I was losing him and I loved him.
I screamed with a primal rage at the unfairness. Then I slammed Bask back against the wall. My magic exploded around us in a spray of pink sparkles like snowflakes.
He was pleasure, sensation, and love.
I'd told him not to say always, but he'd already let go.
My magic spiraled wilder and wilder around us both. I couldn't control it. It bound us together.
Bask's eyes widened, as my lips that pressed to his tingled with magenta magic.
I was wicked. I was back. And I was out of control...
Chapter Three
MAGENTA
I shivered, as wild magic pulsed through me, lighting the East Wing in a pink blizzard. It was thrilling to have no control and terrifying in equal measure. My power drew its energy from nature, sucking it from the air and questing its roots down to draw it from the earth. Yet it stole nothing because nature couldn't be controlled either; it chose to answer my call.
It was a scream of no more: no more loss or loneliness. No more would this academy take my lovers.
It was every buried truth crushed from me.
The Rebels were mine, and our souls were bound both now and after death.
Nobody would take Bask from me.
I wound my arms around Bask's neck, and my skirts dissolved to black mists that coiled around him, binding him even closer.
It appeared that my ghostly side took the whole possessive part of me, which had been awoken, literally. Yet by the way that Bask's hard prick rubbed against my thigh, and his wide eyes stared into mine with an aching longing, he didn't mind.
It wasn't only crows and incubi who had nesting impulses, however, but also my Wickedly Charmed magic. It quested around the room, across the desks and counter, searching for a safe place....I hoped, to ravish Bask.
When my magic hesitated like a sniffer dog over Lysander's bed, I yanked at it with a grimace. Wanking was one thing, but I was not making love to the man who I craved more than my next breath in a fae prince's bed. I did not have a fae kink (although, Flair insisted that did indeed exist).
I glanced across the room at Willoughby's bed, which was beside an open window. The carved ice glistened; the ice columns rose high. It looked like it belonged to a true Prince Charming, if Charming was a killer.
An ice bed for an Ice Prince.
Perhaps, it'd at least cool down the fever, which was burning through me.
I swallowed; my forehead was damp with sweat. When Bask's gaze caught mine, his tongue darted out to wet his plush lips. I forced myself to look away because it made my fingers ache to reach out and trace down the alabaster line of his throat to the dip of his collar bone, which was definitely clouding my decision-making abilities.
"Do you have any bad associations with Willoughby's bed?" I panted.
For the love of Hecate, say no.
"Only that it'd be a fine thing to be sharing it with Willoughby," Bask replied. Then just in case I'd missed his meaning, he continued, "This pettable incubus, that pretty elf, and you...together, here, in this—"
"Let's christen it then." When I grabbed Bask's hand, his eyes widened in surprise.
We fell onto Willoughby's bed, amid the sky-blue velvet covers that swathed the ice and the scent of tea. It was cool and aromatic. The ceiling glistened with ice just like the tips of Willoughby's hair would glisten when he lost control of his anger. Perhaps, he did when he slept? Did he suffer from nightmares, the same as the Immortals?
For a moment, it was like Willoughby truly was in the bed with us, wrapping his arms around us both.
When Bask shuddered and scrambled to the headboard to take refuge amongst the snowflake cushions, I caged him beneath me.
There was dark magic in this bed: binding magic.
Yet was it Willoughby's or whoever was controlling him?
"You can feel it too?" Bask whispered.
I nodded.
"We must save the elf," Basks voice was steely. "Someone's hurting him. I owe him a touch debt, and he pet me. That means I’ll protect him, even though he's a Prince."
I rested my forehead against Bask’s, as my magic swirled around us. "But you're leaving us all, are you not?"
Bask drew in his breath, sharply. "It's not my wish."
"Then stay with me." My magic spun above our heads, faster and faster. It clung against the bed’s columns. "I came back to life for you."
"It'd please me if you did." When Bask feathered kisses along my jaw, my pulse fluttered in my neck. My nerves were on fire. "But it was Slippy's sacrifice and Fox's blood that resurrected you. Don't you see?"
I drew back in shock. Bask’s eyes gleamed with tears but none fell.
Why would he never allow himself to cry?
I froze at the thought that the instinct to weep could’ve been trained out of him. Was that why he loved us so fiercely but didn’t believe that I could venerate him?
He didn’t need to prove anything to me. I'd just have to prove how much he was adored, instead.
Bask gasped, as my black mists shot out, drawing back his hands and binding him to the bed. Then I slowly loosened his tie.
Bask never broke eye contact with me, and his lips parted. I longed to push my tongue between those sweet lips and kiss away every moment of broken doubt. But first, I had glorious skin to stroke and claim, while he was still here with me: alive and mine.
I'd been forbidden to touch him and now I'd luxuriate in every caress. I was a rebel, after all.
How could I lose this?
When I pushed back Bask’s blazer and unbuttoned his shirt, pausing to tease each inch of revealed skin with the tips of my gloved fingers, lips, tongue, and teeth, Bask panted and tugged on my mists that bound his hands. I swiped my thumb over his sensitive nub, and he arched.
So, I did it again.
Then I pulled his shirt out of his pants. When I rested my hand over his crotch, his prick twitched against my hand. I glanced from underneath my eyelashes into his flushed face. His pleasure coiled through me, and he glowed with mine.
Couldn't he see how powerful...and dangerous...we were together?
I’d once heard Flair call it a power couple.
"Your pleasure is what summoned me from Hecate's Tree. Without your power, I wouldn't have been able to escape in the first place." I slipped my hand into Bask's pants, pulling out his prick, before melting away my own clothing. I loved how efficient it was now to undress. I also loved Bask's appreciative gasp. My bouncy bosoms certainly were perkier for the praise. "I needed all three of you to save me; your pleasure and love combine in a way that no other Rebels' ever has. You're special together. I need all three of you."
"Four with Willoughby," Bask insisted with a tilt of his chin, which was impressive, as I rubbed my palm over the head of his prick.
I smiled. "Four."
I floated above him — half ghost and half witch — but all wicked. My lips curled into a smile. Even I knew that I couldn't get away with that type of thought, when I sounded like Mary bloody Poppins. Still, I could pull off being a spirit lover.
My lips tingled with a magic that vibrated through the entire academy.
I pulled back Bask's shirt to reveal his sculpted chest, and I was flooded with warmth, despite the coolness of the velvet beneath me. "What a perfectly charming gift to unwrap."