Rebel Academy: Crush

Chapter Two MAGENTA

When I’d been burned alive over one hundred years ago, it’d appeared miraculous that the witches' goddess Hecate had trapped me in her tree as a ghost.

On Sunday, it’d been just as miraculous that my delicious Immortals — a mage, god, and incubus — had risked their lives to free me as a Ghost Witch.

Yet I didn't believe in miracles.

I twisted my tendrils of magenta power around Damelza Crow, the Principal of the Rebel Academy, piggybacking on her magical transportation.

It shouldn’t be possible… I’d be torn apart and scattered through the four corners of the grounds.

If I survived though, it wouldn’t be a miracle. It’d be my magic and the academy, grasping onto me as naturally as a tree holds a bud to its branch against the winter breeze.

The House of Crows never understood nature, but my magic was nature.

I hung onto the pathway that should’ve flown Damelza smoothly from one side of the castle to the other, as she attempted to drag my incubus lover, Bask, to her study. She wished to hand him over to the Duchess, the succubus who’d once been bonded to him.

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. But then, I was wicked.

I was born the first Blessedly Charmed witch in five hundred years, but when the mage that I loved had been walled up alive because I'd dared to share my first kiss was him, I’d lost control of my powers and cursed the entire academy, becoming Wickedly Charmed.

Cauldrons and candles, everyone had their tipping point, didn't they?

It was rather reckless to grab hold of Bask, since I was hexed not to touch him, and that hex was a bitch. It electrocuted both Bask and me, as we fell through the darkness, spinning off course from the study.

I coiled my magic around Bask, until he glowed. Then I wrenched, yanking Bask out of Damelza's hold and away from her dark magic.

The air itself crushed me.

I clung to Bask's hard chest; his sweet scent of coco and almonds cocooned me. I longed to kiss his plush lips and taste him. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, stroking my long blond hair, like he'd never let me go.

Don't. Let. Go.

The hex ripped through me, savaging me. I screamed, and my ears rang. The shock shuddered through both of us together, as we shook like we were dancing.

Hecate, please, please, make it stop...

Perhaps, I needed to have NEVER PRAY TO GODDESSES tattooed somewhere intimate. My crow familiars, Echo and Flair, would’ve voted for my bosoms.

They were certainly ample enough.

Keep concentrating on my jiggling bosoms and not the agony…

I bit my tongue to hold in the pleas: stop the man who I love from being forced into marriage just like I’d almost been to a fae prince, save the mage from death, even if I hadn't been able to save my best friend, and pull me back from the crushing black.

Yet the last time that I'd prayed to Hecate, I'd been burned as a sacrifice. So, I rather thought that this time I'd save myself without divine...anything.

I'd had enough of being witch slapped by either covens or ancient deities. Life had been breathed back into me, and I was just discovering true belonging amongst the living. Yet Damelza had intended to whisk one of those living Immortals who'd introduced me to the sensations, experiences, and love of this new world in the twenty-first century away, and I'd stolen a ride.

It was time to steal him back.

I clutched Bask tighter, as the magic spun out of control, careening us through the veils. My Blessedly Charmed magic pulsed through the castle. The castle's heartbeat thud — thud — thudded in time with my own.

I'd created and cursed Rebel Academy. It was mine.

Its shadows and secret places, which smelled of white sage and forgotten magic, were opened to us. We were inside them.

Don't let us be lost between worlds.

My nerves fried, and my teeth chattered.

Bask and I tore through hidden passageways, chambers, and shrines.

Mage's balls on a stick...make it stop...

There was a darkness like icy blood poisoning the veins of the academy, and it was my own loss and grief. I shook with the realization that only I could heal it.

I might be a wicked witch, but I could bless, as well as curse. My mother and her descendants who ran this academy had their Principal's Motto Book, but I didn't have a rule book.

My stomach lurched, and for a moment, I had the disconcerting sensation that we were hanging upside down. I wasn’t cut out to become a bat, even if my billowing black velvet dress could play the part of wings.

How did I land this magical transportation again?

I concentrated on the academy. I could sense the dragon shifters in the stable, the thrumming power in the Dead Wood, the frozen lake, and the wards that trapped all the Rebels inside the grounds.

My magic reached like pink roots beneath the academy and to the ruins outside the castle. I should...perhaps...have paid more attention to the professor in Strategy and less to Lysander's unfairly tight behind, but wouldn't the ruins make an excellent position to defend my lover? Although, I was certain that Bask would assume that he was defending me.

