Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance

In truth, she worried me a little. Bee had a reckless side to her that’d always put me on edge.

I have a huge crush on the new English Lit teacher here. I caught him staring at me today.

Jesus. I rubbed my brow, trying to decide how to respond, without sounding like our mom. Really, though, who the hell was I to judge?

Just be careful okay? No doing anything crazy that’ll get you kicked out.

I felt like a hypocrite typing those words.

No, I know. I won’t. But Lil, he’s so hot. I mean, smokin’ hot. All the girls in my dorm are going nuts over him. Wanna see a pic?

I groaned, shaking my head.

Sure. But Bee, seriously, just be careful, okay?

Yeah, I know. Okay, sending a pic now. It’s not the best–had to snap it quick during class.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity.

A picture popped up, of a guy standing in front of the class in a pair of dark jeans and a black shirt.

The air stalled in my chest.

I clicked to enlarge it and zoomed in on his face.

An exact replica of Devryck.

This is Mr. Caed. Isn’t he yummy?! He drives a fucking motorcycle to school, Lil. Think I’m going to ask him out for coffee tomorrow!

I breathed hard through my nose to calm the frantic thrumming of my heart.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

It was my mother, my refusal to accept her death, to accept what the world had taken from me, that had brought me to Dracadia in the first place. And it was there that I’d faced death head-on. So smitten, I fell in love with him–his abrasive heart and blood-stained hands. The dangerous and erudite professor, with fiery eyes and cold steel flesh. We hid away in shadows, stealing kisses under midnight stars. He taught me passion and courage, and to seize what I wanted by the teeth.

And in return, I taught him to feel again.

She was due to spend Christmas with me on the island. I’d sent her a train ticket, and itinerary of activities. Such as skating in Canterbury park, perusing the book shops in Emberwick, and of course, coffee at Dragon’s Lair. I also planned to introduce her to Devryck. Professionally, seeing as I hadn’t uttered a word of our relationship to her.

Mom’s old house was still being renovated and wouldn’t be ready for another couple of weeks, but come summer, the house would be fully updated with all the modern amenities. A home for me and Bee. A place we could come back to whenever we wanted, because it was ours.

After Devryck had submitted the results of the last variant, The Rooks were all too eager to offer me whatever I wanted to remain involved in the study.

Love was also a sickness. An incurable disease. The kind that crawled inside the muscles and bones, and persisted long after death.

“I love you. And I don’t think I can stop loving you.” I leaned forward to kiss him, but hesitated, uncertain if I’d confessed too much.

A firm hand gripped my nape, preventing my retreat. “I will never reject you, or turn you away.” Lips pressed to mine, he held my face so delicately in his hands, as if I were something too precious to grasp tightly. “I have lived a lifetime in death–a cold existence in an endless void. Never feeling. Never knowing the warmth of touch. Every unfulfilling breath a suffocating reminder of how hollow I’d become. It wasn’t until you came along and cast the first ray of light that I felt a pulse of life. A pull that I couldn’t resist.” He thumbed the seam of my pressed lips. “Don’t ever hesitate to touch me, Lilia. You’re the only one who can. It was you who dragged my heart from this insensate slumber. And it’s you for whom it beats now.” Sighing, he stroked his hand down my hair, brows pulled tight. “It’s a fucking wreckage, though. Scarred and caged by ravaged bones. But it belongs only to you.”

Passion burned across my lips with his kiss, and he unbuttoned my shirt, slowly peeling it down my arms to my elbows, where he gathered the fabric around my wrists at my back, holding me captive.

“You’re mine, Lilia.” Eyes on mine, he bent toward me, flicking his tongue over my stiffened nipples. “And I am yours.”

When he finally released his hold, I threaded my fingers through his hair, drawing a tight grip in my palm. “Mine,” I whispered.

“Do you feel that, Lilia?” He ground my hips against him, rooting himself so deeply it sprang tears to my eyes. We’d had sex countless times before, had fucked in nearly every position, but why, in that precise moment, didn’t it feel the same? Why, the second the question tumbled from his lips, did my heart pound in my chest, as if I’d anticipated his inquiry? As if I’d thought it at the same time.

As we sat wrapped around each other, breaths hastening with need and desperation, something clawed inside of me. It begged me to turn away from him. To push off and curse him. Twisting and writhing in my gut with a furious determination to break away. An unfamiliar intruder that hooked itself into my belly and climbed its way to my ribs.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Why does it feel different?”

He ran his thumb over my scar and pressed his lips to the jagged surface. “Tell me what feels different?”

I focused on the foreign pressure blooming in my chest. The way he held me. The freedom and security, and our heated bodies entwined together like two flames.

Soulmates.

It was his eyes. The way he was looking at me. The feelings he stirred inside of me with that obnoxious gleam of reverence.

No.

I pushed against his chest, but he held me closer, digging his fingers into my hips, refusing to let me go. His hands climbed beneath my shirt, to the column of my spine, where he pressed me against him.

