Midnight Fae Academy #3 by Lexi C. Foss

“I don’t like this.”

Zeph uttered a variation of those four words after every dream session with Aflora this week. I definitely preferred the fantasies where we all ended up naked. But that was impossible to do with Zakkai observing from the corner.

The Quandary Blood rarely spoke. However, his presence was absolutely felt.

This arrangement couldn’t last forever, as evidenced by Zeph pacing beside me.

“Come back to bed,” I told him. “There are still a few more hours before we need to leave. We should try to get some proper sleep.” While the dreams technically allowed our bodies to rest, it kept our minds vividly engaged. Which left us tired after endless lessons in Aflora’s head.

“How the hell am I supposed to sleep when that Quandary Blood has our mate?”

“He’s one of her mates, too,” I reminded him.

“And you’re okay with that?” Zeph demanded, spinning around to face me. “How are you not raging over this, Kols? You’ve been the epitome of calm, like this means nothing to you. I don’t get it.”

“Like it means nothing to me?” I repeated, arching a brow. “This means everything to me, Zeph.”

“Yet, you didn’t even react to the fact that Dakota is there. Did you miss the part about her attacking Aflora?”

Not this again. “What do you want me to do? Rant and rave? We both know I want to kill that power-hungry cunt. And I will if I ever see her again.” Not just because she’d apparently hurt Aflora, but also because of our past experience. She was like a fire gnat that just didn’t know how to bugger off.

“Then how the hell do you expect either of us to sleep? I can barely focus, let alone try to relax.” He resumed his pacing. “We’ve just accepted that he took our mate to a paradigm in some undisclosed location, surrounded by fae whom we don’t know, and Dakota is there. And we haven’t done a damn thing to fix it. Not to mention all the bullshit with the Council and the Elders.”

He ran his fingers through his dark hair, his torso flexing with the movement.

Zeph had logged a lot of hours at the gym this week, and it showed. He was already solid muscle. But now those muscles were all tensed and fired up.

“Are you even listening to me?” he demanded, his green eyes flaring with power.

“I’m listening,” I said. And admiring, I added to myself. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do. I don’t like the situation, but Aflora is safer with Zakkai at the moment. We can’t properly protect her with my father and Constantine breathing down my neck.”

As it was, we’d already been mandated for a visit with my father later tonight. He wanted to discuss the final preparations for the Blood Gala. And in a strange twist of fate, he’d required that Zeph travel back with me to Nacht Manor.

“Safer,” he drawled, his disdain coloring the word in a darker tone. “I’m not sure I agree with that assessment, given his track record at the Academy and in the village.”

“Aflora said that wasn’t him, but the Council setting a trap.” Considering everything else they’d done, I didn’t find that very difficult to believe.

“Yes, bringing us to an entirely different topic and issue—she seems to be buying into his bullshit, which has me seriously questioning her intelligence.”

I sighed. “You don’t really mean that.” We’d come too far for him to truly feel that way about Aflora. “You know she’s brilliant. You also know she’s not one to trust easily. She’s been burned too many times. By us.”

“Are you saying we deserve this?” he asked, green fire flickering along his fingertips. “That this is some sort of fucked-up punishment for all the errors we’ve made?”

“No, Zeph. I’m saying that we need to trust our mate.” I rolled off the bed and stepped into his path, forcing him to stop.

“Don’t.”

I touched him anyway, not afraid of his simmering temper. He could take it out on me however he wanted. We both could use a good sparring session. Or maybe a fuck.

“Look, we’ve already established that she can’t leave him without a fight, and we’ve also established that we don’t have a safe place for her here. The Council and the Elders plan to kill her once she proves unuseful. And from what I understand, Zakkai will track her down even if we manage to rescue her. So why not work with him to protect her while we figure out the larger issue, hmm?”

His jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth. “What makes you think Zakkai isn’t the larger issue?”

“I think he’ll become one eventually,” I admitted. “But the Council and the Elders are more pressing right now.” Case in point, the writhing power dancing up and down my arms. “I’m supposed to ascend a throne riddled with corruption.”

“You’ve known that for years.”

“Not the extent of it,” I replied as my hands drifted down his bare arms. “I’ve been blind to the larger issues, just accepting it all because there’s been no alternative. And now, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m partially mated to Aflora. Shade just bit me, too. I still have three ascension trials left, plus the one I’m currently failing. My grandfather wants to postpone my inheritance of the throne as a result, and I think my father is considering it, too. So what do I do, Zeph? Do I run? Do we run? Go hide in a paradigm?”

I shook my head and took a step back to sit on the bed again, my head in my hands.

“I have no idea who I am anymore.” Everything I thought I knew had been turned on its head since Aflora arrived. Part of me hated her for it. A smarter part of me acknowledged that it wasn’t her fault at all. She was just the culminating event that turned my world upside down.

“You’re Prince Kolstov,” Zeph said.

“And what does that mean?” I asked him, my forearms falling to my thighs as I looked up at him through my mess of auburn strands. “We both know I can’t ascend. Not with my links to Aflora and Shade.”

“You think the source will reject you as king?”

“Not the source, no,” I muttered. “The Council. The Elders. All of Midnight Fae kind. They’ll all reject me.” I’d be lucky if they didn’t kill me for this.

And yet, I didn’t regret a moment of it.

“I’ve given up so much for them. My identity. My life. Every moment of every day has been about my future as the king. Yet they put me on trial for the Academy incident, all the while knowing it wasn’t me at all. They never apologized or even acknowledged the oversight. Meanwhile, they were busy attacking the village and framing Zakkai?” I phrased it as a question because we had no proof yet, other than what Zakkai had told Aflora. However, it was an easy accusation to believe given everything else.

