Chapter 214: Felix Has a Key

Emily stepped past Arthur’s chair and turned the brass key in the dormitory door lock.

She walked straight back to him, straddling his thighs and sinking down onto his lap before he could stand up. Her hands caught the open collar of his shirt, pulling his mouth back to hers.

Arthur’s right hand slid under the hem of her linen blouse, his palm warm against the skin of her waist as she kissed him. Emily made a low, approving sound in her throat, her knees squeezing his hips while her fingers worked the top two buttons of his shirt loose.

Out in the third-floor corridor, a pair of heavy boots thudded past the doorframe, accompanied by the rattle of a sword belt as one of the second-year vanguards headed toward the stairs.

Emily paused, breaking the kiss by an inch. She glanced toward the door, then over Arthur’s shoulder at the neatly made mattress on the other side of the room.

"Felix has a key," Emily said.

Arthur glanced toward the other bed. "He’s probably at the library."

"Probably?" Emily looked down at him. "If your roommate unlocks that door while my breeches are around my ankles, I’m throwing your desk at his head."

"He’d block it," Arthur said.

"Not without his shield, he wouldn’t. Get up." Emily climbed off his lap and snatched her burgundy riding jacket from the foot of the bed. "My room."

Arthur stood up and reached for the three keys sitting on the desk blotter. He folded the linen cloth over the notched shrine bar, Kaelen’s metal plate, and the Black Prayer Bead, dropped the bundle into the bottom drawer, and locked it. He tugged the wooden handle twice to make sure the latch had caught.

Emily caught the back of his belt and pulled him toward the door. "The rocks aren’t going to grow legs between now and breakfast, Vance. Move."

The walk across the dusk-lit quadrangle to the women’s dormitory annex took four minutes, mostly because Emily kept pace like she was marching into a sparring ring.

Inside her second-floor room, a pair of leather striking gauntlets sat on the dresser beside an empty teacup, and a spare training tunic hung over the back of her reading chair. The narrow window was cracked open an inch against the cool Saturday evening air.

Emily kicked the door shut behind them, turned her interior privacy latch, and dropped her riding coat onto the chair.

Arthur unbuckled his belt pouch and tossed it onto her desk, still grinning as he flexed his right hand. "All three pieces. Do you have any idea how rare a clean Assassin extension is—"

Emily kicked off her boots, walked over, and grabbed the front of his half-unbuttoned shirt with both hands, shoving him backward until the backs of his knees hit the edge of her mattress.

"If you say one more word about old rocks or class runes tonight, I’m locking you in the hallway," Emily told him.

Arthur laughed, sitting back on the edge of the bed as she climbed onto the mattress between his knees. "Jealous of a piece of stone?"

"I spent hours squinting at old catalogues and dragged you halfway across the city for that thing," Emily said, tugging his shirt up over his shoulders.

The cuff caught briefly on the leather bracer strapped to his left forearm. Emily pulled the sleeve free, tossed the shirt onto the floorboards, and grabbed his wrists to push him flat onto his back. Her right hand closed directly over the stiff leather guard on his left arm.

She caught herself immediately, shifting her grip to his shoulder instead as she pinned him against the sheets.

"Careful with the merchandise," Arthur said, reaching up with his right hand to flick open the buttons down the front of her blouse. "I still need that arm next weekend."

"I only need one hand to pin you down anyway," Emily said, shrugging out of the linen shirt and letting it fall behind her.

She hadn’t worn a bra under the tailored riding coat. Her bare breasts caught the warm lamplight right above him, her skin cool from the evening air as he slid his palm up her ribs to cup the heavy weight of her chest.

"Is that a challenge?" Arthur asked, his thumb brushing over her nipple until her breath hitched.

"Try me, cripple."

Arthur hooked his right arm securely around her waist, planted his heels in the mattress, and rolled them both over in one fast twist. Emily landed on her back in the center of the sheets with a surprised laugh, her legs coming up automatically to wrap around his hips while Arthur propped himself on his right elbow, resting his braced left forearm loosely on the pillow beside her head so the wrist took none of his weight.

"Show-off," Emily said, grabbing the hair at the back of his neck and pulling his mouth down to hers.

