Chapter 39: Stolen Moments
The corridor was empty, the moonlight a pale thief stealing color from the world. Leo’s back was to the stone, warm from a day of phantom sun, and Amber was a frantic, welcome weight against him. Her mouth opened under his, a hot, damp surrender, and the moan that vibrated from her throat into his own was a sound he’d dreamed of catching for years. His hands, large and calloused from axe-work, slid from her waist to the curve of her ass, gripping her through the fabric of her uniform pants, pulling her tight.
She gasped, arching into him. “Leo—”
“Shut up,” he murmured against her lips, a desperate, fond command. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth, and she let him in, the kiss deepening into something messy and starving. One hand fumbled up her side, under her jacket and shirt, finding the warm skin of her ribcage, the lower swell of her breast. She shuddered. He could feel his own heartbeat, a frantic drum in his throat, his cock.
His hips moved instinctively, a hard, slow grind against the junction of her thighs, even through their clothes. The pressure was electric, blinding. He was already rock-hard, straining against his zipper, and the choked, wanting sound she made told him she could feel every rigid inch. “Fuck, Amber,” he breathed, his voice ragged.
“Yeah,” she panted, her fingers twisting in his hair, pulling just enough to sting. Her hips rocked back against his, a matching rhythm, seeking friction. His hand left her breast, skated down her stomach, fingertips hooking into the waistband of her pants—
The sharp, deliberate scrape of a boot on marble echoed from around the corner.
They froze, locked together. Panic, cold and instant, doused the heat. Amber’s eyes, wide and dark, flashed with sheer terror. She shoved him back with surprising strength, her small hands flat against his chest.
“Oh, gods, a spider!” she announced, her voice an octave too high, brittle with false cheer. “Right in your hair, Leo. Hold still.” Her fingers fluttered near his temple, plucking at nothing.
Leo stumbled back a step, turning his body sharply away as a cough ripped from his lungs, violent and convulsing. He bent over, hands on his knees, using the posture to hide the obvious, painful bulge in his pants. His face was on fire, shame and frustration a bitter cocktail in his mouth.
Kilson Delacroix rounded the corner, his imposing frame cutting through the moonlit shadows. He stopped, taking in the scene: his daughter, patting wildly at her partner’s hair, and the weapon, hacking as if he’d inhaled a cloud of dust.
Kilson’s eyes, the same sharp amber as Amber’s but infinitely more weary, narrowed. He said nothing for a long moment, the hum of the academy’s dormant systems the only sound. “You two alright?” he finally asked, his voice a low rumble.
“Fine!” Amber chirped, dropping her hand. “Just a… really big spider. Hairy. It’s gone now.”
Leo straightened up, wiping his mouth, avoiding Kilson’s gaze. “All good, sir. Thanks.”
Kilson’s look was a strange cocktail of suspicion, paternal intuition, and his own brand of distracted melancholy. He gave a slow, deliberate nod. “Class started five minutes ago. Crow won’t be pleased.”
He watched them scurry past, their shoulders tense, not looking at each other. He stood in the corridor for a full minute after they’d vanished, a faint, troubled frown on his face, before shaking his head and moving on.
The infirmary smelled of antiseptic and the peculiar, dry scent of magical stasis. Jack Death lay on a cot, paler than the sheets, his symmetrical features slack. The three white streaks in his black hair were a glaring affront to the ordered room.
Angel stood at the bedside, her glasses reflecting the soft glow of the soul-monitor. Amber lingered by the door, arms crossed, watching.
“I don’t know if I’m doing it right,” Angel whispered, her hands hovering over Jack’s chest. “It’s like… tuning a radio to a station that’s mostly static.”
“Just try,” Amber said, her voice softer than usual. “Your resonance is weird, Lina. But it’s strong. I can feel it from here. It’s… warm.”
Angel closed her eyes. A subtle, golden light—different from the cold blue of a standard meister’s soul perception—emanated from her palms, sinking into Jack’s sternum. For a second, the erratic line on the soul-monitor steadied. A hint of color returned to his cheeks. Then Angel swayed, breaking the connection, and the light faded.
