Chapter Eleven Mallory

For the first time in forever, I finally feel warm.

Sometime during the night, I finally stopped shivering.

I’m pretty sure that’s completely due to the fact that I’m smothered under an actual bearskin fur, tucked between Draco Mars and Jean-Emilien Labête, in Draco’s narrow dorm room bunk. The three of us are literally pressed together like sardines in a tin.

Not that I’m complaining.

The fire Draco built last night behind the old-fashioned grate is still banked and glowing gently in the silver dawn. That heat is a reliable bulwark against the relentless winter cold that seeps through the thick stone walls of our ancient domus— the same deadly chill that froze the marrow in my bones when I flew.

Pearly light seeps through the leaded-glass panes of a tall arched window. That light chases the last shadows to hide behind the looming armoire where Draco stashes his uniforms and cross-country skis. Night still clusters in the cobwebby corners under the vaulted ceiling. More shadows skulk behind the antique study carrel with its inkpot and sloping lid.

That study nook is a fixture that’s gathering major dust and looks sadly neglected. Everyone knows Draco never turns in his homework and consequently his grades at this Academy are in the toilet. Master Aries rebukes him regularly in class for not making an effort—to no effect. Jae follows a different class schedule and he’s pretty secretive, but I’ve gathered his GPA also isn’t stellar.

Suffice it to say, neither one of my two guys is on the Dean’s List.

At least that’s one solid way I can help them, in exchange for them helping me last night. These two are about to acquire a student tutor who’s fully committed to their academic success.

Me.

But getting them through their midterms with a B average (my new goal for the coming week) is a task for later.

Right now, after last night’s excitement, I bet I’m the only person in this entire domus who’s even awake.

I mean, it’s Saturday, so we’re allowed to sleep in. Probably no one will even stumble into our communal medieval-era kitchen for coffee until Jae—who’s on the Saturday breakfast roster—pads downstairs to whip up a pot of cafe au lait and a tray of fresh beignets , lavishly dusted with powdered sugar.

That’s the Saturday tradition for our residential college. And it’s a yummy one.

Speaking of yummy…

Still feeling sluggish and sleepy—which isn’t typical for my kind in the morning, the Light Fae are early risers—I squirm under the coil of Draco’s bare muscled arm, wrapped firmly around my waist from behind, like it’s been all night. Then I lay a hesitant hand on Jae’s sinewy shoulder in front of me. Fierce shifter heat radiates from the werewolf’s tawny skin. He’s curled on his side, but he’s facing me. Under a scatter of beaded braids, his predatory face is soft with sleep.

I want to trace his high cheekbones and the elegant line of his nose. I want to nuzzle his lush lips, parted in slumber to show his wolfish incisors.

As this vision of kissing him whispers through me, a delicious shiver coasts over my skin and heats my face in a toasty blush.

That werewolf was inside me last night.

My thighs are still sticky from his seed, because neither one of these guys was even remotely willing to tolerate the idea of me taking a bath that would wash their scent off me.

Just another reminder that, thanks to this guy—the only Cajun werewolf east of the Greenwich Mean Line—and the glowering Nordic bad boy breathing heavily in his sleep behind me, I’m no longer the last remaining virgin at the Icarus Academy.

Nor are they acting like two guys who plan to let me wiggle out of our temporary arrangement anytime soon.

I can still hardly wrap my head around that concept.

Get a grip, McSnicker. Is it so hard to believe you’re a novelty to them? Just enjoy it while it lasts. Probably won’t be long. Now is not the time to freak out.

Right. First things first.

I need to get up before someone finds me. Mistress Aggie’s a stickler for old-fashioned standards, so our house rules are a little Victorian.

That means I’m definitely not supposed to be here in the guys’ wing.

I pull in a careful breath and start the process of extracting my body—swimming in my panties and another of Draco’s borrowed tee shirts that exudes his bracing bergamot-and-juniper fragrance—out from under the plushy bearskin and the weight of my host’s brawny arm

“Don’t even think of moving,” Draco growls into the back of my neck.

I suck in a gasp and freeze. Feeling sheepish and guilty as heck, because I was just in the process of ghosting him. And his boyfriend.

I gaze apologetically at Jae’s still sleeping face.

“I need to sneak out of here before the house wakes up,” I whisper.

