Page 22 of Bonds of Magic (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #3)

Rekha and I hadn’t gotten anywhere in our tutoring sessions, and my lessons with Noah were now formal and uncomfortable.

He kept his chair as far as possible from the couch, and wouldn’t get within five feet of me.

I still felt like I was going to fail every one of my classes because I couldn’t do magic.

And to top it all off, Ash and Felix had heard that Noah was the one who’d taken over my lessons from Romero, and they wouldn’t stop giving me shit about it.

Well, Ash wouldn’t.

He’d heard Noah telling me at the end of Combat today that our lesson would start late because he’d be off campus earlier in the evening. I couldn’t help wondering where he was going. Would he head back to the Balsam Inn? Would he meet up with that guy again?

It wasn’t my business, but I burned with indignation at the thought. Noah was going to say no to me, and then go hook up with that guy? It wasn’t fair.

Except that Noah didn’t owe me anything, and all my frustration was in my head.

“So what kind of lessons is he giving you?” Ash asked that night at dinner. Min and Keelan had left the table earlier to head to the library and catch up on homework. “Are you sure they’re not…” he wiggled his eyebrows and lowered his voice “...sex lessons?”

“What? God. No .” This was the fifth time he’d asked in the past hour. Maybe I was more snappish than necessary, but his question cut close to the bone. “Literally why would you think that?”

Ash shrugged. “He said he was meeting you at your room. Where your bed is. With a door that closes. It seems like an obvious possibility.”

“Only if you live inside a gay porn movie,” I muttered.

Ash’s face went dreamy. “Mmm, that sounds nice.”

I ripped off a piece of my roll and threw it at him. It bounced off his nose.

“How dare you interrupt me from such a lovely day dream? Anyway, why’s he meeting you at your room if you’re not going to stay there?”

“Because of the dean’s restrictions,” Felix said, looking up from the book he’d been reading. His tone made it clear that this should be obvious. “The lessons must be taking place somewhere Cory can’t walk on his own.”

“Yeah, but where?” Ash asked with an expression of pained patience. Then he turned towards me. “Oooh, is there a secret sex dungeon out in the woods that he’s taking you to, and that’s where the sex lessons are happening?”

“Oh my God.” I put my head in my hands. This was torture. I did not need Ash to keep reminding me of how awkward I’d made things with Noah.

Felix snorted. “I think they’re probably going to the gym.”

I risked a peek through my fingers in time to see Ash wiggle his eyebrows again. “The gym, you say? Where there are all sorts of mats, perfect for getting sweaty on?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Can’t. That’s its home.” He smiled beatifically. “So, come on, what are you guys getting up to in the gym if you’re not getting down and dirty?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Can’t you drop it? You didn’t give me this kind of grief when it was Romero giving me lessons.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, but Romero isn’t Noah.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s still gorgeous in an Oxford-English-Dictionary kind of way, but when it comes to one-on-one time with a smokin’ hot Vesperwood professor, Noah obviously takes the cake.

Has the cake, too. Have you seen how good his ass looks in jogging pants?

” Ash grinned. “Bet it looks even better out of them. Care to share a little first hand knowledge, Cory?”

“Jesus, we’re not hooking up, okay? He’s just giving me lessons on being—”

I cut myself off right before blurting out the truth, but not soon enough. The look in Ash’s eyes said I’d only made him more curious, and even Felix looked politely intrigued.

“On being what?” Ash said. “Huh? Huh? Huh?”

With each question, he picked off a piece of his own dinner roll and threw it at me, until I had an arsenal of bread balls littered in front of my plate.

I was annoyed with myself for letting as much slip as I had. Annoyed with Noah for putting me in this position. Annoyed with the dean for putting Noah in this position. I was annoyed at the entire world.

I wanted to be able to be honest with my friends. I hated lying to them, and hated hiding who I was.

I knew the dean had said it would be dangerous if people found out who—or what —I was. But surely Felix and Ash could be trusted to keep my secret. They knew what it was like to have people hate you for who you were.

Unless they would be wary of me too, if they knew the truth.

“Nothing,” I said with a sigh. “It’s just…forget I said it.”

