Page 50 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Forty-Six

B riony

I manage one more swimming lesson after that. The rest of the two and a half weeks before the trial, I spend sneaking out to the forest as often as I can – either training with Fox or spending time with the Princes and Blaze.

Beaufort persuades me to keep riding the dragon and I have to admit, each time I try it is a little easier and a little less terrifying.

We seem to get used to each other. I understand how Blaze moves through the air, predict what he’s going to do and prepare my body accordingly, bracing, relaxing or just clinging on.

In return, Blaze seems to listen to my commands, swooping down to skim over the first few hills of the Highlands, exploring through the cave network and once torching the tops of the trees.

Several times I’ve flown with him out to the lake, ensuring he knows his way there and taking my opportunity to memorize the exact location of those whirlpools and the route round them.

Beaufort is right. Blaze, for all his face-licks and adorable cuteness, is a lethal weapon. One not even Madame Bardin could withstand if he unleashed a fireball at her, especially as those fireballs are becoming more powerful by the day.

Despite the looming trial and the fact my two friends should be spending their time preparing, they’ve chosen instead to help with the plan to lure Bardin – even if they both agree the plan is madness.

True to form, Clare has been scouring the library for any information on Bardin, vampires, or unusual deaths at the academy.

Fly on the other hand has been working the gossip channels – picking up little tidbits of information he thinks might be useful.

The Princes are true to their word. The top floor is truly my own which means if I want to kick them out and have Fly and Clare over instead I can.

Which I do the Saturday night before the next trial.

The Princes’ tower is a lot warmer and more comfortable than any of our rooms plus there are snacks and drinks on tap.

As soon as Fly and Clare arrive, we raid the kitchen together, gathering as much food as we can into our arms and taking it up to my room, where we spread it across the floor and admire our feast.

“Remind me why you have been eating in the canteen and stealing my booze for the last few months when you could have been eating and drinking like a queen here in this tower?” Fly says, placing cupcakes, brownies and cookies on a plate and staring at them for several minutes like a long-lost love.

“Because, despite my better judgment,” I say, bumping my shoulder against his, “I enjoy your company and the food in the canteen is not that bad.”

“Because you were raised on garbage, Cupcake. This is food. And as charming and entertaining as my company may be, it’s not worth sacrificing food like this for it.”

I shrug. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“I remember these from my childhood.” Clare lifts a pastry into the air.

“My parents managed to get them once as a special treat. You break them apart,” she tears the pastry in half, “and then you lick out the chocolate. It’s divine.

” She shoves her tongue into the belly of the pastry and slurps away.

Fly stares at her with his mouth gaping open, shaking his head. “Oh Clare Bear, sometimes you make it too easy for me.”

“Too easy for what?”

He looks at me as if to say, ‘is she serious?’. Then tears his own pastry in half. “Talking of licking out … maybe you should save one of these pastries for Damien. It might give him some ideas.”

“Oh,” Clare says, straightening her glasses on the bridge of nose and smiling. “Things are much better in that department.”

“Uh huh?”

“We talked about it, like you suggested. Turns out, he’s been wanting to do it – like really wanting to do it – he was just a little shy to ask if he could.”

“And how was it?” I ask, pouring each of us a glass of wine from a bottle Beaufort insisted we take and Fly claims is worth more than my soul.

“At first it was a little awkward, but he’s a very good listener and takes direction really well.”

“Fuck,” Fly says with a grin, “that’s perfect.”

“How about you, Fly?” Clare says, staring unblinking at him through her glasses, “how’s your love life going?”

“Mine?”

“Yes, yours,” I say, passing him his wine.

“Do I have a love life?”

“I didn’t think so,” Clare admits, “but then I did observe a certain redhead leaving your tower yesterday morning.”

“Fly!” I screech, pretending to be scandalized.

It may be weird talking about these things when we’ll be facing another deadly trial in only a matter of days, but it’s nice to experience some normalcy for once.

Too many of my days have been spent thinking about what’s coming and trying my best to prepare.

Fly takes his wine and mumbles something into the rim as he swallows a large mouthful.

“What was that?” I say, noticing how my friend fidgets slightly on the carpet.

He swallows. “I may have spent the last few nights with the redhead.”

“I thought that was just a onetime only thing?”

“It was. But, if I’m honest, I’ve always been interested. I just didn’t think he was. Which was fine. I was happy with my one-night stand.”

“Of course, he’d want more than a one-night stand,” I reassure my friend, “you’re fabulous.”

“It seems he agrees because now it’s become a friends-with-benefits thing and as the benefits,” he raises an eyebrow, “happen to be very big, very very big, I am more than satisfied with the arrangement.”

“How about you, Briony? How are things going with all your men?” Clare asks.

“Gosh, Clare, you make it sound like I’m dating an entire army of men.”

“Aren’t you?” Fly says.

“No, four. Just four.”

“ Just four.” Fly cackles.

“I honestly don’t know how you find the time and energy,” Clare says, “having a boyfriend can be quite demanding.”

