He fucked her in the classroom that evening, sending her to the Main Hall for dinner sore and full of his seed, just as he liked it.
Now, a little after midnight, Corvina snuck out of the tower and headed towards the Faculty Wing.
Jade had never come back to their room. Corvina had gone to check in on her after dinner and found her lying in the medical room, reading their coursework. She had looked better than the last few days, so when she insisted on staying in there overnight, Corvina had agreed.
With no one to ask after her, Corvina cut through the castle gardens that ran between her tower and the Faculty Wing, the Main Hall in the middle of it. It was drizzling, and she knew with the way clouds were rumbling it wouldn’t be long before a downpour.
She covered her head with the shawl, the cold biting into her as she crossed the grounds. It was eerie how dead the castle seemed at night, completely deserted, as it must have been for decades before the school started. Imagining all the empty corridors, empty dungeons, empty halls, all dark and cold and quiet, it sent a shiver over her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
Without a lantern – since she didn’t want to be spotted through a window – or moonlight – since the clouds were too thick – to guide her, Corvina made her way through the darkest night she’d been out on since being at Verenmore. Somehow, with the little light from the electric torches outside the towers, she made it to the top of the stairs that began her descent towards his building.
And it was pitch black from the top of the path until the end, where the light from the building fell on the landing.
Was it really worth it to risk her neck to spend more alone time with him?
Yes. Yes, it was.
Taking a deep breath in, Corvina slowly extended one foot and felt the first stair, coming to stand on it. Her recent fear of the dark in the woods somehow didn’t exist in that moment. It was like it had always been. Darkness was comfortable, and even exciting, especially when it led to him.
Corvina exhaled, and felt for the next stair. Then repeat. Twenty-one times. She counted. By the time she was on his landing, she was sweating and shaking, from the cold, from the adrenaline, from the thrill of having made it in the dark without falling to her death. He’d been right – she liked breaking the rules.
She looked at the heavy wooden door with the demonesque knocker and no keyhole and breathed a sigh of relief.
Now, just to get to his room.
Placing her hands on the door, she pushed it open just enough to slip inside, wincing when it creaked on its iron hinges, and quickly shut it, standing in the same hall-like room as before.
Heart drumming loud, she went to the stairs, praying nobody would hear or see her as she climbed up as quietly as she could. Thankfully, both landings were empty, the light in one of the rooms on but off in the others.
She finally came to his door, saw the little light coming from the gap underneath, and bit her lip, suddenly questioning her whole idea.
Should she even be there? What if he was sleeping? What if he didn’t want her there again?
Questions ran through her mind, making doubt creep up before she took a hold of herself. He had trusted her, claimed her, risked something important for her. She was supposed to be there.
With that, she raised a fist and rapped her knuckles on the wood just once.
She heard footsteps approaching the door, her heart palpitating as he opened it, wearing nothing but sweatpants and glasses, his hair mussed, his shirtless body all hers to ogle.
The surprise on his face alone was worth the trek.
And then he got pissed.
“Get inside,” he pulled her in by her elbow, slamming the door shut. He went to his window and pointed to the dark incline she had just traveled. “Tell me you didn’t just walk through that.”
Corvina bit her lip. “I wanted to see you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time, Corvina could appreciate the use of muscles in such a simple act. His bicep flexed, his lightly-haired defined chest tightened, the solid pack of muscle on his stomach contracted, a line of dark hair leading down to his sweatpants and the slight bulge she could see there.
He exhaled. “Is this a booty call?” She detected some amusement in his tone.
Corvina licked her lips.
She took off her shawl and let it drop to the floor, her wavy hair wild and frizzed from the light rain loose around her, falling to the small of her back. Corvina walked to him, tilting her head back to lock their eyes at his much taller height, and dropped to her knees on the rug over the hard stone floor.
“It’s an instruction, Mr. Deverell,” she took the edge of his sweatpants and tugged it down, revealing his semi-hard erection to her eyes. “Teach me.”
“You’ll be the death of me, you witch,” he cursed, his cock slowly hardening, expanding right before her eyes, growing to a size within a minute, a size she was awed had fit inside her over and over again.
