LOGINAdam must have gotten tired of waiting for my answers because he dipped his head and pecked my lips softly.
However, that was for a start, because immediately after that, he wrapped his hands around my waist, drew me closer to him, and pecked my lips again.
He withdrew his face thereafter, taking note of my facial expression, to know if he should go on.
I knew he was waiting for a go ahead, so that it wouldn’t be like he was bullying me into kissing him.
Foolish me thought that the act was cute.
I must have nodded my head at one time, because before I could say jack, his lips were on mine, and this time around, his tongue was attempting to push past the protection of my lips into my mouth.
Yet I was not responsive. Not because I wasn't into the kiss, but because I didn't exactly know how to kiss. .
“You haven’t kissed before?” A note of incredulity rang in his voice, as he withdrew from me the second time.
I shook my head in reply, wondering if he would go away when I heard him mutter ‘f*ck’. Of course he would know now that I was a virgin.
Should I have told him that I wasn't a virgin? And where was Naomi? I wondered, wanting her to come down now. This stuation was awkward as f*ck now.
I wanted to be out of here. I felt stupid too—not sure if it was because I had allowed Adam to kiss me or because I didn’t know how to kiss.
When Adam noticed my abrupt change of mood, he sighed and dropped a kiss on my lips, bringing my attention back to the softness of his lips.
“Hey, don’t worry. I can teach you. We will take it slow and steady.” He whispered, making me wonder if s*x was the only thing that can manage to bring out this side of him. I have never heard this voice octave.
My heart raced wildly and fast again when he lowered his mouth on mine, when his fingers began their tracing sequence at my back and around my waist.
He pushed at my lips, and I opened. I didn’t want this to end.
Adam let his tongue into my mouth expertly, using it to guide the motion of mine around his mouth. It was fussy at first, but then it got better and became so d*mn sweet.
The kiss felt like soft rain on a summer evening. It felt like an explosion of the best flavors in the universe all at once mingling together and creating the best taste and sensation I had ever felt. I was lost, totally lost in it.
But then he broke away, and chose to stare at me, perhaps gauging my expressions.
His eyes were filled with so much lust, and surprise.
Yes, I could see that too, though I had no reason why, because before I could think on that, he returned his lips to mine.
This time when Adam’s lips mashed against mine, it was more violent.
He kissed me as if he was trying to flatten and destroy my mouth, as if trying to state his claim on me.
I was taken aback. For a second, I couldn't breathe. My mind was a blank slate until I felt those tingles again.
They assailed my body like rushing water that had broken over a dam. And when they attacked me, I welcomed them with open arms, and hungrily pushed back.
The bristles of Adam’s immature beard scratched against my soft cheeks when I gripped his head firmly—acting out of instinct—as if to keep him from escaping.
Then, I worked my mouth against his, our tongues battling back and forth like wrestlers, each trying to pin the other.
I kissed him like he wanted to be kissed, like no girl had ever kissed him—or so I thought—soft and moist and hot and breathy, not trying to win a battle but seeking union and closeness and the sharing of one breath, one sensation, one timeless and passionate moment.
The heat rose in his loins as my tongue danced with his tongue, quick and electric and delicious, then firmer, more determined, more curious about the heat that lay within, seeking to chase down that elusive liquid lightning that reached through both of us.
I was moaning now, and I could literally hear his grunts of pleasure and it filled me with some kind of weird pride knowing that my kiss was doing that to him.
I gasped softly when I felt his hand begin to snake toward my breast region. Were we really going to do it here? In Naomi’s kitchen?
A light brush of his finger around my nipple caused me to tighten my thighs in anticipation. But that anticipation was caught short when I heard a light scream right behind me.
I knew it wasn’t Naomi. Naomi’s voice wasn’t as shrill as that.
No. This was even worse.
It was Claire, and in the next second, she was dragging my hair, dragging me away from Adam, and into the reality that I had been smooching a forbidden fruit.
SAGEI tore through the pack like breath given purpose.Mist wrapped around me, my body dissolving into vapor and intent as I slipped between trees and rooftops, through wards and shadows, moving too fast for eyes to follow. The night rushed past in fragments—stone, iron, blood, fire—yet my mind burned hotter than any of it.The Queen.The realization clawed at me with every passing second.Claire had not learned that magic by accident—she had been the telling the truth in that regard at least. I had seen it in her mind—the precision, the structure, the discipline behind her spells. That kind of power was not born in secrecy or desperation. It was taught.The Queen had trained her. When? I did not know. But the truth tasted bitter on my tongue.How dare she?How dare that woman touch another life, mold it into a blade, and aim it at me while wearing the mask of inevitability? I had thought I was using her. Thought I was clever, strategic, exacting my revenge with cold intelligence.
