Page 27 of Nothing to Fear (Wicked Games #1)

Silas

“ T wice in one month, this must be some kind of record. To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing my youngest?”

“I’m in love with Asher Ambrose,” I confess on an exasperated breath as I collapse into the plush velvet chair in front of his desk, reveling in how those words sounded on my lips. I just wish they were said to Asher and not my dad. But I needed someone to talk to, and he’s my only option.

My dad studies me for a moment, a mask of confusion filling his face.

We look so similar, his blond hair now dusted with silver strands.

Instead of semi-long like mine, his is perfectly coiffed in a slick, pushed-back style.

I have my mother’s blue eyes, but everything else I get from my dad.

Nerves shoot through my veins as I bounce my leg anxiously, unsure how this conversation is going to go or if it’s just going to muddle my thoughts further.

“I didn’t think you were openly out here at school?”

“I’m not. Only Asher knows.” Right now.

“Well, that certainly wasn’t my plan when I picked him to tutor you, but I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I’m unhappy about it. Asher is brilliant and has plans to continue his studies in literature. You know he wants to be a literary scholar? We would like him to eventually teach here.”

“Why did you pick Asher, Dad? There are a lot of students here who are vying for his spot, and many qualified students to tutor me. Why him?”

“I honestly don’t know, son. I was scrolling through students and their academic achievements, and Asher’s name was in bold. I almost picked someone else, but it didn’t feel right. I don’t know how to explain it other than Asher felt like a good match, that he would be your ticket.”

“To the life you always dreamed for me.” My dad starts to laugh, and it puts me on edge.

“You know, I’ve done the best I could with you and your brothers.

Sent you to all the best schools, paid for all the best lessons and coaches, and did everything I could to provide you the best life possible.

But all I really want is for you to be happy.

I know how difficult the outside world is, and I want you to be successful, whatever that looks like to you.

You’ll always have me to fall back on, and maybe I should have made things harder on you so you weren’t so spoiled or comfortable, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. Asher makes you happy?”

“Yes,” I answer without hesitation. It’s everything else that is hard, even if I have brought most of it down on myself.

We all make choices and have to live with them.

An image of me running into Asher in the quad when I was playing around with Eli and Rome comes to mind.

It was just a few weeks ago that that happened.

I treated him like shit as a defense mechanism.

I didn’t see him there, but the moment our bodies crashed together on the ground, his perfectly rich smell surrounded me, and my heart and dick immediately responded.

The way the warmth of his body seeped into mine?

It was hard not to curl up on top of him and spend the rest of the day together.

“I’m happy for you, son. You just need to find the courage to be who you are in here.” He taps his chest with his pointer finger, right above his heart.

This meeting didn’t go at all how I anticipated, and my heart feels like it’s been cut open and is bleeding out.

I thought the life my dad always wanted for me was one of wealth, prestige, popularity, and the comforts he’s earned for himself.

Hearing that he just wants me to be happy?

I needed to hear those words more than I realized before I walked into his office.

I’m the only one standing in my way, self-sabotaging time and time again. I can’t continue to live this way. Especially now that I have something that makes me want to come out of the darkness and feel the light on my skin.

The next day, I take my seat in Professor Thorne’s Fear and Ink course and wait for Asher. I got here early so I can see him as he walks in.

Professor Thorne arrives before anyone else, leaving just the two of us alone in the lecture hall.

It’s a large room with vaulted seating, and I sink down in my chair, hoping like hell he doesn’t notice me.

I peek over my eyelashes every minute or so, sneaking a glimpse of him to watch what he’s doing.

Professor Thorne’s dark, black hair is pulled back in a severe ponytail at the base of his neck, just as it always is.

I bet as a Thorne, he knows how to get into the Corvus Cemetery.

Interest piqued, I study his features, his chiseled jaw, the shape of his nose, his dark brown eyes that look almost onyx in certain light. He’s so serious and unapproachable that it’s shocking he’s managed to make a career out of teaching at all .

Students start to file in not a moment later, taking their seats.

Whispers and chatter start to fill the room, but my mind is going a mile a minute, drowning it all out and trying to come up with a smart way to ask Professor Thorne about getting into the cemetery.

