Rosemary Johns - Rebel Academy - Curse

I narrowed my eyes. Nobody dared this witch.

Lysander flapped his wings. “ Don’t… ”

I snatched Titus’ hand, dragging him closer with my mists; he let out a startled oomph .

“If you wished to become more intimate,” Titus said, drily, “you only needed to ask.”

I clenched my jaw. “Shall we?”

“Play something romantic,” Titus called imperiously to Sleipnir. “But without the caterwauling.”

Mist sat on his rump and gestured with his hooves in a manner that looked decidedly like the one Flair had taught me for wanker .

Sleipnir smirked at me, before strumming the sweet melody for the song all about fucking that he’d serenaded me with in the Rebel Café.

I bit my lip to keep in the laughter. The private joke hidden within the music wound around me, even as Titus swept me out onto the ice dance floor. I slipped, but he kept his arm around my waist. He certainly was an excellent dancer. But then, he was a prince at a Fae Court.

I glanced at Fox, who stood in the forest of ice trees with Bask’s hand curled protectively around his neck. Fox watched me with a concerned gaze.

I’d take Fox, who’d never attended a ball before just like Robin, over the suave fae. Of course, Fox was himself a wonderful dancer, although I’d never seen moves like his before.

Didn’t he call it Fox Funk ?

I’d hadn’t been the same as the other witches, who’d thrilled at the thought of the balls and the husbands who’d they’d meet. I’d wanted my own adventures.

Well, I’d certainly achieved that.

When Titus’ wings curled around me, I shuddered.

“Why do I feel like I don’t have your full attention?” Titus’ gaze was uncomfortably intense. “It’s rather rude when you cursed me as much as this academy.”

“Do you piss snow? Do you melt in the sun?” I lowered my voice, glancing significantly down at his crotch; the bulge in his trousers told me that being blessed down there truly was a fae thing. “Did I turn your prick to ice?”

When I edged my hand to check because I was awfully impressed with my magic to create ice pricks, he batted away my hand with a snarl.

“For a moment, I forgot who I was speaking to. Let me be clearer.” He gripped me tighter around the waist, spinning me. “I was the eldest son and heir who was set to inherit the Unseelie kingdom. You’d have been my queen .”

He paused as if expecting a big reaction from me.

When I simply gazed at him steadily, his shoulders slumped.

Wait, had that been the big reveal? I’d never dreamed of power. I never wished to be his queen.

I attempted to smile. “Well, lucky escape there then. Crown’s are heavy, I hear.”

Titus green eyes darkened. “Heavy but mine , until you humiliated me by standing me up at the altar. Mother couldn’t let such a public shame stand. Where were you, while I faced the scandal that followed alone?”

“Dead.”

His lips grazed across my cheek. “Excuses, excuses. But do you know how much it warmed me to know that you suffered for what you’d done to me?” My guts twisted. I tried to wrench out of his arms, but he held onto me. “I lost the throne. I was passed over for my younger sister. When she (along with her worthless husband) died, her brat became heir. There was no forgiveness because a fae who fails is never worthy again.”

“Lysander…?” I whispered.

Lysander stood frozen at the edge of the dance floor. His wings were wrapped around himself. His eyes gleamed, and his gaze was dark like he was one predatory inch from battling his own uncle over me, which was hot and dangerous.

How could I bring this dance of the enemies to an end?

It’d started with hate. What if I showed Titus who he should truly have been hating all this time?

Titus’ gaze hardened. “Instead of taking up my rightful place, I’m left as guardian of a boy who can’t even obey. I sought to train Lysander to repair my reputation. He was to rule with me at his side. But he ruined that by bringing me greater shame. You both owe me a debt.”

I snorted. “I don’t give a mage’s prick how things are done in fairy land, but a woman choosing not to marry or a ward deciding not to kill doesn’t make them indebted to you. Plus, this will come as a shock, but your mother sold you out to mine. You’d never have been king. The plan was for you to bring your magic, power, and money to the House of Crows. You’d have been ruled at the academy, living in my shadow.”

Titus staggered back from me. “You’re lying…”

“Do you imagine that my mother would’ve allowed the protected Blessedly Charmed daughter to ever leave these grounds? I am the academy. We were both set up. Just think how much more freedom you’ve enjoyed for the last hundred years, than if you’d become my controlled husband. Your mother must’ve always intended her daughter to become heir, and when the marriage with me fell through, she used your supposed shame as an excuse. How charmingly sneaky.”

“She w-wouldn’t…” Titus paced away, slipping on the ice. I raised my eyebrow. “Of course, she would . On my feathers, all these years, I thought…and I treated Lysander like…I blamed…”

Lysander prowled towards me (which was impressive in those ruby slippers), sweeping his wings around me; I nestled into their sweetness. “It would be my greatest honor to dance with you.”

I slow danced with Lysander to a song about fucking, and Titus allowed it.

As Lysander’s prick pressed against my hip, his feathers brushed against my cheeks, and his hot breath gusted over my ear, I tingled head to toe like I was making love to him right here in front of Rebels, professors, and Titus alike.

By the way that Titus reddened, perhaps it was obvious.

Excellent.

I’d been lost for over a hundred years, a lonely ghost. But now I was finally found, in the arms of my fae lover. Titus had thought that it should be him, but he’d been wrong. Sometimes love took its time to reveal itself, and sometimes, it was a hard and painful journey.

But it was always worth it.

I’d been born, died, and resurrected for this moment.

“Marry me, prince?” I breathed.

Lysander’s breath caught; his eyes lit up. “In a heartbeat.” Then his lips feathered across mine. “Will my fiancee permit me to kiss her? I’ve been desperate to break this rule for so long…”

“Only if I break it first.”

I pressed a light kiss to his lips, and they opened on a sigh. Then I pushed in again, but this time with a savage, desperate passion that was met with his own. He owned me with his kiss, but I was already his, and he was mine. Pink sizzled on my tongue, twining with his own magic.

Don’t ever stop. More, more, more…

Lysander curled his wings more tightly around me.

This was it. What I hadn’t known that I’d been missing.

I was complete.

The windows rattled. My magic shook the hall. The stars pulsated pink.

And the Membership with its wards snapped .

I jolted like I’d been struck by electricity, breaking the kiss. My eyes rolled back, and Lysander caught me. My magic burst from the floor in roots, covering the walls of the hall, before breaking off the roof.

It was finally happening… Sweet Hecate, this was it…

I pressed my hands against the floor, sensing my Wickedly Charmed magic burrowing through the academy and breaking every ward and spell that’d been imposed on its innocence because it had been innocent when I’d created it as a baby.

Henriette and each Principal after had added wards, spells, and charms onto my magic. They’d created the monstrosity of the academy. The Curse was mine, but the academy was all the House of the Crows.