“It’s something,” she said, breathless. She adjusted her glasses, a determined set to her jaw. “But it’s not enough. Not yet.” She turned to Amber. “I need to go. I’ve put it off too long. Professor Crow arranged it… I have to go see Asura. Start the real sessions.”
Amber felt a chill that had nothing to do with the infirmary’s temperature. “The Kishin? Angel, are you sure?”
“No,” Angel admitted, a faint, brave smile touching her lips. “But it’s why I’m here. I think.” She squeezed Amber’s shoulder and left, her footsteps silent on the polished floor.
Amber stayed for another hour, talking in low tones with the duty nurse about soul-fatigue and coma prognoses. The clinical words were a shield against the worry gnawing at her gut—for Jack, for Angel, for the secret she’d just left pressed against a moonlit wall.
Their apartment was a shared, messy space off-campus, all weapon maintenance kits, meister theory textbooks, and discarded coffee cups. The door clicked shut behind them, and the silence was immediate and total. The events of the day—the near-discovery, the infirmary, the weight of their hidden lives—crashed down upon them.
Without a word, Amber kicked off her boots and walked to Leo’s room. He followed. She lay down on his bed, on top of the rumpled comforter, and he lay beside her. She turned, curling into him, her head coming to rest on his chest. His heartbeat was steady now, a slow, strong rhythm under her ear.
“We can’t get caught,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.
His arm curled around her, his hand a solid weight on her back. “I know.”
“I mean it, Leo. They’ll separate us. Reassign one of us. They’ll say the bond is compromised, that it’s… unhealthy.” She tilted her head up to look at him, her amber eyes fierce with fear. “I can’t fight with anyone else.”
“You won’t have to.” He held her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. His gaze was utterly serious, the playful weapon gone, replaced by the man who knew her soul’s wavelength better than his own. “It stays here. In these walls. Nowhere else.”
He kissed her then, softly, a promise. It was gentle, a stark contrast to the desperate clash in the corridor. This kiss was a door closing, sealing their secret world inside.
Then his hand slid down, over the curve of her ass, and he gave it a sharp, stinging smack through her pants.
She yelped, more in surprise than pain, and a wicked grin spread across his face. “But right now,” he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper, “I don’t want to think about them.”
The fire from the corridor reignited, hotter and with permission. With a growl, she pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips, yanking her shirt and jacket off in one furious motion. Her small breasts, freed from her bra, were pale in the low light. He reached for her, but she batted his hands away, her fingers making quick work of his belt, his button, his zipper.
She shoved his pants and boxers down just enough to free his cock, thick and already fully hard, the tip glistening. She didn’t hesitate. She rose up on her knees, guided him with one hand, and sank down onto him in one slow, breathtaking slide.
“Christ, Amber,” Leo choked out, his head slamming back against the pillow. She was so tight, so wet and hot inside. She fit him perfectly.
She began to move, setting a relentless, riding rhythm, her hands braced on his chest. Her tits bounced with every lift and drop, a hypnotic sight. He gripped her hips, fingers digging into her flesh, helping to drive her down onto him harder, deeper.
“Is this… is this what you wanted in the hall?” she panted, her body glistening with a fine sweat.
“Fuck yes,” he grunted. “Just like this. God, look at you.”
The room filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin, their ragged breathing, and the soft, constant creak of the bedsprings. Her moans were less restrained now, little cries that escaped with every deep stroke. He could feel the coil tightening in his gut, an unbearable pressure.
“Leo, I’m gonna…” she gasped, her rhythm faltering.
“Come on,” he urged, slamming his hips up to meet her final, frantic drop. “Come for me.”
She clenched around him, a silent scream on her lips as her orgasm ripped through her, her inner muscles milking him wildly. It was enough to shatter his control. With a raw, guttural shout, he held her down and poured himself into her, his release hot and seemingly endless.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, both of them breathing like they’d run for miles. After a moment, he felt the sticky warmth of his come leaking out of her, onto his stomach. She nuzzled into his neck. “Low fertility rate,” she murmured, a meister’s practical knowledge cutting through the post-coital haze. “It’s fine.”