Instead, Draco’s arm tightens around my waist and drags me back against his massive body with a sexy growl of protest.

Geez Louise.

The Eric Northman of the Icarus Academy is barely wearing a snug pair of briefs (which I have the feeling he only donned before bed for my sake, because he definitely wasn’t wearing any before I sucked him off last night). And the raw impact of those powerful slabs of muscle across his broad chest and hard abs and bulging thighs, all pressed against my back, is monumental.

Not to mention the jut of his increasingly interested dick. Which is currently nudging my backside.

We haven’t officially had sex—I mean, except oral sex, which we definitely had plenty of. But I don’t get the sense he intends to tolerate that official state of affairs between us much longer.

Especially when his big palm eases up my torso to wrap around my boob. Under his purposeful touch, my nipple tingles and rises and presses against the cotton layer of shirt between us.

His breath hitches in my ear.

I gasp and squirm, which only pushes my tushie harder into his boner. Before I can bite it back, a helpless little moan slips out of me.

“ Hel,” he groans, thick and raspy, into my tumbled mess of hair. “You feel so good, Mallory. I swear to fuck, you have the most perfect tits.”

I snort out a surprised laugh, because I’m not what anyone would ever call well-endowed. I heard it a million times from the mean girls in the locker room at my sucky prep school. My butt is too skinny and my boobs are too small.

But what little curviness I have, the bad boy of the Mars clan mafia seems to be thoroughly enjoying.

“I have to get up,” I repeat firmly, for both our sakes. “If a hall monitor finds me in the guys’ wing, I’ll get thrown in detention.”

“Mallory. The only hall monitor who even gives a shit is you.” Draco’s big body quivers against my back.

I have the strong suspicion he’s fighting not to laugh.

“And what about Jae?” I demand, indignant about this hilarity over my completely legitimate concerns, but still extremely distracted by the way Draco’s kneading my boob and the thought of what else might be coming. “Jae has to make beignets.”

“Fuck the beignets,” Jae mumbles without opening his eyes. “ Merde , what a night, eh?”

Against my back, Draco’s laughter subsides. Reluctantly he releases my boob (to my secret disappointment) and pushes up to sit. The lush brown bearskin pools around his hips in a very distracting way.

I roll onto my back and peer up at my host, appreciating the whole effect of his washboard abs and thick biceps and broad shoulders bunching under smooth Nordic skin. Not to mention the silver hair and glacial smolder I secretly think of as the Alexander Skarsg?rd effect.

The spiky North Star of the Mars clan tattoo glowers against his pec.

“You’re right about one thing, Mal,” Draco says abruptly. “You do need to hide. No one can know you’ve come into your power. That includes your kin.”

A prickle of alertness tiptoes through me. He’s talking about both the Seelie and the Unseelie, which is the other hidden race. The Unseelie—the Dark Fae—they don’t hide among the normals like my kind. The Dark Fae lurk behind a magical portal in the parallel realm of Avalon.

But the Dark Fae King… he knows how to pass through. That’s how he stole my brother Ash.

I push up to sit beside Draco and hug my bony knees tightly to my chest.

“Yeah, well I’m not planning to issue a press release on the Witching News Network,” I say dryly, trying to reassure myself as much as anyone. “I keep reminding myself we don’t have internet behind Academy wards and all our electronics are crap. Right now, no one knows about my wings except the two of you.”

“And that’s the way it will stay, oui ?” Jae snarls and rolls lithely onto his hands and knees in the furs. He slept naked and he’s already half aroused, his dusky cock rising from a nest of wiry curls, so the effect is extra distracting.

Focus, First Girl , I remind myself firmly. You need a plan if you want to survive.

“That’s right,” Draco says gruffly. “Keep this shit outta your letters home, Mal, you feel me? Keep it off the landline when you call your folks.”

I’ve already made up my mind to that.

I’m not about to tolerate getting yanked out of school halfway through my sophomore year and crowned, which is the first thing that would happen. So I lift a brow and draw my fingers across my lips to mime that I’m zipping my trap.

Draco studies me intently, clearly weighing my resolve, then dips his chin in a businesslike nod. “Good. That’s dope. Jean-Emilien and me, we’ll keep your secrets. We’ll protect you, Mallory. Same way you protected us last night.”

