Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (10 page)

She smiled genuinely at him and felt
her cheeks grow red. “You heard, huh? Thanks. I’m…
I’m really excited.”

“You should be,” he said.
“But you earned it from what I hear. Don’t ever let
anyone convince you otherwise,” he said with a light touch to
her shoulder. “You do us all proud.”

She bit her lower lip to keep it from
quivering. “Thanks, Darby. Let me know if anything changes. I
really appreciate you taking care of my dad.”

He nodded. “I’ll treat him
as well as the law allows. So rest easy, Firia.” He moved to
the door and opened it up for her, the noise of the outer office
filtering back in.

It felt so good to be alone for a
moment. To be able to let the joy and sorrow and anguish simply flood
through her and not have to explain why she was laughing one minute
and sobbing the next. She was just processing everything, and it was
coming at her so fast.

The fact that her dad should be out,
though, helped build her up a bit, and let her enjoy her success.
She’d worked so long and so hard for this chance, and finally
it was hers.

She’d really done it.

Firia was used to her home being quiet;
her father worked so late, and though she liked to follow him to the
academy he worked at as often as she could, it wasn’t always
possible. Not with classes and her own chores.

As she took the quiet time to deal with
the aftermath of the explosive last few days, she was slow to notice
the new presence. It wasn’t until the sound of cupboards
opening and closing reached her ears that she was aware she wasn’t
alone.

With care she crept out, though the
visage she found rooting through her kitchen wasn’t what she
expected.

In the light of the orange setting sun,
Varuj’s dark skin was like bronze, his hair a metallic sheen to
it. His robe hung low, and she could see his shoulders beneath his
long strands of hair.

“How’d you get out?”
she asked, curious as she wiped her face free of the happy and sad
tears. She felt like she’d been crying for days, but the
emotional rollercoaster was really putting her through the wringer.
“And are you… hungry?”

He turned, and the smile that lit his
face was both beautiful and infectious. “Starving,” he
said. When he bent down and reached into the pantry he pulled out a
large, brown-paper wrapped package. “Mmmm,” he said,
unwrapping the rare elven-bred venison that her father must have
bought special for her victory celebration. “This smells…
simply divine,” he remarked.

She took a step forward and pushed her
bangs off her forehead. Why was she so concerned with how she looked
around him? He was just some… disgusting demon that she owed a
lot of her success to. Yet looking at him, the way he was, it was so
easy to forget the disgusting part. And the demon part.

She blinked her large blue eyes and
tried to stare past him instead of at his beautiful skin. “I
didn’t realize you got hungry. Have I been starving you?”

“Mm, a bit,” he remarked,
laying down the package and looking about ready to bite into the
large flank of meat raw. “Luckily when I shed my old form, it
freed up a lot of excess energy for me to consume. In other words,”
he said with an endearing smirk, “I was a bit bloated for a
while. That kept me sated until now.”

The idea of him cannibalizing his own
body was strange, to say the least.

“Ew,” she whispered as her
nose crinkled. She smoothed back her hair and tucked it behind her
ears. “So I guess it’s time to talk again, hm?”

He arched a brow and peered at her
sidelong as he took hold of a knife, holding it a bit awkwardly as he
began to cut the meat. “I enjoy talking with you,” he
said, slicing the meat into smaller cutlets. “You’re
rather pleasant to speak with.”

She snorted and then flushed in
embarrassment, watching him slice the delicacy. “I’m glad
a demon thinks I’m pleasant. Must mean I’m higher ranking
with your lot than the elves.”

It was strange watching the beautiful
yet alien man work away. He was such a mix of the primally attractive
and the fearsome. He had shed almost all of his bestial appearance,
but still, she knew some of it must still lurk within him.

He lit the stove with magic rather than
match, and began to set the frying pan down, laying out the cutlets
to sizzle. “Well, we are partners now, are we not, Firia?”
he asked casually, apparently knowing his way around a human kitchen
with the same sort of familiarity he showed with their language:
capable but a bit stilted. “How do you like your meat?”
he inquired with a pleasant smile.

