I slipped out the door as calmly as I could manage, doing my best to act as if I wasn't secretly tailing my bunkmate like some over-caffeinated raccoon with unresolved trust issues.
The instant I crossed the threshold and let the door fall shut—far harder than I intended, mind you—I vanished instinctively into my veil of shadows in the span of six rapid heartbeats.
That beautiful, moody place where everything dulled at the edges, where sound softened like someone had wrapped the whole world in wool, and where my footsteps quieted enough to convince me I was something far more graceful than a morally confused succubus sneaking after a girl who slept like she was born allergic to mediocrity.
I didn't even have time to congratulate myself before Elvina whipped around, the smoky form of her hair swaying like a disgruntled swan, her eyes scanning the hallway as if she expected a monster to leap out and take a bite at her ankles.
Her face was tight with nerves, her lips moving in some frustrated whisper before she forced herself forward again, completely unaware of the idiot trailing two paces behind with all the grace of a nosy bat.
The moment she turned away, I snapped back into reality and let out the kind of sigh that felt like my bones were deflating.
Only when I felt my pulse return to something close to normal—still too fast, but normal enough for me—did the dance truly begin.
I hugged the walls with the shameless commitment of a man married to plaster and poor choices, ducking behind planters, tiptoeing behind pillars that creaked at the worst possible moments, and nearly jumping out of my skin every time Elvina stopped to glance over her shoulder.
She moved with this jittery paranoia that would've made me think she was up to something truly awful. Her feet, oddly enough, made almost no sound, each step placed with the cautious precision of someone convinced that even the air might betray them.
My heart beat loud enough in my chest I was nearly certain she would hear it and trace the sound back to me like a wolf tracing blood in the snow.
I followed her anyway—because bad ideas and I have a lifelong bond at this point—and tried to keep my breathing quiet, which only made me breathe louder, which only made me panic, which somehow made me breathe even louder still.
We slithered—well, she slithered; I scrambled—through the dimly lit corridor like two characters in a low-budget spy movie.
The lanterns set into the walls flickered with that smug, judgmental attitude fire always seemed to have around me, as if it knew I was hiding and wanted desperately to rat me out.
Each echo seemed to ricochet down the hall like a battle cry, and of course, the moment things were going too well, the distinct clatter of footsteps echoed from around the far corner.
I froze mid-step.
The world tightened around me in that brittle, breathless way it does when fate decides to slap my face with the wet sock of reality. Elvina stiffened instantly, pressing herself flat to the wall with such speed I swear the stone itself had to absorb the shock.
I braced for disaster, but then—she whispered something. A single sharp syllable, guttural and fluid at once, like a word pulled from the arcane throats of a thousand bickering professors.
My eyes widened, my pulse launched itself into orbit, and then she… she melted. Literally melted. Right into the stone. Right into the wall as if gravity and substance had politely agreed to step aside for her convenience.
One second she was there. The next she wasn't.
I nearly toppled headfirst from the shadows in sheer shock but snapped back into my veil just as two guards rounded the corner.
They were plated in bronze armor so polished it reflected the torchlight like they were paid per sparkle, and of course they were laughing—wheezing, choking, bending over and slapping each other's knees—about some obscene joke that absolutely no one needed to hear.
"Heard the new mistress was so loose the quartermaster just hands her a bucket and tells her to sit on it. Saves time."
His partner doubled. "A bucket? Nah, mate. They're training her on the siege ram now. One thrust and the whole gate moans her name."
The guards rambled down the hall, one smacking the other's shoulder with that too-loud camaraderie of men whose job descriptions barely intersect with their actual competence, and once they were far enough away, I allowed myself to reemerge.
Good timing too, because Elvina popped out of the wall across from where she'd entered—dusting her hands off like this was something casual for her.
Then she ran.
Not walked. Not crept. Ran—dashing forward with a frantic, sudden speed that left the air trembling behind her like it was struggling to keep up.
I cursed under my breath—quietly, quickly, repeatedly—and tore after her with the sort of panic normally reserved for people trying to catch falling babies, runaway pastries, or their reputations before they hit the floor.
My mind erupted into a storm of questions, each one more dramatic and unhelpful than the last, until one truth snapped through all the others like lightning splitting a tree.
Elvina was a mage.
A mage.
Gods above, a mage.
The realization slammed into my chest with enough force to rattle every bone I'd spent all day pretending was fine. It made everything earlier suddenly blur together in a new, uncomfortable light, especially the part where I had her cornered in the lesson hall.
Saints above, was she bluffing then? Was she letting me talk myself into some false sense of superiority? No answer I could conjure in that moment made me feel any better, so I shoved the entire crisis into my mental drawer labeled "Deal With Later...If Alive."
Elvina was sprinting like the night itself owed her money, weaving in and out of shadows, her magic letting her swing from one dark corner to another with such ease that even I started struggling to keep pace.
Each time she flickered into a patch of deep shadow, she would emerge meters ahead, her breathing sharp and controlled, her feet barely making a sound as she raced down the twisting halls.
