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  He swept me into his arms—and promptly banged his head on the ceiling of the boat. He growled at the ceiling.

  I suppressed a laugh. “Sorry. Maybe this isn’t the place for—ooh—” He carried me into the bedroom, which was just a room full of bed, basically. There was no floor space. The door slid open to revel a somewhat circular bedroom and he dropped me on the mattress and pounced atop me.

  I drank in the taste of his eager kisses for a minute and then said, “This is—Montague’s uncle’s bed?”

  “Montague changed all the linens.”

  “But does his uncle know?”

  Firian shrugged. “If you loan your boat out to your college-aged nephew and his friends I have to assume you’re aware of what could happen.”

  “You’re right.”

  Then we were kissing in earnest. Not that we weren’t kissing in earnest before. I guess there were ever-increasing levels of earnestness. Firian’s hands cupped my face, his necktie falling on my chest, and I reached up and loosened it. This seemed to encourage him to tangle his legs up with mine. I was down with that. He was leaner than Montague and Alec, but tall, and he had the legs of an anime character. Plus, he could turn into a fox.

  “Can you like, do just fox ears?” I murmured. “I wonder if that would be hot.”

  He stopped kissing me and shook his head. “It would look dumb.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Or like, a tail?”

  “Are you a furry?” he asked, in a tone that suggested I would never hear the end of it.

  “I just think that might be kinda sexy.”

  “Sounds like a furry to me. Maybe later if I can think of something equally ridiculous for you to do for me.” His hands were crawling up my back, which arched obligingly.

  “Like dressing up as an elf in a bikini? I know you. You’re one of those guys who makes his RPG character based on what he’s into.”

  “Don’t tempt me, woman.”

  We laughed softly as he pulled off my sweater.

  “But I already have the bikini,” he said, hooking his finger around the skinniest part at my hip. “Damn.”

  “That’s right. You probably haven’t seen me in a bikini since I was about six or seven,” I said, when I used to play in my kiddie pool in the backyard.

  “Stop with that. I was also seven!”

  “I know.”

  He started to inch down my bikini bottom and I drew in a nervous breath. Technically, I guess, Alec had already seen me naked, but that was a dream. Sort of. I wondered if I should have done something to my hair down there. I’d trimmed and shaved the bikini line but maybe I should have done more. Or less. I don’t know, there was only so much you could do with that part of the body, in the end it was more about what it could do than how it looked. I guess the aim of any girl should just be to look better than a penis and balls. Okay, breathe, Charlotte. You’re freaking out.

  “Shouldn’t we do boob stuff first? There’s an order to the bases, right?”

  Firian looked at me like he was having romantic thoughts and not worrying over anything stupid like I was. “Are you nervous about me looking at you naked?”

  “No.”

  “If anyone should be nervous, it’s me, because I know you’ve already seen Alec naked. We’ve all seen…the outline, so. This is the part where I get to worship the body of my witch. Trust me…there is no chance of disappointment.”

  “I don’t know if I’m nervous, Firian… I’ve just never done this. And we’re friends. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

  “That is impossible.” He untied the back of my bikini top. “But I can also do boob stuff.” He pulled off the bikini top and stroked my breast while hooking his hand inside the bottom and running a finger between my folds.

  That wasn’t what I meant. But then again, who cared? It felt so good. I immediately realized I should just stop talking and let him do things to me. While his hands were on me, I pulled his tie off his neck and started unbuttoning his shirt. Then I unfastened the button and zipper of his pants.

  Soon he was helping me wrestle off his clothes and then we kissed yet more earnestly, I swear.

  “I’m not sure you’re sufficiently turned on yet,” he said.

  “I’m pretty turned on,” I gasped.

  He slid down my body, his soft hair brushing my skin until he reached my nipples and circled them with his tongue. He coaxed moans out of me as he alternated with sucking, licking, and nipping at the pebbled nubs.

