“Please, if it was torture I was after, I would be better dressed for the part,” Susanne exclaimed, her voice dripping with disdain.
“Don’t you have some prepwork to do? I mean after youfailedLove Charms & Spells, I would think you’d brush up on your lessons before attempting to seduce a powerful incubus. Or maybe all the hair dye has rotted your feeble witch brain.”
Susanne scoffed as she glared at me, but she moved her bony ass off of my desk.
“This conversation isn’t over, Bane,” she mused as she shot Aiden a seething glare.
I sighed, relishing in thetap tapsound of her heels on the stone floor as she took off to go torment someone else.
“Thank you,” I said as I leaned back in my chair, running a hand over my face.
“Don’t mention it,” he said with a smirk.
“Kinda surprised to see you back here, to be honest,” he said softly. “How you holding up?”
I shut my book, figuring I couldn’t avoid this conversation. Though I’d much rather have it with Aiden than with Susanne or anyone else.
“My father says getting back to school is the best thing for me. That I shouldn’t dwell on what happened.”
“What did happen, exactly, Bane?” he asked.
I looked around the library, which was still pretty bare. The library itself was always scarce, which made it the perfect place to hide if you were avoiding the entire student body, or if you wanted a discreet place to hook up. Though I suspected there wouldn’t be much of that until the first years arrived since this year’s class was apparently pretty large.
Large enough they won’t even all fit on the ferry at once...
“I fucked around, and found out,” I said as I crossed my arms. “I didn’t know Anne had a boyfriend, and apparently he blamed me for corrupting her. I broke it off and...” I still felt my throat close up at the thought of the words ‘she died.’
Would I ever be able to say them out loud?
I knew I needed to be able to, so I could move on, but moving on felt immoral, all things considered.
A woman died because ofme.Because she got too attached, too addicted to my incubus dick, and when I left... I took her candy and she went into withdrawal.
And it fucking killed her.
Because I’m a monster.
“Well, I’m sure you know the rest,” I said as I packed up my books.
“It’s because she wasn’t your mate,” Aiden said, his words freezing me in my place.
“What?” I asked, my blood running cold.
“I read this article while I was home, fromMagical Mysteries, that blog I told you about,” he started. “It talked about mate bonds, among different species. Apparently incubus have toxins that can literally drive a personinsane. The only one who can process the chemicals are their mates.”
“That can’t be true,” I said, feeling my chest tighten at his suggestion. “If that were true my dad, my mom—”
“Were probably mates.” He shrugged. “Not much research has been done until recently.” His eyes lit up.
“Which means, the research is still new and could bewrong,”I said as I slung my backpack over my shoulder.
“I’m just saying, it’s a theory.”
“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll never know for sure, will we?” I grunted.
Aiden followed, completely unaffected by my shift in demeanor.
“You’ll find the right person one day, Bane, I know you will. And when you do, it’ll make all this bullshit worth it.”
