The next few weeks passed in a blur. Between studying for exams, writing final papers, and sneaking with Vad, Corvina barely had any time to breathe.
Having a boyfriend, who was a teacher and the owner of the castle and a member of the Board, came in very handy in some ways.
She got special permission from Mrs. Suki to open the library early to do some studying, a fact students weren’t told because Mrs. Suki didn’t trust them with her books. Her routine was simple. She’d wake up early and go to the library to work on one paper for a few hours, after which Vad would usually find her in an aisle after his workout, all sweaty and hot, push her against the books and fuck her for the day in the empty library. She’d then go back to her tower, shower and get ready for classes, hang out with her friends, especially Jade and help her slowly heal.
During classes, she would focus and study until Vad’s, where she would pretend that she didn’t know how he felt inside her, all the while ogling him. After the last class of the day, she would tell her friends she was going to the library but either stay back in class to have him bend over his desk or push her against the window so she could see nothing but the cliff as he drilled into her from behind, or she actually would go to the library to study.
After dinner, she would tell her friends she was going for a walk and either meet him in the Vault – which was still not open to students due to repairs – or meet him in his room for a few hours.
They fucked.
They fucked a lot, with an insatiable need that seemed to be growing wilder and an intense tenderness that seemed to be blossoming deeper. They talked a lot too, after catching their breath in bed, or in the tub looking up at the castle, or in the woods going for a walk. Sometimes, they didn’t talk at all. Sometimes, he played his music banishing his demons and she read her romances acknowledging her angels.
Whatever they were, they just were. They stopped fighting against the current and gave themselves to it, not knowing where it would land them.
The fact that the bodies had been found in the lake had somehow made those woods even scarier on campus. Nobody went in them anymore, and the rumors that all the dead were haunting the castle seemed to find more and more validation in people’s minds. Everyone started seeing ghosts. Stories of ghosts in the towers, in the corridors, in the gardens, became rampant around campus. It got to the point where Corvina wanted to bash her head in when one of her classmates swore he’d seen a ghost in the toilet taking a leak.
Corvina didn’t believe all the rumors, mostly because the voices in her head had been quiet. Yet, a sense of relief wasn’t what she felt as they got closer to the Black Ball. It was a sense of doom, a sense of something being terribly, horribly wrong. Dr. Detta never called back and that was even more frustrating.
“I can’t explain it,” she told Vad as she sat in the library armchairs after an intense, blissfully orgasmic round of sex early in the morning. “It’s like… my instincts are screaming at me. Something bad is going to happen and I don’t know what it is.”
Vad poked the wood in the fireplace, sitting on his haunches, his arresting face lit up by the firelight. The weather had definitely taken a turn for the better during the daytime but early mornings were still too cold.
“Is there anything in particular that triggers it?” he asked, taking a seat in the plush, red and brown armchair beside hers, buttoning up his shirt that was missing a button somewhere on the library floor.
Corvina paused to consider his question, trying to think about when she got the feeling. Her heart sank. “It’s always the strongest after we’re together. I… I think it might have something to do with you, or maybe your family?”
He put a hand on her restless knee, stilling it. “It could entirely be hormonal. I’m not saying it to be a dick, but your hormones are high when you’re with me. You feel more intensely. That could be a reason.”
He made entirely too much sense sometimes. Corvina sighed. “Then we’re back at square one, of me having zero idea about anything.”
A squeeze on her knee. “Ajax came yesterday. Told me they’ve identified ten of the victims. Four remain unknown.”
“But there were fifteen of them, right?” Corvina remembered from the empty graves.
“Yes,” he stood up. “They could’ve been disposed off elsewhere. Given these woods, we may never know.”
“Are you leaving?” Corvina tilted her head back to look at him, seeing his tall, broad physique covered in black, his hair swept back from his face with that white streak shining in the firelight, highlighting his beautiful cheekbones and those searing, stunning silver eyes that hadn’t lost their intensity one bit. God, he was as magnificent as she’d found him that first night months ago.
“I’m finishing my thesis today,” he bent down to close his lips over hers, giving her a hard kiss, before pressing a kiss to her piercing, his eyes blazing. “Be good.”
She smiled. “When am I not?”
His lips twisted, before he picked up two books from the desk he’d fucked her on, and went out.
Corvina exhaled, turning back to studying critical theory, the knot in her stomach never truly dissipating.
It was in that moment that for the first time in her life, Corvina opened her journal and uncapped her pen, and began to let the thoughts flow.
The wind in the walls
Echo secrets and sins
Whisper to me
Urging me
To listen
And I try
Fail
Not hearing the death
That is coming
She looked down at what the fuck she’d written in her stream of consciousness, closed her eyes, and tore the page off, throwing it into the fire. It devoured it, the ink melting in the flame, consumed, one with the ashes that would remain in the end.
Stroking a hand over her journal, she quietly began to write the story of a girl who had died in a castle, haunting the walls for a lover who never came.
Jade found her a few hours later, sitting in the armchair and scribbling furiously in her notebook, as though the floodgates had opened.
