Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (2 page)

Her body stiffened and she tried to
take a step back, but instead she bumped into a bookshelf, keeping
her pinned between it and…
it
. That wasn’t
something any text had prepared her for, and even in her fury and
power-drunk sensation, that throbbing phallus was distracting her
from her victory.

“Don’t they have robes
where you’re from?”

He looked down at his own lewdly
displayed manhood. “They do. But you summoned me through the
void,” he said simply. “I would assume a clever young
sorceress like you would know that one doesn’t travel through
the void with clothing. Or anything else for that matter.”

He grinned unevenly at her. “Does
it bother you, little human?” He took hold of that massive
length, gripped it in his hand and began to stroke it—actually
stroke it!—right in front of her. He stared down at her petite
form, mouth hanging open, fangs on display as he tongued his lower
lip.

“You’re disgusting,”
she breathed. Fear had been replaced by annoyance and anger at his
taunting, and she pushed herself away from him. “You’re
mine now, and I command you cover that foul thing up!”

His mouth widened in his amusement, and
though he didn’t stop the slow, firm motions of his hand along
that thick, bulging cock, he asked, “With what? I have no
clothes, sorceress.” He arched his spine back, but kept his
fiery eyes glued to her as he pleasured himself so disgustingly. “You
must provide me with such things. You’re aware of that,
surely.”

He gave another inhale of the air in
her direction, tasting her scent with his tongue even, as that
monstrously sized appendage swelled in his grasp visibly.

Wasn’t he supposed to be under
her thrall? Why did he taunt her so?

“Stop touching yourself and I’ll
provide you with something, then!” There had to be something
nearby.

He obeyed, but only gradually. “Yes
sorceress,” he said in his gravelly voice, amusement rich on it
as he finally took his hand from his shaft. “I’ll be
waiting here.”

She turned her back on him angrily,
clearing the entrance and heading deeper into the building.

It didn’t take her long to find a
wardrobe with a spare robe in it, though it was more her size than
his. Still, it would be enough to cover up… that. She knew
that demons could be disgusting, but she had no idea it would be like
that.

When she returned, however, she didn’t
see the massive creature. Which was odd, as he towered even above the
bookshelves in the room. Was he hiding? It didn’t seem in his
nature to do so; he’d been so haughty and cocky.

For a moment, terror took her as she
feared he had abandoned her somehow, against the power of the spell.

New fright took hold, however, when the
figure of another man—this one significantly shorter than her
conjured menace—stepped out from behind the bookshelf, covered
in shadows. One of the library mages had caught her!

Why were they even out at night? She
stood still, her hands going behind her back and her head falling
demurely to her chest. The young woman seemed every bit a chastised
child, and she waited for his punishing words to rain down upon her.

He approached her quietly from the
shadows, no scolding following as she expected and was used to from
the elven masters. He stood there in the dark side of the room beside
her, until his hand came up beneath her chin. It was bare, and dark.
Few of the elves had so dark of skin.

With a careful touch there he tilted
her head up, and her blue-eyed gaze moved across his ruddy-brown
flesh—bare, just like the creature she had conjured, but
man-sized, not monster-sized—to meet his face.

Her heart skipped a beat. For unlike
the terror created by the thing she had brought forth, he was simply
gorgeous. His long silky black hair reflecting a bit of the candle
and moonlight, his face smiling as he leaned in and… and
kissed her lips. So mysteriously, he held her chin in a moment of
confusion and tenderly kissed her.

She was locked, smitten and unable to
even flinch, until he broke the touch and gave her a charming look.
“Thank you for the robe,” he said, that voice so
reminiscent of earlier, though with much of the hellish edge gone.

She barely knew what to make of it and
felt her head grow light. She’d never spoken to someone so
attractive, and she knew full well why. She felt tongue-tied and
scared and embarrassed all at once.

For all her years she’d avoided
boys her own age. She got too tongue-tied around them, tripping over
her words when she felt they were too attractive to be interested in
her. And he definitely was.

