King of Swords (Stormcloud Academy 1)

In response, Theo gently caressed my lips as he licked me. That wasn’t enough.

“Fingerfuck me, Theo,” I demanded.

He looked up, surprised by my candor. He nodded and began working two of his fingers in and out of me.

“Ah, yeah,” I groaned, “that’s it. Push in deep. Fill me.”

He hummed around my clit and sped up his pumping. All at once, the waves of pleasure I’d felt with Zephyr on top of me started again. I rotated my hips around his hand, forcing his digits to previously unexplored corners and extremes.

The drug that had worked its way through my skin and into my blood was like a key, unlocking hidden places inside me. I was an explorer of my own capacity to feel joy. And I was greedy.

“Squeeze my tit,” I shouted.

“What?”

“Don’t stop with your mouth. Just reach up and squeeze my tit. I need your hands on me.”

Theo stretched a long, sinewy arm under my leg and began massaging my breast. I placed my hand over his and increased the pressure. I wanted to be pummeled and used. Zephyr and his cronies had degraded me royally, and now—under the loving attention of Theo Brant—I discovered I needed that treatment.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed my way back to the King’s Club. The cold stone under my back, the hands clutching and controlling my vulnerable body, the feeling of hard dick in my mouth, the feeling of being watched.

Then, I understood, despite all the reasons I should fear Zephyr Williams and his cohort, I nonetheless belonged to him. Gail was right. I realized, too, that even though I liked Theo and wanted him in many ways, he would never be enough.

So, I placed a soft hand on his head and told him to stop.

Chapter 23

Biba

By early May, the high-altitude climate began to warm. The nights were still chilly, but the days were blessedly sunny. All around campus, crocuses and primroses bloomed wild from every crack in the rock and patch of greenery.

Stormcloud Academy was suddenly a fairy tale place. Even the school’s imposing parapets couldn’t manage to look ominous during the day. They were towers of wonder. The entire campus was a castle fit for a princess.

Was I the princess? On paper, I certainly seemed to be. Zephyr took my hand between classes. He gave me little gifts and saw to it that my every need was attended to before I even asked.

We didn’t talk about what had happened in the Kings’ subterranean sanctuary two weeks earlier: not the strange ritual, not the boys’ relieving me of my virtue, and certainly not Theo’s intervention. Zephyr hadn’t taken me to his bed since my aborted initiation ceremony. I was desperate to have him inside me again. The effects of whatever they had bathed me in had faded somewhat, but I was still rubbing myself against walls throughout the day like a cat in heat.

I needed to be sated. Only he could do it for me.

Truth be told, I was starving for any human connection. Gail and I weren’t talking. Even if we made up, I wasn’t sure I could be a good friend to her, given Zephyr’s warnings against fraternizing with her. Theo wouldn’t even look me in the eye since I tossed him out of my room. I couldn’t blame him, but it still stung.

Besides Zephyr, Arvo, Sol, and a raft of sycophants, the only person who spoke to me much was Miss Amelia. I found myself yearning for my shifts as her assistant, even though most of our interactions involved repair forms and invoices for the school.

Despite Amelia’s undeniably severe countenance, she was charmingly free with her observations of students and their families.

“She’s a spoiled brat, just like her mother was…” she’d grumble about some junior complaining about the view from her room.

“His father was a petri dish of venereal diseases…” of a freshman requesting time away for said father’s fourth wedding.

I must admit, the humorless taskmistress made me laugh, though I tried my best to stifle it while working near her.

“You’re quite dolled up,” she observed that afternoon as I finished stamping a stack of purchase orders and wiped the ink from my hands.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

It was true. I was dressed nicely. My paramour had requested that we meet at the wall that afternoon during our study period. I put on the sheer patterned dress with the tan leather belt that Gail’s aunt and uncle bought me in Evian Les Bains. I brushed out my blond hair to give it a little careless volume and put on some crimson lipstick.

I wanted to look good for Zephyr.

When I left Miss Amelia’s office, however, I found myself halted by Arvo. He looked annoyed having to talk to me.

“You have to stop surprising me here,” I said, recalling him ambushing Gail and me the last night of spring break.