The Scholomance (35 page)

He snorted
through his nostrils like an animal, then smiled. “Thy offer does intrigue me, as
was surely thy intent, yet it remains I do not trust thee.”

“Is that
necessary? I’m not proposing marriage.”

“Truth.” His
gaze wandered from her face and moved down over her body in a weirdly introspective
way. A little lustful, a little appraising, but skeptical also—the look of a
man who is promised a top-line sports car for a hundred bucks and a handshake. “And
now I have offended thee beyond reconciliation. How very distressing. How shall
I win thee back to me?”

“You can begin
by stepping aside,” Mara said.

“What, release
thee to lure thee back? Nay, that game is played. And won, or so thou wouldst
have me believe.” He reached up to run his thumbclaw along her lower lip,
gazing meditatively into her eyes. His smile broadened. “Should not we both be
benefited by a sampling of delights, each one of the other? And my bed, I
warrant, is comfort greater than thy accommodations below.”

“I think you’ve
already forgotten whose game this is,” Mara told him.

His teeth
flashed in a hard, white line, and were just as swiftly hidden again behind his
easy smile. “Then I release thee, in a show of good faith that thou wilt not
rashly dart away.” Kazuul backed into the classroom, where he stood to one side
of the stairway. He raised his hands to the level of his heart as she came out,
and bowed insolently low. “For the mountain is filled with male flesh also. I
know I am not thine only potential plaything and I would hate to see the end of
thee.”

“Would you?”

He raised his
eyes without straightening from his teasingly servile crouch, his expression
oddly grim. “More than thou knowest.”

“And so you
propose…what? An audition?” she asked, striding towards him. She didn’t do sexy
well and she knew it, but subtlety wasn’t Kazuul’s speed anyway. She just held
his eyes, cocked her hip, and pulled the hem of her robe up about six inches.

His eyes
flickered and finally dropped to stare hungrily at her naked ankle. His
nostrils flared. “Thy scent is sweet indeed. One might almost be deceived into
believing thou didst desire me.”

“Almost?” She
slid the robe up a little more.

He sniffed the
air again, growled, and met her eyes with a hard smile that showed the glint of
fangs. “That is no perfume of idle allure. Didst thou pleasure thyself before
making this approach?”

“Yes.”

“To tempt me?”

She laughed at
him and hoped it sounded more genuine than it felt.

“Nay? Pray tell
me thy intent. Thy dishonesty is adorable.”

“You make it
sound so sinister. It only occurred to me as I was finishing that I’d just
really rather have better than my own hand.” The edge of her robe drifted up to
her thighs and paused again. “That’s as close as I’m going to get to begging
for you, so I hope you were paying attention. Disrobe.”

He looked up
sharply.

“You’ve asked me
twice now. I’ve thought about it and yes, I want you to disrobe.”

His eyes
narrowed.

“Now,” said
Mara.

Kazuul
straightened up. He took three slow, purposeful steps out of the doorway to
center himself in the empty theater’s teaching platform. His hands moved to his
metal belt and Mara watched them work the impressive buckle open. He pulled the
whole thing off at once and gave it a toss into the nearest column, defiantly
naked, defiantly male. His organ, thickened by arousal, was well in proportion
to the rest of him, and thankfully did not have any of the spikes or pebbly
patches that dotted so much of his skin. She’d been worried.

“Art satisfied?”
he asked caustically.

“Not yet, but I’m
more hopeful than I was.” Mara stepped up and touched him, first stroking his
abdomen—such strange skin, hot and hard, but nowhere near as rough as other
parts—then dropping to close around his shaft for a curious squeeze.

“I’ve not given
thee leave to touch me.”

“You haven’t
ordered me to let go, either. Stop pretending to be offended. The audition was
your idea.” His cock twitched in her fist, hardening until she could feel his
pulse leaping through into her palm. “Do I get to say what I want?”

“Speak.” Kazuul’s
voice stayed even, but not unaffected. “I may consider thy request.”

“I want you to
bend me up against that pillar and fuck me hard from behind. I don’t want to
see anything. I don’t want to have to move. I want to feel your cock like it’s
the only thing left in the world. I want it to hurt when I cum because I wanted
it so bad, and it was still even better than I thought.” A drop of clear pre-cum
welled up at his glans. She caught it on her thumb and massaged it gently back
into the head of him. “I don’t want to be your lover. Just your fist.”

