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Chapter Sixteen

B riony

“Turn around and walk back the way you’ve come,” Fox growls, scowling at Dray so hard I’m surprised the shadow weaver doesn’t spin us around on the spot.

Of course, this is Dray Eros and he never ever does what I expect.

“Hey Prof.,” he says, slinging his arm up around my shoulder and grinning. “I know lurking around in the shadows is your favorite past-time but seriously, man, don’t you have better things to do?”

“I’m here to guard against any students who think this is a suitable place to get up to mischief. This is a sacred hall. Not to be desecrated.”

“Desecrated?” Dray snorts. “This isn’t a fucking temple. And have you seen what they’re doing out there?” He points out towards the well-lit dance floor where the music has turned sultry and most of the dancers are necking.

Fox ignores him and directs his withering gaze on me. “I’m also here to ensure students who have drunk too much don’t do anything they might regret.”

It’s clear what he’s implying and I lift my chin in defiance, even as my cheeks flame.

“Oh, she isn’t going to regret anything, Prof. I can promise you that.”

Fox whips his gaze back around and they stare each other down.

I shift my weight from one foot to another, feeling mighty uncomfortable.

Fox is a teacher. He probably has a duty to be here ensuring student welfare.

But this feels personal and I don’t appreciate him interfering in my love life.

I definitely don’t appreciate him suggesting I don’t know what I’m doing.

Okay, so maybe I don’t. Dray is making me feel things I don’t quite understand – is making me feel things I’m finding it hard to resist.

“We should–” I start, twisting in Dray’s embrace.

“No, we shouldn’t,” he says, his grasp on me tightening, “if the professor wants to stand there and watch us make out, little thrall, he’s more than welcome. It might even be fun.” He chuckles. “Hell, he may even learn a thing or two.”

“From you, Eros,” Fox sniffs, “I very much doubt it.” His eyes flick to mine. “And she’s not your thrall.”

“Just because she’s not wearing our collar, doesn’t mean she’s not ours,” Dray says possessively.

“To be clear,” I say, “I don’t belong to anyone.”

But neither of them are listening. They’re too busy eyeballing each other .

“Seems the professor is a pervert.” Dray finally laughs. “Is that the real reason you like lingering around in the shadows? So you can spy on young women? I mean, it’s wild. Probably illegal or something. I wonder what Madame Bardin would make of that.”

I’m pretty sure the Madame’s behavior isn’t exactly appropriate, but Dray’s words seem to make Fox uncomfortable.

He scrubs his hands through his hair.

Dray laughs. “This is definitely how rumors start, don’t you think, Prof.?”

“I can’t believe you're wasting your time with this loser,” he sneers at me. Like I’ve personally affronted him, then storms away, back towards the hub of the party.

“Were you threatening him?” I say, with a frown.

Dray shrugs dismissively. “Not exactly. I think the professor has a massive hard on for you, Kitten. I think he’d love to stay and watch me make you come.”

“That was really shitty,” I say, wriggling out of his grasp.

“He was being shitty,” he says, his face falling. “We’re just having some fun. Don’t we deserve it after what we’ve been through with that trial?”

I’m not sure Dray went through anything with that trial. Not like the rest of us anyway.

However, he adopts his best puppy dog eyes – the ones that remind me of his wolf, that have me softening despite myself – and reaches out to take my hand.

“Besides,” he says, “I’m dying here, kitten. You have no idea what it’s like to have the nose of a wolf. All I can smell is your deliciously wet pussy and it’s driving … me … insane!”

He yanks me towards him and then his mouth is on my throat again and he’s nibbling it in that way that whips away all my reasonable thoughts and processing abilities. It wouldn’t matter to me if Professor Fox was standing right here watching us, I wouldn’t be able to stop Dray. I wouldn’t want to.

I reach up and comb my fingers through the long platinum strands of his hair – just as soft as the fur of his wolf – and he snakes his hands around my waist and down to squeeze my ass.

“I want to devour you, little mate,” he groans against my skin.

Mate. That word again.

Dray calls me all sorts of things. Some of which make no sense at all. But the way he says that one word, with meaning, makes me think it has some. Only, what?

He lifts his head and looks me right in the eye, mischief, as always, dancing in his.

Then, he walks me backwards, further and further into the shadows, until my back hits the cool stone of the hall wall.

Then he kisses me.

Dray Eros is chaotic so I shouldn’t be surprised to find his kisses are chaotic too. Soft, sensual, slow one moment, hard and frantic and breath-stealing the next. I can hardly keep up, hardly adapt to one feeling before he’s evoking the next from me.