The kiss turned hot and messy immediately. Emily parted her lips, her tongue sliding against his while her heels dug into the small of his back. Arthur broke away just long enough to trail his mouth down her throat and catch her left breast, sucking hard on the nipple until she arched up against him.

"Ahh—" Emily’s fingers tightened in his hair. With her other hand, she reached down between them, fumbling impatiently with the brass buckle of her riding breeches. "Help me with this."

Arthur slid his right hand down her stomach, skimming lightly past the faded yellow bruise on her lower ribs, and popped the buckle open. They shoved the dark fabric and her panties down her thighs together until she could kick them off the end of the bed.

When Arthur slid his hand back between her legs, she was already soaking wet.

"Thought you were tired from reading all day," Arthur murmured against her throat, rubbing his thumb firmly over her swollen clit before sliding two fingers deep inside her pussy.

"Shut up and take your pants off," Emily panted, her hips jerking upward against his palm. She shoved at his shoulder, rolling him onto his side so she could yank at his waistband with both hands. "If you’re trying to prove you only need one arm, hurry up."

Arthur laughed against her mouth, kicking out of his trousers and briefs once she got them past his hips. Before he could roll back on top of her, Emily hooked her knee over his thigh and tried to push him onto his back instead.

"Not happening," Arthur muttered, catching her hip with his right hand and shoving her flat into the pillows again.

Emily grinned up at him, breathless and flushed, spreading her thighs wide to cradle his hips. "Come on, then."

Arthur braced his right forearm on the mattress beside her shoulder, lined the thick head of his cock up with her dripping slit, and drove forward, burying his entire length inside her in one deep stroke.

"Fuuuck—" Emily’s head tipped back into the pillow, a ragged moan tearing from her throat as her tight walls stretched around him.

Arthur groaned against the side of her neck, her hot, wet pussy gripping his dick so tightly he had to pause for a second just to keep his control. Then he hooked his right hand under the back of her knee, hitching her leg higher up his side, and started moving.

Slap. Slap. Slap.

The wet sound of skin hitting skin filled the room, the wooden bedframe creaking sharply against the floorboards with every heavy thrust. Emily met him stroke for stroke, lifting her hips off the sheets to take him deeper, her nails digging hard into the muscle of his right back.

"Harder," Emily gasped against his ear, her other hand gripping the sheets beside the pillow. "You’re holding back because of the arm."

"The arm’s fine," Arthur grunted. He shifted his weight onto his right knee, using his grip under her thigh to fold her leg back toward her chest, opening her up completely.

He drove his hips down at a steeper, brutal angle.

SMACK. Slap. SMACK.

"Ahh! Fuck—Arthur, right there!" Emily’s voice cracked as the head of his cock hit the deepest part of her pussy. Her breasts bounced with the force of the thrusts, a slick sheen of sweat catching the lamplight across her collarbone and stomach.

She tried to say something else, and it dissolved into a sharp cry when Arthur dropped his mouth back to her chest and shifted his right hand between their bodies, pressing his thumb hard against her clit. He rubbed her in fast, slick circles without slowing the rhythm of his hips.

Emily’s breath broke into frantic gasps. She wrapped both arms tight around his neck, hauling his chest flush against hers and burying her face against his shoulder as her climax tore through her.

"Nnngh—fuck, Arthur!" Her body went rigid beneath him, her heel locking hard against the back of his thigh as her pussy clamped down around his cock, milking his shaft with hot, ruthless spasms.

Arthur cursed against her neck. The tight, pulsing squeeze around his dick pulled him straight over the edge. He buried himself to the hilt and came hard inside her with a low groan, his hips jerking against her thighs until he was completely spent.

He stayed buried inside her for a long moment, his chest heaving against hers, before rolling onto his back beside her and pulling her against his right side.

Emily threw a damp leg over his thighs, resting her forehead against his collarbone while she caught her breath.

After a minute, she lifted her head and poked the thick leather guard on his left arm. "You left this on."

"You didn’t give me thirty seconds to unbuckle it," Arthur said, his right hand resting lazily on her bare hip.

