Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (29 page)

Ala’nase simply gave her a quiet
look for a moment before starting to nudge her way through the people
with Firia. “What’s going on?” she asked to someone
in the crowd.

“They’re bringing in some
new student,” said the elven male to her.

“Now?” she asked with
surprise. “It’s the middle of the semester!”

The man shrugged his shoulders, “Beats
me. It’s never been done before as far as I know. But with the
empty first-year spot after that dining hall fiasco, I guess they
thought there was room for more.” His eyes darted back to the
front. “Oh, watch! He’s showing off!”

“They’ve never replaced any
of the others that got kicked out,” Firia murmured to Ala, her
eyes narrowed in suspicion. “He must be something special.”

Pushing ahead of her, Ala’nase
saw him first, her eyes widening in surprise then narrowing in a
certain sort of seductive trance. “Oooh, I’ll say he is.”

It took a bit longer for Firia to get a
good look. All she saw were fleeting glimpses. A brown, black, gold
and red robe fluttering through the air. A shot of glossy obsidian
hair as it swept behind the man. A flash of light as he cast some
spell she couldn’t even make out from her lack-of-vantage
point.

A brief look to Ala’nase let her
know whatever she was missing was quite captivating, however, her
hand clutched to her breast as she stared open-mouthed. The crowd
around them ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

With a bit of force as Ala had done,
she pushed her way through and saw the man. Her heart stopped.

He was different. Yet there was no
mistaking him, not in an elf’s age.

Sandy-brown skin, sleek, long hair, a
handsome, cocksure smile, all exactly as she remembered them. Yet no
horns. No sign of him being anything but a man – an elven man
perhaps – from some far off lands, blessed with exotic male
beauty.

The robes even, were so similar. Cut
low in the front over his chest, though beneath he wore billowy red
pants and curved satin shoes that looked almost like slippers.

His almond-shaped eyes found her out of
the crowd, and though he gave little away, she could see it: a tiny
little sparkle in his hazel-coloured eyes that was all for her, just
moments before his latest casting was complete. The earth exploded
before him, a spiral of rock and vine shooting up into the air as he
leapt upon it, lifting him up over a story into the air where he sat,
cloak billowing in the air as the students below applauded. Ala’nase
more than any.

He’s back.

She couldn’t believe it. Not
wholly, and she pushed herself away from him. From the crowd. From
the swooning Ala.

What did it mean?

She struggled until she was free of the
tightly packed mob and she swiped her eyes. She didn’t truly
know why she was crying, but there was such an intense sensation of
relief and gratitude and anger that swirled within her heart.

Besides. She didn’t need to be
there for him to find her.

If he still cared.

The last class of the day was come and
gone, and Firia walked off out of the building when Mae’lin
approached her. “You up for our usual study date?” he
asked with his cheerful smile, unpresuming as always. The tall,
slender elf was a constant comfort, and she was glad to see his arm
was out of the sling.

“Absolutely,” she agreed as
her hand ran along his forearm. “All healed up, hm?”

“Just about,” he responded
happily, the two of them striding across the campus. “Your
place or mine?”

They’d gotten into the habit of
studying in one another’s room as of late, only going to the
library as needed as their familiarity grew.

Varuj entered her mind, but she’d
not seen him again that whole day since witnessing his show at the
gates.

“Yours. Mine’s a mess.”

She hated the fact that she expected
Varuj to be waiting in her lonely dorm room. At the same time she
delighted in the idea that he was and that she would force him to
wait for her. So long she had gone without him, but knowing he was
back made her anger at him all the more apparent.

More than one time that night, Mae’lin
asked her, “Is there anything wrong?” Her focus wasn’t
there on the work as it usually was. She realized that. Though the
smiling elf before her was simply all optimistic concern.

“Yea… Maybe I’m just
coming down with something. It’s probably nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. Her heart was
in her throat and her stomach was twisted in knots. Guilt and hope
kept dancing with one another and she didn’t know how to stop
it.

Mae’lin was perfect for her. She
kept reminding herself of that, over and over.

