Chapter 26 Arya

I'd half expected to see Ashlyn hanging around when I returned to the avian common room, and I was both sad and relieved to see that she wasn't. I hated unresolved issues, especially with a good friend, and I knew that she probably needed to talk about her encounter with Niko and how it had made her feel.

But after the very long day I'd had, I didn't have the emotional stamina to be supportive, and it was probably better to give her time to process her emotions before discussing them.

Besides, Tobias was expecting me, and on top of wanting to enjoy the perks of our new relationship status, I also had some questions.

His door opened just as I lifted my hand to knock, his eyes blazing with familiar heat as he took me in.

I blinked away my surprise and lowered my hand with uncertainty. "Oh, are you going somewhere?"

He shook his head slightly, biting his delectable bottom lip before saying, "No. I just sensed you coming. "

My heart fluttered at the intensity he was giving off, and his eyes widened for a split second before a playful look came across his face.

"Didn't you know I was psychic?"

I snickered and teased, "I thought that was just a mer thing."

He rolled his eyes but stepped aside to let me in. I'd been in here before, but then I'd been too blinded by desire to notice how tidy his room was. The place looked barely lived in. There wasn't a single sock or pair of boxers on the floor, and the bed was made. I didn't even make my bed.

But somehow, this didn't surprise me. Everything in Tobias's life was controlled and calculated. Everything but his interactions with me, and there was something satisfying about that.

He closed the door and came toward me, placing warm hands on my hips and pulling me against him. I draped my wrists over his shoulders, clasping my hands at the base of his neck.

"So, how did the big demonstration go?" he purred, the husky timber of his voice making my core clench.

"I would say it was solidly mediocre," I said.

His resulting chuckle vibrated through me from our multiple points of contact. "And…did you…"

"No, I pretended to fail at my siren voice," I answered his unfinished question. "Poor Niko was terrified."

His eyes narrowed and began to smolder for a different reason. "My father asked you to use it on Niko?" His fingers pressed into my hips as they curled with his anger.

"It's okay," I reassured him, smoothing my hands against his neck and letting my fingers coil into the base of his hair. "Even if I had gone along with it, I wouldn't have made Niko do anything bad. I don't like the idea of making anyone do something they don't want to."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and I could see the struggle to calm himself on his tense features. His expression smoothed out, and he opened his eyes, looking down at me with a twinkle of mischief.

"What about making someone do something they do want to do?" he asked in a low tone.

My pulse spiked with a thrill that my conscious mind didn't yet understand. "What are you implying?"

One corner of his lips tilted in a sexy, devious smirk. "I simply thought you might want to have the Dragon Prince at your mercy."

My breath hitched as my chest quivered with dark exhilaration. "Are you saying you want me to use my siren voice on you?" I barely managed to speak the words audibly.

He inclined his head toward me, coming just close enough to brush his nose against mine. "I promise I want to do more than you can imagine." Then he kissed me so softly, so teasingly, that I feared I was going to explode on the spot.

When he pulled his lips away, I was so lightheaded I could barely breathe for a moment.

"You trust me enough to give me that control?" I asked in a whisper.

He looked into my eyes, a strange devotion peering out beneath the dark promise within them. "I do. Just don't make me run naked through the school or anything." He chuckled.

"Well, now that you've put the idea in my head…" I teased, looking away in mock consideration .

He breathed a laugh, his breath hot on my face, his eyes never breaking from mine. "Tell me what you want me to do to you."

A thrilling need shot through me, turning my insides into a bedlam of writhing desire. I was both enthralled and hesitant. I had never once considered using my siren voice in this way, and it made me feel just as naughty as it did powerful. Could I really do this?

I stepped back away from him, nearly stumbling into his bed before shakily perching on the edge of it. I looked up at him, unsure where to start or how to begin.

"Take your shirt off," I said.

He arched a brow at me. "Come on, baby. Hit me with the real thing."

I pulled my lips between my teeth at the sexy tone in his voice. He was serious, and nothing had ever excited me more.

So I drew on that well of willpower within me and said in that melodious, alien voice, "Take your shirt off."

He smirked even as the power of my siren dilated his pupils, and he tucked his fingers under the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head.

After raking my eyes over the delicious sinews of his exposed, bronzed abs and chest, I glanced at his face to gauge his reaction. He didn't look appalled or manipulated. No, he looked just as full of anticipation and desire as I was.

"Now what?" he murmured, and my eyelids fluttered with the heady thrill of this little game.

"Take off the rest of your clothes," I commanded.

Slowly, he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, then let them fall to his ankles, stepping out of them like a Greek god, maintaining eye contact with every movement. His large cock was hard and ready, and for a long moment I just stared at it, debating just what I wanted him to do with it.

Suddenly, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

"Stand there and watch as I strip," I said in my singsong voice, then proceeded to remove every item of clothing with seductive slowness.