He gathered all of her hair in one hand, gripping her jaw with the other. “I’d better make this instruction worth all your trouble, shouldn’t I?”
She nodded, looking at him from under her lashes. “Teach me.”
This was her sexual awakening, and she realized Jung had been right – one discovered a lot about oneself through sexuality.
“Fuck,” his grip tightened on her hair. “Rub your hands. Warm them. Then take me.”
Corvina rubbed her palms together, blowing in them to warm them up. She slowly wrapped her hands around his length softly, unable to touch her fingers.
“Grip me harder,” he instructed her, keeping a hold of her hair and her face, “and lick me from the base to the top. Make it wet so it’s easier for your hands.”
Corvina complied, tasting him for the first time, his muskier scent releasing some kind of pheromones that made her wetter, their bodies synchronized on the cellular level like they had been since the beginning.
“This is the first time you’ve initiated our sexual encounter, little crow?” he noted as she took him in her mouth. “Does that mean you trust me more? Or did you come here to test me? To see what I would do if you turned up on my turf without warning?”
Corvina realized she had. She was there to test him subconsciously, her trust still not entirely his. But she didn’t want to tell him that.
She spent the next few minutes licking and sucking him, alternating with twisting motions of her hand as he directed her further with his hands in her hair, making her jaw hurt and her mouth wet as his head fell back, the veins in his neck prominent in his pleasure. It was dirty, messy, and hot and she was drenched by the time he pulled out of her mouth, still hard.
“You want my come?” he asked her gruffly. “Where?”
“Inside me,” she told him, flushing under his hot gaze.
He pulled her up and threw her on the bed. “Strip,” he ordered, taking off her boots and skirt as she pulled up her sweater, leaving her in nothing but her star pendant and bracelet since she had foregone her underwear before coming to him.
He came up over on top of her, spreading her legs and pushing them back, leaving her wide open and completely exposed, and lined himself up against her.
Corvina breathed hard. “We’ve never done it on a bed,” she remarked, enjoying the feel of the soft mattress and pillow under her as he pushed into her with a thrust, his mouth trailing a hot, wet kiss on the hickey on her shoulder.
“I’m angry that you came through the dark all alone at night,” he spoke into her skin, his hips moving deep against her. “But fuck if I’m not glad.”
Corvina grabbed his waist, her nails digging into his sides as he dug deeper on a particularly hard thrust, their breathing getting heavier, their pace getting wilder.
“You can’t scream tonight,” he murmured against her lips. “Going to fuck you harder. You keep quiet. You make a sound,” he canted his hips brutally, “and I stop.”
Corvina felt her inner walls clench around him at the threat, her mind turning to mush as a moan left her and he halted.
“Please,” she begged him, so full of his she needed that pleasure she could see on the horizon, almost within her grasp.
“No sound,” he directed her. She gave him a nod.
“Did you come here to test me?” he asked on a downward thrust.
Corvina felt herself nodding.
“Good girl,” he praised her softly for telling the truth.
He took a pillow from the other side, putting it under her hips, angling it up while being inside her, the motion almost making her moan before she bit her tongue. Once settled, he placed his hands flat on the wall above the bed for support and began ramming into her, hard, fast, brutal, the aggression of the action making her walls weep and her muscles shake as she tried to hold onto him, biting her lip to contain any noises that wanted to escape her throat.
A mewl escaped, and he stopped.
Corvina cried out, tears almost escaping in frustration. He brought a hand down to flick a nipple in warning, and waited her out, keeping her on the edge of the precipice with his fullness inside her.
She turned her head towards the window, seeing the utter darkness outside, and tilted her hips, trying to get him to move.
He drove into her harshly, and this time, Corvina pushed her mouth into his neck and moaned against it, her pants muffled by his flesh as their hips slapped together, mating in the most primitive, basic way a man and a woman could mate. The angle of his penetration pushed her clit on every downward stroke, sending an electric current through her entire body, the zap pulsing out from her pussy to her limbs.
“Vad,” she murmured against his neck, pleading him to take her over the edge.