The monster scratched at my ribs, punching at my bones for escape.

“Say it.”

“Just fuck me already,” I snapped, frustrated for reasons I couldn’t tell him.

“Is that all you want? A quick fuck? You know I can give you that, but I think there’s something inside of you that craves more.”

“I feel it, too,” he said, as if reading my mind. “It’s inside of me. Burning like a fever I can’t shake. It’s a spiteful, prideful anger that refuses to admit the truth.”

“What truth?” I asked, my voice shaky. Nervous.

“That I would kill for you without a beat of hesitation, or remorse. And yet, at the same time, I could be reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash without you. I’m weak for you, Lilia.”

Through an irritating blur of tears, I chewed on his words, savoring them. How strange that I felt so different. Stronger. More confident because of him.

As many times as I’d had to look at the scar Angelo had left, Devryck made me forget it was there. He somehow infused courage into my most discomposed moments, when the world felt more foe than friend. “Why do you have to make me cry?”

“Because I know there’s a truth inside you, too. One you refuse to admit, but I want you to say it. Say it to my face.”

“I can’t.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I shook my head, a swell of panic rising up into my throat and yearning to break free on an angry bellow.

Teeth clenched, he gripped my jaw. “What are you afraid of?”

“That the universe will hear it, too! And it’ll steal you away.” The wobble of tears broke, skating down my cheek. “I wanted to say it to you so badly that day at the ocean, when you were slipping away from me. I was screaming inside my head. Tell him! Tell him before it’s too late. But I couldn’t, because I knew if I did, you’d be gone forever. And now? Now it feels cursed. Like I’m carrying a cursed secret inside of me that I can never say aloud.”

His brows came together as he pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not going anywhere. You and I? This? There’s no escaping it. Doesn’t matter how fast you run, or how far you get, I will always be inside you just like this. In your bones and in your blood and in your head. It doesn’t matter what you tell the universe–what secrets you spill. Nothing can change what we are, what we’ve become.”

It was there, on the tip of my tongue, begging to be said, as I imbibed his confession like an addict. “I want to tell you. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, but my heart feels too hard. Too guarded. And in some ways, I’m glad, because the harder I am, the less I feel, and the less I feel, the less everything hurts.”

“I know that feeling well.” He brushed his thumb across my cheek. “You and I are the same, Lilia.”

Patroclus and Achilles had been etched into small gold plaques below each preserved moth. They’d passed two weeks prior, having completed their lifecycle. What had compelled him to keep them? The gesture was so wildly out of character for Devryck, yet adorable at the same time, that it brought a smile to my face.

A slight turn and I caught sight of something on one of the lab coats hanging on the nearby coat rack. Tipping my head, I squinted my eyes, catching the purple stitching just outside of the lapel. I tugged the arm of it, to find my name above the title, Associate Researcher. Smiling again, I ran my thumb over the stitched lettering that, as simple as it was, felt so official.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, I abandoned my examination and turned to face the door.

The moment he strode into the room, my heart kicked up like windswept leaves. The man looked like a walking thunderstorm ready to strike, as he rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt and glanced at his watch, the sight of him casting a burn in my thighs. “I have a board meeting in two hours. I need to kill some of this tension.” Having rounded the desk, he scooped me up into his arms, and our lips practically sizzled when he seized my mouth in a fiery kiss. A growling impatience rumbled in his throat as he set me down on the desktop.

“Why does the forbidden have to be so fucking sweet?” He dragged his tongue over the back of my thighs, lapping up every drop.

A ravenous greed throbbed in my belly, and I backed myself to his knuckles and circled my hips, desperate for more.

A tight grip of my throat lifted my chin, sealing off the air to my lungs as he held me steady. In and out, he pumped his fingers while squeezing my throat just enough that I could feel my pulse hammering against his palm. He withdrew his fingers on a wet sound and ran the pad of his thumb in small circles over my swollen and aching hole. “Do you need a proper fucking, Miss Vespertine?”

“Yes, Professor,” I breathed, my pussy clenching with his relentless teasing.

Devryck had told me that he’d wait until I was ready, and while he’d remained affectionate, even more so than before, he’d never gotten sexual–not even as I’d slept beside him. Not even the one time I’d broken down while showering, and he’d held my naked body against him. I hadn’t realized how much I’d yearned for that, how much I’d needed that level of closeness without actual sex.

In the weeks that’d followed, my wound healed, the bruises faded, and I no longer heard Angelo’s whispers. My desire for Devryck intensified, a hungry beast that twisted and curled with its appetence, until he’d finally caved. What followed was a craving for the man like I’d never felt before. It’d peaked that first night, from sundown to sunrise, when he’d taken me against his desk, the chair, and every wall of his office. We’d eaten, showered, and fucked away every horrible thought still lingering in my head.

I’d come alive, resurrected.

I’d felt beautiful, desired, whole again.