A sense of warmth and security (which is probably stupid, since I still barely know them) floods through me like a fever and makes my whole body tingle. My frizzy curls crackle around my shoulders. My wings ripple and flex against my back.

I gaze up at Draco’s looming frame and try to figure out when exactly I decided to trust him. Trust both of them.

Not only with my life and my secrets.

But with my heart.

Clearly picking up what I’m putting down, like the wickedly gifted telepath he is, Jae purrs like a swamp panther and crawls forward to straddle my hips. I can’t feel much of his anatomy with the bearskin between us. But he cradles my upturned face between his hard hands and stares fiercely into my eyes with his amber gaze. His bayou scent of patchouli and moss swamps my senses.

“You saved my life, you,” he breathes, all fixated and intense. “It’s like my amou told you last night. It’s the three of us now, chere. Your enemies, if they come, they are ours to kill. You won’t get rid of us.”

“Lucky for me, I don’t want to get rid of you,” I say lightly. Because right now, that’s my truth, and I’ve decided to own it. “But protecting me from my enemies… that’s something else. That’s actually asking a lot for the two of you to take on.”

“Who’s asking, hjartfólgin ?” Draco snorts. “Shit’s decided, you feel me?” His pale brows furrow in an uncertain frown. “Unless, uh, you’re not into the two of us?”

There’s my escape hatch from this unconventional relationship popping open. If I wanted one.

The thing is… I don’t.

Besides, if I really am going to be queen of my kind someday—Queen of the Light-Born Fae—then I’ll eventually need a harem.

But it’s definitely early days for that kind of thinking.

So it’s my turn to snort. “Yeah, no. I’m into you. Both of you. After last night, pretty much the whole school knows we’re a thing.”

Draco’s worried brow smooths out. His lids lower and he sweeps my sleep-rumpled body, swimming in his own shirt, with a slow possessive stare that shimmers like the northern lights.

“ Bon bagay .” Jae bares his fangs in a fierce werewolf grin. “Your bullies, they are history. Or I swear, my wolf, he will gnaw on their bones.”

“Geez, no gnawing.” I manage a wry grin for both of them. “Pretty sure, with you two looming over me, every bully in the school will back right off. Or at least, if they don’t, I guess now I can fly away.”

Actually, with my wings manifesting and my power emerging the way I’m experiencing, the Academy bullies now seem like the least of my concerns.

But even my lurking girlhood fear of getting stolen away in the night by the Dark Fae seems like a distant worry for a later time. With Draco Mars shifting around to situate himself behind me and settle me snugly between his spread knees, and Jae Labête crouching over both of us to exchange slow hot kisses with both Draco and me…

Oh my gosh.

These sweet, sultry, fangy kisses make my whole body melt in a goopy puddle of affection and arousal.

Yep. That right there’s the feeling.

The feeling of me falling for these two.

Hard.

And maybe that feeling is enhanced by Jae’s Valyrian telepath DNA kicking in. Because I have the strongest, strangest sense that both these bad boys are falling for me too.

I don’t have any remaining room for doubt.

These two guys together will ruin me.

Me. Mallory McSnicker. First Girl on the Dean’s List. Secret Queen of the Light-Born Fae. And one third of the newest polycule to roil the still waters of the witch academy.

Jae lifts his mouth from my tingling lips and grins into my dazed stare.

After a kiss like that, I need to reach down deep to find my resolve and reclaim my academic sense of duty.

But, somehow, I manage.

“I… can’t stay in bed with you two all day.” Do I even sound convincing? “I need to study… we all do… for midterms.”

“It’s early yet. Study later. Stay here with Draco a little longer, oui ?” my wolf breathes, low and husky. “I’ll bring both of you café au lait and beignets in bed.”

I’m smart enough to know when I’m facing a fight I can’t win.

“Okay. Wow. Guess that’s an offer I can’t refuse.” I settle back into the bulwark of Draco’s solid warmth with a sigh.

Admittedly, I’m not really trying to refuse.

I’m Little Red Riding Hood, I’m in bed with the big bad wolves, and I’m well and truly caught.

I guess this is my life now.

Time enough after breakfast… and whatever else… to coax these two with me to one of my all-time favorite hangouts—the converted choir loft that houses the school’s gothic library—so the three of us can study for our witch academy midterms.

Together.

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