Page 62 of Godless Saints

“Professor Korolev,” I said evenly, even as my pulse hammered. “Good evening.”

Korolev’s cold eyes flicked over me. Hair mussed. Mouth swollen. Collar sitting wrong over the mark on my throat. He didn’t smile.

“I saw nothing tonight,” he said quietly, accent thick. “You will do the same.”

My insides went cold. He knew?

“Yes, sir.”

“Get back to Aster Court, boy. Before you make yourself more interesting than you already are.”

I nodded once and kept walking, legs still unsteady.

Fuck. Had he seen us in the gallery? The ring still circled my finger. I slid it off. Moonlight caught the engraving. A chroi. What the fuck did that mean? I slid it back on before I could think.

CHAPTER 15

MOON

I shouldn’t have been here. Thorn’s underground hall reeked of sweat, blood, and spilled beer. Low concrete ceiling. Exposed pipes running the length of the room. Nothing like Aster Court. The contrast was almost insulting. Older faces mixed in with the students. Harder. Men who didn’t belong to any court on campus. The crowd crushed in, shoulders slamming mine. Heat crawled under my hoodie like a second skin. Someone screamed Cillian’s name until spit flew.

I kept my hood low. Face down. Hands shoved deep in my pockets. Intelligence gathering, I’d like to call it. Fall break had emptied half the academy. Sawyer in London, Vivienne in Paris posting Le Meurice and Celine shots as if the drama never touched her. Aster Court was finally quiet, quiet enough for every bad decision to echo. No one left to stop me. I should have gone home to Manhattan. Cillian stayed. So I stayed. Simple, damning math.

Three weeks. East reading gallery after hours. Locker room steam still clinging to my skin. Shadowed alcoves behind the cathedral. Bell tower stairs. Sealed archives. Candlelit crypt beneath Saint Oran’s. Three weeks of Cillian on his knees, fingers buried deep while I spilled down his throat and lied that I was still in control.

I wasn’t.

The need only sharpened. He never asked for anything. Just took me apart, selfless in a way that felt vicious. I hadn’t sucked him off once. Denial was becoming fucking pathetic.

I was afraid I’d like the version of me that let him break me open. Rotten want clawed under my skin. I wanted him to pin me down, take what I couldn’t offer, hold me open and fuck me until my brain finally shut the fuck up.

Twice he had me bent over, cock pressed right against my hole, body vibrating with the effort not to slam home. Teeth in my throat. Hands bruising my hips. Growling my name like he stood one breath from breaking. Both times I froze. Whispered no. Both times he stopped.

I felt like a fucking asshole.

His restraint was fraying. I saw it, eyes going black, fingers digging in like he fought his own blood not to take what was already his. I wanted him to ignore the part of me that was still afraid. He’s comfortable in his skin in a way I’ve never been. He’d probably let me fuck him if I asked. He’d probably enjoy it.

But I wanted him inside me. Dominating me. Holding me down and fucking me like he owned me, especially when I hesitated. Especially when I fought. Telling him meant handing over every piece of power I’d spent my life protecting.

It’s driving me mad.

I played with the ring. I still hadn’t taken it off. I should have taken it off after the winter garden. I hadn’t.

Vivienne had noticed it earlier in the common room. “New ring?” she’d asked, stirring her tea. “It doesn’t look like anything I recognize you’d wear.”

I had lied without blinking. “Family heirloom. Mother sent it.” Her eyebrow lifted half a millimeter. She didn’t believe me, but she let it drop. She’d also stopped asking about Zara. Too obvious now. Even my lies felt like concessions.

Cillian stepped into the ring, shirtless, hands taped, mouthguard between his teeth, blood already drying at the corner of his mouth. The crowd lost it. He took the first hit on purpose. Head snapping sideways. Wet crack of flesh on bone. Blood spraying across his mouth. Cillian smiled. Red teeth. Split lip. Eyes bright with all the wrong things.

My stomach tightened. I’d been sneaking in for weeks just to watch him destroy men his size with that vicious grin and bloodied knuckles. Pure, ugly obsession.

His gaze cut through the crowd, anyway. Hood up, back corner, half-hidden behind two built-like-doors Thorn boys. He still found me. Smile shifted smaller. Meaner. Unmistakably mine. My cock stirred despite every effort to kill it. Hated him for seeing me so easily. Hated my body more for answering.

Cillian turned back and stopped playing. Hook to the ribs. Knee when the bastard folded. Elbow that silenced the crowd for one stunned second before they roared again. Sweat cut slick lines down his chest. Blood smeared his mouth. Taped knuckles dark red. Brutal. Happy. Beautiful in the exact way that twisted something ugly low in my stomach.

The referee called it.

Thorn roared.