Fallen University: Year One

“He acknowledges me occasionally when he deems it worth his time,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m not too broken up about it. If I’d known what kind of guy he was before all this, I never would have bonded with him.”

“You say that like you had a choice,” she commented, slipping her light pink tunic over her head.

I shrugged. “Yeah. I like to feel like I’m in control of something around here.”

“Yeah, I get that. Oh, did they ever end up taking you out of Spell Casting class?”

I nodded. “They moved me to Mind Control. Now that I know what I am, there’s no point in trying to learn that kind of magic. I would just keep lighting feathers on fire and accidentally seducing the class pet.”

Hannah laughed. “Fair enough. I’m having a blast in that class. Literally. I’ve been practicing with energy balls all week and yesterday I smashed the hell out of a desk. Accidentally,” she added quickly. “But, oh my God, was it fun.”

“You should spar with that next time you’re paired with one of Sonja’s minions.”

She gave me a disapproving look but her eyes were twinkling. “I wouldn’t want to actually hurt them.”

“Singe their hair?” I asked hopefully.

She laughed at me. “Come on, let’s go before all the sausage rolls are gone.”

I followed her down to breakfast. Jayce had seats saved for us, and I was

delighted to see that Xero was with him too. Kingston sat at the far end of the table. He’d started doing that lately, staying close but not interacting. It was infuriating, but it wasn’t as irritating as it could have been. Kai, for example, had made a habit of leaving every room I walked into.

I caught his eye from across the dining hall as I sat down next to Jayce. Yup. Right on fucking cue, Kai got up and took his breakfast into the hallway. I ground my teeth together but I let it go. Either he would come around or he wouldn’t, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Jayce put his arm around me and kissed me, and my whole body melted into his touch. “Good morning, Pipes. How’d you sleep?”

“Like the dead. Seriously, I feel like I just crawled out of my coffin.”

He slid a steaming hot cup of coffee to me. I took a drink and sighed happily. He’d doctored it perfectly. Jayce acting like a proper boyfriend took a little of the sting out of the others’ rejection. Not to mention the fact that he was pretty much single-handedly keeping me alive.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Like Cassandra had said, I could replenish my power from the sexual energy of someone who wasn’t one of my four—it just wouldn’t be as powerful.

But the only problem with that was, I didn’t want anyone else.

That aura of sexual energy, that feeling of being on ecstasy, stayed with me pretty much all the time, although I’d learned to live with it and control it well enough to function. I was made of sex, literally a creature who fed off of it.

But there were really only four men my body truly craved.

I scooched closer to Jayce, my clit throbbing pleasantly as he rested a hand on my leg, running it casually up my thigh.

“Combat exam today,” Xero reminded us. He sketched that small smile in my direction and I returned it. Xero hadn’t been nearly as eager as Jayce to take part in our—whatever it was—but at least he hung around. Having the two of them close by always made me feel better, psychologically and physically. It was never enough, though. No matter what I did, it always felt like pieces were missing from my soul.

We finished breakfast, and I went to class flanked by Hannah and Jayce. Xero and Kingston had Demonology with Kai first thing in the morning, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Jayce was the most attentive of the bunch, I might have asked to have my schedule switched. It made me feel stupid and weak, but I needed my men around me.

“Welcome, class. We have a lot on the agenda today, so stay with me. No daydreaming.” Sven gave me a sharp look when he said that, and I sketched a sassy salute in his direction. I’d gotten myself a reputation, apparently. Fortunately, I’d been passing all of my tests anyway, but only because Jayce and Hannah were incredibly supportive. Morning was not my friend.

At least History was starting to get more interesting. We’d moved past fallen activities during the agricultural revolution and were coming up on the dark ages. Even human history had stories of battles with wizards and dragons during that time, and I assumed that fallen history was even more colorful.

But then Sven started droning… and I started drifting. You’d think a man who looked like a Viking would be a more colorful speaker. Jayce’s presence and the absence of the other three got my mind spinning in an erotic direction born of unsatisfied need, and I drifted into a daydream involving my four men in that empty room at the top of the tower.

Jayce pinched my thigh, and I had to bite back a moan. “Pay attention,” he whispered with a twinkle in his eye.

“Okay, okay.”

“Which is why humans eventually forgot that these creatures were real,” Sven concluded.

Goddammit. I could have kicked myself. That sounded important. I looked helplessly at Jayce, and he slid his notes across his desk in my direction without even looking at me. I grinned as I copied them. What did I need the other guys for, anyway? Jayce was great.