So why did she want so, so badly to
find out Varuj was waiting for her?

Leaning in, he kissed her on the lips
softly, tentatively.

“If it’s nothing you want
to talk about, we can just end things for the night. It’s about
time for curfew to kick in anyhow.” She’d lost track of
time, and was reminded that she’d not shared the fact she can
bypass curfew, first and only amongst the first-years so far.

She kissed him back and felt some tears
begin to form beneath her eyelids.
Get it together, Firia
, she
chided herself. She cared so little about others back in her former
school, but now she couldn’t stand the idea of breaking
Mae’lin’s heart.

Grabbing her bag, she quickly hid her
reddened face from him. “Rest up and I’ll see you
tomorrow,” she said with all the mustered calm she had.

The trip back across the dark campus
was quiet. Few other students still traversed the grounds, for though
more senior students often had means to buck the curfew, they were
often too wrapped up in their own increasingly tenacious struggle to
succeed to waste time.

Climbing the stairs, she could feel her
excitement build as she saw her door at the end of the hall. The
answer to whether he awaited her lay just beyond that familiar door.
It made her afraid for the answer, and she delayed.

Leaning against the doorway she swiped
her finger beneath her eyes and took in a deep breath. It was torture
to wait, but her heart couldn’t handle the disappointment.

Besides, if he was there, she wanted to
seem put together. Unfazed by his abandonment.

Yet pushing in, there was nothing. Just
air. Just her room, as lonely and as messy as she had left it.

She couldn’t have imagined a
greater disappointment, and nearly sank into immediate melancholy,
except…

There was a knock at the door, soft and
gentle, barely audible.

She composed herself, straightened her
hair, cleaned up her face, but went to the door and opened it. Opened
it onto an empty corridor.

Her heart could scarcely take anymore
let down, but when she felt the familiar touch of that damnable
man-demon, she knew he had been waiting.

“I’ve missed you,” he
husked into her ear, his arms moving around her waist as he embraced
her from behind, the door slowly closing shut as if of its own
accord. She could even smell that all-too-familiar scent of his, so
exotic, such a pleasant musk.

Her emotions were sweeping her away. In
her youth she had been so stoic, so collected. She hadn’t cared
about anyone but herself and her family.

Yet these new needs and desires muddied
her mind, and her breath grew shallow. This is what she wanted. The
pain, the anger, the fear, it all melted away and left only lust in
its wake. The demon, the cruel tease, the damnable fiend…

He was tearing her apart, away from all
that was right and good in the world. Her life should be so simple,
so blissfully rewarding, and yet he tormented her.

“Then you shouldn’t have
left me,” she shot back. “I never thought you’d
come back and face me again.”

She felt him still, her words biting
into him more deeply than she’d ever managed before, and he
pulled back ever so slowly. So gently.

“What do you mean?” he
asked, that same curious accent on his voice, that familiarly odd way
of speaking. “I saved your father, did all I could for you,”
he remarked, looking to the back of her head with an expression of
hurt confusion.

“And then you ran off! If you
remembered, you told me you needed Luka to get back in here
undetected!” All of the strange emotions kept brewing to such
intensity, and the only one of them she truly understood was anger.
It felt good to be mad at him, to make him hurt.

To have control.

Varuj recoiled ever so slightly from
her verbal assault, stunned by her anger. “You were facing a
test all by yourself!” he said, his own emotions rising, she
could see it in his expression. That handsome, flawless face of his,
so strikingly gorgeous. “I sent Luka back to you as soon as I
was done, so that he might help you in my stead should the need
arise.” His dark, deep voice tempered, his own emotion
repressed as he explained himself.

He reached out for her, turning her
about to face him. “I could not risk seeing your dreams and
mine go up in ashes when I could find another way to return in time.”

“And now you have! Showing off,
finally, to an adoring crowd. Making sure everyone knows just how
powerful you are. How did you even manage getting in, huh?” Her
eyes were wide with fury and it was so cathartic.