Something swoops low in my belly and I shiver with desire as I kiss him back, tasting mint and champagne on his tongue.

Fox is right. Making out in public like this – even if we are hidden in the shadows – is pretty shameless.

I don’t care though. Half the academy seems to be doing exactly the same thing and most are doing it a lot more publicly.

Fly’s comment about people getting knocked up obviously wasn’t an exaggeration.

Besides, there’s something thrilling about kissing Dray Eros in the shadows of the hall, his erection pressing against my belly, his hands gliding all over my body –- kneading my breasts, squeezing my ass, gripping my waist, lifting the hem of my dress.

“Need to know if you really are as wet as you smell, Kitten,” he pants.

I’m sure I am in fact wetter. I’m sure I’ve never been this wet before.

I writhe against the wall, as he strokes a hand up my leg, stroking his knuckles against the inside of my thigh and growling like his wolf when he hits the gusset of my panties. They’re wet and he must feel it through the thin material.

“Fuck,” he groans, slipping his fingers inside my panties and stroking along the seam of my pussy’s lips next.

“All swollen too. What a good little kitten you are. Going to mewl for me now?”

I let out a sound which probably is pretty close to one as he slips a finger between my folds and rings my hole, plunging that finger knuckle-deep inside me as I brace my hands against his chest.

“And tight,” he says.

He reaches up higher inside me, finding that spot Beaufort discovered before.

It has ecstasy swooping in my belly and my fingers tightening in his jacket.

“There, huh?” he says. “That’s the spot you like. Want me to make you come?”

I squeeze around his finger because I’m struggling to get my words out, all my attention focused on what he’s doing to me instead .

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He chuckles, and leans in to kiss me again, massaging that spot as he does. I’m incapable of kissing him back, I’m too busy trying not to cry out; the sensations he’s wringing from my body delicious.

He nips at my bottom lip playfully, then kisses along my jawline to the sensitive point below my ear.

Here his lips leave a trail of kisses down my neck, along my clavicle and down to the swell of my breast, to where the gemstone rests against my skin.

He kisses the curves of my breasts too, through the material of the dress, and then drops lower still, over my ribcage and my belly, until he’s sinking down on his knees.

“Need to taste that pussy, need to taste my mate’s pussy.”

He lifts my skirt and then he’s disappearing beneath it.

“Dray!” I call out, because if what we were doing before was obscene then this is …

All my thoughts melt away as he yanks my panties to one side and his mouth meets my clit.

“Oh … stars!” I cry out, my head falling back against the wall.

He growls a second time, even more wolf-like than before and it vibrates against me, sending more delicious sensations spiraling through my body. My legs falter and I scrape my hands along the wall, trying to find purchase.

“Hang on to me,” he says, his voice muffled beneath my dress, “I’m about to take you on one hell of a ride, Kitten.”

He isn’t lying. He flicks his tongue hard against my clit and for a second my vision whitens. It’s like being struck by lightning – only this time in a much (a much much much) more satisfying way.

His shadows crackle with excitement in the air around me, tingling against my skin and he licks and flicks at my clit, until my pussy is clenching in waves around his fingers and I’m clinging on to him just to stay upright.

Then he’s sliding those fingers from me, an action that has me whimpering because it felt so good to be full like that, loved like that, and in a moment his mouth is there too, showing me just how much a pussy can be loved.

If what I did to Beaufort that night in his room – when I sucked him in my mouth and he came down my throat – was half as good as what Dray is doing to me now, then Fly was correct.

I could reduce the Princes to mere putty in my hands.

Because I would easily beg for this. It feels intimate and dirty, rough and gentle, sensual and filthy all at once.

He laps at me, licks at me, freaking slurps at me, thrusting his tongue right up inside me.

He damn well feasts on me and I come so hard, my entire body shudders and jolts against the wall and I cry out even louder.

As I do my eyes flick open and I peer out across the cavernous hall, my gaze colliding with someone else’s. Someone stood far away, lurking in the shadows too, watching me as Dray eats me out, watching as I come against his mouth.

Fox?

Is he a pervert after all? Unable to help but watch this play out?

But the eyes don’t glow like the professor’s do. They are dark and penetrating. Soulless and yet so intense.

Thorne.

It’s Thorne watching me. And it’s not the usual indifference bordering on hate. Tonight his eyes are full of pain, with lust and with longing.

A longing I feel right in my core.

He holds my gaze as I come apart a second time, powerless against Dray’s lavish attention .

Thorne watches as my body shudders with ecstasy and my skin flushes hot, his eyes swimming all over my face as if he’s soaking up every detail, committing it to memory.

And I know.

In that moment, I know.

It was Thorne that helped me in the maze.