He shifted, rolling her off him and onto her stomach before she could protest. He was still hard, impossibly, the soul-bond and years of pent-up wanting fueling him. He knelt behind her, spreading her knees, and guided himself back into her soaked, welcoming heat from behind.
This was different. Deeper. Primal. He draped himself over her back, one arm wrapping around her waist to pull her up onto her knees, the other hand fisting in her tangled hair. He fucked her in earnest now, deep, driving strokes that made the headboard knock a brutal tattoo against the wall.
“Oh, god, Leo!” she cried out, her face pressed into the pillow.
“You feel that?” he gritted out, pulling her hair just enough to arch her back. “That’s all for you. Only you.” His thrusts became rougher, more possessive. The sounds were obscene, wet and slapping, and her moans rose in pitch, meeting the force of his every drive. He could feel another climax building in her, feel her tightening around him again, and it pushed him over the edge. With a final, brutal thrust, he came again, his release spilling deep inside her with a shuddering groan.
He withdrew, collapsing beside her, spent. They didn’t speak. They simply turned into each other, limbs entangled, skin slick with sweat. He pulled the comforter over them. In the dark, her fingers traced the lines of his tattoos, his traced the faint scars on her shoulder from a long-ago keshin fight.
Exhaustion, deeper than any from battle, pulled them under. They slept in each other’s arms, the secret safe, for now, in the fortress of their shared silence.he
They slept in each other’s arms, the secret safe, for now, in the fortress of their shared silence.
Sunlight through high, narrow windows cut the dust in the private meeting room into sharp, dancing motes. Angel held Asura’s hands across the small wooden table, the glow from her skin a persistent, unnatural gold that seeped into the dry parchment of his. It was the fourth session this week, and a hollow ache had begun to live behind her eyes. Her muscles felt stronger, taut with unfamiliar power, but her mind felt scraped thin, like parchment worn until it transparent.
“Enough for today, Angel.” Crow’s voice was a rough stone dropped into the room’s quiet pool.
She didn’t hear him, or chose not to. The connection was a tether, and on the other end, in the dark void of Asura’s soul, something flickered—a shard of coherence, a memory of light not consumed by madness. She pulled at it, gently, pouring more of her own strange wavelength into the fissure. A warm trickle slid over her lip. She tasted copper.
Crow moved as Asura ripped his hands back. The Kishin’s eyes, clearer than they had been in weeks, held a faint alarm. Crow’s hand fell on Angel’s shoulder, its weight final. “It’s time to go.” Angel blinked, dazed, wiping the blood from her nose with the back of her wrist. She smiled at Asura, a tremulous, weary thing. “Are you eating well?” she asked, her voice distant. “Your arms… they look better.”
Asura nodded slowly, the chains around his wrists clinking softly. “You need to rest.” The guard by the door stepped forward, his tactical gear whispering, and escorted Asura out. The Kishin walked with more purpose, his frame filling out the clean clothes Alyce had quietly provided. Crow watched him leave, his silver eyes unreadable, before turning back to Angel. “My office. Now. You’re swaying.”
He didn’t ask, simply guided her through the sterile corridors to a space that smelled of old books, gun oil, and cigarettes. His office was a controlled chaos of stacked files and esoteric weapon diagrams. “Sit,” he ordered, gesturing to the large mahogany desk. She sank onto the edge of it, her body humming with a sickening fatigue. The room tilted briefly, and she flashed back to their first proper session, to splintered desks and her own terrified, awakening power.
Crow lit a cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating the stark lines of his face and the dark ink of the crow tattoo peeking from his collar. He exhaled a stream of smoke towards a high window. “Your partner. Alyce. She’s distracted.” His tone was casual, observational.
“She has a lot on her mind,” Angel replied, her fingers tracing a grain in the wood. Her head was pounding.
