Page 10 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Eight

F ox

I’m preparing for my evening’s hunt, when I sense her presence descending the dungeon staircase.

Automatically, I glance towards the mirror – muscle memory. It’s what I used to do when dating girls was still an option. I mean to straighten out my hair, adjust my cloak, check my teeth for food.

However, as usual, my gaze meets nothing but an empty mirror. No reflection staring back at me. After all this time, it’s still so easy to forget. Still an uncanny shock. A blank mirror where my face should be.

I drag my gaze from the dark pane and step into my classroom, waiting impatiently for the inevitable knock.

“Come in,” I say.

“Hey,” she says, white crystals of snow caught in her hair, her old boots damp, and her hands buried in her oversized coat pockets. “Jeez, it’s cold down here.” She shivers.

“Our kind don’t need warmth,” I explain.

She tilts her head. “Our kind,” she repeats, and I nod. “You know you rarely use the word – vampire. Why is that?”

Because I hate what I am. Hate what I’ve become. Because the very word disgusts me.

I stare back at her and I have a feeling she knows exactly why I can’t bring myself to say the word.

“You know you’re still Fox Tudor. You’re not so very different.”

“I am,” I say. “A lot has happened to me.”

“You’re still exceedingly handsome, Professor.”

I lift an eyebrow. “You think so, do you, Miss Storm?”

She scoffs. “You must have a lot of admirers.”

“I think you are the one with many admirers, Miss Storm. I count myself among them.”

I bend a finger and beckon her closer but she remains right where she is.

“Beaufort thinks I should stay away from you. In fact, he pretty much commanded it.”

“H-h-he said that?” I thought we’d come to an understanding – a reluctant one, probably neither of us is delighted about – but an understanding, nonetheless.

She nods. “I told him that it was the Madame who attacked me in the maze and that you believe that was down to you.”

I shake my head. “I’m beginning to think it’s more complicated than that.”

“Anyway, now both Beaufort and Dray think you’re in cahoots with the Madame – and by extension, the Hardies.”

“The Hardies?”

“Beaufort and Dray believe they are behind everything. After all, they were responsible for Odessa and her gang attacking me in the woods.”

“Hmmm,” I say, stroking my fingers through my beard. The Hardies may be powerful, with powerful backgrounds, but they have very few brain cells between them. I doubt this theory is correct.

“Beaufort and Dray say I shouldn’t trust you. That I should stay away.”

“And yet you’re here …”

“I’m not very good at doing what I’m told,” she says with a hint of a smile.

“You know Beaufort and Dray are wrong.” My face sours with disgust. “I’m not working with Veronica. There’s no longer anything between me and her. There hasn’t been for a long time. And you know I will rip her limb from limb if she ever hurts you again.”

“Yes,” she says, finally stepping closer, gaze locked with mine, and relief floods through my body. She believes me. I can see it. “I am aware you will rip her from limb to limb blah blah blah.” She rolls her eyes. “You are all so damn dramatic.”

“It tends to be the way when fated mates are involved. It makes us males unhinged.”

“Well, I’m not interested in ripping her apart. I am interested in finding out the truth. I want to know what’s really going on here at the academy. And I want you to help me.”

“I will, Miss Storm. I’ll do anything for you.”

We stand only inches apart, looking at each other.

It’s so bitterly cold down here in the dungeons, the perfectly formed crystals caught in the locks of her hair remain preserved as they are, and her nose and cheeks are pink.

Her scent is thick, drowning me. Except, tonight, there’s something a little different about it. Not lizard this time. Wolf.

“You’ve been messing around with the shifter again,” I say with obvious disgust.

“I like him,” she says, raising her chin as if drawing me to challenge her. “He makes me feel …” she pauses, searching for the word, “treasured.”

“He’s a maniac.”

“Well, that can be fun.”

“And what kind of fun did you have with the maniac?”

“You know,” she says, with a smile, “he asked me the exact same question the last time you and I fooled around together.”

“And did you tell him?”

She nods, then her gaze connects with mine, her pupils dilating. “It was kinda hot.”

“Then,” I say, my fangs tingling in my mouth, “do you want to tell me what your maniac did to you today, Miss Storm?”