ADAMThey were everywhere.Even before I counted them, before my mind could make sense of the scene unfolding in the courtyard below, I knew one thing with absolute certainty—we were outmatched.Not in numbers. In power.At least fifty vampires prowled the open space beneath us, their movements sharp and predatory, red eyes catching the moonlight as they stalked between fallen bodies. My guards lay scattered across the stone like broken dolls, throats torn open, chests hollowed, blood slick and blackening as it cooled.I swallowed hard. At least they hadn’t been turned.That mercy, twisted as it was, settled like ash in my chest. The dead should remain dead.Beside me, I felt Sage’s tension coil tighter, her guilt thrumming through the matebond like a second pulse. It wasn’t subtle. It never was with her. Every loss landed on her shoulders as if she alone bore the weight of the world.“This is my fault,” she murmured again, voice barely audible beneath the distant shrieks and snarls.
SAGEThe world came rushing back all at once.Now in my body, I staggered, my knees giving way beneath the weight of what I had seen, what I now knew. Strong arms caught me before I could hit the floor, pulling me into a familiar chest. Adam.For a moment, I let myself stay there, breathing him in, anchoring myself to the solid heat of his body while my mind reeled. Shock didn’t fade quickly. It clung, sticky and nauseating, eating me out from the inside.The Queen.The realization burned like acid.Through the bond, I felt Adam’s awareness sharpen, felt the echo of what I had dragged back with me bleed across the connection. I knew—without needing to look—that he had seen fragments. Enough. And if the murderous glares hardening the faces of his brothers were anything to go by, he hadn’t kept it to himself.Good. Let them all see.I straightened slowly, easing out of Adam’s arms, though my fingers lingered at his side for a heartbeat longer. Then I turned back to Claire.Rage surged
The moment my magic slipped past Claire’s defenses, past the wards she threw up weakly around her mind, the world inverted.There was no gentle transition. No warning. One second I was before her, hand pressed to her forehead, feeling her panic skitter uselessly beneath my palm—and the next, I was no longer in my body at all.I was inside her.But her mind did not open like a door, as Adam’s. It fractured like glass.Memory rushed at me in jagged shards, unfiltered, dragging me forward whether I wanted to go or not. I braced instinctively, grounding myself, and then—Fire.Not destruction. Not chaos.A small, perfect sphere of flame hovered above a child’s hands, spinning lazily, obedient and warm. Little Claire sat perched on a chair too large for her, feet swinging as she laughed, eyes bright with delight as the fire obeyed her every thought.The room was quiet. Private. Sealed away from the rest of the world. It seemed like a room inside another, a secret base or something like th
SAGEI’ve noticed that shock does not scream. It hollowed. It carved you out from the inside and left you standing there, breathing, blinking, while your mind scrambled to catch up with reality.For a heartbeat—just one—I was certain I had misheard her.Then I saw it. The way the room froze. The way every single face mirrored what was tearing through me.Catel looked like the ground had dropped out from under him. His mouth parted slightly, his eyes fixed on his sister as if she had grown another face, another mouth speaking blasphemy where love used to live.Whatever bond he thought they shared fractured right there, audible in the silence.Claire’s words hung in the air like poison. Do you think you’re the only one with magic?Her laughter sliced through the stillness, unhinged. It wasn’t the mocking laughter she used to wield so carefully—it was manic now, frayed at the edges. The kind that belonged to people who had crossed a line and decided there was no going back.The other bri
SAGEShock didn’t hit me all at once.It came in slow, nauseating waves, each one heavier than the last, until my knees finally gave out and I was lying fully on Adam, that he had to sit down at the edge of the bed, legs stretched outward, my fingers curling into his shirt as if fabric could anchor me to reality.Claire was behind it all? How?Naomi’s confession still echoed in my ears, unfinished yet already devastating.My mind leapt ahead, unwillingly—to the rest of the truths that would soon spill, to the consequences waiting just beyond this room. To the vampires.They would be here soon. I could feel it in my bones, in the way the air seemed to tighten around my chest. The wards I had placed earlier , after getting the first truth, were thinning, stretched by my own unstable magic.Could I fight vampires?The thought wasn’t heroic. It was practical. Cold. Fear-edged.I reached inward, instinctively searching for El, for her voice that always cut through my spirals.El.Nothing.