  I guess he was right. I had not been as turned on as I could be. And I wanted to be more than ready for him. Having worked my nipples over until they were hard and tingling, he slid his tongue all the way down, and then he pulled my bikini bottoms off and slid his tongue between my legs.

  “Auggh…” I moaned, grabbing at the covers. He licked up and down three times until I shoved him back. “Stop, I…I’m close.”

  “You’re ready?”

  “Yeah. Very ready.”

  He produced a condom and assured me it was real. Then some lube. He kept teasing me with little touches to keep me interested, but I didn’t need it.

  I mean, Firian was beautiful. He was all mine, and he was from a world I would never know, all at once. He spread himself over me, one more kiss before he found my entrance with what I would call skill if I wasn’t sure he’d never done this before. It just felt like he knew me. My mind, my body. All of me. I could feel his thickness pushing me open and he went slowly, responding to my signals but there was still some force to his movement. It felt amazing. He seemed to fit me perfectly.

  “Charlotte…” He looked at me, propping himself up on arms that were so long and lean that at first you didn’t realize how strong he was at the same time.

  Firian was inside me. This was happening. I knew that almost everyone had sex at some point, so it was just a normal thing to do, and not really that monumental, but in this moment I felt more overwhelmed than I expected.

  Maybe because it was him.

  I never thought this would happen with someone who wasn’t even human.

  He lowered his arms so he was closer to me, and tested a move, his cock throbbing inside me.

  “Ooh…” I trembled at how intimate this felt.

  “Does it feel good?” He traced the lines of my ear with his finger. “Or does it ache?”

  “Both…”

  “They say it’s better to give than to receive,” he said. “And if that’s true, I sure don’t envy you. You seem like you’ll be taking on a lot. I’m glad I got to be first.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “If you’re happy, in the end, I’ll be happy too. Maybe…it’ll be a little bit hot.”

  Sometimes he was hard to read, but right now he sounded genuine. “It’ll be a lot hot, mister, because I’m hot stuff,” I said, smirking at my own hubris.

  “That’s true.” He grinned, and then we just launched at each other’s mouths. We were making out hardcore and it felt like our lower bits were also making out. There was a lot of thrusting, basically. And it was amazing. I was still aching but I craved more of him so the aching didn’t seem to matter in the moment as adrenaline and desire coursed through me.

  Plus, I trusted Firian so deeply. He could be aggressive and surprise me, and I liked that, but deep down it never really felt like a surprise. He always acted like he could read my subconscious and knew just what to do for me.

  Since he’d already gotten me so close, pretty soon we hit a groove and I reached that point where I just knew that if we kept doing it, I was going to get there. I gripped his shoulders. “That…yes…that.”

  “Music to my ears.”

  So that was what was going on with us. Really sexy and great, right?

  But I was dimly aware that above me were voices, and the voices were getting loud enough that I started to notice them. Were Montague and Alec having a dumb argument about something when they knew I was trying to hav
e sex down here? At this point I realized that there were three voices.

  Then I started coming, because my body clearly took the express toll road while my brain was stuck pondering traffic.

  “Mm…mmm…ahh…what is going on…up there…”

  Firian covered my mouth. “Shh. Don’t worry about it. They know we’re busy. Maybe they’re battling a gator, I don’t fucking care…” He groaned like he was going to follow me over the edge.

  “Okay…,” I breathed, and we got back in the groove, but slower, making excited noises. Firian had this little growl that I’m not sure he even realized he was doing, and it was very cute and sexy and made me really want him to try sporting some fox attributes next time.

  And then, about two seconds after Firian finished, Harris burst in the door.

  “No,” he bellowed. “No!”

  We barely processed this before Montague came in behind him and tackled him. “I told him not to come down here but I didn’t want to tell him—!” he said to us, before he realized that I was super naked right now. I mean, there’s naked when you don’t have clothes on, and there’s naked when you just lost your damn virginity, and that is about the most naked you can be.