“Do you want to hear, Professor?”

I give this a moment’s thought. “No, I’d rather just do those things to you myself.”

Veronica’s words from the day before clang around my head like a warning bell.

But I’m in so deep now, there’s no turning back.

I want what the wolf has had. I want what is mine. I want her.

I’m not lying. I am unhinged.

“The question is,” I say, “do you want those things too, Miss Storm?”

I’m hard just contemplating it, my cock aching for her.

“You know I do,” she whispers.

“Then take off your coat,” I say, as I click my fingers and fire roars into life at the back of the classroom, another two bursting into flame in my quarters.

“I actually came here to talk to you,” she says, peering up at me through her eyelashes as she unbuttons the coat.

“Talking can wait,” I growl as she slides her arms out of the coat. “There’re things I have to do to you first.”

Underneath she’s wearing a thick woolen sweater that’s seen better days, and a pair of tight leggings that hug her form. It’s in sharp contrast to the lacy number Veronica was wearing yesterday, and yet this has my cold blood heating.

“Take the sweater off too, Miss Storm and follow me.”

She tugs the sweater over her head. Underneath she’s wearing nothing but a bra. Something plain and cotton and a little on the small side.

“Shit,” I mumble, taking a firm grip of her wrist and pulling her into my quarters.

As soon as the door closes, I have her pressed up against it, my mouth on hers.

Her kisses are as hungry as mine and her tongue plunges deep inside my mouth, twining with my tongue, stroking down my long fangs.

I squeeze at her ass with one hand and her breast with the other, massaging both with my palms.

“Fox,” she whimpers against my lips.

I bring my mouth down to her neck, licking along the artery that thumps with her sweet blood.

“Do you know how damn hard it’s been, Miss Storm, to have you in my classroom and not be able to touch you? Do you know how hard you’ve made me, how much I’ve fucking ached to command you to bend over my desk so I could fuck you?”

She whimpers again, and her pulse skips a beat. I can hear it drumming in her throat and I begin to hear it drum somewhere else as well. Right between her legs.

Her own hands scrabble at the buttons of my shirt, tearing the thing open and yanking it down my arms. Then her hot little palms are pressing against my cool skin. I moan. The heat feels so good. Stars, I’ve missed how good it feels to have warmth in my body.

She glides her hands over my hard pectorals and then down over the taut planes of my stomach, down to the waistband of my pants.

She’s fiddling with my belt and the buckles as she leans down to kiss my shoulder, then my neck.

Her lips are as warm as her hands – no, hotter – and I gasp with each press of her mouth.

“That feels so good,” I murmur.

She undoes my fly as I untangle my arms from my shirt and toss it on the ground.

“Slow down, Miss Storm. I intend to savor you.”

But the girl isn’t patient. She’s greedy, vivacious, a live-wire. And like she said, she’s no good at doing as she’s told.

I capture her hands in mine.

“I said, slow down.”

She gives me one of her pissy little looks. “We’re not in the fucking classroom anymore, Professor,” she says, being deliberately bratty. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

I chuckle.

“Such a naughty mouth. How about you put it to good use, Miss Storm?”

I expect her to kiss me with that mouth. Instead, she sinks down to her knees on the hard floor and peers up at me, a flash of green through her dark-blonde lashes. Like a good little thrall. A good little mate.

I push that thought aside, and focus in on the girl kneeling in front of me. Every teacher’s wildest, most forbidden fantasy.

I tug my cock out of my briefs and for a moment she stares, wide-eyed, at it.

I’m well built, a large frame, and my cock is in proportion to the rest of me. Big. Back in my teen days in Slate, my cock was the talk of the fucking Quarter. It had tongues wagging here at the academy too. There was more than one reason I used to be the golden boy.

“You think you can fit that in your mouth, Miss Storm?”

She lifts up on her knees and leans forward a little, my cockhead bumping against her lips and smearing pre-come across it.

“Fuck,” I hiss, my hands curling into fists.

Eyes on me, she opens her lips wide and takes me into her mouth and then she’s sucking on me, her hands coming to curl around the base of my cock.

