Chapter 20 - Luna
CHAPTER 20 - LUNA
T he moment I spotted Talon at the head of the class with Blaze, both wearing strange, padded suits, I knew we were in for trouble. Good? Bad? I couldn’t tell. The devilish curl of my Frog Prince’s mouth and wink gave him away.
Oh, yeah. We were in for fun.
A fact supported by the arsenal of the Nerf guns lying sideways on a table set up for our next exercise. Defensive magick, here we come!
“What’s with ten gantii masks?” Astra whispered.
“We’re about to find out,” I replied.
Blaze launched right into the lesson when the last student fell into line in the courtyard. “Last semester, we started defensive spells, and this semester we’ll develop your offensive spells.”
Defensive spells were designed to repel or block an attack, but some crossed over into offensive spells, like weakening our opponent to reduce the effectiveness of their magick against us.
Talon lifted his chin in a cocky way that said the class was going to get blasted by Nerf darts again. Anticipation spread across my body. I really enjoyed that lesson and was equally excited about this class.
Blaze braced his palms together and walked the length of the outdoor table. “This lesson will rely on a combination of Defensive and Offensive spells to earn a pass. You’ll be sent into the forest to the rear of the Academy and be hunted by the Tollens. Your job is to repel Nerf darts and avoid being captured by the hunters, werewolf, vampire, dragon, griffin, and centaur.”
He gestured to Talon, who bit the air at me and picked up a wolf gantii mask from the table, then to the nine Tollens who marched out from behind the wall, four collecting masks, the rest grabbing guns.
Astra tugged my sleeve and whispered, “Oh, some primal play!”
I covered my mouth to withhold a laugh at her always assigning everything a romance trope.
“Don’t worry, you won’t hurt the volunteers.” Blaze thumped the chest of his padded suit. “These are made from a new fiber that detects specific spells and mimics them.”
The class “ooohhed” at that.
This sounded like the kind of tech built by Cole. He mentioned a secret project. My man was so clever. Pride flushed my body, and I clasped my hands together and smiled, thinking of him.
“For example,” Blaze went on, “if you hit the hunters with a weakening spell, it will prevent them from moving for up to sixty seconds to give you time to escape. If you hit them with a knockout blow, they’ll fall on their ass.”
Sixty seconds was hardly enough time. In a combat situation, it was more than generous when some gantii required multiple strikes to take them down.
That aside, this exercise sounded like fun. Damn. I wish I’d spent more time outdoors familiarizing myself with the Academy’s layout. Then I’d know my way around better to avoid getting hunted.
Astra’s fingers painfully dug into me. “I’m so jealous you’re getting hunted by your harem.”
I wish. Blaze and I only ever fooled around outside of “official” class time. Not that I would complain if they snuck in some fun, sexy lessons.
“It’s just an exercise with NO funny business.” I tried to pry her off and avoid bruising.
“Shh.” She pressed a finger to my lips. “Leave me to my imagination.”
I swatted her away. “Don’t get caught up in your fantasy and fail this lesson.”
“I won’t.” Her dreamy smile foretold she was the first to fail this lesson because she got lost in a primal play fantasy.
Blaze’s voice snapped us both out of our private conversation. “Like last time, the Guildling with the lowest offensive tally earns the job of collecting every Nerf dart from the forest.”
Definitely not losing then. The grounds of the Academy were huge. Hundreds of hectares of forest to keep unwanted gantii out. A search like that might take days.
Astra turned to me and shoved out her hand to shake. “May the best princess win.”
We all knew who’d win this challenge and claim class valedictorian for this year. I’d give her a run for her money. I laughed and shook my competitive bestie’s hand.
Blaze set a timer on his watch. “You have a seven-minute head start, class. The alarm sounding signals the exercise commencing, and it will run for a total of thirty minutes. I hope I don’t catch you.” And with that, he lifted a dragon mask, his eyes catching mine before he lowered it over his head.
Astra groaned and jogged away, leaving me stunned for a few seconds, contemplating her theory. I felt the burn of Blaze’s scrutiny on me, and my body responded, flushing with a need to run, be chased and caught.