“Pretty bird,”
he murmured. “How thou singest.”

“If you’re going
to say no, say it quick.”

“There again
dost thou presume to command me.” His hand came up fast, nothing but a blur at
the edge of her perception, to seize a fistful of her hair. He gazed
thoughtfully into her wary face, ignoring her tightened grip on his cock, just
smiling. “Yet I am Master here.”

She said
nothing, only stroked him.

After a very
long span of silent seconds, Kazuul’s eyes released hers to travel down her
body and rest on her hand. “How many nights past, dost thou even know, did I
come to thee and hear thee cast me out?”

“It was four,
and I didn’t reject you, only your methods. Sneaking in to fondle me in my
sleep and darting me in the back with subliminal sex-thoughts is not the way to
any woman’s heart.”

“Perhaps, yet a
gentler way than mine honest wooing.”

“Maybe I don’t
want gentle.”

He grunted, then
suddenly shoved her around and into a column. Her face struck stone with
bruising force. Her vision swam, but her mind stayed clear. She put her hands
up, bent boldly, and spread her legs for him. He didn’t undress her, merely
pulled her robe up and left it bunched around her hips while he thrust his hand
between her thighs and probed her naked folds with his finger.

“Thou art eager,”
he murmured. The hand withdrew. She heard him sucking, then rumbling out a
smoking purr, he said, “Thou art sincerely eager, else an adroit liar.”

“Why not both?”

“Ha!” He
hesitated, and she could feel his breath stirring her hair, feel his thoughts
armor themselves even tighter, until he was as blank and cold to her as the
rock that surrounded them. “I would be clear on this, Mara. Have I thy will to
fuck thee?”

“This once,” she
said. “After that, we’ll see. That’s what an audition is.”

“Aye?” The
faintest spark of irritation escaped his iron control. Claws dug at her hips,
simultaneously pushing her down and yanking her back; she felt a tickle under his
left thumb and knew that she was bleeding. “And wast thou so eager to only
feel? Move not, give not, love not, but only take? So be it, Bitterness.
Take
!”

She thought she
was ready, she honestly did, particularly since he was good enough to give her
such perfect cues. But trying to brace against his penetration was like looking
confidently up at a comet and thinking she could catch it in her fist. He tore
into her, tore her as she had not been torn even as a virgin, and it felt good.

She must have
flinched, must have, his heat was so unexpected and so much more intense
driving at her from within. He snaked an arm around her waist, splayed his hand
over her back, and held her absolutely immobile as he fucked her. Each
battering thrust was a slap in the open air, a shudder in her aching arms, a
grunt in her lungs, and heat, God, such heat, deep in her womb. She was tempted
to stay and experience it honestly—it had always been easier for Mara to
respond to friction than to foreplay—but time was short. She pulled herself
away to the Panic Room, and tried to relax there while she dialed up her body’s
responses from this unfeeling distance.

In a way, it was
the best sex she’d ever had. Hard and fast and just the way she liked it. It
skirted the edge of violence, but for all that, he was not trying to hurt her
nor humiliate her. She was exactly as she’d asked to be: his fist, and he gave
her exactly that consideration and no more. The purity of it—sex without
come-ons, passion without poetry—made it easy for her to respond in kind. Soon,
she was cumming, seizing on him and snarling her own hoarse harmony to the
sounds he made.

Kazuul laughed
in curt pants, driving at her even through her spasms. “Truly, thou dost commit
thyself to the lie.” He grabbed her hair again, yanked her head back and
nuzzled at her throat, fucking hard all the while. “Lie to me again. I savor
thy deceptions.”

“More,” Mara
gasped, tightening her grip on the column. “Don’t stop yet. Make me cum!”

“Indeed?” he
murmured. His painful hold on her hair eased slightly. She heard him draw in a
slow breath and let it out in another purr. “Thou art made so readily wanton.”

“Don’t…Don’t
flatter yourself. This isn’t all f-for you. Anyone…Anyone would do.” She teased
herself into cumming again and made sure he could feel it. “You’re j-just…really
damned good at it.”