“I should have made this your punishment,” I say, grunting as she hollows out her cheeks and sucks me even harder. “Although, given how much you seem to be enjoying that, I doubt it would’ve been much of a punishment at all.”

She moans in appreciation and the sound has sparks of something I’ve not felt in years igniting around my body.

I cup her face in my hands, stroking my fingers down her cheeks and her chin to the blood thumping in her throat. I press against it, making her eyes roll around, light-headed.

The cold shadows stream from my hands, coiling around her body and she shivers with a mixture of desire and the temperature as she works her mouth up and down my shaft.

I let myself watch her for just a moment longer, tears streaming down her face, her mouth stuffed full with my cock, my magic wrapping her in its silky embrace.

Then I’m pulling my cock from her mouth and dragging her back up.

I don’t know how reliable this newly awakened cock is and I don’t want to waste what could be my one shot anywhere other than between her legs.

If I think she’ll slow down now, I’m wrong.

Her arms are wrapped around my neck and she’s kissing me hard, biting and nipping at my mouth.

I growl, pick her up and let her wrap her legs around my waist. Then I’m carrying her to my bed.

It’s bigger and better than the one in her room – although nothing compared to the regal beds I saw in the Princes’ tower last night.

She doesn’t seem to notice or to care though. Her gaze is locked on me, as I drop her on the mattress, and lower my pants and my briefs.

My cock is behaving just like it did in the old days. Hard, stiff, ready. Her eyes swim all over it, her expression heating as she wriggles down her leggings and her panties and reaches behind her to snap off her bra.

And then she’s spread out on my bed, her body pale against my dark sheets, despite the flush of blood across her skin.

I stand there and for a moment I can’t move.

This is everything I’ve wanted, everything I’ve been dreaming of. Everything I’ve feared most.

I have to be honest with her. She deserves that from me.

“There’s a risk, Briony,” I say, my voice hard as steel, forcing the words from my mouth.

“If you’re worried about … I’ve had the contraceptive shot. We don’t need to use–”

“Stars,” I gasp, screwing up my eyes, my shoulders heaving as I suck in air to my useless lungs.

“Unless you … do vampires even have sexually transmitted infections?”

I let out a snort of laughter.

“I haven’t done this in a long long time, Briony. I can assure you, I am clean.”

When I open my eyes, I find her propped up on her elbows staring up at me, the green of her eyes darker than usual and turning me on.

“Then what do you mean?”

I stalk closer to the bed. When I speak my voice is a rasp in my throat.

“The urge to hunt you down and bite you, Miss Storm, is fucking immense. An urge I’m always fighting every second of every minute that I’m with you.

An urge I’m forced to overpower and contain.

” I lean down over the bed, caging her with my arms, and she falls back down on the mattress.

“If we do this, I don’t know how it will go.

I think I can maintain my control. I think I can keep you safe from me.

But this thing between us is so fucking strong, I don’t know for certain. ”

“You want to hunt me down and bite me?” she whispers, trailing her fingertips down her throat.

“Yes,” I say, my fangs aching nearly as desperately as my cock and my empty belly. “I want to drink that sweet blood of yours.”

“Then why don’t you, Fox?”

I groan. “Because I am not a monster. I won’t hurt you.”

“You said before that it felt good.”

“Yes, but … I could lose control. I could drink too much. Or worse.” I close my eyes again. “I could make you like me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I could. Don’t tempt me, Briony.”

She glances at my fangs then nods, meeting my gaze. “I know you won’t hurt me. I trust you, Fox.”

I remember how distrustful she was when she arrived, guarding all her secrets so closely. Knowing that she trusts me now creates another kind of warmth in my body, one in my pathetic heart.

I place my knee on the bed, part her legs with my hands.

I smell the wolf even more strongly, right inside her.

A million emotions swirl inside me. Jealousy and envy, yes. But desire and carnality, even more so.

I want to fill her cunt with my seed too. I want to make her mine as well.

I lift her leg and press it into her chest, opening her up for me.

Her pussy is pink, wet with her arousal, and swollen with desire.

I line my cock up with her hole and the beat of her heart is louder than ever in my ears.

I thrust my way inside her and a million rays of sunlight seem to penetrate my darkness.