CHAPTER EIGHT
I open my eyes and blink at the unfamiliar surroundings. Deep red curtains cover what I assume are windows, shrouding the room in shadow.
Where the fuck am I?
My cheeks burn as I realize I'm still in my thin nightdress, the hem riding up to expose my bare thighs. I tug it down and sit up, clutching silken sheets that definitely aren’t from my bed to my chest.
Darkwood emerges from an adjoining room, dressed in tailored black pants and a charcoal vest that accentuates his tall, powerful frame.
His eyes lock onto me, a smoldering intensity flickering in their depths. "Welcome to my chambers." His voice is dark and sinful, the sweetest possible poison.
Heat builds between my legs as I clench my thighs, acutely aware I have no underwear on. How did I end up here? Oh, that’s right, I agreed to it, this so-called ‘training.’
A teleportation spell with non-momentary duration? That’s kind of badass, though.
The Professor prowls toward the bed, gaze devouring my body. He scans me from top to bottom, his eyes settling on my lips. "I will agree to tutor you privately. You will attend sessions with me as I request. But in exchange, you will submit to me completely, in all ways."
I swallow hard, heart trying to chisel its way from my chest. But I need clarification. "Submit to you how?"
A ghost of a smile touches his scarred lips. The tattoos around his neck seem to move, alive. "In every way, my pet. Your body, your pleasure, your pain…they all belong to me now. Or I can go the Headmistress, hand in that book you removed from the library."
I fucking knew it. He probably has eyes everywhere in this place.
I know I should refuse, because this whole thing screams Horrible Fucking Idea, but the ache inside me is unbearable. I crave his touch, his possession, dark and forbidden as it is.
"Do we have an agreement?" he asks silkily.
I hesitate before giving a shallow nod.
"Say it," he commands, his eyes gleaming with lust and domination. “Say you will submit to me.”
I draw in a tight breath, let it fill my lungs. "I submit to you," I whisper.
It’s done.
"Good girl. Now—” he claps his hands together “—it's time for your first lesson. Stand."
And still my head pleads with me to run, to get the fuck out of here, but I move regardless.
I climb from the bed, standing before him, my nipples hard points against my nightdress, tight with need.
He stalks closer and smiles, tracing a finger down my cheek. "So eager to learn. That pleases me." His touch leaves a trail of fire in its wake. "Tonight, you will embrace the shadows, to draw power from places of darkness and sin within yourself. Because this is Shadowcraft in its purest form. It thrives on pain and pleasure in equal measure. Both are required. Are you ready?"
I swallow hard, nerves and desire warring inside me. Logic says I should leave. There’s no purpose in pursuing this, especially with a man like Darkwood—a monster. My body, on the other hand, says ‘stay.’
So I’m not surprised when the word that escapes my lips is ‘Yes.’
"Good." His gaze bores into mine, hypnotic in its own right. "Remove your nightdress."
My heart nearly stops at this command. But the hunger in his eyes sparks an answering need. I pull the nightdress over my head, tossing it aside so it puddles on the floor much like the fateful Dior. My cheeks are burning. I’m sure he can see the redness fanning over my skin. I wonder if he can sense how wet I am, if he knows the way my thighs grow slick in anticipation.
"Beautiful," he murmurs, watching with predatory intensity. "Now, listen carefully.”
He speaks of how to access the shadows, talking in measured, clipped tones that are almost hypnotic. His voice is slow, smooth, and deep unlike any other. It oozes with masculinity. It demands compliance.
His words wash over me as I stand naked before him, acutely aware of his gaze devouring every inch of my body. I try to focus on his instructions, but my thoughts keep drifting to how it will feel to have his hands on me, and more, because I have no doubt that is where this is headed.
He’ll take my virginity, fuck me senseless and then what? Discarded like the rest? Because there is no way I’m the first to be handed this opportunity. His touch the other day made that loud and clear. He knew precisely what to do, to keep me yearning for more.
No, these words, this way he has with power… He’s done this before. It’s calculated.
"Do you understand?" he asks, snapping me back to attention.
I swallow hard. "Y-yes, Professor."
"Show me."
Closing my eyes, I reach inward, searching for the dark places he described. At first, I find only light, but then there, in a corner of my mind, lurks a shadow—dim and murky. I grasp for it and feel a surge of power, dark and seductive, flooding through my veins. It’s almost familiar.
My eyes fly open with a gasp. The room seems to pulse and throb around me, as if the shadows themselves have come alive. And there in the midst of it all stands the Professor, watching me with undisguised hunger.
"Very good," he purrs, walking closer. He runs a hand down my neck, over my breast. I moan softly, trembling under his touch. "You have a gift for this, little lamb. Such power, and passion..." His fingers slide lower, teasing, and my back arches helplessly. "I will enjoy exploring the depths of both."