  I scrambled to pull the bed clothes over myself. Firian, meanwhile, had snapped right to his feet and was instantly in shirtsleeves and black jeans, looking put together in a way that still said “yeah, I just banged her, you want to make something of it?” But not in such a way that made me feel used.

  He was hot and I was trying to yank out very tucked sheets from under a mattress.

  He grabbed Harris by the front of his shirt. “What?” he hissed.

  “You’re a familiar,” he said. “You will both get into so much trouble if you do this. Charlotte, do you think you’re some kind of super special Chosen One just because you’re the only girl at Merlin College?”

  “I’m not trying to be a Chosen One! I’m trying to have privacy!” I screeched at him.

  “And besides that, it appears that none of you informed Charlotte that there is power to be harnessed in losing one’s virginity. It should be done carefully within the bonds of marriage so that the power can be used. Otherwise, it’s just a waste.”

  “A waste?” Firian slammed Harris against the wall. “Get out of here.”

  Harris whispered a few spell words and Firian was thrown back into the kitchenette. Montague grabbed Harris.

  “Stop it,” he snapped, as Alec came in behind him. By this time I had managed to get under the covers, at least, but I still saw him look at me before he did anything else.

  “I am really sorry about this idiot,” he said. “We tried to stop him.”

  “This is completely and utterly irresponsible!” Harris said. “If anyone finds out that Charlotte copulated with a familiar she’ll be banished to Sinistral!”

  “Is that true?” I asked.

  “You know it’s forbidden,” Firian said. “But no one’s going to find out. Are they?” He grabbed Harris again, and Montague was still holding him. Harris stopped trying to fight.

  “Come on, man,” Montague said. “We all know what this is about.”

  “It’s about my duty as a future council member!” Harris’s pale skin was really showing off his blush.

  “Why do you care what Charlotte does? What do you care if she breaks an antiquated rule that tells her who she can and can’t have sex with? You know what?” Alec threw up a hand. “I’ve had sex with my familiar!”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, as Alec took the heat off me.

  “You have?” Harris’ brows furrowed disapprovingly. “Your familiar? The shy one?”

  “Yeah, I’m so damned sexed up all the time and she’s basically…stopped me from assaulting people. Losing control. That’s all. We’re not really into each other, but it’s a friends with benefits sort of situation now and then.”

  “You all deserve each other,” Harris muttered. “This is dangerous and you’re all enabling it. Are the two of you…really…? I know you, Monty. Alec. You have something to lose.”

  “You need to get out,” Montague said, giving Harris one of the dark looks that would come on so suddenly.

  “Agreed,” Alec said.

  Harris looked at me, and I felt very awkward, and then he abruptly turned and stormed out above decks. I wondered how he had gotten on the boat to begin with, and how he would get off of it. Suddenly I just felt annoyed. I grabbed my clothes. “Wait a minute!” I shouted after him. I nudged past the guys, who were trying to stop me, and followed him. “You just ruined one of the most special moments of my life, which I can never replicate. Do you realize that? I don’t need you to police my behavior, Harris von Fancypants.”

  “What a vicious burn,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “I was, in fact, sent here to police your behavior. You’re lucky I don’t put this on the report. Be very, very careful.” He looked down—I guess he had an escape canoe down there?—and then at me again. I sensed some vague reluctance to leave.

  But then, he leapt down and I saw that he did, indeed, have a little motorboat that was floating alongside ours, and he broke out of the current that flowed around the island clockwise and moved into a different current that went back the way we came.

  “What is his problem?” Firian asked, coming up behind me. “Dude needs to get a life.”

  I frowned. “I think he had a life,” I said softly, remembering how Professor Blair said the teachers called them ‘HAM’ behind their backs. You had to be pretty close to get your own acronym. “It was Montague and Alec.”

  And he wants to be here with us. With me. Could that really be true? He’s such a jerk all the time, but…maybe I’m starting to get it.

