I pace the halls near Vermilla’s room back and forth. Blood elves in the Cathedral are housed in a separate castle, nicknamed the Red Rook, a chateau-style citadel connected to the main keep through a set of winding corridors and spiral staircases. Vermilla is the only blood elf in our school now though, which makes this part of the Cathedral extra eerie. If I screamed (not that I should have a reason to), no one would be able to hear me.

I stand in front of her door. Candlelight throws broken shadows across its wooden panels. I hesitate before knocking. Take a few steps back then walk toward a nearby window with a lantern at its sill.

I can’t beat her in a fight. Why am I thinking that? Why would we fight?

I’ve seen her spar with other students. Quick as a jungle cat, and with blood elf strength and affinities. Brutal, too. She had broken Luri’s arm in a match once. Put Fellum to sleep with a blow to his spine. I’d never fought her, and a part of me wondered if it was because the Masters didn’t trust her to hold back on an arcanist. A broken hand for me could mean no more casting for months. Years, if the damage was bad enough.

It’s snowing now. I catch a glimpse of a shadow in the woods. Not big enough to be a werewolf. A dire wolf, maybe. Chestnut fur blends into the branches of a leafless oak. I think of its teeth. Serrated, pearl, made for savagery.

I knock on Vermilla’s door.

It creaks open. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat. My hands are already clammy and I can’t figure out how I’m going to get my first words out. I realize I never thought through how I’d actually start this conversation.

I smell her before I see her. The scent is so strong I get light headed. Should have listened to Fellum. Bad idea to come here tonight. It feels like a physical force, and all I can do is stare and try to remember to breathe. I lick my lips and taste berries and vanilla. Feel flower petals on my fingertips.

She’s wearing another black dress. The straps fall to her elbows and I can see the cups of her breasts. Her hair is pushed to one side, glistening as if she’d just showered. She’s wearing a rose-gold necklace. Dark see-through leggings that show through the slit of her dress. Something tells me she knew I was coming.

For a long moment, we just stare at each other, and then she takes several steps backward. I follow her in, still feeling lost, not sure what’s giving me direction.

It’s warm in her room. A blazing fireplace. Torches along stone walls.

“Am I under a spell?” I ask.

“Close the door behind you,” she says.

The creak of wood again, and suddenly, I’m alone in a castle with Vermilla and no one to save me should I need it. Deep purple curtains drape her windows. Several vases with black roses line the center of her dining table. A few pairs of yellow fleeting eyes glance at us. I hear a purr from behind a wardrobe.

Her room is an enormous bed chamber, with a ceiling so high up it gets lost in the dark beyond the firelight. There’s a couch in front of the fireplace with black fur blankets. Her bed is a four-poster canopy made of dark wood. The bench in front of it has a stack of clothes. Black and red dresses of different shapes and cuts.

There are books littered all across the floor, and stacked high on shelves with ladders underneath not long enough to reach them. Large posters that looked like directions for complicated summonings or exorcisms. Old parchment with writing in languages I didn’t recognize. Some of the books were so old, their bindings were held together with ropes and knots.

She takes several steps toward me and gets on her knees. Looks up without blinking. Her eyes are perfectly shaped tear drops. A coral shade in the light, a darker red outside of it.

“Am I under a spell?” I ask again.

“The scent loosens your inhibitions. Doesn’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” She puts a finger to her lips. I want to look away but I can’t. “And I know this is what you’ve wanted to do for a long time now.” She pushes a strand of hair behind her ears. “Almost as hungry for it as me…I can feel it, you know? You can’t hide it from a blood elf.”

Her face is nearly expressionless. It feels like a test. I can’t imagine myself passing, but I do my best to hold my composure. She watches me intently. Tilts her head.

“Everyone talks about you,” she says. “Leon, the holy arcanist, destined for greatness, so devoted to his vows.” She runs a hand down the side of my pants. Nudges me forward slightly. I step closer. I want to stop her, but I can’t.

“The golden child of the Cathedral,” she continues. “The Masters most prized student.”

I swallow, barely able to breathe through her scent. I feel guilty, like being here proves I’m not worthy of whatever standard I had held for myself.

“I…” I don’t know what to say.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“It just…got me curious. I wanted to see if I could…” she comes even closer. Lifts a hand slowly, watches me as if to see if I’d react, then finally smiles when she knows she’s won and undoes the drawstring of my pants. They fall to the floor.

She looks at my cock, and then back at me, her eyes locked on mine, unblinking. She captures both grace and terror at the same time somehow. A Cornered serpent. A rabid wolf.

“It’s been hard to control myself, you know?” she says. “Especially when I know you’ve been dreaming of this moment, too.” She’s panting slightly. Her nails inch out of her fingertips. “This is what you really wanted, coming to my room, isn’t it?”

“It’s not what I wanted.” I barely manage to get the words out.

“What do you want now, though, Leon of the Arcane?” she asks. “What do you want more than anything, and who can give it to you?” She brings a hand up, as if she’s about to hold the tip of my cock, then stops. I keep myself from shuddering.