He pushed down harder into her on the next thrust, the sound of clouds and heavy breathing and the wet slap of their skins the only sounds in the room. Her lips parted as a familiar liquid fire raced through her veins, making her spine curve and her limbs shake, her heels digging into his back for some kind of purchase, her nails scoring his sides as ecstasy sizzled through her, making her pussy gush and soul bleed. Her mouth opened and she bit down on his shoulder to contain her scream, her body jerking as she came in a flash.
His own grunt of pleasure disappeared into her neck, his seed flooding her in jerks as he came inside her, moving even through his orgasm, prolonging both their pleasures as long as he could. He collapsed on her after, before shifting to the side, both of them panting and staring at the ceiling as they tried to catch their breaths.
“Will it always be like this?” Corvina asked on an inhale full of air, knowing she had to take the pillow out from under her hips but too boneless to even try to move.
“It’ll get better,” he told her on his own inhale.
If it got any better, she would die.
After a few seconds, he heaved himself up and out of bed, and Corvina stifled a sigh of disappointment at the immediate separation. She felt needy, wanting his touch and his gentling and his reassurances. This wasn’t like that time in the car when her mindset had been different. She felt different now, newer, feeling her way around herself. She liked when he took charge and took care of her.
She heard pipes groaning and the sound of water running before he came to her. He took the pillow from under her hip and threw it to the floor, picked her up next, swinging her up in his arms, and headed to the opposite side of the attic in the little light from the lamp, taking her through a door she assumed was the bathroom.
It was large and dark since he hadn’t turned on any lights, with stone walls and visible pipes, an ornate antique mirror and a sink right in front of the door. He paused for a moment and she looked at their reflections in the light coming from the room, struck by the image – his tall, broad, beautiful form packed with muscles holding her short, petite frame with curves, her long black hair trailing wildly over his arm, his own dark and pepper hair mussed by her fingers. Their eyes, silver and purple, locked on each other.
“Witch,” he murmured to her reflection, the affection evident in his gaze and his tone.
“Devil,” she breathed, hoping he found the same in her gaze and voice.
By the look of the smile slashing his lips, he did. It struck her in that moment how the two words that had been spat at them like curses had twisted to become their own terms of endearments, in a way that was heart-warming now.
He turned them to the side, to a white claw-foot bathtub filling with water, steam rising from its surface. But that wasn’t what held her attention. It was the huge, antique arched window right in front of the tub, giving a view of the dark mountain in the front and the Academic Wing lit up by the electric torches on top. It was so breathtaking at night she couldn’t even imagine how it looked during the day.
He put her down to turn the water off and Corvina pulled her hair up, twisting it in a big self knot on top to keep it off as he got into the tub. Indicating the space in front of him, he pulled her in and got her seated, leaning them both in until they were submerged in the water from the neck down.
The heat from the water felt amazing on her sore muscles, especially between her legs.
“Couldn’t turn the light on and risk anyone seeing us,” he told the side of her neck. “The window is visible from the top.”
Corvina looked at the view and sighed happily. “It’s perfect.”
They sat in companionable silence for a bit, just enjoying the moment in the middle of the night with a beautiful view when everyone slept and they were awake, taking a bath after coming together.
“I feel safe with you,” Corvina confessed in the dark.
His arms tightened around her, but he stayed silent.
Something in the moment – the languidness, the darkness, the nakedness – she didn’t know what it was, made her speak. “I’m lost most days. Sometimes in my head. Still trying to figure myself out every day. And it feels like every day the world keeps spinning around with something new and worse thrown in the mix,” she paused, keeping her eyes on the view. “I’m building my castle brick by brick in the middle of the storm, and I’m wondering if the mountain underneath my feet will crumble.” She turned her neck to catch his eyes. “You’re my mountain, my Vad. I don’t know how and I don’t understand why, but somehow, I’m building my castle on you.”
He leaned forward, his eyes blazing, and kissed her for a long minute before pulling back. “Build your castle, Corvina,” he told her quietly as they both watched the view outside. “I’m not moving anywhere. Build your castle as fucking high as you want.”