“I… don’t really
know.” It wasn’t something she had a lot of experience
with, or choice of. She shifted awkwardly under his gaze, embarrassed
at her lack of knowledge. “However you have it, I guess?”

Her blue eyes went to him and she
thought of his statement. That they were partners.

He’d given her so much, gotten
her so far.

“What will you do with your
freedom?”

He picked through the assortment of
spices, taking a sniff of each one. Finding some interesting, others
repugnant, and a few tantalizing. “Your journey is not over
yet,” he remarked, applying some to the frying meat. “Elven
academies are tough. And exhaustively long even for their kind I
hear,” he said, sticking his nail into the cutlet then licking
his finger for a taste of the red juices. “Perhaps you might
have use for a partner still, hmm?” He arched a brow and peered
over at her almost innocent-looking.

Her brow arched. “Who do you hear
these things from? Was there a lot of gossip about elvish academies
where you’re from?”

She couldn’t take her eyes off of
him. He moved with such purpose and grace, and everything he did just
seemed so smooth. Meanwhile she felt awkward and even though she was
goal-oriented, well… she certainly didn’t have the easy
confidence he did.

With a flick of his wrist he expertly
flipped the meat cutlets over. “The fel plane from which I come
is a solitary place,” he remarked as the flames licked up over
the sides of the pan. “There is nobody to trust. You may make
momentary alliances with someone, but it never lasts. You never
expect it to,” he remarked, tossing in a dash of something she
didn’t even see. He was so quick and fluid with his motions!

“That doesn’t answer my
question,” she sighed, but she knew she hadn’t answered
his either. She was still cautious. Worried.

Frightened.

“What if I set you free and you
turn on me?”

“Why would I do that?” he
asked with a furrowed brow. “I’ve nothing to gain from
seeing you dead or injured,” he stated simply, serving up the
cutlets and immediately beginning to fry up more, seeming intent on
frying the whole slab of meat up. “No, beautiful Firia,”
he said with a sigh, and a gentle smile, “I will not turn on
you. On that I promise.”

“I don’t know how much
promises mean to demons, though,” she admitted meekly. “I
don’t know much about you at all.”

He smiled pleasantly at her, taking out
the cutlery for her and him, handing her a fork and knife. “Would
you like to find out more about me?” he asked in that wistfully
charming way of his that lit up his striking face. “I have
never had someone curious of who I really am before.”

Her nose scrunched up again: “Really?
Why not?” She was rather fascinated with him and only held back
her questions out of… fear? Was that what it was? She wasn’t
entirely certain, but she knew she didn’t feel wholly
comfortable bombarding him with questions.

After she took the cutlery from him, he
began to slice up his own, eating the rather rare meat with a certain
relish. “Mmm, where I come from,” he said, chewing while
he spoke but managing to retain at least some dignity while he did so
in his hunger, “one does not share such things with others. For
it might betray a weakness to exploit.” He smiled. “This
is quite delicious, is it not?”

He was even managing to distract her
from her father’s second gift, and she took the time to finally
savour the first bite. It was exquisite and unlike anything she could
ever recall tasting. She licked her lips as her eyes fluttered closed
and she nodded.

“You did really good,” she
agreed as she cut off another bite. “And that makes sense.
People do that here, too.”

He nodded, devouring his at a faster
rate, then taking time to flip and season the next cutlets on the
pan. “And when one of us is summoned, the summoner does not
care for who we are. Only for what we might do for them. So, you see?
It is a curious thing for me,” he remarked, biting into the
tender meat. “Exquisite. We have nothing like this back where I
come from.”

“So… why don’t you
tell me about yourself, then.” She was beginning to devour hers
as well, enjoying the taste and feel of it. Her demon dinner
companion even managed to distract her from the fact that her father
should have been there, appreciating the food with her.

