Chapter 11
Taera
My shock morphs into horror. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Don’t misunderstand.” His laughter is dark, scathing. “If I wanted you here, I would have gone about seducing you entirely differently.”
My cheeks go hot, and I retreat toward the door. “I will not stay here.”
“Then where do you plan to stay, exactly?” Hard green eyes meet mine, and a sinister smile flits across his lips.
“I’ll go back to the dormitories,” I stammer. Sharing a mage’s bedroom is unimaginable.
I yank open the door back to the hallway and peer down the dark red-tinted corridor, still creeping with blood glass. Nikolai leans against a chair, watching me. Smirking.
“Why is your bedroom safe?” I demand.
“We need somewhere we can lose ourselves to passion.”
I give him the fiercest scowl I can muster.
“Even if you could leave, my year won’t take you, and the first-year dorms won’t even let you in.”
“Your year?” My brow furrows.
“Fourth year. Intermediate II.”
“I don’t know anything about magic. Why would I—”
“You’re right. You should be in first year,” he snarls, “where they coddle you, dote on you, keep you safe.”
I wait for him to explain further, but he doesn’t. Finally, I ask, “Then why am I here?”
His smile snaps away, anger flashing across his perfect face. “You argued with the fucking Glassmasters.”
“You dragged me, unconscious, into the desert.” I stalk toward him, letting the door slam shut.
He glares back. “I brought you to safety.”
Does this magician think he deserves gratitude for abducting me? Is he genuinely upset—after what he’s done? My teeth clench until they feel like they might crack. “And now I’m stuck with you?”
“Stuck with me?” Nikolai scoffs. “I’ve saved your life, twice, and I’m fucking stuck with you.”
“Saved me?” A laugh escapes. “I was tortured when I arrived here.”
“That was just an illusion.”
My vision flashes red. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Why should I care?” He prowls toward me now, pressing into my space. “You know what would have been nice? You being smoothly admitted to the Halls of Glass and getting a nice, gentle introduction to magic.”
I refuse to budge. I want to kick his smile in. Instead, I hiss out, “They hurt me before I even spoke.”
He advances on me further, towering over me. His eyes glitter like a knife. “Instead, like the absolute idiot you are, you forced me to admit you as my personal source.”
“I’m not your personal anything,” I spit, even with my stomach turning watery. “And I will not learn magic.”
He chuckles. “Take that up with the Glassmasters.”
I let out a hot breath, trying to wrap my mind around it all. “So first year won’t take me because you screwed me over—”
“You didn’t keep your mouth shut.”
“But why can’t I stay in fourth-year dormitories?”
Nikolai stares at me like I’m stupid. “You’re an untrained source ready to blow. You think I’m wearing these for fun?” He flexes his fingers, gloved in white silk.
I glower back. “I won’t stay here.”
“Fine.” He gestures to the door, and I blink.
“You won’t stop me from leaving?”
“Oh, you’re more than welcome to leave, Taera.” The way his tongue caresses my name makes me shudder.
I swallow hard. “I can just leave?”
“Of course.” He grins. “You might even survive the day, but definitely not the night. Unless you find another magician and beg to share their bed instead.”
Tremors shudder up my exhausted, aching neck. Panic squeezes my throat. The idea of being in any magician’s bed…
“I will never share your bed,” I growl.
“I wasn’t offering,” he snaps. “You’ll be on the floor.”
I open my mouth, gawking at him, and choke out a laugh. Of course. I’ll be sleeping on one of those cold, hard corners of the reflective marble floor. At least I can grimly assume he isn’t going to force himself on me. There may be far more awful rooms to end up in…
Shuddering, I ask, “Your chambers—it’s just you and me?”
“Yes.”
I sigh, my rage turning to helpless exhaustion. Still, I watch the illusions of his face: the tumbled gold of his hair and sleek skin. I frown at it. If he doesn’t want to waste magic, why is he still wearing a mask of it?
“Then why are you doing that?” I gesture at him.
His smile drops away, eyes narrowing. “Doing what?”
“Enchanting your face.”
Anger blazes across his sharp, perfect features, and I cower before I can stop myself.
“This is who I am.” His tone is hard. “I don’t want you here any more than you want to be here.”
Perplexed, I watch him cross to the blue glass desk. He pulls open a drawer that catches the light. Something clinks and tinkles out of sight as he rummages. Then Nikolai tucks several small glinting pieces of glass into his pockets.
Suspicion pricks. “What are you doing?”
“I have work to do,” he says.
“Work?”
“Don’t touch the desk while I’m gone. Don’t touch anything.” He brushes past me, bringing with him a whiff of sage. I take a step back, which forces me farther into the room.
“Like I’d want to touch anything,” I mutter.
“Oh, except my bathing chambers.” He wrinkles his nose, pointing to a glass door on the other side of the bed.
Incensed, I open my mouth to snap back at him, but he’s already striding out the door.
Glancing back, he grins like a madman. “I hope you’re ready to be thrown into fourth-year classes tomorrow. ”
The door clicks closed.
I’m finally alone. In a magician’s bedroom. To my horror, my mouth stretches into a yawn, betraying me. I rub my gritty eyes, but I can’t rest now. Not here.
Nikolai’s whisper splits the air like static. “If anyone comes knocking, don’t answer.”
I whirl around, but he’s gone. I check the obsidian door, braving the glass handle, but he isn’t in the hall, either. The message is clear: I should be frightened.
I can’t help it; I’m terrified. I’m trapped inside a school of magic.
I can’t imagine full classrooms packed with lying, cruel magicians like Nikolai.
This is my dream of studying at the institute, but twisted and wrong.
A wish granted by the desert and its cruel sense of humor.
The idea of becoming one of them—a magician—is absurd enough that a choked laugh breaks free.
I haven’t even been here a day and I’m already cracking. I banish any thoughts of sharing Nikolai’s chambers, or classes full of mages. Because I’m not waiting around for either to happen. I’m getting out of here. Now.