Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dray
I’m tasked, like the others, with going to talk to different students. We want to determine if anybody else has the power of light wielding lurking in their veins. But I have other things on my mind.
Little Kitten’s scent.
It smelled different this morning. Very different.
I have my suspicions about the events that took place last night, but I still want to hear it from the horse’s mouth. So I make some excuse about needing to fetch something from my room and disappear upstairs as the others set off across the academy to interview students.
I head straight for Thorne’s room. I can hear him in the shower but I open the door anyway. When I step inside his room, and sniff the air, all my suspicions are confirmed.
Smells like sex in this room. A lot of sex.
I grin.
I’m pleased for my bond brother. I really am. Especially as it explodes a hell of a lot of ideas in my dirty little mind. Ideas which involve sharing Little Kitten between the three of us.
I bet that would be good. I bet it would smell and sound and look good too.
I jump up onto Thorne’s chest of drawers and wait for him to finish his fucking long shower and come back into the room, whistling a tune and kicking my legs while I do.
He jolts when he spots me there, then ignoring me completely as he heads for his wardrobe and pulls out clothes.
“I’m dying, man,” I tell him.
“Dying of what?” he asks, threading his arms into a shirt and beginning to do up the buttons.
“To know the details. All the fucking freaky, dirty details.”
“A gentleman doesn’t tell, Dray.”
“Fuck off,” I tell him. “I’ve told you loads of stuff. I’ve never held back from you, man.”
“If I remember rightly, Dray,” he points out, now strolling toward me and motioning for me to move off the chest of drawers so he can fish out underwear from one of the drawers, “I never asked you to tell me the details. You volunteered the information.”
“So volunteer the information right back, dickwad,” I whine. “Tell me what you did. Tell me how you did it. How many times you did it. Tell me if you ate out her pussy. Tell me if she sucked on your cock. Tell me if she cried out your name and—”
Thorne takes ahold of my arm and marches me to the door, pushes me through the doorway, and slams it shut behind me. I hear his magic locking it into place.
I stand stock-still, staring at the opposite wall of the hallway.
Thorne just touched me.
Thorne fucking just touched me and I didn’t die. My skin didn’t sear off my bones.
I didn’t turn to dust.
I laugh, clapping my hands together, spinning on my toes, then hammering my fist against his door.
“You fucking touched me, Thorne! You fucking touched me!”
“I’ll touch you again,” he says through the door, “I’ll pummel my fist right into your mouth if you don’t go away and leave me alone.”
“Sure,” I say, his words brushing right over me because I’m in a fucking great mood now.
Does this mean he’s cured?
But my thoughts are interrupted by the clicking open of the door down the hall and Little Kitten’s scent sailing up the staircase to meet my nose. I’m sprinting that way like a hunting dog in the next second, meeting Briony and Beau as they kick off their boots and slide off their coats.
“Thorne touched me!” I announce proudly to them both.
“Right,” Beaufort says. “I didn’t realize you were that way inclined. I thought you liked girls and girls only and—”
“Shut up, dickwad,” I growl. “You know what I’m saying.”
“Then how exactly did he touch you?” Beaufort asks with a smirk.
“Kicked me out of his room,” I say. “I was up there interrogating him about what he and Little Kitten got up to last night.”
Beaufort peers at Little Kitten with curiosity. Her cheeks are pink.
“What did you get up to last night?” he asks, smirking harder, staring at Little Kitten.
She goes to open her mouth, but we’re interrupted by Thorne’s loud footsteps on the staircase behind me.
“I am here, you know,” he says. “And it’s none of your business.”
“It is kind of our business,” Beaufort points out. “We’re all in this together, Thorne. All bound together by fate. It’s going to be hard to keep secrets in a situation like this, even if we wanted to.”
“And I don’t think we should,” Briony interjects. “I think that could lead to trouble between all of us. I think we have to try and be honest with each other, especially about our feelings. Otherwise there’s a chance, with this many people involved in whatever this is…” She gestures vaguely.
“A relationship,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I guess – a relationship. If we’re not honest about our feelings, people are going to get hurt. And I don’t want that.” She shakes her head.
“Fine,” Thorne says, reaching the bottom of the staircase.
For a man who just lost his v-card to the most beautiful woman in the realm – with a pussy that smells like heaven – you’d think he’d be grinning from ear to ear, skipping down the stairs, singing all sorts of love songs.
Instead, he’s the same old Thorne: blank expression.
Although maybe there is something a little lighter about him today.
“Briony and I slept together last night,” he announces.
“Yeah, you did,” I say, grinning at him. “You fucked each other, didn’t you? How many times was it? Five, six—”
“Dray,” Beaufort warns.
“Little Kitten just said we had to be open and honest,” I say, “and I want to know all the delicious little details.”
“Here. Look at this,” Little Kitten says, yanking back her sleeve and thrusting her arm in front of me, clearly an attempt to distract my attention.
Usually I wouldn’t fall for something so freaking obvious, but what she’s shoved in front of my face whips my breath right away. I take hold of her arm in both hands, bringing it closer to my eyes.
“Shit,” I say. “You have them too.”
“I do,” she says, almost proudly, like a little kitten showing off a brand-new collar.
“They’re beautiful, Little Kitten,” I tell her.
“Why do you think they happened now?” she says. “After all this time?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You’ve fucked us all now. The circle’s complete. Or whatever the fuck it is. So now you have the marks.”
“Jeez, Dray,” Beaufort mutters. “It’s not like she’s collecting conquests.”
“No, just dicks,” I say, grinning at her.
She rolls her eyes and pulls her arm back, although I notice she doesn’t cover her sleeve, as if she wants to show off her marks, wants to gaze at them as often as she can.
“Anyway,” she mutters, “something just happened and we need to talk about it. Where’s Fox?”
“Out interviewing other students,” I tell her. “Like we agreed.”
She nods. “Maybe we should help with that too, and then we can talk about what Beaufort saw.”
“Saw?” I snap, turning to my bond brother. “You had a vision?”
“I did.”
“What was it?”
“More firestones,” he tells us. “More firestones out in Slate Quarter.”