The guards seemed everywhere tonight—rounding corners, stomping down stairwells, shouting across intersections—forcing Elvina to dance between them like a wraith being hunted by light.
Finally—after what felt like several small lifetimes compressed into twenty minutes—we ended up before a pair of towering double doors carved from dark oak and trimmed in bronze, polished so well the metal practically glowed.
Elvina didn't hesitate. She shoved them inward with a strength that failed to match her dainty aesthetic, and they swung open to reveal a lavish common room that hit me in the face like the breath of a palace.
The floor was marble with veins of gold running through it, like someone had tried to pay off the stone itself for better performance. A fire crackled nearby, its embers glowing with luxurious confidence.
A dozen or so art pieces dotted the room: oil paintings hung in sweeping frames, life-sized sculptures posed in heroic stances—or scandalous ones; one statue's clothing situation was… interpretive to say the least—and rare artifacts displayed in glass cases that screamed "touch me and lose your hand."
Elvina strode straight into the center of the room, heading toward a long marble table topped with parchment rolls, thick tomes, and several glass bottles filled with suspiciously glowing liquids.
I didn't wait for the doors to finish closing; I slipped through the narrowing gap with all the desperation of a thief diving under a guillotine and immediately ducked behind the nearest statue.
It happened to be a sculpture of some heroic figure holding a sword aloft in glorious triumph, yet from behind he just looked mildly constipated.
I pressed my back to him anyway and peered around his stony thigh, trying to keep my breath quiet and my heartbeat from echoing like a war drum against the marble.
Elvina's breath fluttered, quick and shallow, like a bird beating itself against a cage it secretly adored.
I focused, my Elven sight humming behind my eyes, the world sharpening into impossible detail. And there, in the hush of that sharpened vision, her fingers unfurled like petals at moonrise, releasing a scrap of white silk that drifted open with damning elegance.
Mia's panties.
They caught the firelight the way sin catches the eye: brazen, glistening, impossible to ignore. The air left my lungs in a single, traitorous rush.
Elvina's hands moved with the languid certainty of ritual. She drew her skirt up in a slow, deliberate cascade of fabric, revealing miles of porcelain thigh.
Her thumbs hooked the delicate waistband of her silken panties and eased them down until they slipped free and pooled at her ankles like surrendered virtue.
She hoisted herself onto the edge of the ancient table with the poise of a priestess mounting an altar, parted her knees wide, and let the cold, unyielding corner kiss the slick heat of her cunt.
A single roll of her hips—testing, tasting—and then she surrendered to it. The marble edge became her merciless lover, cold and unforgiving. Each drag drew a soft, wet sound into the quiet room, a secret rhythm that made even the statues lean closer with intrigue.
She snatched Mia's stolen panties again, pressed the darkened gusset to her face like a supplicant at the font, and inhaled. A long, shameless, worshipful breath that pulled Mia's scent into her lungs the way a drowning woman gulps air. Her lashes trembled shut; her mouth parted on a silent, reverent moan.
I stood frozen behind my marble hero, mouth dry, and whispered to the dark, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
She didn't hear me. She was too busy unraveling.
Elvina whimpered, the sound high and pathetic, as she ground her bare cunt harder against the marble. She buried her face in the lace completely now, moaning into it, her hips a frantic piston.
Firelight licked over every shameless detail: the glossy sheen of her arousal smearing the marble, the frantic twitch of her thighs, the way her back bowed like a taut string.
Disgust curdled in my gut, hot and acidic. I wanted to leap out from behind the statue and bash her skull against the very table she was defiling.
Then she let out a sharp, sudden yelp.
Her spine snapped rigid; her fingers clawed Mia's panties like a rosary. A broken, keening cry spilled out as she came—hard, messy, gorgeous.
Her cunt clenched and fluttered visibly, a shining thread of release stretching from her throbbing clit to the cold stone before it snapped, dripping in slow, obscene beads down the table's leg.
She slumped back, panting, a stupid, spent expression on her face. Only then did she remember herself. She fished her own discarded panties from the floor, dragged them up trembling legs with hurried, feline grace.
She giggled then.
A high, breathy giggle that scraped down my spine like nails on slate. It was the giggle she'd used after she'd reduced Mia to tears. My vision went crimson at the edges.
I shifted my weight, my muscles coiling. I was going to do it. I was going to—
Then the doors crashed open.
Quentin strode in, cloaked in swagger and cheap cologne, and Elvina's mask slid back into place between one heartbeat and the next. Mia's panties fluttered from her slack fingers. She kicked them once in a panic that sent them skittering beneath the table.
A quick tug smoothed her skirt over trembling thighs, fingers gleaming faintly in the firelight.
She turned to him with that razor smile sharpened to killing sweetness.
"You're late," she purred.
Quentin stepped closer, the firelight sliding over the hard planes of his face and catching on something darker in his eyes—wrapping itself in shadows that promised the night had only just begun.