“No. Down, sexy dragon. You’ve got your meeting. Sorry about the grinding… it got away from me for a second—or several.” He gestured at Nuvri. “He’s also looking. Come on, woman.”
I laughed and rolled off the bed, landing agilely flat on my feet. “Shut it.”
“Make me.”
I started forward.
He held up his hand. “No.I’m fucking around. Don’t… you do that right now and you’re gonna… I’ll descend on you.” A sly smirk played on his lips. “And I’ll fuck, fuck, and dirty fuck you into that bed.”
“I know what you’re doing, and I love it from you.”
“Being myself all the way like you asked? Like I need to be?”
“You’ve got it.”
He winked. “Thanks for doing that, Evira. Seriously.”
“What we all have is special to me. You’re special to me. I needed you to be secure in that.”
He walked to me and threw his arms around me, fully sinking into me and nuzzling my hair. “You’re so special to me, too.”
I stroked his back and held him to me tightly. “Everything’s okay now. You can let go and just be. I promise. I’m here. We’re all here and we adore you.”
“No… leaving?” he murmured against me.
“No. Of course not.” I eased him back to get a look at him. So much emotion, so much raw intensity. “I mean, except for this meeting right now.”
His lips quirked. “Right.”
I squeezed him to me. “But in the way you mean it, absolutely not. No fucking way. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding against me. “It actually is.” He moved away, a smile playing on his lips now. “You’re so fierce and full of conviction with stuff like this… it really sets in deep.” He gestured at my papers on the bed. “Just bring that same sort of thing during your meeting, and you’ll be golden.”
I snatched up the papers and grinned at him. “Yeah?”
“There’s not one sliver of doubt in my mind.” He wrapped his arm around me. “Here. I’ll walk you down, then head to my dorm and get down to my studying.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“A sovereign mutual-defense pact between heirs.”
I smiled as River read the founding statement for Exalt, looking all giddy about it.
Octana stroked his back. “I adore it when you get like this.”
He poked his tongue out at her. “Stop. I’m trying to concentrate.”
She chuckled and sat back in her chair, eyeing me. “He gets distracted easily.”
“Only by you, my darling,” River said with a grin, as he focused on the documents I’d laid out for the three of us.
“Well, thatistrue.”
“Especially lately.” His lips quirked, as he kept his eyes on the papers. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, though.”
Yeah, since I’d recruited them into Exalt, we’d made an initial first move that had served several purposes at once. That move had resulted in Octana finally being able to make her romance with River public knowledge around the Academy.
One purpose of doing that had been obviously to free her. And to put an end to the forced secrecy of their relationship, like they’d both really needed. It had methodically and seemingly naturally spread the word via students here talking and messaging with outside connections of family and friends, the news traveling all over. It hadn’t been done in an overt, harsh statement way, but naturally, which we’d wanted in order to add a normalization element to it.