Vanity, your name is an incubus who looks like he was created to tempt witches to sin.

Suddenly, Damelza's magic snapped against mine with the crack of a whip.

Bask howled, as Damelza tried to haul him away from me and back to her...and the inspection by the Duchess, his old bond.

In the name of Hecate, I wouldn't let that happen.

My magenta burst from me like a firework in an explosion that burned me out. At the same time, it burst us free from Damelza and the secret heart of the academy.

I rather feared that I was no longer in control of this flight.

My pulse raced. Why couldn’t I move? Had I truly used up all my energy? I struggled to scrunch up my nose or wiggle my toes.

Nothing.

Like a robin with broken wings, where I crashed would now be total blind luck.

Not the study...

I screwed shut my eyes, holding my breath. Then it was knocked out of me in an oomph, as Bask and I landed.

Silence, apart from Bask’s heartbeat and my own, which were both wild in our chests.

When my eyes blinked open, I found myself staring straight into Bask’s adoring ruby gaze. I shivered at the wordless way in which his gaze said that I was his world, and he’d die if I looked away. He caged me between his arms, as he lay above me like a sinful emperor.

Bask’s pleasure had summoned me as a ghost, then his love had resurrected me.

I craved to devour him.

Bask’s silky black hair veiled my face, tickling my cheeks. His uniform of pink blazer and tie with black pants was as perfect as if he’d been strolling down a corridor rather than tumbling to possible oblivion.

Only the way that he sank closer to me, before resting one shaky hand, which was encased in a long pink glove because incubi could read your deep, dark desires and control you with them through touch, on my cheek told me that I wasn’t the only one still tremoring with shocks.

Bask stroked the tip of his finger along my jawline, and I shivered. “I’m touching you, and it doesn’t hurt.”

“Why, you’re quite turning my head with your sweet talk.” I smiled, and longed to catch Bask’s lower lip between my teeth. “I’m awfully sorry, you meant that the hex has fried itself out on my magic. In the witching heavens, I never wish to stop touching you again.”

“Pet me,” Bask commanded.

Incubi were only meant to gain power from giving pleasure, but Bask was considered bad because he gained it from receiving pleasure as well. He needed touch to survive and he’d been touch deprived for days.

Hand, why aren’t you rising to pet my incubus? Stop this witchy laziness at once.

“It would be my pleasure,” hand, I must insist that you behave and start petting, “if I could only move more than my head and toes… Give me a second…possibly one more… Look, I’ve conquered my little finger.”

“If it pleases you, much fun can be had even with a wee finger like that.” Bask slunk down me, only to catch my wiggling finger in his mouth.

Even through my gloves, I jumped at the heat and the way that his tongue curled around my finger, as he looked up teasingly from underneath his butterfly lashes.

Why hadn’t I tried this before? And when could I try it again, when I had enough power to vanish my gloves?

Was this why the Rebels sucked each other’s pricks? Sleipnir, my gorgeous god and Loki’s son, had certainly appeared to enjoy it when I’d experimented on his, and I’d loved the power of dragging the same flush to his cheeks and breathy gasps from him that Bask was now dragging from me.

Although, to be fair, Bask was achieving that with only my finger, whereas I’d had a whole prick to play with.

When Bask let go of my finger with a pop, he rested his head on my stomach, and I wished that I could stroke his hair.

“Delightful as that…”

“Finger fellatio…?” Bask offered.

“Kissing with beautiful extras was,” I continued, “I’ve just dragged you away from Damelza’s cruel clutches, and she’ll be searching for us. I can’t even manage a very British tapping foot of disapproval in defense, and there’s only so much a little finger can achieve in a fight. Where are we?”

Wherever Bask and I had landed it was soft, light, and decidedly not Damelza's study. Also, it wasn't anywhere that I recognized, even as I luxuriated in the warmth of the furs beneath me.

Above, stars twinkled from the canopy of an obsidian four-poster bed.

If this was Damelza's bed, then I'd never be able to scrub myself clean, even with one of those magical showers that existed now.

As I stared at the gleaming black, it appeared to swirl and mold into different shapes around the stars like suns were dying and new galaxies were forming.

Whoever slept in this bed apparently believed that they were the center of the universe.

Ah, a fae then.

My breath hitched. This couldn't be the forbidden East Wing and the Princes' bedroom, surely?

Bats and cats, was I snuggling in Prince Lysander's bed?

I wanted to hurl...but at least if I vomited, it'd be entertaining to see Lysander's expression when he found out who’d destroyed his bed that was fit for a...prince.