I bite down on my lower lip. “I’m not going to say it.”

“Yes you are,” she says.

I purse my lips together, not trusting whatever is about to come next, thinking that I’m still somehow not beyond redemption.

She begins tying her hair back and I get even harder. My cock throbs in front of her. The movement catches her eyes and she smiles.

“I want you to make me come.” I close my eyes and look away as I’m saying it. The final nail in the coffin for the honorable life I wanted to lead. I imagine my ancestors looking down on me. Half of them ashamed of what I’d become–the other half thinking they should have done this themselves all along.

“How did that feel? Letting it out?” She draws a line across her chest. “Brought to a breaking point by a pretty little blood elf on her knees.” She sighs in an exaggerated way. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

She takes my cock inside of her mouth before I can answer. I gasp, unable to breathe in the moment. Her tongue is warm and wet. I can feel the back of her throat. She makes no sound, just holds my entire cock in her mouth, and then swirls her tongue around the tip. A slurping sound as she pushes my cock deeper into her mouth. I don’t know how long blood elves can make their tongues, but her’s wraps around my entire cock. I feel the bristles of it rubbing against my foreskin as it curls and uncurls.

She goes back and forth, using her fangs perfectly to itch the tip of my cock without hurting me. She cups my balls with her hands, sucking faster and faster. When she pauses for breath, saliva drips off my shaft to the floor in a bubbly line. She pulls back. Stares at her work for a moment, then goes back to sucking. She makes a moaning sound. Drops the straps of her dress even lower.

She pauses after a full minute, then looks up at me, speaking with the tip of my cock still in her mouth. “Don’t make a mess on my floor,” she says, more seriously than I expect. Her lips kiss my cock as she talks. “Hold my face when you’re about to come and I’ll drink all of you in.”

I make a sound in affirmation, unable to say anything cohesive. My vision is slightly blurry. She studies me for a moment, then, satisfied with her effect on me, spits on my cock and deepthroats me again.

She’s going back and forth. Her lips slide against my skin. She presses firmly against the base of my shaft. Looks up while tightening her tongue around my cock.

I can’t hold it anymore. I place one hand on her face, and hold her knot of hair with the other. She locks her lips over the head of my cock. Keeps her eyes on me to watch my reaction. Uses her hands to hold my cock in place and then squeezes gently.

I come inside of her mouth. She licks the sides of my cock. Slurps as she takes me in, swallowing every few seconds without pulling back.

I let out a spasm. The room spins and I can’t find my footing. I’m dizzy. Slightly at first, and then I get dizzier and dizzier. I stare up at the ceiling. See shapes and shadows crawling along the top of it.

She stands and holds me. Guides me to the couch. Puts a blanket over me. I feel like I’m in a fever dream, half shivering, half warm. I still feel her saliva dripping off my cock.

“Sleep.” she says, and I can’t help it.

I dream of being a holy arcanist. The most powerful in Hinterland. I’m in battle, a scorched sun in one hand, a blade the color of flame in the other. There’s a castle in the distance. A blood moon and a sky strewn with arrows.

When I wake, I’m on her canopy bed. I don’t want to get up. It smells like heaven, and bliss, and vanilla, and berries. There’s the sound of shouting somewhere far below. The clang of metal.

I don’t think I slept for long. It’s still dark outside.

She’s sitting next to me with a red dress on. A short one that hugs her body perfectly. The light from the fireplace makes her hair look different. Lighter.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” I try to tell her to wait but she reaches under the blanket too quickly. Begins rubbing my cock back and forth. She pulls one hand out, spits on it, then massages it gently into the head of my cock. I make a sound–half euphoria, half guilt.

She claws the blanket off of me. Sits on top of me and holds my cock, but just before she’s about to slide me into her, we hear the Cathedral bells.

I sit up, still dazed, and rub my eyes.

“Shoot…” I mumble. “The blood moon. They need us.”

And then, a sound I never heard before. A screeching horn like rocks scraping the face of a cliff.

“What is that?” I ask, tilting my head and closing one ear. I squint until the horn finishes blaring.

She sits up too now, then moves toward the window. “Nothing good for your friends who are down there,” she says. “That’s a summoning horn. Something only a necromancer would carry.” She looks up at the moon, then turns to me. “They probably need the arcanists.” She looks me up and down. “But I already took most of your strength.” She seems pleased with herself.

“I can fight,” I say.

“Not without a few days' rest.” She points at my legs. “I made you come so hard you couldn’t stand. You want to go fight now?”

“If they need me, they need me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Get your clothes on and meet me downstairs. Stay close.”

“Stay close?”

“I’m not trusting your three acolyte friends to keep you safe,” she says. “They’ve never been in a real battle.” She looks around her room. Softens her tone. “Hopefully we’ll be done by dawn. We can come back to my room and I’ll make you come again.” She crawls back to me and wraps her hand around my cock. “Twice, if you don’t fall asleep.”

Looking at her in her red dress, I don’t want to get off the bed. Ever, maybe. Luckily, she’s not using her scent on me and I’m in enough of a headspace to get myself moving.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”