Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
ARKEN
The energy had shifted between Kieran and I after that heated conversation had reached its natural conclusion.
As we continued to train, his gaze grew hungrier, his guiding hands lingering longer than necessary, and I smirked to myself, feeling smug.
Something about that argument had turned him on, and his struggle to return to form was stroking my ego to the high fucking heavens.
The man frequently aroused me to the point of straight stupidity—it was only fair that I returned the favor from time to time. Even if I didn’t know exactly what set him off this time, I was having fun with it.
It probably hadn’t done the man any favors when I’d decided to alter my attire, tying a knot in the stolen undershirt and exposing my bare midriff in favor of giving my chest a little more support.
As Kieran had explained, this style of fighting required more mobility than the sparring work we’d done before, and my tits were distracting the both of us with the way they’d been bouncing around.
Though, judging by the stiffening erection trapped behind those grey briefs of his, I’d say it did me plenty of favors—at least when it came to my own personal agenda.
I was enjoying this lesson immensely. I had been begging for Kieran to teach me how to properly wield an aetherblade from the day I’d learned how to summon them—bitching and moaning and whining through every other training session when he’d denied me, claiming that we didn’t need to focus on that right now, and we needed to build a foundation of basics, first. Logically, I understood his approach.
At the end of the day, it was the physical portion of the entry exams that I had failed, after all.
And even after just an hour or two working with the aetherblades, I was beginning to understand what Kieran meant when he said arcane combat was exceptionally taxing on the body and required a great deal of strength and endurance.
But we had been training for a while, and I was pleased enough with my progress for now. As exciting as the aetherblades were, my academic and athletic intrigue was giving way to stronger urges. Every time Kieran’s gaze drifted lazily over my bare skin, I lost hold of my resolve to stay focused.
Come on now, Ark. You can do this. You’ll have plenty of time to fuck him later.
The one thing keeping me from leaning in to Kieran’s weakening resolve was that I was sort of afraid this training session was a one-time thing.
I was worried this was only his attempt at helping ease my anxieties and keep the nightmares at bay—that he didn’t really think I was ready for it, he was just humoring me in an attempt to assuage my fears.
Because naturally, that’s what he had assumed—that I’d been dreaming of the Leshy last night. That I had been reliving the trauma of my near-death experience. And I mean, technically, he wasn’t…exactly wrong?
A lie by omission was still a lie, I knew that, but I was content to let Kieran believe he had the power to protect me from the very worst of my fears.
Even if that couldn’t be further from the truth.
There was no use in attempting to explain that I had much deeper fears, secrets far more frightening than whatever he kept trapped behind his walls. And should they ever be revealed?
There would be no escaping my fate.
Even the strongest man I’d ever known could not hope to stand against the wrath of the gods.
“Distracted, Little Conduit?” Kieran murmured, lips brushing against the shell of my ear, guiding my movements from behind.
Observant motherfucker.
“Ah, yeah, sorry. Just…got lost in thought there for a sec.”
“Let’s take five,” he suggested, striding across the room to toss me one of his waterskins.
“Just a quick break,” I agreed. “I’ll focus up.”
Whatever he muttered under his breath was a touch too low to make out, but it sounded oddly like, “Yeah, okay. That makes one of us.”
I hid my smirk behind a long sip of cool water, sighing with satisfaction as the liquid hit my throat.
As I retied my hair and shook out my limbs, Kieran rolled one of his training mats out on the floor and sat down, extending his legs out and curling forward to stretch.
The flexible motherfucker could fully grip both feet in his cupped hands…
Not that I really had any complaints over said flexibility.
Get your mind out of the gutter, Asher.
Training. We were focused on training. What was today’s objective again? Ah, right.
“I want you to try to stab me.”
I rolled my eyes, irritated to have been assigned an impossible task.
This was the same reason it pissed me off any time Kieran agreed to “spar” with me—he didn’t even have to try.
He wouldn’t even bother to coddle me about it, either—the man seemed to enjoy just how easily he could overpower me if he so chose.
I mean, I kinda liked that, too—but for entirely unrelated reasons.
But I didn’t have anyone else to spar with at my level, and my secretly competitive nature was at odds with the heat between my thighs every time Kieran made it clear I wasn’t even remotely threatening.
Although…
A wicked urge rose as his back was turned, low groans and huffs escaping him as he stretched out sore muscles.
The aetherblade was already forming in my palm as I acted upon pure impulse, bounding across the room at full speed and tackling him into a supine position and grinning like a fiend as I held that gleaming dagger of Light arcana against his throat.
“Gotcha,” I breathed.
Kieran offered me a lazy smile in return, the tips of his incisors flashing seductively as he spoke. “You sure did, Little Conduit.”
My eyes narrowed. “Godsdamnit. You let me do that!”