He did as I ordered, and I could feel his eyes burning into my breasts, then my belly, then my hips, and finally the apex of my thighs. I reclined back on the bed, bracing myself on my elbows as I spread my legs wide.

His eyes widened, and his nostrils flared, his facial muscles straining with hunger and an unknown effort.

"Arya," he pleaded behind clenched teeth, and I grinned at his frustration.

"I want to watch you stroke your cock for me," I said in my normal voice. "And you can't touch me until I tell you."

"Arya," he gritted out, the muscles of his legs jerking as he fought my siren command.

I giggled, then gave the order with my siren voice. "Stroke your cock while I watch."

His arm lifted from his side, his large hand gripping around the base of his shaft and slowly sliding up and down. His eyes rolled back up into his head as a moan escaped his lips.

The sight of him jerking off for me was more provocative than I expected, making my exposed pussy throb with unbearable need. And I had no intention of leaving the ache untreated. I was going to give him a show the same way he was for me.

Laying all the way back on the bed, I reached up one hand to fondle my breast and moved the other between my open legs. He groaned as I slid two fingers up and down my slick center, his deep, agonized timber amplifying the sensation of the pressure against my aching clit.

I watched him stroke himself more forcefully with my bottom lip sucked between my teeth as I rubbed myself harder, chasing the need he was building within me. It excited me beyond rational thought to watch him touch himself for me and to see how badly he wanted to be the one touching me.

When I couldn't stand it anymore, I plunged my fingers inside my opening, swooning at the combined pleasure of watching him and fucking myself.

"Fuck, Arya!" he grunted, unable to stop fisting his cock up and down.

I pushed my fingers in and out of my pussy, spreading my legs even wider for him to see how wet he was making me.

"Stroke yourself faster," I commanded, fingering myself faster and harder.

"Oh, God," he hissed between clenched teeth as he helplessly obeyed.

The sight of him submitting to me was too powerfully intoxicating, and my agile fingers had me coming with such sudden force that I cried out, gripping my breast as my body shuddered with ecstacy.

"Arya, please!" he begged, straining against his own building pleasure.

"Come for me, Tobias," I pleaded, my willpower too subdued for me to access my siren voice.

But my words alone were enough to push him over the edge. Cum shot out of his bulging tip onto the floor, and he panted in reluctant bliss as more spilled down his hand that continued to stroke him .

Only when his dick stopped throbbing did I free him from my compulsion.

"You can stop now," I said in my siren voice, and he doubled over, gripping the edge of his nightstand as he continued to pant.

"That—was—uncalled for," he said between breaths, scowling down at me.

I grinned impishly up at him. "Consider it payback for all the times you were an asshole."

Laughing and shaking his head, he bent to snatch his boxers off the floor and used them to clean himself.

I scooted to one side of the bed, and when he finished, he came to lie beside me.

"You are full of surprises, you know that," he said, propping up on one elbow to face me.

"Ready for round two?" I asked, half joking, half serious. As much as I greatly enjoyed watching him cum for me, I really wanted him inside me.

He barked a laugh. "That depends. Are you going to let me touch you?"

"We'll see," I said, flaring my brows at him.

"If I didn't need time to recover, I'd just take you right now," he purred, then gripped the side of my face with his free hand and crushed his lips against mine.

I opened my mouth, surrendering to the control of his lips and tongue.

Judging by the way his dick was pressing into my thigh, he wouldn't need much time at all .

I pulled back. "Before we keep going, I wanted to ask you something."

He lowered his hand from my face and began tracing it lightly up and down my arm that rested between us. "What?"

"Why did you ask me not to show your dad my siren voice?"

His brow furrowed, but he didn't stop caressing me, and his touch sent goosebumps rising over the surface of my skin. "If he knew you had mastered that power—the most powerful weapon against Hadrian—he would have taken you from the school right then and there."

He didn't meet my gaze as he spoke, just looked down at his hand as it ran up and down my arm. His face was conflicted, wrought with so much emotion that I didn't know how I felt about what he said.

"And you don't want him to take me away?" I asked, trying to decipher the reason for his expression.

He nodded, then seemed to realize something and stopped. "It's not just that." He did meet my eyes then. "You don't know my father. He's a cold and brutal man. He only sees you as a weapon, a tool to wield against his enemies. If he has you under his control, he will twist and manipulate you into exactly what he wants. He will break you. I don't want that to happen to you."

I took a moment to process his words. He really was a complex man. He'd been beaten into a soldier by his father all his life, and he cared enough about me to want to protect me from the same fate. Hell, I wanted to protect myself from that, too.

"Thank you for looking out for me," I said finally.

He lifted his hand to caress my cheek with the backs of his knuckles. "Don't you remember? I vowed to keep you safe. "

I smiled, then tucked myself in against his chest.

I believed that he wanted to protect me. He'd already almost died trying. But the truth was that no one could save me from my own fate. It was already foreseen a long time ago. I just hoped we both lived through it when it finally came.