He claims my mouth in a bruising kiss, all heat and shadows and sin. I kiss him back with abandon, my body aching for his possession.
A hand slides up my breastbone, fingers closing around my throat as he claims me.
By the time he breaks the kiss, we're breathless. I take in his scent—a dying fire, a coming storm. Absolute abandon.
He moves away from me, pacing over to an antique chair in the middle of the room.
“But we’re just getting started,” he smiles.
He seats himself and pats his knee twice like he’s about to pull me close and read me a bedtime story. “Now, my pet, you must still be punished.”
I remain where I am.
He pats his knee again, but I don’t seem to clue in.
“Move,” he says, short. “You will get over my fucking knee or I’ll spank you where you stand.”
“Why?”
I realize I’ve made a mistake the second the word leaves my mouth.
His expression grows exasperated, as if, god forbid, he’d have to explain something. “There are twelve trials of sexual magic, my pet, each building upon the last, and we are to explore them all. And first,” he lifts his hand, “comes Verberare. Now,” he commands, tone sharper, “get that pretty little ass of yours over my knee.”
My mouth has gone desert dry. My legs move without instruction. I walk until I’m in front of the Professor and cannot believe I am about to do this, yet I do, placing my torso over his knee and letting my arms hang before me, fingers brushing the stone below.
This is so fucking awkward, so unnatural. All I feel is shame. It infiltrates every part of my body.
If Gran could see me now, if Sabrina… I can’t even bring myself to think about it.
Get up! the voice in my head screams, but I’m paralyzed, unable to disobey Darkwood. I’m completely deaf to logic.
When his heavy hand grabs an ass cheek, I actually flinch upwards, but he holds me down firmly, stroking the fleshy mound below, his hand easily spanning the globe of my ass. “I am going to spank you now, Annabelle.”
I swallow again.
Spank me? I’ve never been spanked in my entire life. My parents died when I was three and Gran would never lay a hand on me.
My cheeks burn like lit coal, the shame close to overwhelming.
The way he says my name makes it sound even more infantile and childish than usual. My cheeks glow brighter, blood rushing to my head.
“By the time I’m through with you, your ass is going to be the color of a candy apple,” he continues. “You are going to beg for my forgiveness.”
And all because I took one stupid book from the library.
I’m looking at the floor bent over his knee desperately trying to figure some way out of this fucked-up situation. But I have already given him my word. I have submitted to him. More than that, I know he is fixated on this punishment. Nothing I can say is going to stop him having his way.
I’m breathing heavily, my chest drawing tight before exhaling hard against Darkwood’s thick thigh. I grit my teeth, face burning knowing the humiliation and debasement that is to come by this man’s hand.
I hang over his knee dreadfully exposed.
He takes a handful of my flesh and squeezes, kneading and prodding, pulling my cheeks apart to reveal the pink rosette between them.
I’ve never been so ashamed in my entire life. If I were on top of him, on a more common horizontal surface like, I don’t know, a bed, it would be fine. But this…
He continues to knead and fondle the spheres as he speaks. “Tell me you need to be punished.”
I remain silent, which only irks him. “Say it!” he booms.
“I need to be punished,” I tell him, rushing all the words out together.
I can tell he’s excited by the way his voice becomes low and husky. “You’ve been a bad little lamb, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you need to be spanked like the poor, whimpering child you are.”
“Yes,” I say, a tear springing from my face and falling to the floor.
Darkwood takes in a sharp intake of breath before whoosh, his heavy palm lashes down on a cheek. I gasp, struggle to pull in my next breath as the other buttock is assaulted in the same manner, the pale rounds burning. I reach behind myself without thinking to try and protect my rear, but Darkwood swats my hands away.
“No, no, my pet, that won’t do.” He captures my wrists and binds them tightly together behind my back, holding them with one hand and pressing them hard against my spine. “These cute little cheeks of yours look so much better with some color in them, don’t you think?”
With that he brings down a harsh series of blows against my backside. I howl and whimper, spluttering “please, please,” but he’s not interested in my cries, hammering each buttock in alternate until all I can do is writhe helplessly against his hand.
I’m a mess—blubbering, my face wet.
But as the blows continue, something unexpected happens. The shadows tighten and pull inside me. They grow.
The Professor whispers an incantation, running it out quietly between his lips while I writhe.
I kick out, but this only enflames him. He thrashes me brutally, so hard and violent I am sure strips of skin are being peeled away with every blow, my ass a messy round of reddened flesh.