“So do you.” He turned, fetching a chipped ceramic mug from a shelf and filling it with hot water from a dispenser. He dropped a tea bag in it, the steam carrying the scent of chamomile and something bitter. He handed it to her. She took it, her hands finally steadying around the warmth. She sipped periodically as they talked of mundane things—upcoming classes, dormitory gossip, the weather in Death City—anything but the void she’d just been touching.
Eventually, the tea was half gone and the silence grew thicker. Crow stubbed out his cigarette. He leaned against the desk beside her, his arm brushing hers. His gaze was fixed on a far wall, but his hand, as if moving of its own volition, came to rest on her leg. His fingers trailed slowly, absently, up the inseam of her trousers, a calloused whisper against the soft inner fabric of her thigh.
Angel stiffened. A sharp, electric jolt went straight to her core. She squeezed her legs shut instinctively, trapping his hand there in the warm, sudden pressure. The motion jostled the mug. Hot tea sloshed over the rim, seeping through her shirt, scalding her skin. She gasped.
“Shit.” Crow moved fast. His hands were on the hem of her damp shirt, pulling it up and over her head in one efficient motion before the heat could properly burn. He grabbed a clean rag from his desk drawer, his movements clinical as he dabbed at the pink splotch on her stomach. The air in the room shifted, growing dense and charged. His wiping slowed. His eyes, fixed on the task, now saw the swell of her breasts pushed up by the tight black lace of her bra, the quick rise and fall of her breath.
The rag fell to the floor. He didn’t resume drying her. He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the damp skin just above the lace. She gasped again, a sharp intake. His tongue, hot and wet, lapped at the tea, then traced the upper curve of her breast. He hooked a finger under the cup of the bra and pulled it down, freeing one nipple, already taut and pebbled. He took it into his mouth, suckling hard, his teeth grazing the sensitive flesh.
A low moan escaped her, shattering the quiet. It was a permission he didn’t wait for. He pushed her back onto the desk, papers scattering. His hands shoved her thighs apart, his body wedging between them. He yanked her trousers and underwear down to her knees in one rough pull. The cool wood was a shock against her bare skin. He dropped to his knees on the stone floor, his hands gripping her hips, and buried his face between her legs.
His tongue was relentless. It wasn’t gentle or exploratory; it was a claiming. He licked a broad, flat stripe from her opening to her clit, then zeroed in on that swollen bud, circling it with punishing precision before sucking it hard into his mouth. Angel cried out, her hands flying to his hair, tangling in the silver-streaked black strands. She could smell herself, musky and sweet, mixed with the scent of his cigarettes and the old paper of the desk.
“Crow, I—” The words dissolved into a guttural sound as he slid two fingers inside her, curling them, fucking her with them in a steady rhythm that matched the wicked work of his tongue. He was mapping her, learning what made her hips jerk and what made her thighs tremble. The coiling tension from the healing session, the fear, the confusion, all twisted into this single, searing point of pleasure.
He added a third finger, stretching her, the slight burn swallowed by the overwhelming wet heat of his mouth. Her heels dug into his back, trying to get closer, to get more. The world narrowed to the desk under her, the grip of his hands, and the exquisite, building pressure between her legs. It climbed, sharp and urgent, a brilliant knot about to snap.
“I’m gonna come,” she warned, her voice a ragged whisper.
He grunted in response, his tongue flicking faster. The sound, the vibration, the deep thrust of his fingers—it shattered her. She came with a choked scream, her back arching off the desk, her vision whiting out at the edges. He didn’t stop, drawing out the pulses until she was twitching, over-sensitive, pushing weakly at his head.
He rose then, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his own breathing harsh. His eyes, molten silver, held a feral darkness she hadn’t seen before. He unbuckled his belt, the leather sliding free with a lethal whisper. He didn’t speak. He just looked at her, spread open and exposed on his desk, and the hunger in his gaze was answer enough.
He didn’t bother undressing fully. He just shoved his pants and briefs down his thighs, freeing his cock, which was thick and rigid, the head flushed a dark, angry red. He leaned over her, the rough material of his trousers scratching the insides of her bare thighs. One hand pinned her wrist to the desk beside her head; the other guided himself to her opening, which was still pulsing and slick from her climax and his mouth.