Jade dropped her bag on the floor, looked at Mrs. Suki’s empty desk, and fell into the armchair Vad had been sitting in hours ago.
“I can’t study anymore,” she complained in a tired voice. “If I have to read one more date for History, I will do something drastic.”
Corvina felt her lips twitch but stayed silent, finishing the last line on her page before closing it and putting it in her bag, the thrill in her veins at the story something novel.
“Are you excited for the Ball?” Jade asked her once she was done.
To a tiny degree, she was excited. She’d never seen anything like the Ball these guys talked about in her life. Good food, good music, good clothes, and masks, it all sounded like such a perfect night. As long as no one disappeared this time, that is.
She shrugged. “A bit, yeah.”
Jade looked down at her nails that she’d finally painted pink again for the first time since Troy. Just thinking of him sent a pang through Corvina’s heart. She missed his presence and his trademark grin every single day, so she couldn’t even imagine how much harder it must be for her roommate. She imagined sometimes how she would feel if she lost Vad the way Jade had lost Troy, and just the fact that Jade could get up from bed and resume life was a marvel to her.
“Ethan asked me if I’d go with him,” Jade told her, still looking at her nails. “Not romantically or anything. We both just loved Troy, and he thought it’d be a good idea for us to go together.”
Corvina felt her eyebrows go up slightly before she schooled her expression. She was pretty sure Ethan liked Jade, but like the good friend he was, he’d never looked at her twice while Troy had been there. “I think it’s a good idea,” Corvina agreed, hoping it would bring her friends some joy.
Jade picked up her discarded pen and began to doodle. “Who are you going with?”
The silver-eyed devil of Verenmore. Secretly. But of course, she couldn’t say that.
“No one,” she shrugged. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
“I think Jax wants to ask you.”
“I hope he doesn’t,” Corvina bit her lip. Vad was not a fan of Jax trying to get under Corvina’s skirts as he said, and if the roles were reversed, she probably wouldn’t have been either.
“It’s a gorgeous day outside,” Jade stood up, grabbing Corvina’s hand. “C’mon. Let’s get you some sun. You spend too much time in this dungeon anyways.”
Most of it screwing her hot teacher, but again, Jade didn’t need to know that.
They went up and exited into the back lawn gardens, the sun shining beautifully over the entire mountain, the heart refreshing after weeks of cold. Students were sitting on the grass everywhere, soaking the sun in groups. Jade led them to the side of the Main Hall where the cobblestoned path to the Faculty Wing ran, and sat down in an empty spot.
Corvina put her bag there, spying a bush of red roses next to the Main Hall window. She went and plucked two, careful of the thorns, and brought one to her friend, loving the smile that lit up her face. “This castle is such a beauty during the day.”
Corvina leaned back on her hands, tilting her neck up to the blue sky dotted with clouds, a smile on her face.
“What the hell is that?”
Immediately looking down at the distress in her friend’s tone, Corvina found her green eyes on her shoulder where her sweater had drooped to the side. The perpetual hickey, that’s what Jade was looking at. Vad loved having that mark on her in a place usually covered, just for the two of them to know, a mark of ownership and tenderness so deep it felt bottomless.
Was it messed up? Probably. Did she care? Not really.
She loved it, thrilled in it, knowing that she was so utterly and completely his.
But she hadn’t wanted anyone else to see it.
Playing it off, she rubbed the spot on her shoulder and shrugged. “Oh this? I just knocked myself into a shelf the other day.”
Jade gave her a look that screamed ‘really?’
“Girl, I know a hickey when I see one, and that, Cor, is the boss of hickeys. If hickeys could be sport, this one would qualify for the Olympics. Are you seeing someone?”
Corvina bit her lip, not wanting to lie to her friend but not wanting to share it either.
“Look,” Jade went on. “I know I haven’t been in the best headspace lately and you probably felt like you couldn’t tell me, but I’m here for you okay? And I want to know when you’re seeing a guy seriously enough to let him leave that kind of a mark on you.”
God, she felt like such a bad friend when Jade put it like that. But she knew she couldn’t share about Vad, not given the complexity of the situation. So she settled in the middle ground.
“It’s recent,” Corvina confirmed. “But we’re keeping it low-key until we’re sure it’s serious.”
Which was a lie because she already knew how serious they were.
“Oh god, he’s a senior, isn’t he?” Jade grinned, her eyes glinting. “Tell me the sex is good at least.”
Corvina just smiled and Jade whistled. “He must be a god to put that kind of smile on your face. Damn girl. I’m happy for you.”
Corvina took her friend’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Thank you, Jade.”
Jade looked at her bag. “You have your cards with you?”
Corvina looked at her puzzled. “Yes, why?”
“I’m confused if I should go with Ethan,” she picked on some grass. “Do a reading for me please.”
Corvina chuckled, opening her bag and taking the deck out. She made some space in the grass between them, took some water from her bottle, and sprinkled it around the deck like her mother had taught her. Taking the cards out, she began to shuffle them into her hands, feeling the familiar weight settle her mind and thoughts.
