Page 69 of A Dusk Of Stars

It feels so good, having him inside me, better than I ever thought it could.

He starts thrusting, feeling the pace out with his entire body tensing up against me, but I’m so heavy with need and I want to make him suffer like he mademesuffer, so I start stroking his back, kissing his neck and using my hips to meet his thrusts, until he’s slamming himself inside me, both his breaths and his movements turning more erratic with each moan that escapes my lips.

Just as he starts tensing up as if he’s going to come, he tries to pull out, but I don’t let him. I wrap my legs tighter around him, grind myself against him and take a bite out of his neck.

He lets out a loud grumble, but it’s too late. He’s already coming, a violent shudder coursing through his body and a string of muffled curses leaving his lips. I’m still throbbing with need, but I hum with pleasure when he presses his face into my neck, his chest heaving.

When he pulls out and straightens so he’s towering over me again, there’s a pissed-off look on his face that makes me blink at him with a confused smile curling my lips. He lowers my feet back onto the ground and he stays pressed against me, but he grits out, “Turn around and spread your legs.”

It’s then that I hear something, in the distance, something that makes my ears strain and all my muscles tense up.

The snapping of branches under someone’s feet. My head turns in the direction of the castle.

“Hey,” I hear him demand as he takes my chin in his hand, “eyes onme.”

I push his hand away. “There’s someone there,” I whisper, my eyes searching.

“It’s just some drunk student.” His breath tickles my ear. “And we’re not done here.”

“It doesn’t matterwhoit is,” I say as I start struggling with getting my dress in order, turning to throw him a scowl. “Don’t be an asshole,” I order, tugging my hem down.

His face turning expressionless, he zips his pants up and goes to grab his jacket off the floor so he can put it over his ripped shirt.

The very next second, I’m turning in the direction of the castle, seeing a figure appear in the darkness before us.

Serra?

She approaches the plateau and stops right in front of it, looking up at the two of us just as Bane comes to stand beside me. There’s this grave look on her face that makes blood curdle in my veins. “Professor Bane, Miss Novak.”

I open my mouth to greet her, already coming up with an excuse for being here with said professor, but she doesn’t wait for a reaction. “If you’d come with me, please,” she says in the most official voice I’ve ever heard her use.

Chapter 22

“Let’s wait until we’re in the Lounge.” That’s what she said when Bane demanded to know what this was all about.

The first look we exchanged after that made me feel as if we had the same thing going through our minds — the incident at the gym earlier today.

With my eyes fixed on her back and in tense silence, I keep following Serra up the stairs with him walking by my side. His entire body seems to be radiating the harsh focus of an alpha, but whenever I throw a glance at him, failing to stop myself from bombarding him with silent questions… I find this calmness in his eyes. It helps ease the worry gnawing at me, the way they seem to be saying it’s too early to get myself this worked up.

The last look I give him is grateful, at least that’s how I hope it comes across.

Just as I do, we enter the Lounge and I see the clock on the wall across from us showing 01:58. My mind rushes to the Pullrequest and I frown. But the second I see there’s only Lorcan waiting for us here, it all slips my mind.

I come to a stop, turning to look at Serra again. “Nowwill you tell us what’s going on?”

“Patience, Miss Novak,” she says as she goes to take her own seat at the table. “Have a seat, you two.”

We listen, and the moment we do, there’s this sound followed by so many footsteps echoing against the seventh-floor landing outside.

Then people start filing inside, people I’ve never seen, all looking larger than life. A fae-blooded woman with dark skin and silver dreadlocks, a vampire man in a suit fit for a royal, a shifter man with a skull across half his face, and a dozen more trailing after them, but the rest look more like they’re some kind of assistants.

They’re all wearing the same symbol around their necks. An eye with sun rays shooting out of it. Lorcan’s wearing one, I notice. Even Serra.

In fact, Bane and I are the only ones who aren’t. Frowning, I turn to ask him, “Who are these people?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, obviously not pleased at the fact. It makes me more unsettled than anything else, how grave his voice is and how he’s barely looked at me while saying the words.

All in silence, the people take their seats around the table, the fae-blooded woman taking the one at the front.