Despite everything, I smiled. I loved seeing her learn. “Yes.”
Quinn beamed, and we fell into our trial-and-error routine. In small quantities, her control was exceptional. However, once we tried to power anything more significant than the basics, the magic of this world controlled her.
“You’re quiet today, Knowledge Daddy.” Quinn bumped my shoulder.
Usually, I begged her not to call me that, but I didn’t have it in me to spar today. “You’re in better spirits than I expected, especially after getting ambushed your first time out.”
Quinn clenched her hands and studied them.
I immediately regretted my words. Why had I even brought that up?
“Are you mad I left?” she asked.
“No.” I tipped her head up. “I mean, yes. I’m furious you put yourself in danger, but you’re not my prisoner. Still, I hope that, maybe this time, you’ll understand why I don’t want you out there until you have more protection. Either your magic or a contract. Ideally, both.”
Quinn stiffened at the mention of contracts. “Things move so fast here. In my time, you date one guy for years, then one day he doesn’t take out the trash, and boom, you kick him out and start over.”
I let out a little ‘humph,’ unsure if that was funny or not.
“You can take on multiple contracts, Quinn.” I sighed and pulled the five glowing scrawls out of my back pocket. “These are for you and maybe a few more.” Which was a gross understatement, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her.
Quinn looked at them. “What if I don’t want any of those contracts?”
My heart thumped in my chest. She wanted me? Was she asking me? No. I calmed myself. Her statement had nothing to do with me.
My lover’s memory of her drunken confession made my blood boil. We’d miscalculated. Quinn believed I was feeding off her lust like a vampire to fix my relationship with my lover, and maybe she wasn’t wrong. The three of us had clarified consent, and we’d assured her that my kissing her in the Alun hadn’t hurt Ezra. But that was it. Ezra and I were too fearful of scaring her off to even kiss her properly.
“Something has to change tonight.” That’s what Ezra said yesterday. By the time I’d sorted The Mile, Quinn was already in Cayden’s room, and short of going in and getting her myself, which was not the right thing to do, she wasn’t coming out.
I took a deep breath. ‘I’m kissing Quinn.’
I sent the three words to Ezra, then leaned forward. I wrapped one arm around the curve of Quinn’s waist and placed the other on the back of her neck. “I have not made myself clear. Ezra and I want you to join us.”
Her tether filled with a mix of excitement and disbelief. Her pulse raced against my palm. I lowered my lips to hers and gently kissed her. The emotions in the tether shifted, spiking with desire. My hand onher waist inched toward her butt while I ran my tongue against the seam of her lips.
But she didn’t part. Her tether spiked, sudden, sharp anxiety.
I blinked and found myself no longer in the Alun. I kneeled on a wet tile floor with an elephant trunk of a dick almost hitting me on the nose. Steam filled the dimly lit space, and drops of hot water fell onto my head and shoulders. I looked up from the impressive cock to find a prominent six-pack dripping water. My gaze continued up a very built, fuzz-covered chest until Rowan blinked down at me.
“What the hell?” he bellowed, stepping back.
I shot to my feet. The shower water stopped hitting him and drenched my back.
“You okay, man?” an unknown voice called.
I stepped aside, giving Rowan his water back, and turned to give him privacy.
“Well, this is awkward,” I muttered.
“Yeah, just a little,” Rowan growled. He raised his voice. “Yeah, I thought I saw a rat; it was just your balls.”
The man laughed, and another chuckle joined him, almost lost under the sound of the spray.
“Where am I?” I asked, keeping my gaze on the corner of the little tiled shower stall I found myself in.
“In the showers of the north wing of the mixed dorms, sir,” Rowan reported.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You can probably drop the ‘sir,’ for… several reasons we don’t need to discuss here.”