“Should you go with Ethan to the Ball?” she asked as one card fell down.
Corvina stopped shuffling, turned the card, and grinned. Ace of Cups. “That’s a most definite yes.”
“Dude, you read tarot?” Erica came from the side, plopping down by Jade, looking excited. “Will you pull a card for me please?”
Corvina laughed. “Sure. Ask me a question.”
Erica thought for a second, before grinning. “Will Mr. Deverell say yes to my advances?”
Corvina’s stomach tightened, the urge to punch Erica’s smile acute. She schooled her face, surprised by her own violent reaction to a girl coming on to him, surprised at the intensity of her possessiveness.
Jade gasped. “He’s a teacher!” she hissed.
“So?” Erica wiggled her brows. “A one-time thing. No one will know. He’s hot, okay?”
Corvina shuffled her cards harder, biting the inside of her cheek, lest she truly did something. A card fell out. Three of Swords. Satisfaction zinged through her.
“That would be a no, I’m afraid, Erica.” Gleeful. She was gleeful. The universe had her back.
A few other students wandered to them, asking Corvina to pull a card, and Corvina was happy for the distraction, especially with something she loved and missed doing. Within an hour, a small crowd had gathered around her as clouds covered the sky, all of them either wanting to get a question answered or seeing the readings for others, including a few teachers.
It was such an odd moment for her – the odd girl from the woods with the odd eyes and the odd mother – to have people accept her in her natural form, just as she was. She realized she had actually stopped caring so much for social acceptance as of late, feeling less lonely and more whole, and it probably had to do with the way Vad accepted her. He was empowering her through their connection, making her realize she was lovable as she was, that she wasn’t an outcast, that she belonged somewhere precious. He was the catalyst for her acceptance of herself, of her understanding that she was different and that was worthy of everything.
The Corvina from a few months ago who had shied even telling her roommate about her love for tarot was so vastly different from the Corvina right then, sitting in a garden surrounded by people, doing what she loved without feeling an iota of discomfort.
It made the warmth in her heart expand tenfold and put a smile on her lips.
And as though she’d summoned him, the crowd parted and he strode into the circle, his silver eyes on her, watching her do her thing. The pride in his eyes at seeing her in her element made something inside her burst with joy, straightening her spine a little more, tilting her chin a little higher, making her smile a little brighter.
She wanted him to be proud of her as she was of him, wanted him to look at her and see a talented, passionate girl and not the hot mess she mostly was. She shuffled with an extra flair, admittedly showing off a little for him, and from the little twitch on his lips, he knew.
A card fell down, and she looked at Dr. Kari, who was waiting worriedly for her answer. It was almost comical. She turned his card. Nine of Cups.
“I think you definitely should put an offer on the house, Dr. Kari,” she said and saw the relief on his face.
“I’m glad. My wife has been hoping for it. Thank you, Miss Clemm.”
“My pleasure, professor.”
Dr. Kari went on his way and Corvina kept shuffling as the skies darkened more.
“I have a question, Miss Clemm,” the deep gravel voice made her insides clench as she looked up into his eyes. “If you’d be so kind to pull a card for me?”
“Of course, Mr. Deverell,” she gave him a deliberate smile, one that he knew, one he’d seen on her face many times in bed. “What is it about?”
He pushed his hands in his pockets, tilting his head to the side. “A woman I’m in love with.”
Her heart stopped.
So did her hands.
She heard the gasps of the students around her, shocked that he of all people would say something like that, feel something like that.
Corvina felt the eyes swing to her and barely controlled her face, shuffling the cards again in hands that trembled slightly, her insides breaking apart and fusing together as he watched her with all the ferocity on his face.
“What about her?” Corvina swallowed, her voice thankfully steady even as her insides were a riot.
“I’d like to know if she feels the same,” he declared, never taking his eyes off her. Had they been alone, Corvina would have pushed him to the ground and ripped his clothes off. The intense concoction of arousal, emotion, and something so inexplicable pulsed inside her veins, her eyes wanting to tear up and her lips wanting to grin, her chest heaving with breathlessness and her heart pounding with overstimulation. A hush fell on the crowd as they waited for the card.
Corvina shuffled, knowing the card would be her response, would be everything she felt but couldn’t say at the time. She needed him to know it, with the sky and the sun and the soil as their witness.
A card fell out.
With shaking hands, she picked it up, her lips trembling, and turned it towards him.
Two of Cups.
The card of love exchanged, connected, deepened.
“She feels the same, Mr. Deverell,” Corvina caught his blazing eyes. “She feels exactly the same.”
He would have kissed her then.
She saw it in his eyes, that fierce look he wore right before he tipped her chin and tasted her mouth. But he stilled, staying rooted to the spot, his hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets she could see.
It was one of the most profound, intense moments of her life, shared just between the two of them in the middle of a crowd.
“That’s relieving,” he remarked, before giving her another heated look and walking off.
Corvina sat there in the grass, her world tilting yet again on its axis at his casual declaration, a smile on her face, she watched him go.
