up her wrists—her magic is seeping out, and she doesn’t even seem to realize it.

And she’s still so fucking wet.

I kiss her harder, finger her faster. Her panted breaths become barely controlled moans.

And I can’t believe my hard-on hasn’t burst through my trousers yet. I’m going to have to get some sort of release tonight, whether that’s by my hand or Alina’s. Pain is already wrapping around my balls, squeezing as the pressure builds inside me.

But I continue focusing on her. Her icy fingers are still tangled so tightly in my tunic that I think she might rip straight through the fabric. Her breasts heave in the tight black dress, making me hunger for a taste of them, for the feel of her puckered nipples against my tongue.

Alina’s pussy starts to tighten around me. She draws a breath and holds it, her lips going still against mine. Icy fractals dance in the air around her, magical snowflakes coaxed into existence by her pleasure.

I continue fingering her fast, but I slow the pace of my thumb on her clit. And I fucking take her there.

When she cums, it’s the single most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It’s trembling legs and tangled hair, a whimpering moan that makes me want to drop to my knees to worship her at her feet .

But it’s also pain. My pain. Because I want her so badly, want to claim her and send my magic spiraling through her veins. The chain burns hot and bright, making me grit my teeth against its onslaught of excruciating heat.

She whimpers and moans as I work my finger inside her, her walls spasming. I try not to imagine what it’d feel like to have her cum around my dick.

As soon as her pussy stops throbbing around my finger, I push away from her, breaking her tight hold on my tunic and leaving her trembling against the glass wall. Her eyes flash open, confusion written across her face.

“R-Raelan,” she whispers as I stumble back, bumping into a raised garden bed. “Are you okay?”

No, I’m not okay. But I’m inflicting this pain upon myself. Despite telling myself a thousand times a day that I can’t have her, my dragon still bleeds through, still wraps around my consciousness and tempts me into pushing the boundaries with her.

It’s foolish. I’m a fucking fool.

And I’m so turned on now that I can barely think straight.

So when Alina walks toward me on trembling legs and sinks to her knees in front of me, I have no power to tell her no.