“Especially when he wants to practice his tongue skills all the time,” Fly says, winking at her. Fly turns to face me. “What Clare really wants to know is if you’re fucking them all at once? Have you had a fivesome yet?”

“That was not what I was thinking!” Clare squeals, cheeks flaming, but I have a suspicion it was.

“Not exactly,” I confess.

Fly motions his now empty glass at me and I fill him up. “Go on …”

“Well, I can’t touch Thorne and he can’t touch me,” I remind them, “and Fox requires a fair bit of sneaking around with. I don’t know what would happen to him if we were caught.” I chew on my lip. “But Dray and Beaufort …”

“Dray and Beaufort …?” Fly prompts.

“We’ve done some stuff together.”

“A threesome?”

I smile slyly, and sip at my wine.

“Stars,” Fly fans his face, “that is one sandwich I would want to be in the middle of.”

“How does that work exactly?” Clare says, tilting her head to one side, clearly trying to imagine it.

“She’s got two holes. They’ve got two cocks,” Fly tells her.

Clare blinks several times, then realization dawns over her features. Her cheeks blaze even hotter. “Ohhhh.”

“We haven’t done that yet,” I clarify.

“But you’d like to?” Clare says.

“I guess she’s going to find out,” Fly laughs. “There is no way those dudes will take no for an answer.”

“Actually, they’re being pretty gentlemanly about it. They say I need to be ‘prepared’ first.”

“Wow,” Clare says, tearing apart another pastry. “Why does that sound hot?”

“Because it can be,” Fly tells her.

“Excuse me!” I say, kicking Fly, “I thought you hadn’t done that.”

“Anal sex?” he asks and I nod. “I hadn’t but …” he grins, “things have changed.”

“Oh my stars,” I screech, rolling up onto my knees and bouncing up and down in excitement, “with the redhead?”

“Of course, with the redhead. I’m not a,” he winks at me, “slut.”

“Annnnnd?”

Fly leans back against my bed, a smile on his face, and obliges us by reliving some of the more intimate and outrageous details of his encounters.

“So you would recommend to a friend?” I ask.

“I would most certainly recommend to a friend. But I would also advise said friend to prepare as her gentlemen friends have suggested.”

“What kind of preparation are we talking about?” Clare says innocently.

“A bit of stretching, a bit of lube, a bit of stimulation.” Clare looks puzzled. “He liked eating out your pussy, Clare Bear. He may also like eating out your ass.”

“Or I might want to do that to him,” she points out.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Fly tells her.

“Look at us,” I say, holding up my wine glass, “all sexually satisfied and, more importantly, still alive.”

“For now,” Fly mutters. “If you insist on going through with your suicidal plan, your life status may change dramatically.”

“I’m going through with it,” I say. “I don’t see what choice I have.”

“You do have a choice,” Clare says.

“Exactly, you could just leave things be.”

I sigh. I’ve been over this countless times with my friends, with the Princes and with Fox.

Nobody is delighted with the idea that I’m going to go out of my way to lead the Madame on to attack me.

Everybody else is convinced there must be a better way.

The thing is, whenever I ask what that better way may be, they don’t have an answer for me.

“And just sit back and let her kill someone else?” I say. “Knowing full well that somebody else could be me? At least this way, I’m in control of the situation.”

Fly swirls his wine around his glass. “I don’t like it.”

I lean over and kiss my friend on the cheek.

“You don’t have to, Fly. But I’m going to be just fine,” I say with a confidence I’ve probably never felt in my life before, a confidence that’s been steadily building in me since I arrived at the academy.

Of course, it does help that I’ve discovered a rare power.

One I’m certain will protect me from the Madame.

That coupled with Thorne’s promise and Blaze’s existence, I really do think I’m going to be just fine.

“How about we talk about something else?” Fly says, gesturing at me to fill up his glass again.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be drinking so much,” Clare says, peering down into her own glass. “We should be attempting to keep our heads clear in the run up to the trial. It’s only five days away!”

“I think drinking is for the best,” Fly says, gulping down his wine. “Otherwise, I’ll only spend my time obsessively worrying about the next trial and imagining all the ways I might die.”

“You won’t die,” Clare says with self assurance, “you don’t have any particular abilities or talents so the Madame won’t kill you.”

“Jeez, thanks?” Fly says. He frowns. “If Briony’s theory is correct.”

“My theory is correct. I told you about Beaufort’s vision. That confirms it.”

“I’d rather try and not get too drunk,” Clare says, slurring her words and clearly anything but sober, “that way I can plan and strategize tomorrow rather than nurse a hangover.”

“That’s because Bardin is more likely to kill you,” Fly says, “on account of all those brains of yours.”

Clare shakes her head seriously. “I’m smart but not smart like Esme Jones was smart. The way she could multiply numbers in her head was like magic or something.”

“Either way,” I tell my friends, “by the end of this week, Bardin isn’t something we’re going to need to worry about anymore.”

Because I am going to reveal to the entire realm, the monster she truly is.