I cry out, this blow lower, my thighs jerking open and allowing him a glimpse of the bare lips of my pussy. I shift my hips from side to side, press myself deep into the ungiving stump below, but it’s all for naught as he continues.
I change tactics, squeezing and pulling in my buttocks to close the target, but he wrenches my hands higher up the back. I scream out with the agony that erupts in my shoulders, my ass relaxing again and the spanking continuing hot and hard. Supine, caught, all I can do is take it.
I can hear Sabrina in my head.
Told you so, she’s saying.
Each blow lands louder than the last. I worry those outside this room, wherever we might be, will hear it, see my reddened cheeks and uneven gait as I emerge, see the way I wince when I take my chair in class tomorrow.
I cry openly, fat tears falling from my face and turning into wet splotches on the stone below.
If the shame was strong two minutes ago, it is overwhelming now.
Darkwood’s hand lifts into the air and prepares for the next blow, but he leaves it hanging there. “Say you are sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” I blubber, somewhat hopeful this has come to an end.
His hand descends slowly and falls onto my angry flesh, but this time it’s a single, brief caress—a reprieve. “Shall we say, twenty more?”
Twenty fucking more?!
I don’t think I can stand a single blow. My ass is itching already, involuntarily jerking at the thought of being pounded again.
“I’ll be good,” I beg.
It’s pathetic. I’ve become all but a scalded schoolgirl.
“Oh, I know you will, my pet. Of that I have no doubt.”
He shifts a knee, my ass raised higher, rounding out.
“That’s better.”
I open my mouth, but not a single word escapes. Instead, my breath is stolen by a deluge of blows. He spares no square of flesh, spanking at my thighs, the center of my cheeks, ignoring my pleas and concentrating his efforts on the hot divide of my posterior.
Little by little, my flesh turns a vivid red, every impact of his hand reverberating through my skull. I try to stifle a scream as the spanking continues, picking up momentum, a triplet of pain following into the delicate folds bunched up between my legs.
“Please, please,” I whisper, “I’ll do anything.”
The blows stop, my bare bottom tensing as his giant palm hovers above.
“Please,” I whimper for what I hope will be the last time.
“Are you quite sure, Annabelle? Anything?”
I just want the pain to stop, to rise back up to my feet like a regular human being. “Yes.”
The Professor lifts me from his lap and has me stand before him. I can make out a shadowy bulge in his pants, his erection obvious. He stands, placing his hands on my shoulders and pressing down until I’m kneeling before him, stone below. I get the hint, despite my inexperience.
“Hands behind your back,” he commands. “Open your mouth.”
I’m shaking.
You’re not actually going to do this, are you? I ask myself. But I can’t be kicked out of the Academy so early. I can’t go back to the city.
So I don’t protest, even though my ass burns and my head pounds.
I simply comply, my jaw slackened and mouth wide.
He unzips his trousers and fishes his cock out. I stare at the bulbous head of his member, a single, glinting pearl of arousal at its tip.
There’s not a sufficient adjective to describe the size of him.
This isn’t a six-inch, semi-flaccid member like I’m used to seeing.
No, this is a monster.
He holds his shaft and presses the head of his cock against my bottom lip. It’s heavy.
A single command leaves his mouth. “Suck.”
I part my lips in hesitation wondering just how the hell that is going to fit in my mouth. I open my mouth wider and take him in.
It’s been a long time since I sucked cock, not since high school when I blew Bobby Masters for fifty bucks behind the bleachers. Money I subsequently spent on makeup and money which subsequently did not make me any more popular.
I roll my lips over my teeth and let him glide in and out, controlling the pace. For the moment at least, I decide offer a slow, steady pace. I can’t pump him in and out like some sex-crazed whore anyhow. His own size is working against him. I don’t tell him, of course, but his plentiful inches are discouraging me from giving him what will probably send him over the edge.
The more he fucks my mouth, the more my bottom burns against my ankles, the more I grow slick and hot between my thighs.
Why?! I want to scream at my body. Why are you betraying me like this?
But I dare not complain, his grunts picking up in volume and intensity. I may have submitted to him, yes, but now, with his fat cock in my mouth, he’s mine.
I build into a rhythm, oddly starting to enjoy this switch in power, the way the Professor’s face pulls together whenever I loop my tongue around the head of his cock. My naughty side is surfacing, it would seem.
He holds the side of my head and begins to press himself more urgently into the depths of my mouth. Soon I’m completely stuffed with his member. My cheeks are stretched out as he hits the back of my throat. I am gagged with cock, his groans ringing in my ears. He presses deeper, moving into my throat. I struggle to take him, his huge size beginning to slide down my gullet.
I can taste the soapy saltiness of his skin, the hairs at the base of his cock brushing against my chin.
