Chapter 18
Eighteen
Avery
Avery woke to something hard poking into her back, and a heavy pressure draped around her body; even her legs were cocooned in a soft, silky fur.
Her eyes fluttered open, and the morning light poured through the curtains as dust danced around.
Despite the dead fire, she was pleasantly warm and surrounded by the rich scent of pines and winter.
It would have been easy to go back to sleep, just a few more minutes.
A hand flexed in front of her, one that was not her own.
She stilled. Felix was wrapped around her.
She held her breath in case any movement disrupted the shifter—one wrong move and his claws could find her jugular.
She looked down as his tail curled in and out of her legs like it had a mind of its own and was stroking her for its own pleasure.
The shifter pulled her closer until she was flush with him. His thing pressed between her butt. Last night, she hadn’t noticed the size of it, too distracted by, well, him. She released her breath, a small gasp escaping from her throat as she moved up the shaft.
Then she felt it, a rumbling against her skin, like a gentle motor humming through the mattress and vibrating down to her bones. Was he purring?
A laugh escaped her, one she had to stifle with a hand.
Because even though she knew it was wrong, she didn’t want to wake him just yet.
She wanted to wait here in this entanglement of limbs and other things, for just a little while longer.
Every bit of anxiety was sapped away from her as his purr thrummed through her body.
It was wrong on so many levels. Yet, nothing in the world could have pulled her away at that very moment.
But of course, she had to sneeze.
She tried to stifle it, but her body had other plans. The beast that slumbered stirred next to her. Shit. She couldn’t even deny that she was asleep.
For a moment, he clutched her tighter before his body went rigid, mirroring her own. “This hasn’t happened before.” He sounded confused, and unfortunately, his morning sleepy voice was as sexy as he was, and was doing something very unfair to her body.
“It’s a first for me too, buddy.”
“Do not call me buddy.” His breath fanned against her ear, sending goose bumps skittering over her skin.
Geez, someone was grumpy in the mornings.
“Okay, shifter, do you mind letting me go? It’s weird.”
He grumbled something sleepy and annoyed that she didn’t quite catch, but he let her go. She should have felt relief, but instead, she wanted him to come right back. It was a strange dichotomy in her mind that the safest she had felt in a while was in the arms of a monster.
Like the very sky was mad at her for even thinking such a thing, rain started to patter outside the window, the sun having stuck around as long as a father out to buy milk.
Avery untangled herself and went to ready herself for the day ahead.
She made sure the bathroom door was locked and that she brought her clothes with her this time to get changed.
There couldn’t be a repeat of last night.
Of any of it. The kiss, the dresser, the cuddling.
The cuddling somehow was the worst of all three.
She was getting too close to this shifter.
When she got back, the shifter had fallen back asleep.
Limbs tangled within her sheets, legs splayed, lips slightly parted, and sprawled across the bed like it was his own.
One hand rested behind his head, while the other dangled off the bed.
Cats slept a lot, she knew that, and he had seemed to get none lately.
Light on her feet, she padded to the bed. For someone who was deep in enemy territory, he looked remarkably blissful. She moved closer. His ears twitched in his sleep, almost like he could hear her coming.
She stood over him, admiring the beautiful specimen that he was.
Shifters were always beautiful, in many ways.
The books the witches had described them as ugly monsters—yet in every picture she had seen, and most definitely the infuriatingly handsome one in front of her—they were nothing of the sort.
It made sense that they were so striking; after all, the things in nature that were the most beautiful were often the deadliest.
Absent-mindedly, she reached her hand out toward him. Because apparently, she had little to no self-preservation and was lured to her death as easily as a moth to a flame. Maybe the moths found the flame beautiful, and she understood them now more than she ever had.
She didn’t get far. The shifter opened one green eye, the pupil slimming to a slit.
Fuck.
With terrifying speed, his claws closed around her wrist, yanking her from standing to straddling him within a millisecond, close enough that their noses almost touched.