“He could be lying,” Zeph pointed out. It’d been his immediate reaction the other night when Aflora told us what Zakkai had said about the village. He also apparently hadn’t left that rock for her in Advanced Conjuring class.

“He could be lying,” I repeated, agreeing with Zeph. “But why would he? What does he get out of it?”

“Aflora’s cooperation,” Zeph replied. “Which seems to be what he wants. Hence, the dreams.”

“Maybe, but he has to know she’ll hate him if she discovers he lied.”

“You assume her hatred would bother him.”

I considered it, frowning. “Wouldn’t it bother you? As her mate?”

“I’m not Zakkai.”

“No, you’re not,” I consented. “But given everything the Council and the Elders have been hiding, I find it reasonably easy to believe that they were behind it.” I also trusted Aflora’s instincts. She hadn’t elaborated on why she believed Zakkai, but I didn’t need her to.

And neither did Zeph.

It was just in his protective nature to question everything and everyone. My Guardian required control, and there was no aspect of this situation that he could own or manage. That was what had him upset.

He resumed his pacing again, his shoulders tense.

Helplessness was not a good look on him. I felt it, too, but I’d grown up in a world where I had no say in my future. Everything had been mapped out for me before I took my first breath. I’d just been walking the path ever since, following each directive to the letter.

And for what?

To find out I stood at the front lines of a war I thought ended over a thousand years ago. Not only that, but they expected me to fight as well. To kill. To harness the source power and use it to assassinate those who technically created it.

Fuck. “I need a distraction,” I said, looking around. “We need a distraction.” Everything around us was going up in flames, and we were sitting in the corner with our hands behind our backs, watching it all burn.

I stood again, stepping right into Zeph as he moved forward midstride. His irises flared with power. He wanted to hurt something. I could see that need lurking in his gaze.

“Use me,” I told him. “Take it out on me.”

“No.”

“Do it, Zeph.” I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and grabbed his hip with my opposite palm. “Destroy me.”

“No.”

“Stubborn dick,” I said, crushing my mouth against his.

He threaded his fingers through my hair, yanking hard to pull me away, but I sank my teeth into his lower lip to hold on.

He growled.

I growled back.

It was either this or we sparred, and the latter would destroy a lot of shit.

This would at least provide us with a necessary release.

My name rolled off his tongue, the warning clear.

I accepted it as a challenge and kissed him again. This time he bit me, drawing my blood. It should have given me pause, forced me to stop, but instead I fed the essence into his mouth with my tongue and tightened my grip on his nape.

He snarled in response, my blood providing the boost of power I knew he craved.

As my Guardian, he could bite me as often as he wanted. Imbibing my essence had been a key part of his fealty bond when we were younger.

But there was one thing I’d never done—I’d never bitten him back.

It would snap a mating bond into place, one that would further tie us together for eternity. My incisors ached to do just that.

Because why the fuck not? If Shade could bond me, then I could bond with Zeph. We were already vowed to one another anyway. Might as well take it to the next level.

I captured his gaze, then sank my teeth into his bottom lip again, this time hard enough to make him bleed.

His eyes widened. “Kols…”

I made a show of licking the wound and swallowing, eliciting a sharp gasp from him. I’d shocked him. Fuck, I’d shocked myself.

This was reckless.

Crude.

So fucking wrong.

But I didn’t give a damn.

He shook his head in disbelief, his eyes wide with a myriad of emotions. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

I shrugged. I’d already ruined everything, so why not create my own inferno to burn in? “Kiss me,” I demanded.

“No.”

“Fuck, Zeph.” I sucked his lip into my mouth, laving the wound and holding his gaze as I did it.

His nostrils flared.

So I repeated the action.

Then I created a new wound, biting him again, and he hissed in response. “Kolstov.”

“Zephyrus,” I returned. “Shall I go for a third? I mean, why not at this point, right?”

His nostrils flared, his chest heaving against mine. Then he tightened his grip in my hair and yanked me into a kiss underlined in feral energy. I groaned, the taste of him addictive and perfect and sweetened by Aflora’s essence.

I could sense her in him, her energy an addictive flavor I missed with every ounce of my soul.

Her life thrummed through me as I swallowed more of Zeph’s blood. I could feel her inside me, as though she blessed our union with her presence.

Except she wasn’t here.

And I missed her.

“Tell her what we’re doing,” I groaned as Zeph walked me backward to the bed. “Tell her.”

“I already have,” he replied, his fingers still in my hair, his lips brushing mine. “She can feel it.”

“What is she saying?”

“It’s making her hot.” He smiled with the words, then trailed his tongue along my lower lip. “She wishes she were here.”

“I wish she were here, too,” I admitted.

“Get on the bed, Kols. Lose the boxers.” The command in his tone was one I wanted to counter, but I knew he needed the control right now.

I’d told him to take it out on me, to use me. And the look in his eyes told me he was going to do exactly that.

So I followed his command to the letter, kicking off my black boxer briefs and sliding onto the center of the bed. He grabbed the lube from my nightstand and tossed it to me. I caught it in my fist, then arched a brow at him, waiting.

His jaw ticked.

He usually preferred my mouth, but I sensed his need for something else tonight.

“She can feel the new connection,” Zeph said.

“Is she okay with it?”

“Yes.” He knelt on the bed. “She didn’t realize Shade had bitten you, but she sees it now. She says she feels closer to you.”

“I feel closer to her, too,” I admitted, my gaze dropping to his dick. The fabric barely contained him, his boxers stretched tight across his hardening length.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he said, his voice dark with unhindered emotion.

“I know.”

“I’m not going to be nice about it.”

I smiled. “I know.”

“Get up on your knees.”