Chapter 2 | Ravinica

Chapter 2

Ravinica

WE PASSED A FEW MEANDERING students en route to my little cavern lodging. As small as my dorm room aboveground at Nottdeen Quarter was, surrounded by other loud initiate women, I longed for what I now considered a mansion-sized bedroom. You never know what you have until it’s gone, I suppose.

There were no buildings under Vikingrune Academy, in the serpentine corridors and vast open caves that made up the network of the subterranean city. Students were given their own little hidey-holes carved into alcoves and nooks of the tunnels. The rooms were little larger than jail cells, because each person needed their own space, and there were hundreds of students here.

A hard cot, a tiny nightstand with a sconce and hooded candle above it. That was all we had. Not even a chair. Certainly no restroom—which were relegated to the disgusting spaces at the corners of the underground city, endearingly called shit-pits. A river that ran underground was our sorry excuse for a public bathhouse.

To say the individual dwellings for students were cramped was a massive understatement. I’d made it work though, in the three weeks I’d been smothered down here. Trying to find the silver lining in every situation, I felt that, in some ways, our tiny homes brought me even closer to my men. Because I was forced to.

The walls along the rough-hewn corridor were dark and damp, a constant trickle of rainwater and melted snow permeating through the porous rock and making us all a little insane.

I held Sven’s hand as we trudged through the hall, keeping him firmly close behind me. We had to squeeze off to the side to let other students pass during narrow parts of the passage. Every ten feet sat a flickering torch on the wall, creating small globes of murky orange light.

Luckily, I was not claustrophobic. My bestie Randi had complained to me about the stuffiness here in recent days. She couldn’t wait to be back on the surface, and the feeling was mutual.

I found it fascinating these tunnels existed—right under our noses—my entire time at Vikingrune. They’d been here for generations, and I wondered what kind of scandalous, sneaky operations people carried out using the tunnels as clandestine highways.

I had partaken in a few sneaky missions through the underground tunnels, back when I hadn’t known the scope of their size and had needed to get from point A to point B without being seen.

Sven and I made it to my dwelling in the southeastern wing, beneath Nottdeen Quarter. As we came to the small door of my dwelling, I tossed a coy look over my shoulder at Sven, smiling.

He grinned, his dark eyes smoldering beneath the ridge of his brow. I stepped into the room, hurrying, ready to rip his clothes off—

And felt resistance at my feet, for a split second. A snap echoed off the walls. Bewildered in the doorway, my pulse spiked—

As a shower of sticky warmth drenched me from above, stinking of copper and sickness.

I yelped in shock.

“Ravinica!” Sven bellowed. He yanked me out of the doorway to take my place, in case danger waited inside. Shielding my body with his, Sven’s head twisted left and right, taking in the small eight-foot length of my dwelling.

My heart thundered. It quickly subsided as I cleared my eyes and face of stickiness, making a grossed-out face. I stared down at my hands in the torchlight opposite my room.

Dark red slime coated my skin, blotting in the white fur at my shoulders, spilling down my tunic, between my breasts. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“It’s clear,” Sven said, facing me. He gawked when I showed him what coated my hands.

Blood.

I yelled in frustration and pushed my way into the room, past Sven. He reached up and found the culprit: a bucket at the top of my doorframe, attached with a half-assed system that overturned the bucket once I stepped through the wire-trap spread across the ground at the door.

At my bed, I spun around, bunching my bloody hands into fists. “That spineless, uncreative, cowardly fuckface !”

Sven’s brows shot up. He set the bucket down inside the door. “Huh?”

“It’s Damon. Has to be.”

“Your sniveling brother? Why?”

I wiped more of the muck off me. It would take hours to get out of my coat. My anger was replacing the lust I’d been feeling moments before. “To send a message, clearly.” I shook my head. “Now he has me looking like a wannabe Carrie -ass bitch, that cockwaffle.”

“I’m loving this creative string of expletives, little menace. Tell me how you really feel.”

When my eyes met Sven’s, I saw the mirth glinting in his, trying to hide his smug smile. My anger subsided at the torrid expression on his face. All I could do was sigh and try to step past him out into the hallway.

“I’m sorry, Sven,” I said, shaking my head in shame. “I’ll go clean up. I was really looking forward to extricating your balls from your stomach—”

He grabbed my arm firmly, squeezing my bicep as I passed him. My breath hitched and he spun me for a second time, smearing blood from my garb onto his hard body. Equalizing my messiness.

“You think I give a shit about this?” Sven breathed in my ear. He wiped red from my lips and cheeks with his thumb. He tilted his head and slanted his lips over mine, wrapping me in a smoldering kiss that shot my waning libido back to where it had begun.

Heat filled my bloodstream as our tongues danced. The whole time, he kept me firmly in place, hand at the back of my neck, fingers tangled in my hair.

“What did I say about finishing what you started, hmm?” he whispered in a voice that made goosebumps break out along my skin. “You think I’m going to let you get away that easy? From a little mishap like a blood-shower?”

I snorted, pressing my lips against his for another kiss, trying to vanquish my frustrations. It was easy to get lost in his firm touch, the feel of his body pressed against mine, his dark eyes and darker voice. “Sven . . .” I groaned. “A little . . . mishap? I’m covered .”

“I guess we’ll have to do something about that.”

Our eyes locked. He kicked the flimsy door of my dwelling closed, heating the small space with his presence. My core ached with need, my heart thrummed, my stomach flipped, wondering what he was going to do to me. Praying it was something wicked and hot, enough to take my mind off my immediate situation.

Sven didn’t disappoint. With one look at my body, he ripped my fur coat open at the middle. I gasped when he bared my breasts, unapologetic and commanding. My nipples pebbled from the mix of cold air and waves of heat coming from his body. The big outline of his cock strained against his pants when my gaze went south.

Slipping the coat off my body, he flung it behind him into a corner of the room. His eyes brightened as he drank in the softness of me, my tits round and heavy and prickling with goosebumps.

Sven crouched, leaning forward, and my mouth fell open. He grabbed my wrists, keeping them at my sides and holding me in place. Blood had smeared the tops of my cleavage and dripped between my breasts. The animal licked from my collar, snaking between my bosom, his tongue warm and erotic and everything I needed to steal my thoughts.

I became lost in touch and feel, my eyes closing. Sven wouldn’t let me move until he was done with me. With agonizing slowness, he licked the errant strands of red from my body, until he went onto his knees completely.

He clipped my belt off, opened my pants, shimmied them down my thighs. The paleness of my skin showed, small dimples at the soft corners of my wide hips.

His eyes fell on my pussy, the slightly raised mound he drank in like a starving man. With a deep inhale, he breathed in my scent like a wolf marking his territory. Like he had to inspect every inch of me to make sure no blood got where it shouldn’t belong.

I knew his tricks, his plan. Yet I couldn’t move or make a sound. I couldn’t hide the slow roll of a groan off my tongue when Sven stuffed his face between my legs, and brought that molten-hot tongue over my center.

He moved slower than I’d ever seen from the animalistic man, the bulge between his thighs growing by the second near the floor where he kneeled, becoming more painful-looking as the moments passed in agonizing delight.

I brought my wrists out of his hold. Put my hands in his dark hair, cherishing the man who kneeled at me like I was his queen. Tangling and losing myself as my head rolled back. “Oh gods, Sven. Loki fuck me , that feels perfect.”

His head popped up, dark eyes stabbing into me, lips glistening from my arousal. “Loki isn’t fucking you, little menace. I am.”