Defensive Magic-Chapter 35: To Hunger, To Want

WINTER TERM - January 26th (Continued)

I knocked on Aries's door only to find it already unlocked. Without meaning to, I'd pushed it open.

Aries was lying across his bed with a fantasy novel in hand and Whisper lying on his chest. He was absently rubbing the stupid hellhound's big head.

"You dirty traitor," I muttered.

Aries set his book down, cocked his head. It took him a moment to realize I was talking to Whisper, not him. But Whisper knew.

Whisper licked Aries's face before rising and hopping off the bed. He trotted over to me, tail wagging, red eyes bright and eager. As though he hadn't just been missing for four days.

I wasn't really mad. I pet him roughly. "I don't see you for days and you're just here. Right down the hall."

"My fault really," Aries said, still on his bed. He'd let his head fall back, golden hair flopping. "He's been sleeping here most nights. I kinda hoped you'd sent him."

For a second, I wished I'd had. "He's not even fully housebroken," I said instead.

Aries laughed. "I realized." He set his book down on the nightstand. Sat up slowly. "What are you doing here, Zeph?"

"You ever think maybe I missed you too?" It had sounded better in my head. I was going for sweepingly romantic. Because this was the part where he was meant to forgive me, kiss me, ask to be boyfriends again, and I'd begrudgingly say yes, of course. But on second thought, that's all pretty ridiculous.

"The last few days really sucked, Zeph," Aries said. He grabbed a pillow from behind him, hugged it to his chest. They'd sucked for me too, but whatever... It was easy to forget I was the one who'd asked for this. But it was there, still, in the hurt underpinning his expression.

"Turns out I'm miserable without you too." I stepped a little closer. He was still sitting on his bed - a mess of sheets and a box of animal crackers. I was stuck debating whether or not I was allowed to sit on the bed next to him and opted to stay standing.

He sighed. Looked down at the pillow in his arms.

"Aries." I knew I had to say more. "I'm sorry. I come with a lot of bullshit. I think you know that."

He worried his lower lip. I was shit at this.

"I'm trying. For real. For you. I'm sick of feeling like this. Of watching you like this. You want a boyfriend? Fine. But I'm done fucking it all up. We need to figure this out."

I heard him suck in air as though he'd been the one to get this off his chest instead of me. His eyes were wide, a little too wet. He nodded quickly. Yeah, alright.

I sat down on the bed next to him.

"It really hurt, you know," Aries said, just above a whisper. "You said you weren't breaking up with me, but I didn't know if you were ever going to come back. Made me wonder if there was something I'd done or maybe I'm just too much."

I dropped my hands. "It was never you. You've got to know that."

"I know what I look like," he said. "I'm used to not being anyone's first choice. Back home I'm second in line for the throne and not even anyone's second choice. I know I talk too much. I'm never the hot one in the room. I'm just the brother, the pest, the joke."

For a second, I reached for him. I didn't know yet if I was allowed to do that. Not long ago, he'd torn himself away. My hands stopped at the pillow in his arms, a soft wall between us.

"You keep saying you like me. Acting like we're something. I keep hoping- why did you leave me?"

"Aries..." I sighed. I found myself staring at the floor. One the loafers Whisper had chewed was sticking out from under his bed. I'd fucked up, because of course I had. Again. "I just get it all so screwed up in my head. I want you and it fucking terrifies me."

He sniffled. Something in him had cracked, but I had no idea what it was. And there he was again. Big brown eyes, still worrying his lip like he was going to make it bleed.

I went on, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was trying to keep from making things worse. But gods, Aries... I never know what I'm supposed to say to you. I don't deserve you. But then, you just keep pushing and pushing- you've got no idea how hard this is. Wanting you." I was searching for words, not the bullshit I'd heard from fights with Ianthe, but the real ones. I could lie and make it easy, but the truth was harder. More slippery. My mind was full of leeches.

"I feel like I've got no control over anything. Ever. Not my deal with Orendell. Not the fact that I've been disowned for having the wrong father. Fucking Ianthe. And especially, not the wolf who takes up so much space in my head I can hardly hear myself think."

I laughed, gulped, tried to catch my breath. "I'm a monster even on a good day. There's no reason you should want me."

He hugged his pillow a little tighter. "Why wouldn't I? You're hot. And smart. And weirdly funny. You're nice to me even when you don't have a reason to be... but you're also kinda nice to everyone."

"I wasn't fishing," I said. Though maybe I was, just a little. 

"You're a werewolf, Zeph. I grew up around werewolves. I'm not afraid of you."

And that was it, wasn't it? The problem right there. I was afraid of me. He just didn't know better yet.

I ran my hands up through my hair, breathed into the space between my arms.

"So, we're doing this?" Aries asked. His voice broke through the rising panic.

"You still want me, after all that?"

He leaned a little closer, head over the pillow. Eyes searching mine. "I never stopped."

My heart was in my throat. The wolf whimpered somewhere in my gut. I wanted to kiss him. I was going to. But we weren't done just yet.