At least like this.

How was it possible for him to look
like this anyway?

She felt a tremor run through her and
she begged herself to speak, to demand answers from him, but nothing
would come out.

With smooth, deft movements, he took
the robe from her arms and pulled it around behind him. He was in no
rush, and she had time to glimpse at his form. He was still taller
than her, but no longer inhumanly so. His chest was smooth now, no
longer coated with the dark hairs. And though his manhood was on
display—and still erect—it was no longer something so
horrific. Especially since he covered it up and it vanished from
sight, only to linger in memory.

“The summoning process takes a
lot from me,” he said, tying the robe shut. Though even as he
spoke she could see the cloth shifting, the fabric changing shape,
becoming something more exotic. Foreign. It hung open at his chest,
showing some of his shoulders, the cuffs billowed out around his
wrists and on down she could see it slit open up towards his groin,
stopping before displaying anything lewd. And his feet… he had
feet now too, she noticed. No longer cloven-hoofed.

She was rendered speechless. Where she
had grown so confident and commanding to the demon, she was struck
mute in front of the attractive man that had “replaced”
him. Her lips hung open and she forced them shut, inhaling deeply.

What had he said
? She knew he’d
spoken, but she hadn’t heard a word of it.

The dashing man pulled his hair from
beneath the collar of the robe, and let it fall back down to settle
around his neck and shoulders, which were so much more slender now
comparatively, that he looked to be about her age. It also drew
attention to the fact that he still bore horns, but much smaller, and
now swept back instead of spiralling high. They blended with his hair
rather well.

“Would you tell me your name,
madam sorceress?” he asked with every pretense of cordiality
upon his charming voice. He sounded—and looked—like a
foreign prince. A foreign prince in a lavish bath robe, perhaps, but
nonetheless.

For a moment it seemed she’d
forgotten her name. It was on the tip of her tongue but she was too
flabbergasted to fully recall it.

Her tongue worked over her lips until
finally it came to her.

“Firia,” she whispered.

“Firia,” he repeated in
that curiously accented voice. He leaned forward and took one of her
hands, lifting it as if it were made of delicate porcelain, then bent
forward and kissed the back of her knuckles. “It is a pleasure
to have been summoned by so beauteous a conjurer, Firia.” He
smiled to her, his ruby eyes glinting as they met her gaze. “I
am Varuj,” and the name rolled off his tongue so appetizingly,
as if—she imagined—it would taste delicious to merely
say. “At your service.”

She actually thought she might faint.
She willed herself to remember that he was still the vile demon that
was pleasuring himself moments ago, just to make her uncomfortable,
but it was so hard to think. He was too handsome for words, and she
shifted from foot to foot as his skin touched hers.

“How did you change? You
shouldn’t be able to.”

“It is no worry,” he said
again as if merely a foreigner with an enchanting accent and a
curious grasp on her language, rather than a demon from some
dimension of damnation. “I know many things. Many tricks. Many
spells,” he said with a smile, rubbing his thumb over the back
of her hand. “Things that even the wizards of your world do
not.”

“Teach me them.”

Her blue eyes widened in shock,
astounded that she’d been able to speak, and with such a
commanding tone. Her need for that power, those magics he knew had
even outweighed her nervousness of being around him.

And that somehow made her more nervous.

His smile lit up his handsome face, and
he kissed the back of her hand again. “I can do that,” he
said at last. “In less time than the teachers of your world
could instruct you, too.” And that was what mattered most,
wasn’t it? For as she was reminded so often, a human’s
life was not long enough to learn such power. And she’d already
lost so much of it on the outside, looking in.

Her head nodded, and suddenly she was
hit with the more pressing concerns. Where will he stay? Perhaps she
hadn’t as much confidence in her skills as she believed, for
she certainly hadn’t thought so far ahead. Yet he’d made
it easier and harder on her all at once.

Her father would never let him stay
with them.

