Page 108 of Malcroix Bones Academy

“Fuck,” he groaned.

He held me down strongly to the grass and leaned his weight.

He grew heavier, and more of his magic left his fingers and palm and gushed into me. I felt like I was choking on it, drowning in it, but it also felt so good I could barely stand it. I closed my eyes and fought to take it, like he’d said.

I tried to relax.

I breathed into one of my meditations, and something in me let go.

Instantly, that overwhelmed, choking feeling eased, leaving the much more intense feeling behind, the one that disturbed me a hell of a lot more. Gods, it felt good. It felt so damned good. I’d never felt anything like it. It felt addictively good, like a drug, only better than any drug I’d ever tried. It was so much easier when I just let him do it. It was so much easier when I just opened that part of myself to him.

But gods, it disturbed the hell out of me.

I felt myself surrender to it anyway, just allowing what was happening. My hands opened as I opened my arms, my muscles unclenching.

He shocked me with another, louder groan.

His magic grew even more intense.

I felt him lose control over it, in a way he hadn’t in a while, maybe ever.

He gripped my throat tighter, his fingers like hot irons, but it no longer hurt. I watched the wave rise up over us both, and remained strangely at peace, lost in that no-time place. I could see the exact instant the magic reached its peak. I felt the release in him when the crest passed through me, crashing down on the other side.

Then, gradually, everything began to de-charge.

The light around us slowly began to dim.

There was a long moment after of silence, of peace.

That time, it felt like both of us. He was immersed in that feeling of serenity, too. He felt calm. Bizarrely calm. Calmer than I’d ever felt him. His relief washed over me, with what might have been… gratitude? Affection?

When my eyes started to clear, he was still breathing hard, panting, his head hanging down close to mine. He smelled like sweat and grass, and other smells my mind didn’t bother to pull apart, but might have included cologne and wind and campfire smoke.

He didn’t look at me, or move really, not right away.

Even after it was clear we were both mostly back to normal, and he was breathing close to evenly again, he didn’t move for at least another minute.

Then, out of nowhere, he raised his head. His nose crinkled, and he pulled a face, glaring down at me with open disdain.

“Are youdrunk?”he asked incredulously.

I blinked up at him, confused.

Then my own jaw hardened.

“That’s none of yourbloodybusiness!” I snapped.

But he’d raised a hand, and a ripple of magic slid over me, making my skin prickle, raising the hairs on my arms.

“What did you just do?” I demanded. When he got up off me, I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling vaguely like my space had been invaded, and not only from the exchange of magic. “What kind of spell was that? What did you do to me?”

“Who gave you the amulet?” he demanded.

“The what?” I looked down at the green crystal hanging from its bronze chain, confused, then back up at him. “What amulet?”

“Would’ve been a little thing,” he said coldly. He held his fingers up in a pinching position, indicating something small. “A stone-like object. Someone, possibly even a bartender, would have put in your drink. Did you see it?”

I thought about that, then felt my jaw slowly tighten. “Why? What does it do?”