Varuj smiled pleasantly, serving
himself up more, his appetite simply ravenous it seemed. “I am
something of a sorcerer in my own right,” he said with no small
amount of pride. “I live alone, as I said, but I have many
minions. Similar to your familiar,” he remarked with a charming
look. “They keep me company, guard my dwelling. They are very
nearly pleasant to be around,” he said with a light chuckle
that sounded almost musical.

“Hopefully they’re very
good guards, then. Since… I stole you away from it, I mean.”
Why did she feel bad about that? He wanted to be here. He told her
that.

And why wouldn’t he? A hellish
place would be… terrible. Worse than her world.

She finished her cutlet and pushed her
plate away. She’d been on such a lean diet for so long that she
was already feeling full.

Despite his own pleasantly fit
physique, he had a far greater appetite, and continued to eat,
tossing the last of the meat onto the pan. “It is hard to say,”
he said with a shrug. “If anyone is aware of my absence, then
minions or no, it is too late, and my dwelling is lost. With all I
have accumulated.” He grimaced a bit. “So you see, stay
or return, I start with nothing. At least here,” he looked
around then pointedly to her, “I have some connection to this
place.” He kept his ruby gaze locked upon her as he continued
to chew.

She felt so uncomfortable under his
stare, as if he could see right through her. And maybe he could.

She chewed her lip as she pushed her
bangs back awkwardly, fidgeting as he watched. She was strong. She
summoned him here, didn’t she?

So why did he make her feel so nervous?

“I just don’t want to make
anything bad happen.”

He was quiet a while, eating more of
the venison until it was all gone, and he wiped his lips with a
certain foreign elegance.

“You brought me here,” he
said delicately. “You tore me from all I had and knew. And
asked favours of me,” he took a deep breath and pushed the
plate away. “I like you,” he confessed. “You are a
far better summoner than I could have envisioned. But we all chafe
beneath servitude, do we not, Firia?” He stepped around the
counter and reached out, taking her hand with a gentle, warm touch.

She felt steadier with it, and that
simply made no sense to her. She should have felt something -
anything - but comfort at his touch.

“I’m not saying I’m
not going to… honour… my promise. I’m saying that
I’m scared you’re not what you seem. That… you’re
a demon.”

He gave a sweet, almost amused smile.
“That is your word for us, not ours,” he remarked softly.
With one hand in his, he used his other arm to put around her
shoulders and guide her back towards her room. “There are no
guarantees, sweet Firia. I cannot say or promise you anything that
would change that fact.” He shrugged lightly as they went to
her bed and he sat her down upon its edge before joining her, sitting
beside her quite closely. “I wish it were otherwise, but it is
not so.”

Her hands rested in her lap, her
shoulder pressed against his arm. She wanted to trust him, to be
confident she hadn’t brought something terrible into the world.

“What’s the first thing
you’d do if I wasn’t… If you weren’t under
my service?”

Varuj moved a hand up to delicately cup
her chin and tilt her gaze up towards him. “I would set out to
woo a beautiful young lady and aspiring sorceress. To make her a
partner and together make ourselves a place in this world worthy of
remembering. Of celebrating.” He leaned in so close, his eyes
partially lidded as he spoke those delicious words before wetting his
lips. “I would propose to you. An arrangement that we might
cooperate. As partners. And more.”

She didn’t breathe. She felt like
her heart would stop and her head went fuzzy.

How could she even want that? How could
his words make her feel so pleasantly warm and comforted?

This was the same vile beast that she
had summoned to her aid, who she had seen so nude in all his demonic
glory.

Yet all she could think of was how
badly she wanted to feel his soft lips on hers once more.

His head tilted, and he hovered so near
to her lips without touching. “Say you will release me, and I
shall hold you this night through. And tell you of things I can teach
you. Of things we might do as partners. Sorcerers without compare.”

He lifted one leg up and pulled her to
his chest as she sat between his legs, his nose rubbing against her
own pale peach skin as his succulent lips hovered near.

It was like she was suffocating under
the weight of her choice, and even as she began to nod her head she
wondered if she was making the wrong decision. She should keep him to
her, be a proper master. Force him to serve.

She already had all of his knowledge.
She could force it out of him.