His smile curled into a knowing smirk, exposing a dimple on one side of his mouth.
“You bastard!” I groaned, beating his chest with my fist.
“And what exactly are you going to do about it, Asher? Slit my throat?” His bronze throat bobbed beneath my twinkling blade, the look in his eyes almost daring me to do it.
“I mean, I could,” I muttered.
In less than a godsdamned second, I found myself disarmed—aetherblade flung across the room, our positions reversed as my back hit the mat faster than I had time to parse.
Kieran had both of my wrists pinned above my head with just one of his hands, a shadowy aetherblade of his own forming in the more dominant left.
Holy fuck.
“No, you couldn’t,” Kieran crooned, a feral edge dancing in his voice as he lowered the dagger toward my neck. “But I would have loved to see you actually try.”
He let the edge of the blade drift dangerously close until it was all but caressing the sensitive skin of my throat.
I shivered and immediately felt his cock twitch in response, given that it was pressed up against my center. Kieran had captured my legs, bracketing them with his powerful thighs, his hips pressing into my own.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered.
His wicked expression grew even more lascivious.
“Oh,” he purred, still teasing at the skin of my neck with torturously slow movements. “You like this, don’t you, Arken? Filthy little thing…”
I swallowed hard, blushing furiously as I attempted to break free from his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mmm, I think you do…” he sang, running the tip of his shimmering dagger down my throat, across my collarbone, and even further, letting it drag across one of my nipples. He applied just enough pressure so that I could feel it, but not enough to cut through the fabric.
Holy fucking Fates.
“My, my, Miss Asher,” he teased.
I pressed my lips together, attempting to keep a straight face as the gentle assault continued, the tip of the blade encircling my other nipple now.
“Not everyone is as aroused by sharp objects as you are, Vistarii,” I bit out.
“No, not everyone,” he agreed, the tip of his tongue running over his upper lip, exposing those little godling fangs once more. “But you are.”
“You can’t prove that in a court of law.”
“And I don’t have to,” Kieran replied. With the slightest flick of his wrist, I heard the sound of fabric tearing, his aetherblade slashing through the collar of my shirt until my breasts were threatening to spill out. “I only need to prove it to you.”
There was no masking my sharp intake of breath as my heart began to pound, pulse racing.
“Now be a good girl and keep still, Arken. I think I’m going to need to corroborate these claims of yours.”
Oh, sweet fucking Hel.
Slowly, deviously, Kieran continued to cut through the rest of my shirt—his shirt, I supposed. My nipples hardened into stiff peaks as he turned the dagger in his palm and began teasing them with the dull edge, and he chuckled as gooseflesh spread across my skin.
Leaning back on his thighs, Kieran slowly brought the blade down my torso, around my navel and paused just above my panties.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Vistarii,” I panted breathlessly. “That’s my favorite pair.
He raised a challenging brow. “Admit it, then, Little Conduit,” he purred. “Tell me how bad you want it.”
Twirling the dagger between deft fingers, Kieran tucked it into a reverse position, leaning forward to brush the ghost of a kiss against my lips. Though he had released his hold on my wrists, they remained bound in place by ropes of silken Shadow.
I said nothing.
“Come on now,” he whispered, flicking his tongue against my lower lip, teasing the blade against the side of my thigh without even needing to watch where he was wielding it. “Confess your sins, and perhaps I’ll be gentle. But my mercy is earned, not freely given.”
I was losing my fucking mind, but I was also too damned stubborn for my own good. “You are so full of shit,” I hissed. “Let me go. You’ve proven your point. You’re the only one getting off on this.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Kieran clicked his tongue in admonishment. “Such a pretty little liar. But we’ve been over this, Asher…”
He didn’t even need to say the words; I already heard his devious croon echoing in my head.
I am very observant.
Yes. Yes, he was. Kieran Vistarii was far too observant for my own good—or rather, for the maintenance of my sanity. A shiver escaped me yet again as he leaned back, trailing the blade softly over the thin cotton barrier between his arcana and my clit.
“Confess,” he whispered, giving me one more chance.
“Bite me,” I mumbled.
“Later,” he said again. “And…apologies in advance, Little Conduit. I promise I’ll get you new ones.”
With that, Kieran slipped his dark aetherblade in the impossibly thin line between my panties and my flesh.
I was panting now, with only Shadows keeping me from writhing around, the weight of his umbral power keeping me pinned to the floor.
Though he took his time with it, all it required was two tiny flicks of his wrist to leave the fabric in tatters, falling away to expose my dripping, needy cunt.
“Yeah,” Kieran snarled at the sight, tossing his aetherblade aside. “That’s what I fucking thought.”
Once again faster than I could parse, I found myself thrown over his shoulder as if I were a sack of flour.
Holy. Fucking. Hel.