Why did the Princes deserve such luxury, when the Immortals’ Wing was plain and cold? There weren't even enough pillows for both Bask and Fox to cuddle, and they starved, at the same time as the Princes dined on delicacies sent by their wealthy patrons. Yet on this bed, there were heaps of furry cushions like a gang of cats had claimed it as their territory.

Bask wrinkled his nose, before snatching up one of those fluffy creatures and wafting it under my nose. "Do you smell cherry blossoms?"

I choked on the intense sweetness. "It's like being smothered by spring." Then I sneezed. A gold feather rested on the end of my nose. "Would you awfully mind not shedding on me."

Bask looked affronted. "Get on with you, I'm not a..." Then he became ashen. He picked up the gold feather between his finger and thumb like he'd discovered a hair on the sheets from a far more private place of the body. "Lysander tastes of cherry blossoms. He was temptingly delicious, until he poisoned me.”

“Typical predator behavior,” I muttered. “There are frogs like that.”

Bask bounced up onto his knees. “Do you know what this means?"

"You shouldn't go around licking fae?"

He nipped my lower lip. "I get to wank on a Prince's bed."

I blinked at him. "Are you awfully certain that's our priority? Lysander shouldn't have suggested that your sword was short in Warrior Training, but there are more constructive ways to prove your manhood. Right now, we could be searching for how to restore my power."

Bask bared the long line of his alabaster throat, sliding his hand down to undo his pants and slipping his hand inside. He bit his plush lip, and his eyes became half-lidded. "I am," he panted. "Let me please and feed you. Marking the arrogant fae's bed is only a brilliant bonus. Tell me what you desire."

Who wouldn’t give in to such seductive temptation? I desired him.

I circled my little finger. "Push down your pants."

Bask wriggled his pants down in a move that was so sexy, it made me squirm inside. My skin prickled at the way his hand hesitated over his own hard prick. When he glanced at me for permission, I flushed with warmth because he knew that he didn't need it. "Cup your balls with one hand, then stroke yourself, hard and fast. You come in the next minute or you don't come at all."

Sweet Hecate, that’d hadn’t sounded at all as if I’d just copied the script from one of Flair’s favorite…and most vocal…fantasies.

Bask's eyes widened.

Could he manage it? Had I set an impossible challenge, just the same as the trials within the academy?

My familiars had kept watch over the Rebels with a Wank Count for decades but they hadn't timed them or at least, they might've and simply not told me. It wasn’t the type of thing that a lady asked: Do tell me the length of time that the students took to achieve climax in self-pleasure today…to the second, please.

Yet if my power was to be recharged, then it was worth a try. Bask set to the task with a determination that teetered on the line between pleasure and pain. His back arched, and I was mesmerized by the slide of his hand up and down his throbbing prick. His thighs trembled.

He groaned in frustration.

Then all at once, I could move again and touch.

I clasped my hand over Bask's, uniting us. I pressed my mouth to his, stealing a taste of his coco and almond lips. Bask shuddered like he'd been electrocuted for a second time; he'd never been this sensitive before.

What had it done to him to be deprived of my touch?

Instantly, he came. A pearly arc streamed out, painting the black covers of the bed white.

Fifty-six seconds precisely.

I caught Bask in my arms. Together, we tumbled to the other side of the bed, laughing. His eyes glittered. I was lit with joy, and my magic vibrated through me again.

I caressed down Bask’s neck, his collarbone, and along his hip. I touched every inch of exposed skin simply because I could.

Bask sighed happily, pulling me closer. "I'm pettable again." Then he smirked. "Especially my arse." When I pinched his behind (which I had to admit was the most splendid example of its kind), he merely grinned. "You can spank me if you like. My sweet behind is at your service."

"Ehm, grateful as I am for the offer, I shan't ever wish to thrash you. Why, what have you done wrong? Are you hiding a guilty secret?”

Bask jolted. “I was thinking more erotic fun and less bad boy discipline.”

“Excellent because I only want to save you."

I glanced around the room.

At least this was the last place that the witches would think to look for us. Immortals were banned from the Princes’ rooms and the Princes from the Immortals’. The witches kept the academy and the wards that trapped us running by keeping us as rivals.

At the far side was the archway with the key emblem above it (just like the Immortals had the torch in their Wing). The three Hecates in the courtyard chose which group each student would belong to on arrival: Princes, Immortals, or Randoms. There were wardrobes and desks just like the Immortals’ rooms. Except, these ones were grand with gold gilt and inlaid with mosaic battle scenes. The floors were thickly carpeted, and the ceiling was ornate.

