Page 60 of Hellfire

“No,” I replied with a distinct husk to my own vocal cords.

“Punish them.” His hot breath in my ear nearly undid me.

His palm slid from my stomach to my waist, driving upstate to the side of my breast, taking a right turn and cupping me. What the? This wasn’t part of the exercise.

“Don’t think I’m letting you go.” He lifted his mask to lick my neck. “You’re mine.” His mouth dissolved my will to leave, kissing up my throat to my jaw.

This was a game to him. A trick to distract me while Blaze and his men zeroed in on me to capture and then fail me.

My fingers started tracing an offensive blow in the air. I finished scripting the sign to get Talon off me. A powerful wave of energy flung us backward, and I rolled off him, coming to a stop on my back, everywhere hurting from the blast. Our uniforms were made of some sort of special spider silk to absorbimpact and minor magical blows, but not one as fierce as a repellent wave.

“Good work, Princess.” He climbed to his knees, crawling over to me, less affected and probably used to this type of magick in his line of work. Strong hands lifted me into a seated position and rubbed my back.

I rubbed my aching forehead and stared at him underneath my arm. “I thought your suit was meant to stop you.”

“Cole programmed it especially for us.” Talon picked leaves from my hair.

What? Cole never mentioned this, and he told me about all his technological inventions.

“Us?” I rubbed harder, not sure if I misheard him correctly from hitting my head.

Talon claimed my lips and silenced the rest of my questions. His fingers caressed my breast again, his lips getting rougher, hungrier, and I fought the instinct to stay with him and forget this exercise.

Eventually, he withdrew, stuffed his hand in his pocket and removed a crunched note from it and stuffed it in my palm. “You’re cordially invited.”

“To what?” I began to unfold the note when his fingers curled over mine and pushed my hand to my stomach.

“Run, little princess,” he warned, his voice thickening with need. “Next time, I will catch you and eat your pussy out.”

Hell. I didn’t want to run. I wanted to stay and for him to take me up against the tree. When I didn’t move, he hoisted me to my knees and spanked my ass, giving me no choice.

Confused and on fire from lust, I got the heck out of there, dashing through the trees and shrubs. What the hell did he mean when he said I was cordially invited? To what? Why invite me during this exercise?

And why did Cole alter their suits for me? By all accounts, my magick appeared to have zero effect on Talon. Did Cole alter their suits to make them immune to it? For what purpose? What game were they playing?

I tracked a hundred feet from him when two hunters closed in on me from separate directions. Nerf darts sailed through the air, and I ducked one and flung the other aside. The hunters continued their pursuit, predators cornering me. I threw the closest one back with a weakening spell, and he came to a stop, Veil current cracking over his suit. The second gained ground on me, and I barely had time to release a stave-off enchantment that threw him back four paces into a cluster of bushes.

Talon’s laughter chased me deeper into the forest. My mischievous prince played some sort of game. Hunter and prey. Catch and seduce. No. Fuck and punish.

Oh, God.

Was Astra correct? Where they primal playing me? Heat ignited between my legs and radiated outward to my core. A part of me wanted to be caught and disciplined by Talon and Blaze, the part that loved dogging in Academy grounds without a care for who saw. Hormones running wild, my body hot all over, my breasts aching to be touched again, my pussy raging for my men’s cock, I stumbled and tripped.

Pounding footsteps said someone approached. I rounded on them, fending off a Nerf dart, swinging it away with magick. Then I slammed the hunter with a paralyzing blast, his suit crackled, and he went down, unable to stand. I blinked at his gorgon mask. I didn’t recall seeing that on the table. This exercise got weirder. Not sticking around to uncover the mystery, I took off, sprinting through the brush.

Talon’s laughter chased me again, telling me he was on the move and pursuing me. Fast. The differences in our heightsmade it an impossibility for me to get away and he gained ground.

I almost collided with a retreating student as a fourth hunter cornered us. A Tollen wearing a siren mask when there was no such mask on the table spread back at the courtyard. The muzzle of his Nerf gun lifted, and I blocked his dart with a shield, and it dropped to the ground. I lowered my protection to shoot him with a blast that weakened them. I took off in the opposite direction, making the siren hunter decide who to pursue once his suit freed him to move again.

I must have made it a hundred feet or more when a hunter skidded to a halt, gun cocked, but not shooting. The dragon.

Blaze.

I unleashed the crackling Veil magick to ward him off. Electrical current zapped on his suit and did nothing to cease his chase. Trying something different, I liberated a different spell, one to freeze the hunter, and the material absorbed it.

He cornered me against a tree, my back hitting the mossy trunk, air escaping my lungs in excitement, his body trapping me beneath his.

“There you are, sweetness.” His fingers traced my cheek, and my body electrified, drunk on his elemental scent.

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