Her chest tightened. Was that the reason for the betrothal in the first place? To ensure the Provost was…well maintained? She stared at Mael, unable to speak, her words caught in a tight throat. Now she had to bear his touch with the knowledge of its true reason.
“This was why we were betrothed.”
It was a statement. Felix knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t deny it.
“Option three. To channel into me your ability to convert the earthmade into useable magic.”
“Why didn’t you do that in the cellar?”
He took a step towards her and Felix willed herself not to run. The ghostly shadow of his other form surged around him and she feared the blissful touch of his wings. “I need more than that.” He moved closer still and Felix’s heart thudded. His scent, something rich, earthy, like the air after a storm surrounded her. “Much more.”
Her breath caught. “Sex?”
Mael’s gaze flicked away. “We now have less than an hour. Or should I unward the cellar door and let us take our chances? Or rush out of the front door into yet more of them?” A dark eyebrow lifted. “Perhaps you’ll have the luck I did and survive to become…this.” His hand flicked over his corrupted form. “Your choice.”
“But the binding.” Gods, if they had sex, then the binding would be complete. They would be married. “If we…”
“Marriage to you is still my choice over death.”
Felix shut her eyes against his sneer. Slowly, she nodded.
Mael let out a long breath. “Good.”
She risked looking at him. His expression was stoic, neither pleased nor horrified at the prospect of…of bedding her. Her stomach twisted. She had to admit the truth to him before they went any further. “What you did…before. That’s the extent of my experience.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “Why are you a virgin?” The Provost-edge was back in his voice. “Every apprentice is made aware of the dangers.”
Were they? She hadn’t been, but then who would talk to her about sex? She was intended for him. And no one wanted to speculate on the Provost’s sex life. Even she didn’t go that far and it was always reckoned to be in her future.
“I entered the Institute and everyone was already aware of the rumour that I had a…connection to you. Only a fool would interfere with what was considered yours.
Mael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine.” His shoulders straightened. “Was that your first orgasm?”
Her face was beet red, the heat practically a furnace under her skin. Another thing she’d not planned on that day: a sexual history discussion with her soon-to-be husband. It was beyond mortifying. “Yes.”
He swore under his breath. With a stern face, he held out his hand. “The bedroom is upstairs. Unless you’d prefer your first time to be bent over the rickety kitchen table?”
“And after?”
“We attempt to escape.”
“I meant in the Institute.”
A dark and bitter smile tugged at his lips. “You’re assuming we survive the three demons in the cellar and the horde outside.” He huffed out a breath. “Look, time is not with us. I must bed you, Felicienne if we are to have any chance of survival.”
“Felix.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Not Felicienne.”
“Felix.” His deep voice wrapped around her name and it rippled an unexpected shiver down her spine. His hand took hers, warm and strong, and he pulled her towards him. “It’s time.”
He drew her through the maze of rooms to the low rise of stairs. The farmhouse was echoingly quiet, only the thrum of her blood-wards offered any sound as they pulsed against her nerve-tightened skin.
Mael pushed open a door, the hinges creaking. The room beyond was chilled, the fire in the little hearth long dead. The final light of the day pushed through the wide window and fell across a wrought-iron bed that dominated the space.
“How much amber do you have left?”
Felix closed her eyes, feeling the quick thud of her heart. She focused her magic inwards, strumming against the fragments she retained in her flesh. There. A single broken sliver of amber over her right shoulder.
Her magic wrapped around it, and she murmured the incantation. Energy rolled out and the susurration of the sheets, the pillowcases, duvet and pillows filled the quiet, warmed with the cleansing spell.
Felix grabbed the back of the chair set before an ancient dressing table. The hollow emptiness, the ache of the last of the amber leaving her flesh.
She startled as Mael shrugged out of his long coat. “Undress, Felix.”
Her fingers fumbled over the tight buttons of her shirt, her gaze never moving from Mael. His undressing was slow and measured, seemingly unconcerned that he was taking his clothes off in front of an apprentice, in front of his soon-to-be wife.
But then his life, before the devouring, had been normal. He was of the Eight Families, which brought with it strength and privilege. Until recently, Mael would’ve been denied nothing. That confidence showed in everything he did.
The magi weren’t shy. They all revelled in their bodies, in their deep connection to the physical. It was impossible not to, what with their magic and the fecund power of the earthmade coursing through their veins.
Felix pulled open another button and dragged her crumpled shirttails free from her breeks. That was what the others said, anyway. And she’d read such things. Her magic was weak. She had only just scraped into the Institute, though she did think her tie to Mael had a lot to do with her acceptance.
“Will it work? If we… As you said, my magic is negligible.”
“I need only the connection. This form denies it to me.”
She almost whispered an apology. Guilt still gripped her.
He hung his shirt around the back of a chair set beneath the window. Light gilded him, dropping the lean musculature of his torso into shadow. Felix’s stomach twisted as his finger worked at the fastening to his trousers.
He paused. “Have you seen a man naked before?”
“Not really.” Her hands stilled on her shirt. She wet her lips. It was pointless not to admit the complete truth. “No.”
“And you’re twenty-one.”
“It’s not my fault!” She bit back on her anger as too many other emotions roiled in her belly. “My mother is magus, but she was born and brought up in the Upper-World. I was caught between the two…and never fit with either. Then…” She waved her hand to him.
“The claim was made.”
He sat on the bed and unstrapped his solid boots. He glanced up to the window. “Fifty minutes.”
So little time. And so much. Felix kicked off her boots and rolled down her socks. The breeks joined her shirt on the dressing table chair and she stood before him in her underwear, not knowing what to do with her hands.
His gaze moved over her, blank, with no interest or judgement and his lack of reaction wasn’t…soothing. Not as she thought it would be. She was a virgin. She wanted the first man she slept with to at least show some desire for her.
“Get into bed.”
“Could you close the curtains?”
“I need the light.”
Pressing her lips together to deny her anxiety, Felix pulled back the duvet and cleansed sheet and climbed into the bed. The mattress creaked. She wriggled out of her underwear and shivered, willing warmth and calmness into her flesh. It was just sex. She almost laughed at herself for that lie. Sleeping with Zacharias Mael would, if they survived, change every part of her life.