Page 24

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Still, everyone in the Academy knew how shy and withdrawn Ariana was to the student body, so Selyra had to also have put together how uncomfortable her overt display would be making my Halo.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

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.

He was staring out at me expectantly.

“It’s your turn,” he put to me when I didn’t make a move to do anything.

“What?” I looked out to see that everyone else, aside from the three of us, had added their magic to the prism, and stood there holding their streams steady, creating quite the stunning magical light show. “Shouldn’t Ariana and Kai be next?”

“They need to come in at the tail end. You now, Kai afterward, then Ariana last.”

I nodded, and drew in a couple of centering breaths as I identified one of the few areas within the prism that had already been filled up with magic by the nine students who’d already had their turns.

I called my power, beginning to stream my vibrant-blue magic carefully and steadily, heading for one of the edges of the prism.

“Fill it between Rennick and Jovik’s magic,” Gabriel told me.

“But I—”

“This is the perfect opportunity to work on overcoming your concern about interacting with other magic-wielder’s power.

” He gestured at Ariana and Kai. “You’ve done it before with them.

This doesn’t need to be any different. Trust in your control over your sorcerer side and use the instincts of the Incubus to guide you. ”

I stared out at him in awe. He got it. It made sense because I knew he spent a lot of time with Warlow, not just as family, but from the lens of being very close friends.

Knowing there was that understanding really helped to fuel my determination to do this, the conviction that I could, and it tampered down all the rest, those doubts that nagged at me all too often.

Those doubts that had resulted in it taking me until my fourth and final year here to start pushing my power.

Sure enough, I managed it, settling my magic perfectly.

I marveled at my work, how it filled the gap seamlessly and interacted with their power without pushing at it or impacting it negatively.

Kai and Ariana beamed at me, so much pride there that was so heartwarming.

Just as Kai was about to add his magic to the prism, Mira’s flared.

She was glaring at the awe-inspiring magical tapestry with indignation, not liking that our power was sharing space.

The sorceress was known for her aggression and she’d had several outbursts since she’d been here, arrogant and forthright about her magic usage.

Kind of like Vorzyr’s approach on steroids.

Kai thought that she was a prime candidate for magical corruption with the dangerous attitude that she had.

Instead of intervening as Mira’s power flamed all the more violently, sparks flying and hitting other students’ magic and making them grunt from the attack, I saw Gabriel give Kai a chin lift.

Still fighting to hold my power steady in spite of this turn of events, I watched Kai’s magic enter the prism, moving like a knife through silk. Direct, precise, no theatrics. His stream wrapped around Mira’s, forming a containment sphere that had her cursing.

She tried to break through it, but she failed, Kai holding steady.

Then, even while he was doing that, he released another stream with his left hand and filled up the second-to-last space left in the sphere.

“Sweetheart,” Kai said to Ariana. “If you will.”

Ariana let her silver magic stream carefully toward the last remaining spot to be filled in the prism. It moved fluidly and gracefully. I thought I picked up on a faint hum as her power threaded into the bottom corner and filled up the last part of the prism.

“Very good,” Gabriel commended us. “What you are doing here is harmonizing different types of magic. Now feel the different magical tones belonging to each of you. Identify them and further your awareness at the same time. This is magical resonance, something that will prove vital if you find yourself in a group battle down the road, where you must join with other magic-wielders in order to prevail.”

The prism started shuddering after a few moments.

A flash of panic could be seen in Ariana’s eyes.

“No,” Gabriel spoke quickly. “It’s not your doing. In fact, outside of Kai and also Thalen, your power is the most stable here currently. I’m very impressed.”

Before that could sink in, Gabriel identified the source, and we looked to see Mira, Rennick, and Kelsana being ridiculous and trying to override the prism, the three of them working to dominate.

Kai’s eyes narrowed as he held Mira’s power at bay, clearly intending to do more than that, and to incapacitate Rennick and Kelsana’s power as well.

But he didn’t get to react as, all of a sudden, Ariana’s power radiated out through the entire prism, a glittering silver film covering it, which had the three power flares calming instantly.

Whoa. She’d managed to contain the eruptions while also holding her own steady.

And she’d done it in such a way that not only didn’t hurt anyone, but which showed major restraint as well.

“Excellent,” Gabriel praised. He glared at Kelsana, Mira, and Rennick. “You’ll see me after this session. We’ll have a joint conversation with Dean Drake.”

Damn. Our dean was a no-nonsense sorcerer who really didn’t take kindly to brash displays of magic or abilities. The three of them really weren’t going to fare well during that conversation.

I was actually glad, because they’d been so foolish and ridiculous.

Things had been going so well. I’d managed to control my power and my pride in myself for that had been overshadowed by their stupidity.

Fuck it. My emotions were all over the place.

It was what happened in the aftermath of an allure surge .

It made me feel extra sensitive. And I guess it bothered me that beings like me and Ariana had to struggle so much to control our abilities so things like what those three assholes had done didn’t happen, and yet here they were in full control and doing things like that because they felt like it, because they wanted attention and affirmation that they were super dominant? I mean… it sickened me.