Chapter 8 Zuko #2
Raze turned to me in horror. “Are you—oh my Fates, dude! You’re getting off on this?”
“She’s fucking gorgeous,” I said, voice hoarse. “And she’s doing amazing.”
“You need therapy.”
“Valid,” I told him.
My blood was humming. I didn’t just want Rune Bloodwyne—I needed her.
I didn’t need her the same way simple men needed simple women. I needed to devour her strength, kneel at her agony, and brand my name with my tongue across whatever piece of her she’d let me.
The sound blissfully stopped after five straight minutes of it, but it felt like so much more.
“Intel?” Professor Emberveil asked.
“No.” Rune’s head hung forward, blood trickling from her ears, lips pale. She was soaked from the cold round earlier, trembling from exhaustion, skin flushed and shining with sweat.
“Maybe electrocution, then, hmm?” Professor Emberveil suggested.
Rune shrugged her shoulder half-way. “Give me your best shot.”
Professor Emberveil pulled out a long, blunt rod. The silver tip glowed green faintly. Heat and static pulsed off it in hypnotic little flares.
She walked right in front of Rune.
“She’ll break,” someone whispered behind me.
“No, she won’t,” I snarled.
“Tell me the intel, Rune,” Professor Emberveil said calmly, using the wand under Rune’s chin and tilting it up until Rune was forced to look at her. “You don’t need to suffer for fake information.”
Rune’s eyes were unfocused but still defiant.
“I’ve suffered for worse,” she rasped, voice hoarse.
Professor Emberveil didn’t blink. She pushed the glowing end underneath Rune’s chin, hard.
CRACK.
A bolt of lightning, real and raw, tore through Rune’s head, making her whole body jerk and seize in the chair. The energy licked over her ribs, illuminating every tendon and twitching muscle in her core.
Her clothes steamed as they singed at the edges.
She screamed, but it wasn’t surrender at all. It was rage, and it was sexy.
“You think that’s going to get me to break?” Rune hissed when it stopped, her voice shaking but still sharp. “Try harder.”
Gasps echoed in the viewing room.
Raze made a choking sound. “Is she—taunting her?”
“That’s one way to cope with pain,” I muttered.
Slater said something incoherent, but Rune had everyone’s attention in this auditorium.
Professor Emberveil struck her again.
This time, the lightning hit her side.
Rune arched sideways in the chair, a cry bursting from her lips as the muscles across her stomach convulsed violently.
“You’re only prolonging the pain,” Professor Emberveil said. “Give up the intel. You’ll be allowed to rest.”
Rune’s head lolled, chin dripping sweat and blood, but she smirked. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit more of a pillow-talker. If you want my secrets, you’ve gotta do something for me first.”
Noted.
The wand crackled ominously.
Another hit.
Rune’s back bowed off the chair as if lifted by invisible strings. Sparks danced across her skin, her body trembling with unbearable tension, but she didn’t scream this time. She laughed. A loud and echoing laugh.
“Tell me!” Professor Emberveil snapped.
“I told you,” she rasped, eyes meeting Professor Emberveil’s. “You’re not gonna break me. Keep trying.”
Professor Emberveil studied her for a long moment. “I have one more method for you.”
“Aw, how kind of you.” Rune spat blood to the side.
Raze stared with his mouth open. “She’s actually insane.”
Insanely fucking stunning.
I said nothing. I was too busy watching her body twitch. Her chest rose and fell in raw, aching gasps while blood trickled down her skin. Her eyes still blazed with heat.
Professor Emberveil’s elegant boots clicked on the floor as she approached Rune again, tossing the wand to the ground a few feet away.
Rune sagged against the chair restraints, still heaving for breath. Her body was slick with sweat, scorched at the edges, and the tips of her green hair were curled and half-scorched.
She raised her head slowly to meet the professor’s gaze.
Professor Emberveil flexed her fingers. Her nails sparked first, and then fire unfurled from her palms. It was her firedrake fire.