Damn Astra for putting the idea in my head!
Refusing to come in last in this exercise, I shrugged off my winter coat and left it on the table, leaving it behind because of the cumbersome weight and rustle of fabric. This exercise required stealth and surprise. I forced myself to move, hurrying away into the wooded forest, encountering thickening canopy the deeper I went. The end of winter’s chill seeped into my bare arms and legs. I picked up my pace, my blood flowing quicker, heating my body.
Students scurried about, rustling through scrub, some taking cover in tree hollows or within bushes to prepare their offensives. Gargoyles perched in trees above us, overlooking the exercise and ensuring our safety. Angela cursed as she stubbed a toe on a fallen log and hopped to lean on a tree.
I continued for another two hundred feet to dig in my defense for when the timer went off and the hunters entered the forest. Tucked amid a thicket, I spotted Astra a hundred feet ahead of me to the east, using the same tactic.
A blowhorn resonated through the trees, and my stomach crunched with determination to get my offensive spells right. I kept tracing the spells in the air, praying my mind didn’t blank in the thick of conflict. If I couldn’t do it under pressure in class, then I stood no chance of protecting myself in the field. Fairies were one thing to contend with in a test, a real-life Lycan or dragon another, and I didn’t plan on becoming their meals.
Snapping branches and crunching leaves sounded in multiple directions like a pack of wolves descended on the class. Within a minute, the forest lit up with the magical attacks we studied in class—repelling spells to knock foes back or discourage their magical blasts, neutralizing and weakening rays, and enchantments to send gantii to sleep. Some students cried out as they were captured or shot with Nerf darts. I couldn’t quite make out all the details from my low vantage point. I waited, my fingers at the ready to paint the fending spell. Crunching leaves said students or hunters were on the move, headed right for me, and I hunkered down for a surprise offense.
A hunter came out of nowhere, wrapping an arm around my throat, another around my middle, dragging me from my shrubs, crushing me to a hard body. I kicked and beat them, unable to release a spell without encapsulating myself in it.
“You got complacent, Princess,” the hunter growled, his voice husky and lower through his mask.
Talon.
Damn, what did they teach in Tollen classes? Stealthy attacks?
His hand came to my throat, his arm around my waist tightening, his earthy, vanilla and dark cherry scent invading my senses. “You know what I do to my men when they let the enemy best them?”
“No,” I replied with a distinct husk to my own vocal cords.
“Punish them.” His hot breath in my ear nearly undid me.
His palm slid from my stomach to my waist, driving upstate to the side of my breast, taking a right turn and cupping me. What the? This wasn’t part of the exercise.
“Don’t think I’m letting you go.” He lifted his mask to lick my neck. “You’re mine.” His mouth dissolved my will to leave, kissing up my throat to my jaw.
This was a game to him. A trick to distract me while Blaze and his men zeroed in on me to capture and then fail me.
My fingers started tracing an offensive blow in the air. I finished scripting the sign to get Talon off me. A powerful wave of energy flung us backward, and I rolled off him, coming to a stop on my back, everywhere hurting from the blast. Our uniforms were made of some sort of special spider silk to absorb impact and minor magical blows, but not one as fierce as a repellent wave.
“Good work, Princess.” He climbed to his knees, crawling over to me, less affected and probably used to this type of magick in his line of work. Strong hands lifted me into a seated position and rubbed my back.
I rubbed my aching forehead and stared at him underneath my arm. “I thought your suit was meant to stop you.”
“Cole programmed it especially for us.” Talon picked leaves from my hair.
What? Cole never mentioned this, and he told me about all his technological inventions.
“Us?” I rubbed harder, not sure if I misheard him correctly from hitting my head.
Talon claimed my lips and silenced the rest of my questions. His fingers caressed my breast again, his lips getting rougher, hungrier, and I fought the instinct to stay with him and forget this exercise.
