Soon, I’m not just gripping on to him. I’m outright snugglinghim, my face pressed into his shoulder and my arm draped across his chest.
I’m not shaking anymore.
Gods, this feels nice.
Everything’s back to being fogged and woozy, and the last thing I remember is Elethior’s lips on my forehead, and his voice, low and rumbling: “Sleep, Sebastian.”
Chapter Ten
I fell asleep with my contacts in.
Eyelids welded shut, I grope in my bedside drawer for eye drops, and by the time I’ve doused myself in them, pried my contacts out, and found my glasses, it hits me.
I’m alone.
The sequins on my shirt scratch my palm as I rub at my pec, but the motion doesn’t soothe the sharp ache that pinches behind my rib cage.
Sunlight’s easing through my window, and I blink around my room, looking for… some sign, I don’t know. A shift in the fabric of the universe. A rip, a destruction, achange.
Elethior and I hooked up.
And he held me until I fell asleep.
I don’t know when he left. I don’t remember anything after passing out, and how did he manage to stay conscious following back-to-back orgasms? Especially orgasms likethat. I still feel sluggish, relaxation fighting hard to keep my muscles lethargic and weighed down.
He said he’d leave before morning, and he did. That’s good. It keeps the delineation clear—a hookup, period.
But in the swelling light of morning, with blankets pooled around my waist, it isn’t the sex that flares across my memory.
It’s—
Camp Merethyl. His assurances. All those things he said.Look into my eyes and tell me you want my mouth on your cock. What about the date you had? And that bartender?
Get out of bed. Get out of bed and shower andfunction. It’s Monday and I had a hookup andthat’s all it was.
I throw a towel around my waist, shuck my crop top, and stand in the hall outside my room.
Orok’s door is closed.
Elethior was only at the club last night because Orok told him we’d be there.
I mean, you can’t argue with the results, but still, I cannot let such a slight go unaddressed.
Which is awaybetter focus for all the energy that wants me to fixate on last night butfuck that shit,I’m going to torture my best friend instead.
Growing up in a house of wizards, you learn certain tricks early. Especially when your siblings are significantly older than you; I think that’s where my tendency toward pranks comes from, an ingrained sense of survival.
So imbuing rocks with low-level noise spells? Child’s play.
Hiding those rocks around Orok’s room while he’s passed out and hungover?Psh. Don’t insult me.
Waiting until he texts me good morning so I know he’s up, then triggering the spells to activate when I’m on the bus, and all seven rocks start simultaneously screaming, “You are dead to me,” in the most cackling, fiendish voice I could crank out of the spell? The least of what he deserves.
And I set up one rock to scream-sing the chorus from Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!” on repeat, and that one I hid under a deflection spell, so he ain’t never gonna find it.
By the time I’m stepping onto the bus, Orok’s calling me.
I answer, and before I can speak, I’m bombarded by the shrieking spell voice in an overlapping discordance along with the faintest upbeat bop of howyou can take me hot to go—