She’d envisioned it so
differently, her stomping into the Dean’s office and demanding
fair treatment.

Now she wanted something more.

The beautiful man before her continued
to smile and rub her hand. “There is something you must
understand first and foremost, madam Firia,” he said in his
deep, smooth voice. “You cannot expose my existence to anyone.
Not the teachers you wished to impress, not loved ones. No one.”

“How am I going to explain you?
How will I get ahead?” Her voice was so small and meek compared
to the accomplished and commanding woman who had summoned him.

“You can’t explain me,”
he said simply, not losing that charm or smile. “Not yet,
Firia.” He brought his free hand up to her face, cupped her
cheek gently. “You can hide me, if you let me show you how. And
when you are able to sneak away, I will teach you. Better than any
tutor of your world ever could.”

It was creeping her out just how much
she wanted that. How much she longed for that.

She hadn’t realized just how
lonely and isolated she had let herself become. Her shyness around
men her own age had led to her hiding in libraries, and she’d
never even seen one so good-looking as him.

It’s an illusion
, she
reminded herself, but that only made her remember the sight of him
stroking that horrifying organ and her breath hitched.

He leaned in close, so that their
foreheads nearly touched. “I will be your secret,” he
said quietly. “Yours and yours alone.” His palm cupped
her cheek and his fingers moved through her hair delicately. “And
after time training together in our secret moments,” gods, he
made that sound so tantalizing, despite knowing his true form, “you
shall be an unmatched sorceress. Not even those who have trained and
practiced for centuries will rival you, Firia.”

“Why?”

The word toppled from her tongue, and
she scolded herself. Because she bound him to her. Because he belongs
to her.

Yet someone so gorgeous could never
belong to her, could never be so tender with her as he was trying to
play at.

He was a beautiful monster, and it was
making her feelings become conflicted. She swallowed and looked at
him with those expressive, blue eyes. “You are my thrall.”
She answered her own question.

His beautiful, almond-shaped eyes
hardened just a little, then softened in sadness. “That is a
cruel thing to say,” he said in a hurt voice.

In the blink of an eye, things changed.

He was the same, but he had faded out
of reality in his position and now stood at the opposite side of the
room, before the window, the moonlight framing his figure.

“The truth is never cruel,”
she managed to sputter out, even in her shock. “It just is.”

He sat back on the windowsill and
curled his legs up with him, wrapping his arms about them. The moon
glimmered off his dark hair, and shimmered upon his smooth skin, all
the way down to where his robe began at the edge of his shoulders.
“Even a bound one does not need to obey all,” he said
simply, that tinge of hurt still in his voice. “You could tell
a bound one to perform an action like… attack a foe. But you
could not command him to betray his secrets. No conjurer is that
powerful a master.”

She knew, logically, what he was. A
cunning manipulator, a demon from a hellish place. Yet that wasn’t
how he seemed, and it was so hard to argue with what she saw. He
looked so hurt, and she was the one who had done it.

She took a step forward, folding her
arms defensively beneath her petite bust, but she didn’t know
what to say. She was at a loss for words.

Varuj looked aside, the silhouette of
his handsome face outlined by silvery moonlight. “I would not
share my secrets with a master. Only a companion,” he said
almost pouty, in defiance of her attempt to cow him.

“I know what you are,” she
said softly, but she tightened her arms to stop her hands from
trembling. It was taking so much out of her just to not run to him,
apologizing.

“You’re trying to
manipulate me into caring for you.”

He sighed. “All I ask is that you
treat me as equal,” he said so simply. “Is grinding me
beneath your boot heel all you can think of? So much so that it
blinds you to opportunity?” He rested his head upon his knees.
All she could see of him was his glossy black hair rested atop his
arms and knees. “Fine,” he said with some resignation. “I
will teach you something… but just one thing. And if, after
that, you do not care to treat me as something other than a slave…
no more.”

Her throat was so dry and she took
another step towards him, taken in by his good looks and sullen
exterior. “How can I trust you when you are acting like this?”