On each wall was a glowing board with scrolling Privilege and Punishment Points in pink letters.

What would it be like to wake up to that each morning?

Juni Crow, the Princes’ Tutor, had terrifyingly organized motivational techniques. I hadn't expected myself to feel grateful that Bacchus, the Immortals' tutor, was into chaos, even if that included random Ice Water Punishments.

The other bed in the room, which faced Lysander's on the far wall, was carved out of ice. It glittered like crushed diamonds. It must be Willoughby’s.

It was sad that the two princes didn't share a bed. It’d break Echo’s heart to lose that cherished fantasy. Perhaps, their tutor didn't allow it…? The Immortals slept together because Bask needed the touch as he slept. But didn't fae need it in precisely the same way?

Bask pulled up his pants, tucking himself back into them. "Where's Midnight sleep?"

Midnight was the Princes' vampire whipping boy. I'd witnessed him being forced to kneel naked in corners like he was a bicycle waiting to be ridden.

I truly hoped that wasn't what happened at night. I mean, either the kneeling or the being ridden.

My brow furrowed. "Considering the alternatives, the floor looks tempting."

Bask snorted. "A bed of nails coated in itching powder would be tempting."

He grabbed a pillow, which was silk with a black swan feather sewn on the front, before starting to reach for another one.

After living in Hecates’ Tree with two crows, I could tell a nest when I saw one being built. "When an incubus marks a bed, does it mean that the pillows become his?"

Bask froze. He carefully pushed away the pillow, although I noticed that he didn't let go of its corner. "Away with you, I wasn't planning on stealing it."

He assuredly was.

I studied the feather, which had been attached with such care to the front. The pillow was special, worn, and older than the ones around it.

It didn't fit.

"I'd put that back," I warned. "I'd imagine that the fae lies here at night cuddling and kissing it, just like you do Nile."

Bask gasped, dropping the corner like it'd burned him. "Nile will expect a kiss on his crocodile tooth to make up for that.” He shuddered. “I have second-hand Lysander love all over me. Am I less slinky already?"

I struggled not to smile. "You'll never be less slinky, and don't worry, it'll wash off."

Yet as I caught sight of the feather, I suddenly shook with the memory of Robin's Your Heart's Desire book, which he'd created for me by plucking his own feathers, while in bird form.

Was this Lysander's version?

Had someone made it for him? Was this a love token, so that Lysander could remember them, while he was trapped in prison?

Who had Lysander loved and lost?

In Hecate’s Wood, when I'd passed my fingers over the spelled feathers of the Your Heart's Desire Book, they'd sung with Robin’s silvery birdsong. It should've meant that he could always be with me, wherever I'd gone. He'd intended to give it to me as a courting present at the Enchanted Ball. But then, mother had arranged my marriage to Lysander's uncle and guardian, Titus.

Lysander wasn't his uncle. If I thought it enough times like a mantra, then I’d believe it.

I gritted my teeth together.

I knew that Lysander wasn’t the same fae prick, although he was a prick. But I couldn't help how he reminded me of the man who controlled the academy as its patron and who'd destroyed both Robin and me.

Robin once told me that to be a ghost was to eternally crave. Yet even now, I spent every moment craving Robin. I'd never forget my first love, whose kiss had tangled his soul with mine. Yet I also craved the lovers who'd brought me a second chance at love after death.

Bask was the Rebel who was in danger now. If I didn't find a way to break him free from the Duchess, then she'd break him again.

I swung my legs over the bed, hauling Bask with me. "On Hecates' tit, delightful as touching you was, we have to work out a way to stop the Duchess from touching you as well."

I hated the way that Bask's gaze became glazed. He must be remembering something, and I'd guess that it wasn't the Duchess and him playing with puppies.

Unless the Duchess had a disturbing habit of naming her bonded incubi’s balls.

Bask wandered to the far side of the room, fiddling with the objects on a marble counter. The Immortals’ Wing didn’t even have a counter.

"Look, wi-fi!" Bask exclaimed.

I hadn't thought that I'd shattered Bask by mentioning the Duchess but apparently, I had. "My apologies, I didn't mean to startle you into baby talk. Do you also perhaps perceive we-fe, wo-fo, and wu-fu?"

Bask turned to blink at me. "Have I told you how sexy I find your Victorian weirdness?"

I flushed. "Do go ahead."

He licked his lips. "I'll prove it later."

Promises...

Then my foot knocked against a large basket, which was lined with a blanket. It was rough and stuck out against the pampered luxury of the rest of the bedroom.

