Page 23 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)

Twenty-One

Soren

The hunger is sharp and needy. I count souls in the rooms around me, a total of seventeen sleeping witches, and one shifter having what sounds like an aggressive dream about rabbits. None of them call to me. Their energies are like tepid bathwater compared to what I really want.

Three nights. That’s how long I’ve gone without a proper feed.

The real problem is Rose. That display at the fountain today, the way the water spirits responded to her, ancient things that have slept under this academy since before the Coven claimed it, they knew, they recognized something in her. The same thing that makes my cock ache and my control slip.

I realize I’ve stopped walking. I stare at the number on the door, Rose’s room number, and feel something I haven’t experienced in decades. Genuine surprise. My feet carried me here without conscious thought, like a starving man sleepwalking to a bakery.

This is problematic.

Even through the wood and the pathetic protection ward someone scratched into the frame, Lucien, I’m guessing, I can taste her sexual energy.

It rolls off her in waves. Earth, air, water, and fire magic mixed with death and blood and sex, all intertwined together in a potent cocktail of magic that makes my mouth water.

She doesn’t even know what she is, what she carries.

Most witches have one flavor, maybe two if they’re particularly gifted.

Rose is a fucking buffet of magical energies, each one more irresistible than the last.

The responsible, professional thing would be to walk away.

Find some willing witch who’ll wake up tomorrow with a smile and a story she’ll embellish for her friends.

That’s what I’ve been doing for years, controlled feeds, consensual dream encounters, nothing that leaves permanent marks or connections. It’s safer that way. Cleaner.

But I made her a promise. No feeding without consent. What kind of incubus makes promises about not feeding? It’s like a vampire swearing off blood or a werewolf promising not to howl at the moon. Against nature. Against everything I am.

My fingers touch the door handle. The metal warms under my touch, responding to the demonic heat that always runs just beneath my skin.

I could turn around. Should turn around.

There’s that redhead two floors down who’s been giving me looks all week, the one who made it very clear that she would leave her door unlocked for me.

Her dreams would be sweet, simple, probably involving some ridiculous romantic scene. Easy feeding. Boring and unfulfilling.

Because she’s not Rose.

Rose, whose magic nearly drowned the courtyard twelve hours ago.

The lock clicks open without me consciously deciding to turn it. That’s the thing about being a demon. Sometimes who you are makes decisions for you.

Her room smells like her, the shampoo she uses and the underlying essence of magic.

I slip inside, silent as a spirit, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

That poor fucking succulent on her windowsill has somehow sprouted a new leaf, probably feeding off the magic that’s becoming unbound in her.

And there she is.

Rose sleeps on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow, the other stretched across the mattress.

Her breathing is deep but not quite even, and there’s a flush to her skin that has nothing to do with the temperature.

The sheet has slipped down to her waist, revealing the thin tank top she sleeps in, and I can see the way her nipples press against the fabric.

She’s dreaming.

I move closer, careful not to disturb the air too much.

Her lips are parted, and there’s the slightest movement of her hips.

The magical signature around her expands, simmering with a lustful potency that makes my hunger surge, and I have to pull back a little to regain control.

This is what happens when power this potent lives in someone like Rose.

Her body becomes sensitive to primal instincts, to the connection between sex and magic that most modern witches can’t even begin to conjure.

A soft moan escapes her lips, and I freeze. But she doesn’t wake. Instead, she whispers something that makes my entire body stiffen.

“Soren.”

She’s dreaming about me. Not because I’ve invaded her subconscious, not because I’ve created a fantasy for her to feed from, no, she’s dreaming about me all on her own.

The realization hits me like a train. In all my years of feeding, of taking what I need from the sleeping and the willing, I’ve never had someone dream of me without my influence. It’s always been a transaction, a manipulation, a carefully manipulated puppet show where I pull the strings.

But tonight? This is all her.

I sit down on the chair, watching the way her body moves in response to whatever her subconscious is showing her.

The rational part of me wants to leave, to let her have this private moment without my interference.

But the demon I am means of-fucking-course I’m staying.

The hunger is too strong now, especially knowing that somewhere in that beautiful, fucked-up mind of hers, she wants me.

The decision makes itself.

I close my eyes and let my consciousness separate from my physical form. My body remains in the chair, but the essential part of me, the incubus, the thing that feeds on lust and desire, slips free.

The space between waking and sleeping is an endless mist-shrouded space. I find my way through it by instinct, following the path of Rose’s consciousness as it leads me to her dream.

I keep walking until I land in the world her mind has created.

It’s her room, but not quite. The ceiling has been replaced by a night sky filled with a million bright stars, and her bed is floating below it, larger than it is in reality, covered in fine, black silk. And there, in the center of it, is Rose.

She’s not alone.

My dream duplicate is already there, a version of me that her subconscious has conjured with unnerving accuracy.

He’s got my face, my build, even the way I tend to tilt my head when I’m amused.

But there’s something different about him.

He’s softer. Safer. Respectful. This is the Soren she wants, not the one she gets.

Dream-me has his hands in her hair, lips trailing down her throat while she arches beneath him. She’s wearing nothing at all. The sounds she’s making have the real me back in her real bedroom gripping the arms of the chair I’m sitting in.

I watch for a moment, spellbound by what her mind has created.

Dream-me is gentle with her, reverent almost, treating her body like something precious rather than something to be consumed.

His hands touch her skin lightly, as she presses up into them.

She wants more. She needs more, but she’s afraid of getting it.

I can work with this.