  Harris seemed to have everything together. Wealth. The council. Daisy.

  Yeah…it was no wonder he wanted to be here with me and my bunch of trouble-makers.

  Chapter Eight

  Harris

  “Irresponsible,” I muttered, tugging on the oars. Charlotte doesn’t know what she’s doing half the time, but Alec and Monty do. And her familiar—oh, he damn sure should have an inkling.

  They were going to get her in deep trouble, and they were going to get themselves in deep trouble, and it was my duty to stop them before then, because I was their friend. And if I couldn’t get them out of it, I would never see them again.

  Well, if they’re that stupid, they can dig their own graves.

  I ground my palm into my forehead. The image of Charlotte naked flashed through my mind and it was satisfying.

  But it wasn’t like I wasn’t trying to see her naked. Master Blair asked me to keep watch over them. So…

  She was so adorable. And so…sexy. Daisy was gorgeous. Everyone reminded me of that all the time. So I really needed to stop thinking about Charlotte, but seeing Daisy was like going to a flower shop and buying a stunning orchid.

  But Charlotte was a patch of wildflowers encountered in the forest, ones you’ve never seen before, something you never would have thought to look for, just an unexpected surprise. And if I tried to transplant them to my own garden, would they die?

  Nah, more likely I’d be the one to get poisoned. So maybe she’s actually a mushroom.

  It was possible that I was spending too much time brooding over the complete aggravation of being attracted to someone who was bad for me than paying attention to my surroundings, but all of a sudden, another boat was bearing down on mine.

  I sped up, ignoring the posted speed limit on the water highway, and then deciding to just break out of the lane altogether. The water witches had established these currents to make it easy to travel between St. Augustine and the island, especially since most of the boats didn’t have motors at all but relied only on currents and winds. Electricity disrupted magic more than a basic gas-powered engine, but neither was perfect. Whoever this aggressive driver was, he had a sailboat, so I would rather just take my own way.

  They followed me. They had
their sails out and seemed to have caught a good wind. Or maybe they were just really good at wind magic. Either way, pretty soon they were driving me out into lonelier waters and I wondered if I had made the best decision. At this point, I should probably just try to slip back into the mundane world.

  As I was trying to maneuver, a man suddenly tossed a rope toward me.

  No, not a rope—a lasso.

  Which fell around my arms and tightened. As I struggled to hold onto the wheel, another man leapt off the sailboat and swam toward my boat with Olympic swim team speed. He grabbed me, looked me over, and said, “Are you Harris Nicolescu?” His eyes bored into me so that I couldn’t think straight and told the truth. I had not had any time to prepare wards.

  “Yes.”

  The man nodded. “Got him.”

  I snapped out of it enough to put up some fight. I hissed a few spell words to break the lasso and then dove into the water to try and escape. The man dove in after me and I heard another man speaking spell words above me. I felt dark magic pressing in on me, making my limbs feel heavy.

  If you’ve practiced magic for any length of time, and seen some shit even a few times, you can just tell when you’re up against some dark, old, sinister force. I had that feeling now. I was in over my head with these guys, whoever they were.

  “We need to get him out of here,” the warlock said. “I can’t hide us from the locals much longer.”

  “I’m steering us out of here,” another voice said.

  I felt the guy who was in the water put his arm around me as the magic pressed hard on my head, and I must have passed out for a second. I woke up on the deck of their boat with four men looking at me. I scrambled to my feet even though it made my head spin. I sensed that we were back in the mundane world. These demons didn’t want to get caught by a town full of warlocks.

  But what did they want with me?

  “Am I being kidnapped for ransom?” I asked.

  “You really think highly of yourself. Just because you’re descended from kings and vampire hunters…” This man—the swimmer—definitely seemed like the leader. He had blond hair and green eyes, kind of nordic looking. When he spoke I could see his fangs. Other than that, they looked pretty human, although attractive.