Fate of a Royal (Lords of Rathe, #1)(13)
My mind is playing games. Sometimes I feel like I’ve reached the tip of the mountain I was meant to climb, but when I get there, I look up, and the top is yet another hundred yards away. But I can’t fucking turn around and go back. I can’t stop and rest.
My body…no, my being demands I keep going. Reaching. Keep fucking searching.
A fucking clue to what I’m looking for would be nice.
No sooner than we sit down, do the servers appear from thin air, our meals of choice being lowered before us.
I give a curt nod, and the little blonde girl who sets mine down flashes me a smirk, her tongue sneaking out to dampen her lower lip suggestively before a small puff of white smoke is left in her place.
I hate how all meals are required to take place in the communal eatery zone, even when we’ve got shit to discuss, others have no business tuning in . We could use our magic to conceal our conversations, since we’re stronger than any other student here, but sometimes that’s about as obvious as dropping breadcrumbs leading to where we are.
The professors can sniff out whenever we use our magic, the heady smell of heavy lead thick in the air anytime we use it. They’d only ask us why, and since we have to be on our best behavior while being here, none of us really want to give any of the professors a reason to check in on us. Or tell the Ministry we’re “breaking the rules.”
Give me a fucking break.
“You need to figure out what the fuck your problem is, Knight, and then you need to wonder if it’s worth getting your dick all hard over it.”
I bite into a leg of roast chicken before sucking the juice off my thumb. “Fuck you. How about that?” I toss it back onto my plate. I don’t want to take it out on them, and I know it’s not their fault, but right now, I don’t care about logic. I care about ripping away the days that led to that moment I saw her, just to see her again. So I can tell her that I hate her.
I hate a lot of things.
Like how we’re required to live on campus with the rest of the Gifted as if our parents don’t sit on the throne back in Stygian. Rathe U, even if it’s our temporary home, sits on its own at the edge of the clearing, protected from the eyes of the other Gifted via whirls of what we’re forced to call “protective smoke,” the true term forbidden here, a thick midnight gray sort of fog that conjures up your worst fears and uses them against you if you dare to approach it without permission.
The Ministry fought our parents on that one but lost. Like the royal family of Stygian, the dark, more superior world would put all their remaining heirs in one place as an easy fucking target without the protection of royal magic, spells created and bound in royal blood ensuring no other could ever attempt its use.
I also fucking hate when my oldest brother looks at me like I’m about to rip someone’s head off who doesn’t deserve it. I might. Have before.
We’re stuck in a stare-off when Silver sits down beside me, his head swiveling from Creed to me.
“What’d I miss?” he asks, dismissing his server as quickly as his food arrives.
“Boy’s lost it.” Sin grins through a mouthful of saffron seasoned pork.
“Fuck you. If you’d have come when I called, you’d have seen for yourself.”
“I was about to come when you called, you cock-blocking bitch.” He chuckles, winking at Alexandra as she takes the seat to my left. “Ain’t that right, babe?”
“There was no cock-blocking to speak of.” She lays her napkin in her lap. “Whoever I had in my hands last night was well taken care of.”
A round of laughter fills the table. The girl never did care which Lord she was lying with. I glare down at my food, hardly tasting the meal before me.
When I offer nothing in explanation to Silver’s question, Creed does it for me. “He’s dead set on some girl who saw us partying last night.”
I don’t have to look at Silver, even though his eyes are on me.
“Still?” he asks. “Even after we talked to Gabriel? He said his shield held strong, no penetration, no breaks. Not even a sign of anyone testing his strength for fun.”
I say nothing.
The fuck can I say?
That I felt that shit? Felt her eyes on me?
That the wind gifted me her scent the moment I desired it, even from the other side of the street and without using elemental manipulation to call it to me?
How my ass was tense and pissy as fuck until a fusion of lavender, cinnamon, and cayenne hit my nostrils and spread through my bloodstream, calming and heating my blood until I was sure it would turn to lava and erupt from every orifice of my body?
How, while there were lips wrapped around my cock, the feeling of her eyes on mine was what brought me my finale, sending my cum squirting down a throat that was too shallow, too cold?
Fuck would they say to all that?
Maybe I need to lay off the Fae dust.
Sensing his gaze on me, I flick my eyes up at Creed.
He’s watching me closely, and I feel his sneaky little gift probing, searching and poking at the edges of my blocking spell, looking for a way into my mind he won’t find.
Like all the Gifted are required to do before enrolling here at Rathe U, I’ve mastered the basic prerequisites, but our parents weren’t satisfied with the simplicity of the skills that those spells required because they knew, if there are people out there like us who have the same gifts as our family line, those measly little tricks will do nothing to keep others out.