Page 16 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)

Fifteen

Rose

The next week goes by in a blur. I show up to class. I keep my head down. I don’t choke anyone, which is a win. The mark on my arm still throbs, like a perpetual shock collar reminding me to be a good girl and not to run away.

Classes are strange. Magical Theory is endless lectures about ‘ethical applications’ while the real lesson is figuring out who’s got enough power to make the rules in the first place.

Elemental Magic is a repeat of humiliation, now with a new flammability contract, signed by me and witnessed by the department chair.

Alchemy is better, but there’s still a running bet on how many weeks it’ll take before I poison myself.

Then there’s Shielding. We file into a windowless room that smells like a musty dungeon. Of course, Soren is the instructor. Because who better to teach you how to keep your head from being invaded than a demon whose entire existence is about breaking into minds at night?

He starts class by leaning against the whiteboard, spinning a piece of chalk between his fingers. His shirt is half-unbuttoned, and I can see that he has tattoos all over his chest, symbols of some kind. I wonder what they mean and decide that they probably just say asshole in Enochian.

He doesn’t call roll. He doesn’t even introduce himself. Instead, he looks over the room slowly, lets his eyes linger on a few nervous-looking kids in the back row, then finally lands on me.

He smirks. I give him the finger.

Let the farce of this being an appropriately professional professor-student interaction begin.

“Shielding,” he says, “is about as useful as a condom with holes in it, if you don’t know what you’re doing.” He pauses, letting that land. A couple of students snicker.

“So let’s not insult either of us. I’ll be teaching you how to keep the monsters out of your mind.” He raps his knuckles against his skull. “And it starts by knowing what you’re dealing with.”

“The trick,” he says, “is not brute force. Brute force is boring. Anyone with enough energy can break down a wall. The real skill is in infiltration. Seduction. You make them want you inside their head.”

He looks right at me as he says it. I keep my eyes on my desk and twirl my pen.

By the end of class, we’re told to partner up and probe each other’s shields.

There are not enough years of therapy available to me, for the amount of shit that happens at this academy, but I guess we’re doing this.

My partner is a guy named Dima. I’ve seen him in Magical Theory, where he usually sits at the back chewing gum and ignoring the teacher. He’s rumored to be part djinn, which apparently means he’s good with fire, bad with authority, and has a wicked temper.

“Wanna go first?” he asks, not making eye contact. His accent is soft, barely there.

“Sure,” I say, instead of absolutely fucking not . I close my eyes, try to remember the three steps Soren outlined, which are to focus, then set your boundaries, then reinforce.

I picture a wall. I picture a bank vault. I picture the world’s biggest panic room. I don’t feel any different but I keep at it. Then I wait for the attack.

Dima’s approach is clumsy, a battering ram.

I can almost feel the heat as he shoves his way into my thoughts.

I push back, and there’s a resistance, like when you put two magnets together the wrong way.

For a second, I think I’m winning, but then my wall crumbles, and suddenly my brain is just full of static and fire.

I gasp. My arm jerks on its own, the mark burning so bright I see red behind my eyelids. Dima pulls back fast, looking freaked out.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“It’s fine,” I say, but he looks so weirded out right now that I want to know what the hell he saw in my head. I tried to make my mind blank, but that never works.

Soren is across the room in half a second. “Problem, Miss Smith?”

“No.” I don’t look up.

He kneels next to me, his eyes boring into mine. “Your shields are ineffective. But there’s something else. Feedback?” He tilts his head. “We can work on that.”

Dima slinks away. I’m left sitting there with Soren’s promise of extra help hanging over my head like a guillotine.

That night, I sit on my bed, textbooks open and useless, trying to follow the instructions for building a psychic shield.

The steps are stupidly simple: focus, define boundaries, reinforce.

But when I try to do it, the thoughts in my head start chasing themselves in circles, and the mark on my arm burns and itches worse than ever.

I try again, setting the timer on my phone for five minutes. “All you have to do is visualize it,” I mutter, already feeling ridiculous. I picture the wall, bricks on bricks, topped with barbed wire. For a second, it holds. Then I feel a pressure, like someone leaning against the other side.

The lights in the room dim, and the air gets warmer, then the wall in my mind shatters.

A rush of memories and emotions flood in.

My mother’s face, the smell of gin, eight-year-old me packing my little suitcase quickly and crying when I realized I left my favorite stuffie back in the motel room.

All of it blurs together, a swirl of painful moments.

And then the magic kicks. I feel it swim up from my gut, energy building until I swear I can see sparks at the edge of my vision. I try to force it down, but it’s not listening.

I grab the edge of the mattress and squeeze until my knuckles go white, while the mark on my arm goes from hot to scalding, and my head spins. I think, for a second, I might actually pass out.

There’s a loud bang, and the world snaps back into focus, and I see a shape as it moves in the doorway.

Soren.

He steps inside without knocking, the door clicking softly shut behind him. There’s no smile this time. His eyes are dark and serious.

“Having trouble?” he says.

I can’t answer. My teeth are chattering, and my hands won’t let go of the mattress. I’m vibrating with adrenaline.