It’s the one thing Asher wants to do, and I want to do my part in making that happen for him.

I look up just in time to see Asher enter the lecture hall, his lips turning up into a smile as he spots me, racing to take a seat next to me, looking at me like I hung the fucking moon. My heart trips over itself as I return his smile. Everything around us seems to fade away.

“Hi, what’s with the serious face?” Asher’s voice is smooth like chocolate, warmth spreading through my veins.

“Was just watching Professor Thorne. Was trying to find the courage to go ask him about the cemetery.”

“I would avoid him like the plague. He doesn’t seem like our biggest fan.”

“No? I thought everyone was my biggest fan.”

Asher barks out a laugh that is so at odds with his typical behavior, it pulls a laugh out of me. A loud clearing of a throat pulls our attention to the front of the room, finding Professor Thorne’s emotionless eyes focused right on the two of us.

“Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Blackwood, if you are quite done, I have a class to teach.”

“See? I don’t think he’ll be giving us the tips to get inside, even if we beg.”

“I’m good at begging,” I say under my breath, my hand cupped over my lips.

I watch Asher’s side profile as he bites the inside of his cheek, holding back a smirk.

Asher takes notes the entire class, and I listen closely, knowing we will go over them together tonight. My mind is focused heavily on finding a way into the cemetery, though. I should let this go. I know we have plenty of time to find our way in, but something just keeps pulling at me.

Instead of letting it go, I skip practice and head to the archives before Asher, pulling out the family lineage book I saw him reading a few weeks ago.

I know he’s studying the dark history of Corvus College, but maybe he’s missed something; maybe there are other people here who would know the secret.

It takes me a while, but I finally find the section on each family.

It traces them from the year the school was created in the 1600s, starting with the founders.

I follow the list, flipping page after page until I find Lucian Thorne, then skip to the next family, Harrow, then Grimsley, Mortwood, and Ashcroft.

Maybe each family is part of the key, like pieces of a puzzle.

“What are you looking at with your mouth hanging open?”

I slam the book closed so fast, a breeze blows my hair out of my face.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”

“So jumpy,” he says as he drops his bag to the floor, leaning down and grabbing my face with his hands.

Asher doesn’t hesitate, his mouth meeting mine in a hard, bruising kiss.

I respond right away, my hands reaching out and hauling him into my lap.

Asher straddles me, and my dick hardens between us.

My tongue slips out, licking across his plush lips, a silent plea to open for me.

Asher groans against my mouth as our tongues meet, and I swallow down every single one. My hands grip his hips, digging my fingertips into his flesh. God, he tastes so good. I never would have thought in my wildest dreams that it could feel this good between two people.

The candles flicker around us as we start to slow and come back to earth, shadows licking up the walls of the room, our lips breaking apart, Asher’s head falling to rest against my own. I’m left panting and out of breath, my heart racing behind my ribs, telling my head what it already knows.

“I’ve been thinking about doing that all day, baby.” Every time Asher says something like that to me, it’s a balm, healing every single insecurity, every single thing I question about myself. Asher is slowly healing me, giving me the courage to be myself.

“Me too.”

“Are you ready to study?”

“No. I want to look for a way into the cemetery. I found something the other day I want to show you.”

Excitement gleams in his dark eyes, his features brightening. It’s so heartbreakingly beautiful when he smiles.

“Show me! Lead with that next time!”

“You tasted too good. The world could have gone up in flames around us, and I wouldn’t have stopped.”

Asher smirks at me as he lifts himself off. Moving to the bookshelf, I pull the books off and turn my flashlight on. “Look for yourself,” I say, gesturing to the space I created to peer at the back wall.

Asher looks through the shelf and reads out loud, “ Veritas latet.

I’ve read that somewhere before.”

“Do you know where?”

“No, but it’s going to drive me nuts until I remember. There has to be something down here that leads to the mausoleum. I’m going to pull some old maps and see if there is a blueprint anywhere. There has to be something, right?”

The school is old, and the secrets run deeper than the graves themselves. If the school wanted us to find the entrance, I think we’d find it.