Shadowborn Academy_ Year One (Dark Fae Academy #1) - G. Bailey Page 0,38

my eyes. Pitch is resting against the other side of the pool, his long arm stretched across the edge of the tub while droplets of water race down his olive skin.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I explain to him. “But you are my shadow, and I have no idea if you’re real or not. You tell me nothing about you that could ever make me feel like you’re real.”

“You want to know something real?” he questions, tilting his head to the side. Goddess, he’s handsome. Almost too perfect. The kind of perfect that makes any girl forget all reason and do stupid things like fall in love with a shadow.

“Yes,” I answer, my mouth feeling dry all of a sudden.

“I would do anything for you,” he promises. “Anything.”

“That’s not what I meant, Pitch. I want to know things like where you are from? Are you all fae or are you part human? Are you a creature or a demon? I want to know the truth about you because the older I get, the more conflicted I am about what we are to each other, and it all feels wrong somehow.”

“This feels wrong, Corvina?” He crawls over to me, placing his hands on the tub at either sides of my shoulders. Droplets of water slide down his chest, urging me to lick them off him.

But licking him would be a bad thing right now.

Right?

“Being with you doesn’t, but not knowing you does,” I answer as he leans down into me. His lips trace softly against mine, not applying much pressure but making my body shudder and ache for him all the same.

“Then just be with me.” His breath fans down my cheeks, his lips just centimeters away from my own. “Let’s not question anything more about each other.”

“I question everything, Pitch,” I whisper back.

“I know. It’s one of the reasons why I’m addicted to you.”

And then he’s pulling me into him, and he’s kissing me hard, his soft lips gentle and powerful at the same time. His wet body towers over my own as I lock my arms around his neck and climb into his lap. He grabs my legs and wraps them around his waist, deepening our kiss until I’m just putty in his arms.

My shadow always feels so real to me and yet so distant. It’s the most beautiful torture in the world—a pain I could never be without.

I moan as his hard cock presses into my thigh, and I so wish he would move a few inches over to press into my core. The second I slowly slide my hand down his chest, he stops me, just like he always does. Before it becomes more than kissing, Pitch releases me and sinks back into the water.

“Why do you never let us go any further?” I question, my heart racing just from his kiss.

“Because when I’m inside you for the first time, Corvina, I will be real.”

I’m no saint and I’ve done things I am not proud of.

Things that are unerasable.

Things that make me every bit the Dark Fae I truly am deep down.

I can hide in shadows, but I can’t hide from my past or what I did to Corvina the night I led her into the wishing well.

I was a foolish and naive young faeling, misled by a cruel mentor who sought vengeance for his queen, and I thought that by taking Corvina’s powers before she even discovered them, my future would be safe.

My mentor claimed it was a noble act of bravery.

I would be written into the Book of Heroes.

Take her to the wishing well and our kingdom will be saved by your hand alone.

Yet when I saw her dying in that well, I couldn’t just stand there and watch.

So I jumped in after her and we both died that night. We both lost parts of us that are irreplaceable. But it was a sacrifice that means nothing to me now.

All I cared about was saving her.

She’s now an extension of myself and I know her better than anyone. I also know that she’s growing tired of my stubbornness. I grin as she drags me out of the water and gives me that obstinate pout of hers. Of course she wouldn’t let me go just like that. I’ve spent too many years avoiding having this discussion with her, not because I want to, but because the answers she seeks will endanger her life.

No matter how deeply I want to tell her the truth, I cannot