He walks over to sit on the bed next to me.

“Show me,” he says, and before I can refuse, his hand covers mine.

The sensation is instant. My whole body tightens, then relaxes. The magic inside me calms, like someone just flipped a breaker.

He holds my gaze, his face so close I can see the metallic flecks in his eyes. “You’re leaking energy. The wall won’t hold if you’re afraid to use what’s inside.”

“I don’t know how.” I realize I’m panting.

He doesn’t let go. “That’s what I’m here for.”

And then I feel him start to breach my mind.

Never trust a demon, that’s what they say right? I’m sure that’s a saying somewhere, and if it isn’t, then it’s just common sense.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t come back unless I asked,” I spit out between gritted teeth.

“If I waited for permission, I wouldn’t be what I am.” His mouth curves up.

“Go away,” I try.

“I warned you about the feedback,” he says, voice low. “You’re not just leaking energy. You’re broadcasting it.”

“So what?” I snap.

His eyes fix on my mouth, then my throat. “You’re going to burn out if you keep trying to handle it this way. You’re magic, your energy, it’s primal. It’s sexual. You need to embrace your power, not push it down.”

His hand lifts and he brushes a strand of hair from my cheek. The contact is gentle, almost careful. “Or you’ll never get it right.”

Before I can protest, he slips a hand under my shirt at the small of my back. His palm is hot, skin-to-skin, and it knocks the air out of me. The mark on my arm flares. My knees buckle and he presses me back against the desk, pinning me with his hips.

“There,” he murmurs. “Right there. That’s where you hold it.”

He keeps his hand at my back and with his other, he lifts my chin. The pressure is light but firm. “Look at me.”

I do, because there’s no other option. His eyes are pure black now, no whites, no pupils, just an abyss. I can feel the magic start to move, like a reversing falls.

He takes a deep breath, and the whole room goes crooked. “I’m going to show you what it’s supposed to feel like.”

It starts as a tingle at the base of my spine, then a surge up my torso. The sensation is equal parts arousal and terror. I try to fight it, but instead I’m arching into him, gasping as the feedback loop tightens.

He leans in, lips against my ear. “Don’t hold back. Let it run.”

His mouth slides to my throat and I feel the heat of his breath, but he doesn’t kiss me, just hovers there, forcing every cell in my body to scream for contact.

He moves his hand lower, fingers splaying across the top of my ass, and with every inch of movement, the magic in me amps up another level. My hips grind against his, involuntarily, and I realize I’m clinging to his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin through his shirt.

“There it is,” he says, and this time his voice is not smooth at all. It’s rough, urgent.

The energy floods outward, every nerve ending on fire.

He draws it in, and the sensation is obscene, like an orgasm that doesn’t end, just crests and crests, building past anything I thought I could feel.

My legs shake. My whole body trembles. I try to swallow a moan but it comes out anyway, and that’s when he finally kisses me.

The kiss is nothing like I expected. It’s hard, and it’s insistent. There’s no tenderness, only lust, only need. He devours my mouth, pulls at my lower lip, his tongue hot and probing.

When I come, it’s violent and shattering. My back arches, my head tips back, and I cry out as my nails rake down his arms.

He holds me there, keeps me in place, as the aftershocks roll through. I’m limp and shaking, utterly spent.

He doesn’t let go right away. He keeps his hand at my back, thumb rubbing circles until my breathing slows.

Finally, he pulls away, and I almost collapse without his arms around me.

Soren looks at me, lips parted, eyes still black, and for a second he looks as stunned as I feel.

“That,” he says, voice hoarse, “is how you break through a shield. And now that you know it, you can set up a defense to counter it.”

I can’t speak. I can barely move. He doesn’t smirk like he usually does. It’s like he’s as surprised as I am, like he didn’t mean for this to happen.

“Next time, ask for help.” His hand lingers at my waist for a long moment, then he straightens, tugging his shirt down. His eyes return to normal, but he looks unsettled.

He’s halfway to the door before he says, “You’re not like the others.” He hovers, one hand braced against the frame. He looks like he wants to say something else. Instead, he just stares for a beat too long, then leaves, the door closing with a hush.

I slump in the chair and wonder if it’s possible to overdose on embarrassment.

For a long minute, I can’t do anything but breathe. I close my eyes and count to ten, then twenty, then thirty. My heart rate refuses to slow down.

It’s only when I open my eyes that I realize I’m not alone.

Drake sits on the radiator by the window, arms folded, one foot resting on the sill. His body is more solid than usual.

I flinch. “How long have you been there?”

He shrugs. “Long enough. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

I flush, heat flooding my face, and glare at him. “Did you enjoy the show?”

For a second, he looks wounded. “That’s not why I came. But since you asked…”

Without thinking, I direct a blast of energy his way, as I let myself just feel, no thinking. I feel the tingling in my core, the bruising of my lips, the lust that my orgasm did nothing to relieve. I let myself feel it all.

Drake’s eyes widen as he realizes what I’ve done, then he disappears.

Poof gone.

Finally.

It’s about time my stupid magic did something right.