His brows furrowed. “I had to
impress them to get in! They wouldn’t allow a late student in
without a great deal of showing off, bribery and persuasive talk,”
he pled with her. Though he did his best to calm himself, reaching
out and taking one of her hands, clasping it between his two warm
palms. “I worked hard so I could return to you, with your
affairs in order and no more worries to distract you from our life
and goals.”

Tears burned her eyes and she tried to
fight them back. Her face was red and she had no way to express what
she wanted. What she hoped to achieve with her anger.

It would kill her to lose him again,
yet she wished he would disappear at the same time. She could be so,
so happy without him. Without his complications.

Firia was at a loss for words and her
body trembled as the anger dimmed.

Varuj slammed a hand to the door over
her shoulder and leaned in. He was so close she could feel the heat
radiating off him. Feel the warm wash of his breath as he pressed
against her. “I longed for you,” he said, his voice
nearly a hiss. “I missed you dearly. What I did, I did for you.
For us. To take care of your father, see him safely secured, that I
might return here and be by your side forever more.”

She could make out the dim glow of red
in his eyes, and as she gazed at him she saw it wasn’t anger.
Not exactly. The passion that ran through him was conflicted, like
hers, but she saw it clear as day: desire. “We’re bound
together. And I love you, Firi,” those last words a low husk
that reminded her of her father’s sweet words and Varuj’s
fiery passion.

Biting in her lower lip she stared at
him intently. The anger had ebbed and left something far more
dangerous in its wake, and she pushed forward. Her mouth met his as
her hands went to his hair and she tasted him with all of that pent
up longing and rage.

The fire and intensity with which he
returned her kiss nearly bowled her over. It wasn’t like the
sessions with Mae’lin, muted passions of two young,
inexperienced students. There was anger and longing the likes of
which Firia couldn’t even truly understand, and Varuj didn’t
have the elven man’s composure.

Two arms went around her, his tongue
thrust deep into her mouth, and he nearly crushed her between himself
and the wall as he let loose his own pent up feelings. His body was
so hard and burning against her, loins so swollen in what seemed like
a mere heartbeat of kissing her.

She hated herself. Hated what she was
doing.

But she knew there was no going back.
She didn’t want to. Not then.

The long nights, dreaming of this man,
of this demon… It tormented her, truly, but the lust it had
awoken within her belonged to him. No matter what reproductions she
could try to have, it would never be able to compare with the raw
passion she felt for him.

She couldn’t change that, no
matter how she wished it to be different.

Instead she embraced it all, the nip of
his teeth upon her upper lip, the digging bite of his nails as he
rubbed his fingers through her hair so that her ponytail was undone
and her dark hair came flowing down.

He had none of the shyness or reticence
of Mae’lin. His hand moved from her hair, across her neck and
in under her robe as he grasped her shoulder with his nearly searing
touch. That raw physical contact was so sweet, so burning, she felt
him grip her side with his other hand, as they gasped for breath
whenever they could in their frenzied make out.

She’d never felt so alive, and
her body ached for him. For more. To feel his touch all over her and
fully be able to appreciate it.

She admitted she was terrified.
Horrified, really, of what she was doing, but she wanted it so badly.
She thought back to the night they met, to the way he had touched
himself. It was his way of expressing interest: That was how he had
explained it, and the reminder sent a shiver through her nerves.

He was a beast. Huge and terrifying.
The mask he wore of the good-looking man was a farce, and she was the
only one who knew it.

Firia had summoned him, and she had
seen what lay beneath the surface, and still her arousal beat out her
terror.

She moaned as her hands felt him out,
exploring his body in a way she’d never dared to before and she
was surprised by how powerful and alive it made her feel.

Her mind was a haze, but she could
swear she felt the mental image of him match what she felt, and when
her lashes fluttered, eyes flicking open a moment, she swore she saw
him big. A hulking monstrosity as he was when she first summoned him.
Looming over her as they kissed and touched… her hand slipping
inside his robe, which came undone so very easily, letting her roam
about the smooth, hard muscled flesh.