Corvina felt her lips tremble, her eyes stinging at the truth she heard ringing in his voice. She let it settle around her and seep into her pores, slowly, unconsciously, giving away another piece of her to him for safekeeping.
They stayed silent for a long while, simply being, simply existing together, and it felt the most loved Corvina had felt in a long, long time.
“Why were you aroused in class today?” he asked her after a few long minutes. “You never answered me.”
Corvina felt herself flush, her ass squirming before she could control it. “It was nothing.”
He pressed a soft kiss to the nape of her neck. “Tell me.”
“It was a dream I’d had the night before,” she replied, hoping he would leave it at that. She should’ve known better.
“Tell me about it.”
Corvina sighed. “Some things are private.”
“It was sexual,” he inferred correctly. “And about me.”
Corvina shook her head.
She felt his muscles stiffen slightly. “It was about someone else?” the dangerous edge to his voice made her nipples pebble even in the hot water. The possessive blade of his voice always cut her in the most delicious way, the hunger inside her to belong to someone being fed a feast every time it came out. She loved it when he got like that.
“No,” she clarified. “I just meant I won’t tell.”
“Why?” he demanded, relaxing again now that he knew it had starred him.
“It’s just… a bit disconcerting. And erotic despite that.”
One of his hands under water traced the side of her breast languidly. “I know you get shy, little crow. But I have fucked you and will fuck you in ways you might find disconcerting and erotic.” He pinched her nipple, rolling it between his fingers. “Your body is mine to play. Tell me.”
“Don’t think I don’t notice how you layer your questioning with something sexual every time,” she pointed out to him even as she arched her back.
“Don’t think I don’t know how much you love it,” he quipped back, a smile in his voice. “Don’t try to change the topic.”
Corvina sighed and gave in, telling him about the dream in detail. He was quiet for a long moment afterward, considering.
“Do you want to be fucked in front of people?” he asked eventually, still playing with her breast.
“No,” Corvina denied immediately, the idea horrifying her. There was no way she wanted anyone watching her when she lost herself like that. It was too intimate.
“But you like the idea of being discovered,” he mused out loud. “The idea of being almost discovered. Am I wrong?”
She bit her lip, her eyes on the castle upwards, the idea that someone could see their shadows in the tub thrilling to her. “No, you’re not wrong,” she confirmed.
“What a little surprise you are,” he chuckled.
After another few minutes of relaxed silence and the water getting colder, they washed off and dried. Corvina wrapped a towel around herself, looking at the floor with a flush climbing up her chest, the nakedness without the cover of sexual activity making her a bit shy. He had no such gripes, since he walked out to his room in all his beautifully sculpted glory, quickly changed his sheets while she watched, and got in bed.
“Come here,” he told her, opening one side of the blanket for her. Corvina bit her lip and looked outside at the dark. “I’ll need to get back soon.”
“Let dawn come first,” he stated. “Now get in bed. And lose the towel.”
Her fingers tightened on the towel for a second before she took in a deep breath and let it drop to the floor, hurrying to get under the blankets with him. He turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness, and settled in behind her, covering them both under, his body warm and solid and so big it felt like the coziest of cocoons. His body settled into her nooks, curving around her back, his arm tight around her waist, his legs tangled with hers, his nose in her hair. It was a full-body takeover.
“Sneak out on me again,” he murmured into her hair, his voice heavy with sleep, “and I’ll have you coming on my fingers in class.”
A delicious shiver made her tremble at the forbidden thought.
“I’m glad I came tonight,” she spoke into the dark, her lids getting heavier with slumber.
“Me too,” his hand on her stomach gave her a squeeze.
“You’re taking all of my firsts, Mr. Deverell,” she whispered quietly as a confession.
His arm tightened. “I will take all your lasts too, Miss Clemm. Mark my words.”
A clock ticked by somewhere in the silence, sounds of raindrops hitting the glass windows a white noise in the background. And in the dark with her devil behind her, Corvina fell asleep, feeling safe and cherished and not alone, for the first time in her life.