I scuffed my boot against the basket. "Why would they keep such a thing?"

Bask's eyes lit with excitement, before he twirled around like he was looking for something. In the name of Hecate, were we about to be consumed by carnivorous gargoyles? "It's a wee dog's bed. I bet that it's an adorable Pomeranian."

"I'd have guessed something more proving my manliness like an Alsatian."

Bask snickered. "Bacchus turns students into Pomeranians." Ah, that quaint dog transfiguration tradition. Perhaps, Bask would get to play with a puppy, after all. "Come on, ex-prince who I want to snuggle and carry around in my satchel, don't hide from the cuddly incubus."

"To be fair, he'll just have witnessed you wanking on Lysander’s bed. It wouldn't fill him with trust."

Bask smirked. "That's just like a handshake for an incubus."

I crouched beside the basket. It was worn like whoever slept there had been trapped in the academy for a long time. And there were feathers stuck in the blanket, but this time not golden, rather black.

The breath caught in my throat.

It couldn't be...

I slowly stood. "There's no dog. I’d wager that we've discovered Midnight's bed."

"And to think that I was considering giving at least the elf petting privileges," Bask hissed.

When I turned away, however, the exquisite porcelain tea set at the back of the counter, caught my eye like it'd always been waiting for me.

I clapped my hands together in delight. "Why, what do I have to do around here to get the perk of my own personal tea?"

I fingered a cup that was decorated with a black stallion, which galloped across the white of the cup as if across a snowy plain.

Bask eyed me. "Add that to the list of questions never to voice to the witches who run this place."

I arched my brow. "Noted." Then I stared at the seven glass jars of different tealeaves. Their scents mixed like the grasses on a mountainside. It was the fresh earthiness, which took me back to every single morning that I'd sat with my father, Byron, drinking tea together in the Bird Turret. It'd been a quiet ritual, which bound us together. In that moment, we'd been safe and free. "But seven...?"

Bask snickered. "Is there something magical in that number? There are seven dwarfs and deadly sins, but you don't desire them."

With a last...admittedly envious...glance at the tea, I narrowed my eyes at Bask. "How do you know? A wicked witch has needs."

"Kinky." Bask winked. "Let's see if the Princes are kinky too."

He waggled his eyebrows, before dragging out the drawer beneath the counter. When emerald silk panties spilled out, Bask whooped in victory like he'd discovered a dragon's hoard.

I tutted, but Bask only shrugged.

"An incubus may raid a princes' underwear drawer." He swept the panties back in. "Away with you, if Lysander was shy about it, he'd have found an Immortal-proof hiding place."

"Like his private bedroom in a Wing of the castle, which is both forbidden to and warded against Immortals?" I deadpanned.

Bask tried for the innocent face; he was decidedly good at it. "Exactly."

When he slid the last of the panties back into the drawer (and I shivered at the thought of next seeing Lysander and not glancing at his behind to imagine him wearing them because surely they rode up under his tight trousers to wedgie in the most uncomfortable of places?), he knocked a button.

To my shock, music blasted out, which sang hauntingly of snowmen and a desire to build them. I recognized it as the song that Prince Willoughby often sang, yet I still had no understanding why he was so intent on playing in the snow.

Did elves miss out on their childhoods, and so still yearn to play?

I'd gladly show Willoughby how to build a snowman because Robin and I had stolen away on many winter days to build snowsquirrels beside the lake. He’d transform into his red squirrel form and sit on top of his snow brother, wrapping his tail around it and chattering.

"Willoughby adores to sing this in the shower," I pointed out. When Bask raised his eyebrow, I flushed. "And I discovered that in some entirely nonperverted way, of course."

"I can’t even lie that I’d like to believe you because I wouldn’t."

I gasped in mock horror. "For shame! My familiars have simply watched him in the shower. They report that he has a voice, which is as beautiful as his prick."

It was a wonderful sensation to watch the blush creep up Bask's neck. I wished to lick up it and across the blooming pink of his cheeks.

He swallowed. "Not pervy at all."

I smiled. "Thank you."

When Bask slid his finger across the button again, all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. A love ballad sobbed from the machine like a lament of loss. I'd never heard anything before like the soaring vocal in its despairing loneliness and longing.

Was this Willoughby's or Lysander's music?

Did they choose this because they'd lost a lover like me? How could they stand to listen to something with such flayed grief?

I stumbled at the pulsing mourning in the music. Startled, Bask gripped my elbow, before pulling me to his chest. His breath was hot against my ear.