He pushed in, not slowly.
Angel cried out, a sharp, fractured sound. He was bigger than his fingers, stretching her brutally, the ache of the initial penetration a bright, shocking pain that melted almost instantly into a deep, full burn. He didn’t pause. He buried himself to the hilt in one long, devastating stroke, his hips meeting hers with a solid, final thump. The impact shoved her further up the desk, her shoulders scraping against the wood.
“Fuck,” he groaned, the word shuddering out of him. He held there, embedded deep, his body trembling with the effort of his control. She could feel every vein, every throbbing inch of him inside her. It was an invasion, a possession so complete it stole the air from her lungs.
Then he moved.
He pulled back and slammed home again, setting a ruthless, driving pace. There was no tenderness, no careful lovemaking. This was a fucking, pure and raw. The desk creaked in protest with every thrust. Papers fluttered to the floor like wounded birds. Her tea-mug tipped over, rolling off the edge and shattering on the stone floor, but the sound was lost beneath the slap of skin, their ragged breathing, his guttural grunts.
“You take it,” he snarled, his voice rough and close to her ear. His breath was hot. “You take all of it.” His hand left her wrist and gripped her hip, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, angling her up to meet his pistoning drives. Each one jolted through her, hitting a spot deep inside that made lights burst behind her clenched eyelids.
She was oversensitive from her first orgasm, the stimulation almost too much, a frayed wire sparking. But her body betrayed her, heating again, coiling tighter. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels locking at the small of his back, pulling him in deeper on every downstroke. The lace of her bra was rough against her nipples, a delicious friction. She was a mess of contradictory sensations—the hard desk, the brutal pounding, the terrifying rightness of it.
“Crow,” she gasped, her head thrashing side to side.
He didn’t answer. He just fucked her harder, deeper, his rhythm becoming erratic, frantic. She could feel the tension coiling in his body, the iron-hard muscles of his abdomen contracting against her. His control was fraying. His thrusts grew shorter, harder, a desperate hammering.
He leaned in, his mouth against her throat, not kissing, just panting. “I want you to take my seed,” he growled, the words hot and obscene against her skin. “All of it.”
With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself as deep as he could go and held. A raw, ragged shout was torn from him. She felt the hot, sudden pulse of his release flooding into her, jet after jet, filling her. He ground against her, milking every last drop, his whole body shuddering with the force of it.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight crushing her into the desk, both of them slick with sweat and spent. The only sounds were their heaving breaths and the distant, electronic hum of the academy. The smell of sex, sweat, and broken tea filled the air.
After a long minute, he softened and slipped out of her. A hot trickle of his come followed, leaking onto the wood beneath her. He pushed himself up on trembling arms, looking down at her. Her glasses were askew. Her lip was bleeding again, where she’d bitten it. Her eyes were wide, stunned, seeing everything and nothing.
He straightened his clothes with quick, efficient motions, his face already shutting down, the silver eyes cooling from molten metal to frost. He handed her her trousers and shirt, his touch now impersonal.
“The burn on your stomach should be fine,” he said, his voice flat, a professor assessing damage. “Put some salve on it.”
He walked to the window, turning his back on her as she scrambled off the desk, her legs unsteady. She dressed in silence, the fabric chafing her sensitive skin. The physical evidence of what they’d done was wet and sticky between her thighs. Her mind was a white blank, scoured clean.
As she reached for the door, his voice stopped her, not turning around. “Your resonance with Asura today. You saw something. What was it?”
She paused, her hand on the cool metal handle. The question, clinical and detached, was more intimate than the fucking had been. It demanded a piece of her the desk had not.
“A tree,” she whispered, the image returning now, fragile and clear. “A black tree, with roots made of light. And someone was… watering it with blood.”
Crow went very still at the window.
Angel left, closing the door softly behind her. The corridor was empty, sterile, silent. She walked on unsteady legs, each step a reminder. The warmth was already cooling on her inner thighs. Somewhere, in a distant wing of the academy, she knew Asura was staring at his own hands, perhaps remembering the same tree.