"I wanna know what's gonna happen when you go back to Caburh," I said.

Aries laughed, more exasperated than anything. "I think that's the least of our worries. I don't know if I'm ever going back," he said.

I shook my head. "Bullshit. You're a prince in Fel. Your whole family is there. Of course, you'll go back."

"I'm hiding here for a reason, okay?" he said. "A werewolf's supposed to kill me one day. I won't survive shifting, but it's more than that. Seers don't just know these things about just anyone. They know it because it always happens. It's supposed to happen to me. At some point. Probably. Eventually. I'm not going back to Caburh. I'd never make you go there."

We were going to have to come back to that later. I'd gotten bits and pieces of why he was here, but for someone who never shut up, he really went out of his way not to talk about any of that.

Aries had already moved onto the next thing. "If we're talking about this, I really don't want to have to share you with anyone else."

"Obviously," I said. I knew him. He wanted monogamy and I could do that. "Trust me when I say I've got my hands full with just you."

Aries smacked me with his pillow. "I'm serious, Zeph."

"So am I."

I really wanted to kiss him. His pillow smelled like soot. Whisper's fault, I'm sure.

I was laughing. How did we even get here? The pillow fell to the floor and Whisper, who'd been nowhere again, suddenly emerged from under the bed to pull it away with his teeth.

Aries shifted a little closer on the bed.

"I'll get you a new pillow," I said.

"Don't bother. He'll get that one too. He's not leaving either. He's partially you, isn't he?" Pillow gone, he was still leaning forward. Eyes on my mouth.

"I haven't a clue," I said. I think we were only half paying attention to what we were saying. I wanted to taste him again. I almost could. Animal crackers and hope.

"So, it's alright if I tell my mom about you? That I have a boyfriend?"

It felt like a trick question. We were already breathing the same air. "You can tell her whatever you want. I'm sure she'll love hearing that her son's fallen in with a bastard son of a witch from a vampire court."

He kissed me, a sudden force. Our heads knocked, jaws clashing. Urgent, a little clumsy. "I'll tell her anyway," he said. He shoved me backwards onto the bed.

My shoulders bounced on the mattress. My horns caught in the sheets. I smirked up at him, unsure I'd ever seen him so starved. To think, we almost didn't get this. 

He swung a leg over me, straddling my waist. He was hovering, hands roving over my sweater as though he was more interested in keeping there, beneath him. It was too much fabric, I wanted it off. As I arched my back, he caught my lips again.

His teeth teased my lower lip like he was hungry for it.

Our eyes met. A flicker of heat falling into rising panic. "Was that-"

"Shut up." I didn't give him time to ask. Not to think. I grabbed onto the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss. No more words. I'd gotten a flash of his hunger. I wanted the rest of it. His tongue, his teeth, his hands, all the little noises he made when he forgot to be embarrassed. I'd gotten used to touching him this way, but had he ever touched me like this? Had anyone?

His hips jerked– a false start. He whined into my shoulder. Too many layers. The first instant I could pull back, I did, if only to unfasten his belt. His dick strained the fabric. It wasn't enough. I tugged his pants by the belt loops until they caught under his ass. He was panting into my neck. Flustered. What little skin was showing was flushed and only growing warmer.

"Clothes off," I hissed.

The idiot who never stopped talking was stunned into silence– just this once. I'd savor it. Aries slid off the bed. His pants were stuck around his thighs. Stumbling a little, he tried to kick them off. I was faster. I pulled off my sweater, threw off my slacks. If anything, the wolf had made me good at stripping down quickly.

I could quickly stroke myself to the image of his bobbing dick poking through his shirt tails. He struggled with the buttons. "Fuck it," he muttered, frenzy starting in as his shirt got stuck on his head.

A button snapped and flew. It was going to be lost forever on his floor with all the other things there. He shucked the shirt off- panting, breathless, but never flagging.

Fucking finally. 

He dropped back down onto the bed. It suddenly didn't matter to me that there were animal crackers spilled in the bed. Or that the blue-eyed cage fighter was looking on. I'd never wanted him more.

His hands traced down my stomach, inching lower. His lips followed next, the burn of his stubble setting my skin ablaze. My breath caught. Teeth grazing just below my hip. The thought of him biting me there made me gasp. I'd wear marks from him in a heartbeat.

"Fuck me tonight," I said. "I want it."

He froze. Blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Aries scrambled for the lube in the nightstand. The whole drawer jostled. He nearly grabbed the wrong bottle. But he could listen, and he was. Thank gods.

Too slick fingers pressed between my thighs. Tentative. Slow. I growled.

"Stop being delicate," I said. As though I didn't still have bruises from elbows and hard shoves. He hit and I hit back. But he was used to that kind of touch. This was still new.

I let him take me, on my back, enough eye contact to make me squirm. When he finally eased into me, he kissed me like his whole stupid fragile heart was in it.

It probably was.