I'd already lost Robin. I refused to lose Bask as well.

Yet the emotion of what it'd mean if I did was lived out in this song beat by beat in its haunting loss.

Not again.

Tears chased down my cheeks, and I paled. I wouldn't ever be over Robin. I never wanted to forget and lose the pain because then I'd lose him too: his memory. He didn't deserve that when as a mage and an orphan, he didn't even have a grave to mark that he'd been alive.

He'd existed and he'd been loved.

But Bask was alive, warm, and in my arms right now. I wouldn't allow the agonizing cycle of grief to begin again.

Bask shook me. "Magenta? Please, please... what do you want me to do? I can be whatever you wish. I'll find a way to stop the Duchess. I won't leave you."

Chills ran through me. He didn't know how dangerous that was. "Don't say always. If the Principal or professors ever ask you whether you want to remain with me, then say anything but always."

"I don't understand."

"If the question is whether you belong with me, the answer is no," I insisted.

When Bask drew back to study me, his hair fell across his eyes. "But what if it's yes?"

I bopped him on the end of the nose. "Then, you remember that I love you, and I've asked you to say no."

He scrunched up his nose, offended. "You mean that I lie."

I nodded.

Bask grinned. "As you wish. So, you don't want to just drop me off with my old bond…?"

I sucked hard on his neck, enjoying the taste of his skin and the way that his breath hitched. I believed that answered his ridiculous question.

I pulled back, licking over the pretty purple hickey. His hard-on pressed against my hip, and his pupils were dilated.

I gave his neck one final lick. "Did you imagine that I'd deliver you to the Duchess in a bow?"

Bask's voice was fragile and raw. "Ma presented me wrapped in ribbons."

"I should rather like to kick some succubi ass today." My hands clenched into fists.

"See, here's the thing of it, we're not free to kick the asses that deserve it. If it was done on worth, our own would be petted and there'd be serious kickings all around for professors, princes, and patrons." He kissed the corner of my mouth, curling his hand possessively around the back of my neck. "How do you think the contracts are signed, which condemn us to the academy?"

"With a run up, pirouette, and a flourish to finish?" I ventured.

Bask huffed, sucking on my earlobe in retaliation. "In blood."

"Rather a cliche." I squirmed at the same time as I melted at his continued assault on my ear. "Although Hecate appears big on blood magic. Why not go for champagne or chocolate? Chocolate Magic would be something that I'd never complain about studying."

"It's your magic that winds through the academy, demanding blood sacrifices."

"Ah," I licked my lips, "in that case, what a wicked baby I was. I wonder what sacrificial blood tastes like?" When Bask gave me a sidelong look (I imagine that had sounded creepy but then, after over a century trapped with only myself and my familiars, I had a tendency to say what I thought), I smiled at him brightly. "Don't worry, I’m certain that your blood would be the most delicious."

"Of course it would; this incubus is tasty." Then he tore at his lower lip with his teeth. "Ehm, just don't drink me, please."

"I shall endeavor not to." I struggled to smother my laughter but then I sobered. There was a contract in blood that bound Bask directly to the Duchess. What could she do to him, even while he was in the academy? What control did she have? "How long have you known about this danger?"

"I've only just learned that you wanted to drink my tasty self..."

"I meant the Duchess arriving today to inspect you with the contract."

When Bask ducked his head, I knew. He'd been hiding this secret from me all along.

"I'm sorry,” he whispered. "I only wanted one week with you, Slippy, and Fox. I thought if I could feel what true love was, then I could take that back (holding its memory to me like I hold Nile), against what the Duchess will do to me. When I'm ignored in the incubi harem with the other bonded because..." He broke off, and his shoulders shook. "...I'm the freaky different incubus who broke, then I'd remember..."

"Wanking on Lysander's bed?" I choked out.

Bask laughed. How could he still sound so free, even though he'd accepted his enslavement? I'd pulled down my entire world to stop my marriage to a fae prince, but then, Bask had already been through this once.

"I'll cherish that and every moment with you. See, the only people who can free any Rebel are the Principal or the person who signs the contract. The Duchess could free me...take me away...whenever she thinks that I've learned my lesson."

"Then how do we break the contract?" I demanded.

"We don't. End of story." Bask gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. "I swore that I'd protect my whipping boy and I won't let Fox be hurt because of me. I worked with the others to save you from Hecate’s Tree because we love you. I'd been an idiot to put you in danger now. I knew that the Duchess would take me back. Just love me, that's all I crave. Love me."

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...