In the eight seasons since she’d been at Somnus Keep, this was the first time Noa had been to this part of the manse. She’d followed the winding stone corridors and descended the curved stone stairways, and now she stood in front of a massive wooden door carved with all manner of designs. She’d stood before this door many times in her dreams, but the reality of it now made her heart thump fiercely in her chest.

Behind the door were the private chambers of Riordan de Cimmerian, Instructor Primus of Magical Theory and Practice. He was the most powerful magicreator in the realm. And her ahavatara. Her first lover.

She hesitated before knocking, though she’d planned this night for weeks. The time of her first flow had come and gone, and seven days had passed since the white cloth she pressed between her legs came back unstained. She’d had to wait much longer than other young women, most of whom earned the right to practice their magic by the age of ten and six. Noa was five seasons beyond that. The time had come to lose her virginity. After tonight, she’d not only be a woman, she’d be a full magicreator.

Still, though this moment had haunted her dreams for nearly five seasons, she almost turned around without knocking. She could make another choice…find another man. She’d had many offers, for she was already an accomplished user of the low magic. The loss of her maidenhead would allow her to access the high magic, and the man who broke that barrier, her ahavatara, would gain some of the power for himself.

Before she could leave, the door swung open on silent hinges. Noa took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. The door swung shut behind her. She heard the click of a lock, engaged by invisible hands. Despite herself, she jumped.

“Are you afraid of me?”

The voice, like smoke, curled out of the dimness toward her. Noa shut her eyes against its touch on her cheek, her throat, and the twin mounds of her breasts rising beneath the cloak. When she opened them, she saw him in his chair across the room.

“No, sir.”

His next words were spoken in a voice so cold it made an instant liar out of her. “Perhaps you should be.”

Noa took a step toward him and passed through the haze in the air. She murmured a clearing spell under her breath, and the dust motes hanging in the candle’s flickering glow moved aside to clear her view of him. He sat in his high backed chair, a sardonic smile on the mouth she’d tasted so many times in her dreams.

“Sir.” Noa bowed her head. “If you would have me fear you, I will.”

A low, rumbling chuckle curled through the air toward her. “Are those the games you’d like to play, then?”

Without her even knowing he’d moved, he was next to her. Riordan lifted her chin until she looked up into the depths of his black eyes. His finger stroked the line of her jaw. Noa’s knees shook, but she forced herself to stand firm.
With the quickness of a snake, Riordan’s hands tangled in the lengths of her upswept hair. The fullness of it tumbled from its pins to cascade down her back and over her shoulders. Vanity swelled in her for a moment at how the sight of it made him run his tongue across his lips.

Then she gasped in pain, because he’d tightened his grip in the handful of hair at the base of her neck. He pulled her head back until she stared up at him. Noa felt her knees give way, and he pushed her to the stone floor in front of him without letting go of her hair.

“Should I make you kneel before me?” he asked as calmly as though he offered her a cup of wine. “Take out my cock and have you suck it? Push you down on the floor, spread wide your legs and ram my length inside you until you scream as I burst the precious veil of your maidenhood?”

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she forced herself to say, “If it would please you to do so, sir.”

He let go of her so abruptly she fell to the stones. Her hands slid over their smooth contours. She waited for his next command. This, too, she had dreamed.

Riordan sighed. “By the teeth of Adon’ai, girl. Get to your feet. I prefer a little more expertise in those who seek my bed. Go back to your classroom to your giggling girl friends. Make eyes at some young swain who will woo you with flowers and parlor magic.”

Silently, her tears of pain turning to humiliation, she shook her head. She had chosen this man. She would have him.

“No? You defy me?”

Riordan stalked a few steps from her then turned to look back. Noa risked lifting her head to meet his leveled gaze.

“You’ve heard the tales, haven’t you?” he asked her.

She nodded and got to her feet. She stood before him, hands clasped in front of her as she’d been taught. She did not flinch when his gaze swept over her. “I don’t believe everything I hear.”

He ran a hand through the dark thickness of his shoulder-length hair. The strands glimmered purple, green and blue in the candlelight, a sign of his power. Sparks jumped from the tips of his fingers and lit the planes of his face.
“I don’t want to bed you, girl.”

Now Noa set her jaw stubbornly. “I am not a girl any longer. And I’ve come to claim what’s mine by right.”

He stared at her for so long she thought he might explode in anger. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but deadly. She’d heard it before, when a student failed at some simple task. It was the calm before the storm.

“You know the consequences, don’t you?”

She nodded. “But I will attain the high magic.”

“You could do that with lesser men than I.” Riordan slanted a sly smile across his full mouth. “Kinder men than I.”

She stepped toward him. “I want you.”