Page 100 of Academy of the Wicked: Year Three

She’s fighting for dominance, but also begging for surrender.

My favorite kind of student.

I climb over her, trapping her wrists above her head with one hand, using the other to rake down her body, nails leaving faint pink trails in their wake. She gasps, and when I reach her ribs, I drag my tongue up between her breasts, over the sharp ridge of her collarbone, and into the hollow of her throat.

“I want to see you,” I tell her. “All of this blissful beauty that you like to hide with that fierce exterior.”

She growls—a sound so reminiscent of a dragon, I realize, delight and defiance and arousal all wound together. She tries to twist free, but my grip is iron, forcing her to lock eyes with me. I watch her pupils blow wide, then flick golden for a split second, like a sun flare behind a storm cloud.

This, right here, is what I have waited centuries for.

To be met and matched and defied and devoured.

To make my mark and be marked in turn.

I release her wrists, trusting her not to try for my throat again, and she uses the moment not to flee but to pull my face back to hers. We kiss, rough and messy, blood and spit and power blending until I can’t tell where I end and she begins.

I strip the bra from her with a single, savage tug, and her breasts fall free, nipples already hard, dark and beautiful and perfectly proportioned for my hand. I take one in my mouth, suck hard, then scrape my fangs over it, the pain-pleasure blend making her sob my name.

“More,” she says. “Please. Mortimer, I need?—”

But I know what she needs.

I have known since the first time I saw her, raw and half-wild in the trial pits, eyes daring the world to consume her. She needs to be taken. She needs to be shown she can’t break everything. I’m not sure how her intimacy is with the others, but she enjoys being dominant, but I can see she likes the powerplay here.The difference between our dominance and how I allow her to have moments of control over being like me that she knows can overwhelm her in a blink.

But more than that, she needs to feel what it’s like to be so thoroughly, absolutely claimed that she has no choice but to give in.

I will oblige.

I move down, kissing and biting my way over her stomach, her hipbones, her inner thighs. I bite just above the line of her panties, hard enough that I draw a single perfect drop of blood. It beads, dark and sweet, and I lap it up with the tip of my tongue, making her moan and squirm so violently I have to pin her hips with both hands.

“Settle,”I command, and she does, trembling under me, hair wild, mouth open, eyes locked on mine.

I strip the remaining lace from her, leaving her entirely bare, and admire the sight. There are marks everywhere now, some already fading to pale pink, others fresh and red and angry. She’s slick and open and trembling, thighs already wet from her own arousal.

I bite her inner thigh once, then twice, leaving twin imprints of my fangs—then move up, and taste her.

She’s pure magic, sweet and sharp, the flavor of her a blend of wildness and want that makes my head swim. I work her with tongue and teeth and fingers, using every trick I’ve learned in a century or more of careful, scholarly observation.

She comes apart fast—too fast, almost,but she’s been building toward this for a long, long time. When she comes, it’s with a scream, loud enough that the books shudder on their shelves, the sound of her pleasure echoing in the endless, impossible walls of this floating paradise.

A perfect sweet fest for me.

I lap up every drop, then move up her body, gathering her into my arms, pressing my mouth to hers so she can taste herself on my lips. She clings to me, breathless, dazed, so undone that for a moment I think she might have passed out.

But she opens her eyes, and the look there is nothing like submission. It is challenge, pure and simple, with the faintest glimmer of gratitude.

“Good lesson,” she whispers.

I laugh, low and rough.

“Darling, the semester has only just begun.”

She bites my lip, hard enough to draw blood, and I know that the fire I’ve lit in her will burn for a long, long time.

She thinks she’s won.

For half a second, there’s this smug little smile—Gwen sprawled on the floating desk, breath coming in gasps, marked and bitten and wild with post-orgasmic haze. Her silver hair is a mad halo, her skin mapped by my mouth, every inch of her radiating heat and challenge. She’s beautiful. She’s sated. She’s convinced I’ve given her all the lessons I have to offer.