My gaze widened. “Can she…do that?”
Several students in the audience flinched and stepped back.
Raze instinctively joined them, and I clenched my jaw as I watched the flames twist toward Rune like they were sentient.
“Final round,” Professor Emberveil said. “No illusions. No tools. Just me.”
Rune laughed, her voice hoarse and raw. “Finally. I was getting bored of your toys.”
That made Professor Emberveil pause. “Careful, applicant.”
“I don’t break easy,” Rune assured her. “And firedrakes don’t scare me anymore than icedrakes do.”
Icedrakes?
The flames swelled suddenly, reflexively. Professor Emberveil didn’t move a muscle, but the fire responded like a living extension of her frustration.
Rune was getting to this professor…wasn’t she?
“You should be scared,” Professor Emberveil said. “Firedrake fire scars. Even in simulations.” She stepped closer. “But don’t worry. I’m much older. I can control my flames better than most. I won’t let you scar, but it will feel like you will. Headmaster Bloodwyne, is this okay?”
The headmaster’s jaw was clenched tight, but he nodded.
Flames of fire unraveled from Professor Emberveil’s palm like a whip and snapped toward Rune’s thigh.
It hissed as it made contact with her skin.
Rune screamed, the sound wretched and primal as a blister formed instantly across her upper thigh. The scent of scorched flesh bit the air.
She still didn’t spill the intel.
“I don’t think it felt like it would scar,” she rasped through clenched teeth, sweat dripping from her chin. “Want to try again?”
Professor Emberveil’s jaw clenched. She flicked her hand. Fire kissed Rune’s tattoo-free collarbone, curling like a serpent beneath the black strap of her bra. The fabric sizzled, and the strap popped off one side. The swell of her breast was exposed more, but her nipple remained covered.
Thank Fates. Otherwise, I might’ve actually intervened and been sent home.
Rune jerked in her chair, her head thrown back, a strangled cry bursting from her lips—but still no surrender.
“You’re going to have yourself exposed if you don’t tell me the intel,” Professor Emberveil warned, voice low now. “In front of everyone.”
Rune tilted her head. Her lips trembled, but her smile came through anyway.
“I thought firedrakes had more control than this,” she whispered. “Or do you always lose it when someone tells you no?”
The flames roared from the professor.
A wave of fire surged toward Rune’s midsection, almost too close to her vital organs.
Professor Emberveil caught the magic just in time, the heat shrinking back by inches. “What about now?”
Drecken Grimsworn appeared in front of Rune. “Enough.”
The lights above them flicked on.
Professor Emberveil exhaled slowly, fingers curling into fists. “I’m only doing my job, Drecken. This applicant has better endurance than half of the actual agents. To test her, I have to be extreme.”
“I believe you’ve tested her enough,” Drecken stated, magic popping and sparking from his entire body. “Don’t you, Lake?”
Headmaster Bloodwyne nodded, tension clear in his expression. “I do.”
Rune finally sagged forward, her body trembling violently, burned and bruised and beautiful in every ruined inch of her.
The way she sagged forward almost completely exposed her breast, but before it did, Drecken snapped his fingers. Rune was not only fully clothed in the clothes she had on, but she was dry, not scorched, and healed.
She perked upright and blinked a few times to get her bearings. “Thank you, Professor Grimsworn.”
“Well done.” Drecken nodded politely before he fell back into a mirror-like portal and ended up back to the side of the auditorium.
How powerful was that warlock, again?
Professor Emberveil smiled at Rune. “You are the strongest applicant I’ve ever had to test. Great job.”
“Thanks, Professor.” Rune’s lips curved upward.
Headmaster Bloodwyne walked over to his daughter, worry lines creasing his face as he shot a look at Professor Emberveil. “Endurance level: extreme. Will: unbroken. Intel: protected. Trial passed.”
That’s my girl.
“Thanks, Dad,” Rune murmured as he helped her to her feet and carried her away like a fussing mother hen.