Page 70 of Malcroix Bones Academy

I looked at Caelum’s eyes next. His irises were glowing.

The colored veins appeared dense, sightless with liquid gold.

His expression hardened then softened as I watched. That feeling of losing control grew more tangible as the heat in my throat intensified.

“I… I’m going to open it for real now, okay?” His voice was breathless. “I’m going to try, okay? I’ll be careful.”

I might’ve said something rude to that, if I could have made any sound at all.

Nothing about this feltcareful.

I considered kicking him off me, even kneeing him in the groin, but something about what he was doing drew me in, too. Truthfully, it felt good.

It felt good enough to make me stupid. Complacent, at least.

Then, everything about it changed again.

A second wave hit into me, pure light, mixed with a complex, confused, drugged-like, and, yes,pleasurablesensation I couldn’t think past. It felt too damned good to fight. It whited out my vision, brought a low groan to my throat.

Or maybe it was him groaning… that part definitely felt blurry.

Either way, it made my knees weak, until it felt like only his hand held me up. I gripped his wrist, and heat flooded into thepart of my chest I used to do magic, turning it boiling hot. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I writhed under his grasp, not to get away so much as to somehow deal with the intensity of it, and the uncomfortableness of experiencing it with him. It felt too vulnerable, too intimate, too overwhelming, but I also didn’t want him to stop.

Magical charge coursed through every part of me.

It seemed to reach into my cells, down to the very atoms.

Just when I thought I might start screaming for real, the wave crested in an odd way, and slowly began to roll back.

That was difficult to deal with, too.

The relief I felt mixed with a reluctance to let go. Heat continued to roll through me, but gradually gentler, until I could eventually take full breaths again. I felt him in that somehow, but I feltme,too, maybe a truer, more tangible part of me.

I just stood there as my vision slowly regained color.

I felt him struggle to withdraw.

I felt the effort behind it, the attempt at control.

A long-feeling time passed before my eyes fully registered the dark room, with the greenish-gold flames hovering and flickering in the air. His face was tinted green once more, but he looked damp with sweat. His bone-white hair stuck partly to his face and neck, and his eyes looked glassy, still glowing with flickers of that internal light. He was breathing hard.

Gods, I was breathing hard, too.

If anyone had come in there right then, they would have thought?

“Fuck.” His voice was harsh. “Fuck. That worked a lot better than I thought it would. I completely lost control for a few seconds, and you still took it.”

His eyes held mine.

I fought to make sense of his words.

I was still turning them over when he released my throat.

My knees buckled. I managed to catch myself by placing my palms against the wall behind me. I tried to slow my breathing, feeling shock, maybe even shame, or embarrassment, as I tried to make sense of what just happened.

I hadn’t wanted him to stop. I still didn’t want that, really.

When I looked at him next, he was wiping his hands on a handkerchief, his expression hard once more, unreadable. He still looked sweaty, but seemed to be breathing more normally now.