He laughed, his
rhythm beginning to splinter. “I’ll hear thee beg me yet. I’ll hear thy screams
at mine every will of it. Now I cum, young one, and thou art mine!”

“You’ve
forgotten something.”

Incapable now of
speech, he only grunted.

“You forgot I
set the rules.” Mara’s arms slid around the pillar in a bear hug; she yanked,
simultaneously slapping back at him with every shred of mental will. She felt
him stagger as she pulled free and then the hot rush of his semen struck her
hip and began to trickle down her thigh. Mara dropped her robe over it and
turned around, smiling. “You only get what I let you have.”

He had her by
the throat in the next instant, shoving her back against the pillar and roaring
into her calm face, but although there was rage radiating out of his mind,
there was no murder. If anything interrupted the pure sheet of his wrath, it was
the will not to do her harm, and interestingly enough, for so long as his rage
lasted, it outlined beautifully the dimensions of his armored mind. So she
endured the crush of his anger without complaint, inspecting him closely as he
controlled his impulses and cloaked himself in darkness once more. Eventually,
sullenly, he closed his mouth and covered his fangs again. “Thou wilt return to
me,” he growled, and released her.

“You were good. I’m
sure I will. Of course, I may have to hold a few more auditions—”

“This is not a
game!” he spat, eyes blazing but body perfectly still.

“You’re wrong
there,” she replied, holding that gaze without fear. “It’s just not one of
yours.”

He snarled once,
then pressed his lips together and stepped back, allowing her to pass him and
watching as she walked away.

Mara reached the
door and opened it with one hand and a flex of thought. She turned around to
smile at him; he still stood by the pillar, his head bent and shadowed by
horns, brazenly naked and already semi-erect as he seethed. “It has to be on my
terms, Kazuul. If you don’t agree to that, well, the mountain’s full of demons,
and one of them surely will.”

His lip curled. He
said nothing.

“I’ll just let
you think about it,” she said, heading out. “But as far as I’m concerned, it
was a very promising beginning.”

She meant it to
be a parting barb, but in the instant before the heavy door shut him away, she
sensed the churning black of his emotions flare into grudging, but genuine
humor. It was enough to stop her in the corridor, suddenly dissatisfied and
unsure, but there was no good way to go back in and feel him out better, so in
the end, she just went back to her own cell where she sat, replaying the memory
and wondering what she could have possibly said that he found funny.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“W
here were you all day yesterday?”

There was no
point in trying the ‘None of your business’ track with Devlin. Like all truly
obnoxious people, he was impervious to insult. Like all truly lonely people,
Mara didn’t try too hard. “Exploring,” she said, waving him aside on her way to
the garderobe in the hopes that he would take the hint and leave her alone.

He didn’t.

“You’re starting
to scare me,” said Devlin, trotting after her.

“I have that
effect on people.”

“I mean it! You
only get ten days without class each year!”

“What’s that to
you?”

“Well…”

She stopped and
gave him an incredulous stare. “What,
you
wasted the day looking for me?”

Devlin cringed
into the neck of his robe, picking at his sleeve.

“That was dumb,”
said Mara.

“I was worried
about you.”

“That was
dumber.” She went into one of the garderobe chambers. He followed her, hunched
and dejected, like a lonely goat in the rain, until she stopped him with a
rough shove to the chest. “Unless you have something to say to me, get out. I
don’t like having an audience when I take a piss.”

He slunk out
into the hall to wait, not even far enough down the tunnel to pass out of her
sensory range, which was about twelve feet with all this rock in the way. Maybe
it was that, not having complete seclusion while she used the crude privy, that
set her inner alarms itching. She saw nothing ominous in the Mindstorm, sensed
no watching eyes around her, but she didn’t feel safe. The sound of water
splashing into the pit below seemed louder to her ears than it had on other
mornings, uncomfortably like a beast thrashing in mire, and it was several
minutes before her urine would come. In the meantime, there was Devlin, pacing
in the crossroads and wanting to talk to her. That wouldn’t be so bad, if only
he had something to say, but all he really wanted was someone to cling to and
he would say anything to get that.