Once again, the hard length of him pressed into the apex of her thighs.
It took all of her willpower not to grind into the man who was currently holding her captive.
“What,” he hissed, “are you doing?”
There was no good answer for it. She had simply wanted to touch him. The bond thrummed happily in her chest, relishing the contact between them. Could he feel the pull, too? His hand tightened around her wrist.
“I told you not to touch me.” His gaze hardened before dropping to her lips and back up again.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to wake you up. We’re going to be late.”
“There are other ways to rouse me.”
“You already seem…uh…roused.”
His eyes darkened. For a second, she thought he might pull her closer. Pull her into another forbidden kiss that she absolutely, definitely did not want. But to her disappointment, he let go of her wrist, letting it drop onto the pillow next to his head.
He didn’t move her, though—his ears twitched curiously, and she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do with that.
“Get off me, witch.”
Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. Right.
Despite the bond that flared between them, it was stupid to think he wanted anything to do with her beyond her usefulness in breaking it.
And it was what she wanted too. As annoyingly attractive as he was, she would never betray her kind like that.
He was the enemy, and she would do well to remember that.
She cleared her throat and climbed off the bed, careful to avoid touching any part of him.
A knock sounded at the door. She looked back at Felix, who had already shifted. Adjusting her uniform, she crossed the room and opened the door so someone who was far too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for her at this time of the morning could enter.
“Callum, hey.” She gave him a short smile. She used to think he was handsome, and he still was, but when he measured up next to Felix, there was no comparison.
“I found your familiar wandering around last night, and thought you might want to know I brought him back.”
She looked back at Felix, hoping he could feel the many daggers she sent his way. Was he stupid?
“No witch, not stupid.”
Oops. She hadn’t meant to say that into his mind.
“Thank you for returning him.”
“It’s no problem.”
She looked at her feet, the silence stretching between them. “Well! Thanks for coming by.” She went to shut the door, but he stopped her, putting his hand on the door above her.
“I, uh—” He scratched his head. Again, something she would have found cute before, but now she was just annoyed by it.
Or maybe she was just getting her period.
Men particularly annoyed her in her luteal phase.
“Remember that date you agreed to? I was wondering if I could take you out tomorrow night?”
Shit. She had agreed to it.
“Ugh!” she said, pretending like she was annoyed. “I wish I could, but I have dinner with my family then.”
He cocked his head, giving her a suspicious look. “Isn’t that tonight?”
“Oh, right…Yeah, it is.” An awkward chuckle escaped her. “How did you know that?”
“Your sister told me about it, I’m on her squad, remember?”
“Yeah, of course,” she blurted out. “Well, then tomorrow’s great,” she said through gritted teeth.
Suddenly, she felt murderous. A feral urge of violence wanting to swing a bat at the enforcer’s head. Until she realized, it wasn’t her emotions she was feeling, it was his. Speaking of the little devil, Felix wound between her legs and tried to take a swing at Callum’s leg.
“Bad kitty!” Avery scolded him, trying to swallow down the palpable anger searing in her veins that he was causing.
Callum smiled brightly, ignoring the cat. For the first time in her life, she wanted to punch him. Instead, she mirrored his smile, hoping she didn’t look as pained as she felt.
“Great! I’ll pick you up at six?”
“Mmhmm!”
Mist clung to the university grounds as the class walked toward the lecture theater.
The path curved around a large lake to a sprawling grass field ringed by an orchard of oaks and apple trees before curving back around to the quadrangle, where they were headed.
Maya walked beside her, as Felix trailed her heels as a cat.
Avery swallowed. Until now, it had been easy to pretend that Felix was her familiar, but today she would be expected to perform magic.
“Have you been practicing?” Maya asked casually.
“Yup!” Avery lied through her teeth.
Her friend was far too nice for her lying ass and reassured her anyway. “I bet you’ll do great.”