I gag again, my eyes opening wider and wider, tears starting to pool. He just keeps pumping in and out of my mouth, hands locked firmly against my skull.
“Yes, my pet,” he purrs, “you take my cock so very well.”
But that’s just it. I can’t take it anymore.
I reach my hands out and press against his thighs, but they may as well be tree trunks. They won’t move at all. Neither of them budges as I push them back.
Just as pins and needles scatter across my vision, the need to suck in precious oxygen overwhelming, he pulls away, his cock streaky and hot-wet from my mouth. Through blurry eyes, I spot threads of my saliva trailing down either side of his thick shaft.
“That's enough for now," he says hoarsely, struggling to catch his breath. "Just know that next time we’ll be going far deeper. You’ll be broken down and rebuilt, brutally, but you will come out stronger.”
I still don’t know what any of this has to do with my so-called education, but to question him seems the worst possible idea.
And really? I want more.
I want to be broken.
I stare at him, dizzy with desire. I can’t keep my disappointment out of my expression or my voice. He should have come. Deep in my mouth. I should be tasting him by now. "Yes, Professor," I whisper.
He reaches up and snaps his fingers and I awake back in my bed, my nightdress in place, only the light from under the door remaining, and there is no chamber, no Darkwood—only the thrum of need between my thighs and the burning memory of his hand against my ass.
*
I struggle to focus on Professor Hawthorn's lecture in Transfiguration class the following day. My thoughts keep drifting to last night's encounter with Darkwood, replaying each caress and whispered word, the lash of his hand and the power that followed—power that still thrums within me.
I replay each caress and whispered word from last night. I recall the twists of his face during the time I sucked on his cock. I think of the erratic flexing of his thigh muscles just moments before he pulled out. But why did he pull away at all? To prolong things? To bide his time?
Maybe he didn’t want to give me the satisfaction. Perhaps he thought it was inappropriate for his little submissive to offer him an orgasm.
It’s the same in Quantum Enchantment. We’re supposed to be exploring the magical properties of subatomic particles and the application of quantum mechanics in spellcasting and enchantment, modern stuff, but my head just. Will. Not. Clear.
I know such thoughts are highly inappropriate. But I can't stop wondering when I'll see him again, feel the delicious thrill of his possession.
It’s an eternity until I’m back in Darkwood’s classroom, front and center.
When the Professor enters the room, a ripple of awareness passes through me. Our gazes meet for a heated moment, and a slow, knowing smile curves his lips.
I blush and tear my gaze away from him.
The fuck, Annabelle. What have you gotten yourself into? You’ve agreed to be his, what? His lover? His sex slave?
But no. He made what I am to be very clear—a pet.
That’s what I am.
Something to play with.
To toy with.
His personal plaything.
Told you so, Sabrina is saying, tut-tutting in my head.
He pays me no special attention in class now, which is its own kind of torture. I catch myself wishing there was no one around us, that all these other students could just piss right off.
The class seems endless, the bell finally ringing out.
“Ms. Fairchild, stay behind please.” He says it casually, an afterthought.
The other students file out, oblivious to what’s about to unfold.
The Professor raises his hand, the door to the room closing and bolting itself.
"Did you sleep well last night, Ms. Fairchild?" he asks coolly, leaning against his desk with a wolfish smile. "Or did the shadows keep you awake?"
I flush under his gaze. "I couldn't stop thinking about you," I admit in a small voice.
How does he do this, make me so fucking feeble?
"Good." He pushes off from the desk and strides toward me. "Because you're mine now, body and soul, and I intend to claim every virgin inch of you."
So that’s no secret either.
He pulls me close, one hand tangling in my hair, the other sliding down to squeeze my rear. I gasp into his mouth as his tongue plunders mine, hot and demanding.
"So eager," he rasps, holding on to my ass, the tip of his tongue sliding down my throat. "So deliciously wicked. You were made for the darkness, pet, just as you were made to be mine."
"Yes," I breathe, clinging to him.
His eyes are wet with lust and something more—possession, desire, need.
Yet he drifts back. “Do you know what delayed gratification is, little lamb?”
“Of course,” I say, disappointment already rising up within me, a wall of fucking frustration.
“So you shall wait until midnight tomorrow for our prescribed lesson. You will wear your coat and nothing else when you return. Is that understood?”
I thought the lesson was now, but waiting until tomorrow, until midnight? It’s too much. But what can I do?
“Yes, Professor,” I wheeze.
He turns, busying himself with papers on his desk. “Leave.”
I know complaining isn’t going to do any good. There’s nothing to do. So, I turn on my heel and walk out, the leather-cinnamon burn of his lips still fresh on my skin.