Then she did take matters into her own hands, hauling me closer and kissing me with a passion that took away my breath. Her lips were cool and like life where I’d expected death. With a savage intensity, I pressed my tongue across the seam of her lips, and when her mouth opened, our tongues twined in a dance that equaled our waltz.
She lowered one hand from my waist to my ass and squeezed, whilst her other edged up into my hair, pulling hard. I groaned at the twin sensations like a claiming. Then her black dress wafted into mist, curling around my dick and between my legs, until my balls were rubbed as well.
My eyes widened. I shook, as she edged me higher.
I broke the kiss, caressing up and down the hollow of her back. “Who are you?”
Finally, Ghost Immortal’s expression became shuttered, and the mist between my legs squeezed my balls in a way that would’ve been painful if I hadn’t been so turned on.
I bit my lip, panting hard.
Seriously, she had to be kidding… I couldn’t hold back… I was going to…
I tasted tangy blood as I tore the skin of my lip to keep in the keen, as I came in my pants.
There went my record.
Damn it all to Hel, it wasn’t like the other Rebels would miss the wet spot on my trousers. I’d intended to make Ghost Immortal scream. Perhaps, I should’ve listened to Loki about witches.
I drew back from Ghost Immortal, glaring. She looked way too smug, and the crow hopped up and down with the bird equivalent of a smirk. But then she kissed my cheek gently, and I couldn’t feel cross anymore.
“I’m the original wicked witch who cursed this academy,” she whispered.
She looked at me with a gaze that was so broken yet hopeful that it tore me up inside.
I froze because honestly, that was worse than I’d been imagining. It was no wonder that her magic tasted so powerful, ancient, and dark. I’d just promised to unleash the original wicked witch.
And that’s why a guy shouldn’t be led by his dick. But was she truly wicked or just a Rebel like the rest of us?
When I stepped back, Ghost Immortal floated away across the icy lake, and I was flooded with an immense wave of loss.
Then Bask clutched his arms around my neck, and Fox collapsed in a panting pile at my feet.
Fox’s breath came in pained gasps; he looked like he was about to puke. “Y-you weren’t k-kidding when you s-said that gods loved r-running.”
I blinked. Had the punishment driven him mad? That squirming guilt was back roiling in my guts. I’d have to get him into a serious training regime or the Princes would wreck us in the Rebel Cup. After all, it was kind of my fault…okay, no need to be a hardass…entirely my fault that we were on this run.
When Bask sniffed and swiped at the wet patch on my trousers, however, I understood what Fox meant. I raised an imperious eyebrow.
On Bor’s beard, I wouldn’t blush.
“Dancing, kissing himself, and coming…is that a god thing?” Bask nipped at my neck on each word. “Are you practicing for later with us, Slippy?”
“Apricots are brilliant for practicing kissing, I mean, that’s what I heard.” Fox couldn’t hide his blush, although he tried to by nestling down into my coat, which was too big for him.
There was something else squirming inside me, as I watched Fox with his adorably innocent pink cheeks looking to my coat to protect him.
I shifted, uncomfortable. How could I love him already, in the same way that I loved Bask? Why did I desire Ghost Immortal so intensely? I’d been taught not to have friends or love witches. Yet now I’d broken every survival instinct taught to me over the centuries. I’d brought the chaos moment, but it could destroy me.
Chapter Nine
FOX
I stumbled through the narrow portrait gallery in the West Wing. My lungs burned like they were on fire. Only Bask’s arm around my waist and Sleipnir’s cocky gaze that screamed that he dared me not fall on my face stopped me from collapsing.
I’d begged Sleipnir not to take the gargoyle route back to our room because with the panting mess that was left of me at the end of my first punishment, I’d have puked on the floor. And I might be a shifter, but I wasn’t an animal.
Dawn’s cold light was finally edging through the arched windows, yet I and the Immortals had been up for hours. I sneezed, snuffling into the sleeve of Sleipnir’s overcoat that he’d wrapped around me. How had Ambrose been expecting me to survive if Sleipnir hadn’t broken the rules by giving me his coat? Or had the professor wanted me to become an ice sculpture?
Merlin’s balls, the muscles in my thighs ached, and my knees wobbled dangerously.
Maybe Ambrose had cast a Jelly Charm on them as part of his punishment?
Truth: I’d been locked in an attic for over a decade. I was one unfit foxy.
At least, I wasn’t fit enough to keep up with a wired god and well-fed incubus on a Sunday Discipline Run. It had sounded like a Fun Run, which is something that I’d watched on TV and always craved to take part in, although less with the fun and more with the pain.
What had I expected from an academy run by witches?
Thank Pan, I’d followed a strict gym routine and workout regime, even if I’d only been able to watch Hartley jogging around the formal gardens each evening.
Liar, liar, prickly pants on fire…
Okay, more like I’d danced like a kitten on fire to James Brown every night because this cat had soul.
Now, I stumbled in the portrait gallery, dizzy. Lights danced in front of my eyes. Bask’s and Sleipnir’s anxious voices sounded far away as if through sheets of ice. Gentle hands helped me down to the floor, resting my head against the stone wall. Fingers carded through my curls, and I leaned into the touch.
Maybe I’d better start a training routine that was more than shaking my furry ass to James Brown…? Not that I was going to give that up because that was how my whiskery self got down.
You haven’t seen true dancing, until you’ve watched a cat with a crooked tail getting funky to “Super Bad”.
I blinked, and through my blurry vision I made out the Immortals’ concerned faces, as they crouched in front of me. Only dad had ever looked at me like that.
My throat was tight, and I swallowed with difficulty. “I’m f-fine. I’m just…taking a b-break to look at the pictures,” I slurred.
“Uh-huh.” Bask raised an unimpressed eyebrow, even if he continued to pet my hair. “Does it usually please you to faint, fall to the floor, and then look at paintings resting on your arse?”
“It’s better than looking at them out of my ass.” I shrugged.
Wow, had that been a bad idea. I blinked back the wooziness.
Sleipnir slouched to his feet, crossing his arms, as he leaned against the wall. His hair this morning was aquamarine like his eyes. Had his lip been pierced with that glittering stud before?
Was he pierced anywhere else…?
“He’s okay, aren’t you, champ?” Sleipnir drawled. “Seriously, why don’t we run another lap?”
I’d rather tie my dick in a black bow and deliver it to Damelza as an early Halloween gift.