“When has that ever happened in the history of the world?” Ash asked. “Never. The answer is never. I can’t just forget stuff like this.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“Maybe so, but today isn’t it. And if you ever want me to stop insinuating there’s something going on between you and Noah, you might as well tell me the truth.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“Blackmail is technically when you’re threatening to share information about someone,” Felix said. “When you’re trying to get it out of them, it’s extortion.”

Ash waved a hand. “Semantics. The point is that Cory is being needlessly secretive and if he would simply—”

“I’m not supposed to tell you, okay?” I exploded.

A couple of students at a nearby table turned and looked at me.

My face flushed, and I dropped my voice.

“Look, it’s not my choice, okay? I want to tell you.

But I don’t want to make your lives more complicated, and it seems like getting too close to me is—”

“Oh my god, seriously? Don’t start that again,” Ash whisper-shouted across the table. “We’ve been through this. You’re not responsible for Erika’s death. But if you think you are, then don’t you think telling people the truth might be better than hiding things from them?”

The problem was that I did think that. Ash was laying out one side of an argument I’d been having in my head for weeks, and he was disturbingly convincing.

“Cory, is everything…okay?” Felix asked. He wasn’t whispering, but his voice was naturally quiet. No one around us seemed to be paying attention anymore anyway. “If you’re in some kind of trouble, we’re here for you. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do.” I sounded whiny even to myself. “And I want to tell you. But I don’t want to drag you guys into my mess.”

“We’re already in your mess,” Felix said with a warm smile. “And we chose to be here.”

I looked between the two of them, feeling my resolve crumble.

“If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone else,” I said. “I mean no one . Not Keelan, not Min, not anybody. The dean specifically told me not to let people know.”

“The dean knows?” Ash said.

Felix nodded. “Yes. I promise. Whatever you say stays between us.”

I looked at Ash for a long moment, and he looked back at me, puzzled.

Finally, he laughed and said, “Oh, yeah. Me too. I’ll take it to my grave and all that.

” Not the most convincing words I’d ever heard, but then he laughed and said, “Fairies can’t lie, remember? I’m stuck, now that I’ve said that.”

That was a good point. I slid my chair closer to them and dropped my voice again. “Okay, so you know how earlier this year, you said I had to be a witch because you couldn’t sense anything paranormal about me?”

They nodded.

“Well, apparently that’s only half true. My human half is normal, but I’m only half human. The other part of me is, um, an incubus.”

Ash’s eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, a what?”

“An incubus,” I repeated. “A demon who can enter people’s dreams. That’s why the dean wanted me to come to Vesperwood.”

Felix nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“It does?” I asked.

“Yeah. It would explain why you feel human to everyone, because you are human. Partly. But it also explains why you can’t do magic, because that’s not what incubi do, exactly.

Not in the waking world, anyway. But you guys are extremely rare, and there’s some pretty dark history with incubi in the past few decades.

No wonder the dean doesn’t want people to know. He’s trying to keep you safe.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “That’s pretty much what he told me.”

“It also explains why you can’t do any magic even with Rekha’s tutoring. You’re not meant to be able to.” He frowned. “I do still wonder about your raven, though.”

“Wait a second,” Ash said. “Let’s back up for a minute. Isn’t an incubus like, a sex demon?”

I made a face. “More or less.”

“And Noah’s giving you lessons on…how to be one?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

He grinned. “So I was right. You are getting sex lessons.”

I couldn’t help laughing at how triumphant he sounded. “It’s not like that. Believe me, Noah is not interested in me.”

He’d made that plenty clear. I still felt a wave of shame break over me any time I thought about how I’d thrown myself at him. He’d talked about taking advantage of me, but it had really been the other way around. I’d more or less attacked him. No wonder he’d recoiled.

And now he was out in Pointe Claudette or wherever, probably meeting up with that guy and having the hottest sex of his life. I wanted to sink through the floor. I’d had a lot of firsts taken away from me, and then I’d wasted my first kiss too. Great job, me.

“Then what is it like?” Ash asked, and for once, he seemed genuinely interested. He was leaning forward, arms on the table, without a hint of a leer. Felix looked like he wanted to know more, too.

So I told them. I didn’t go into detail about what the dreams were like, but I gave them the gist. I talked about what it was like, falling asleep and entering that starry sea.

Talked about learning to anchor myself in a dream, so I knew what was happening.

Talked about how Noah had taught me how to do that.