“You don’t think death and surviving the games are enough to motivate me?”
He waves the book in his hand.“Let’s find out, shall we?”
His smile turns mischievous, and before I can grab the gorgeous book, he adds another layer to his cloak, turning himself invisible even to me and taking the book with him.
“I thought you said it was a gift,”I grumble.
“Cloak yourself and the book is yours,”he replies, even though I can’t see him.
“This is ridiculous.”
“So, you don’t want to read about the moment the seven-foot monster guard says ‘fuck it’ and has his way with the captive princess?”
Ho-ly book gods. “You know I hate you right now, don’t you?”
Galen laughs again.“Find me, treasure,”he purrs.
Letting out a frustrated huff, I close my eyes.All right, cloaking. Come on shadow magic, I could really use a smutty book to escape into tonight. Especially a glittery, colorful, entirely too pretty book.Magic seeps from my ring, making my body tingle.That’s right,I say, coaxing my power.Play nice so I can get my hands on that beauty.Despite the temptation, I’m still doubtful about Galen’s methods.“You know this is stupid, right?”I tell him.“There’s no way this will work.”
“Humor me,”he purrs.
A part of me wishes I could get the book just so I could throw it at his head, but let’s be real, there’s no way I’d damage the special edition. No matter how much he’s teasing me.
Moments pass, and predictably, nothing happens.“I told you this wouldn’t work,”I grumble.
“Painted edges,”Galen simply replies, saying it in a ghostly voice. He’s being ridiculous, but I can’t help the smile that crawls onto my face.
“Colored illustrations,”he goes on in that haunting voice.“Focus and it could be yours.”
I want to punch him so bad right now, but instead I keep working on my magic.Come on, powers. Mama needs a hand-painted one of a kind—My words cut off as the flow of magic suddenly intensifies, and a surge of power goes through me.
Oh, shit.Startled, I snap my eyes open to find the world is a strange hue of a darker gray, and I can see all of the students around me. Some of them have a slight blur touching the edges of their forms, but they’re all there. None of them look my way.
Standing directly before me, Galen smiles, his form crystal clear as he holds out the book. When I reach out and attempt to take it from him, the hardcover vanishes completely.What the hell?
“It was an illusion,”Galen explains.
I glare at him.“Now who has a death wish? That’s meannnn.”I’m tempted to give him the water works to make him feel bad, but he quickly holds his hands up in a placating gesture.
“I promise the real book will be waiting for you tonight,”he says.“For now, you’re cloaked,”he points out, smiling smugly.
I still scowl at him, because teasing me like that was just rude, but I can’t argue with the result.“This doesn’t make sense. It’s not like I wasn’t trying before. Are you saying I managed to cloak because of a book?”
He chuckles.“Not exactly. I’d say it’s more that you needed a simpler goal to focus on. The book was merely a tool to get you to stop overthinking the process.”
I nod slowly, though I’m still not quite sure I understand. I peer at the students. None of them are looking at me.“Can they see us?”
“They’re all on different levels of cloaking,”Galen answers,“but no, they can’t see us.”
Surprise filters through me.
“And now,”Galen murmurs.“Let’s see how long you can hold it.”One moment Galen is standing there smirking, and the next he’s behind me, shadows filling the air around us. He moves in close, and I feel the curve of his smile as he places a soft kiss to my neck.
“What are you doing?”I rasp.
“Continuing to motivate you, treasure.”He kisses my neck again, this time just beneath my jaw.“Hold the cloak, and your classmates won’t see the pretty little faces you make when I pleasure you.”
Well, holy son of a demon.