Eventually, he withdrew, stuffed his hand in his pocket and removed a crunched note from it and stuffed it in my palm. “You’re cordially invited.”
“To what?” I began to unfold the note when his fingers curled over mine and pushed my hand to my stomach.
“Run, little princess,” he warned, his voice thickening with need. “Next time, I will catch you and eat your pussy out.”
Hell. I didn’t want to run. I wanted to stay and for him to take me up against the tree. When I didn’t move, he hoisted me to my knees and spanked my ass, giving me no choice.
Confused and on fire from lust, I got the heck out of there, dashing through the trees and shrubs. What the hell did he mean when he said I was cordially invited? To what? Why invite me during this exercise?
And why did Cole alter their suits for me? By all accounts, my magick appeared to have zero effect on Talon. Did Cole alter their suits to make them immune to it? For what purpose? What game were they playing?
I tracked a hundred feet from him when two hunters closed in on me from separate directions. Nerf darts sailed through the air, and I ducked one and flung the other aside. The hunters continued their pursuit, predators cornering me. I threw the closest one back with a weakening spell, and he came to a stop, Veil current cracking over his suit. The second gained ground on me, and I barely had time to release a stave-off enchantment that threw him back four paces into a cluster of bushes.
Talon’s laughter chased me deeper into the forest. My mischievous prince played some sort of game. Hunter and prey. Catch and seduce. No. Fuck and punish.
Oh, God.
Was Astra correct? Where they primal playing me? Heat ignited between my legs and radiated outward to my core. A part of me wanted to be caught and disciplined by Talon and Blaze, the part that loved dogging in Academy grounds without a care for who saw. Hormones running wild, my body hot all over, my breasts aching to be touched again, my pussy raging for my men’s cock, I stumbled and tripped.
Pounding footsteps said someone approached. I rounded on them, fending off a Nerf dart, swinging it away with magick. Then I slammed the hunter with a paralyzing blast, his suit crackled, and he went down, unable to stand. I blinked at his gorgon mask. I didn’t recall seeing that on the table. This exercise got weirder. Not sticking around to uncover the mystery, I took off, sprinting through the brush.
Talon’s laughter chased me again, telling me he was on the move and pursuing me. Fast. The differences in our heights made it an impossibility for me to get away and he gained ground.
I almost collided with a retreating student as a fourth hunter cornered us. A Tollen wearing a siren mask when there was no such mask on the table spread back at the courtyard. The muzzle of his Nerf gun lifted, and I blocked his dart with a shield, and it dropped to the ground. I lowered my protection to shoot him with a blast that weakened them. I took off in the opposite direction, making the siren hunter decide who to pursue once his suit freed him to move again.
I must have made it a hundred feet or more when a hunter skidded to a halt, gun cocked, but not shooting. The dragon.
Blaze.
I unleashed the crackling Veil magick to ward him off. Electrical current zapped on his suit and did nothing to cease his chase. Trying something different, I liberated a different spell, one to freeze the hunter, and the material absorbed it.
He cornered me against a tree, my back hitting the mossy trunk, air escaping my lungs in excitement, his body trapping me beneath his.
“There you are, sweetness.” His fingers traced my cheek, and my body electrified, drunk on his elemental scent.
I shoved at his chest. “You’re both cheating. You better not fail me for this!”
He lifted his dragon mask enough for me to see his smug smile. “Rules are meant to be broken for you.”
Hmm, when he said it like that, I wasn’t averse to repeating this specific exercise with just my men.
His palm landed on my thigh and worked its way up my body, pausing on the side of my ass, squeezing roughly, making his intent clear. Inching higher, he moved to my hip, brushing my hip bone twice. His fingers clawed into my waist, pulling me into his erection. If he didn’t touch me below, I was going to set fire to this damn tree.
“You’re to come to meet us at the west wing at 7AM Saturday, sweetness,” he murmured into my neck, biting me three times.
“What for?” I panted, clasping his biceps, desperate to solve this puzzle.
Dizziness rocked my body rocked at his scorching kisses melting my neck and stealing my air. “You’ll find out.”