"It was scratching my shoulder." Emily reached across his chest, unfastened the two brass buckles herself, and slid the bracer off his arm before dropping it onto the nightstand with a clatter. Then she hooked the corner of the wool blanket with her foot, dragged it up over both of them, and took three-quarters of the fabric for herself.

"You took the whole blanket," Arthur pointed out.

"My room, my blanket," Emily mumbled against his chest, her eyes already closing.

When Arthur opened his eyes on Sunday morning, pale sunlight was filtering through the curtains, and the room smelled strongly of fried bacon.

He propped himself up on his right elbow.

Emily was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the mattress, wearing his linen shirt from yesterday and a pair of gray cotton training shorts. She had a paper napkin spread across her lap and was halfway through eating a thick bacon roll from the dining hall.

"You went to breakfast without me?" Arthur asked, rubbing his eyes.

"You were dead to the world with your arm hanging off the bed," Emily said, picking up a second paper-wrapped parcel from the blanket and tossing it onto his stomach. "And if I let you sleep until noon, you’ll spend all afternoon complaining that the kitchen ran out of sausages."

Arthur sat up against the headboard, unwrapped the warm bread, and took a bite. While he chewed, he raised his bare left arm and rotated his wrist in a slow circle. Without the heavy bracer holding it rigid, the joint felt loose and surprisingly steady. A hard twist still pulled slightly along the back of his thumb, but the deep ache from earlier in the week had faded.

Emily licked a spot of grease off her thumb, watching him test the hand. "Better?"

"A lot better," Arthur said. "A few more days and I’ll be able to draw Whisperwind without Chloe glaring at me."

"We should tell Chloe and Felix today," Emily said, reaching for a mug of tea on the nightstand.

"Yeah. I’ll get them together after lunch."

Emily took a sip of her tea and looked at him over the rim. "Tell them what’s actually in there this time, Arthur. No vague stories about checking out an old road."

Arthur swallowed his bite of bread and nodded. "I was already planning to."

"Good," Emily said, setting the mug down and crawling up the mattress to steal the last piece of bacon right out of the side of his roll.

After lunch, Felix was sitting at his desk with an oil rag in his hand, wiping down the steel boss of his spare gauntlet. Chloe sat on the edge of Arthur’s bed with her legs tucked under her skirt, while Emily leaned against the windowsill.

Arthur unlocked his bottom desk drawer, lifted out the linen bundle, and set it on the corner of Felix’s desk. He folded the cloth back.

The notched bar from Saint Orlan’s, Kaelen’s jagged metal plate, and the seven-sided Black Prayer Bead sat together on the linen.

Felix set his rag down and picked up the jagged plate, turning it toward the window light. "That’s the piece of metal you took off Kaelen at the quarry."

"Yeah," Arthur said. "The bar came out of that wayside shrine north of the city. And Emily and I bought the black stone from an estate collector up by the cathedral yesterday."

Chloe leaned forward from the edge of the bed, looking at the tiny angular cuts etched into all three pieces. "That’s why you went after Kaelen."

"So that’s why you were so determined to go after Kaelen," Chloe said, looking at the metal plate. "You knew he had one of these."

"I needed what was in his pouch," Arthur admitted. "The three of them open a sealed ruin half a day north of here, up in the limestone bluffs past the river bend. The Tomb of the Veiled Knife."

Felix looked up from the metal plate. "Never heard of it. What’s inside?"

Arthur checked that the door was latched before answering. "An Extension Rune. Assassin class."

The dormitory room went quiet for a second.

Felix carefully set the metal plate back onto the cloth. Chloe stared up at Arthur, her hands tightening in her lap.

"You’re serious," Chloe said softly.

"How the hell do you know there’s a class extension sitting in a bluff half a day from Lornfell?" Felix asked, dropping his voice so it wouldn’t carry into the hallway.

"I found out about the Tomb a while back," Arthur said. "That’s why I started hunting the keys."

"From where?"

"An old source."

Felix stared at him.

"Yes, I know how that sounds," Arthur said. "But I’ve already tracked down all three keys across three different parts of the province, and the script matches on every single one. That should count for something."

"It counts for you being very good at finding trouble," Felix muttered.

"Does Sylvia know?" Chloe asked.

"No," Arthur said. "And I’m keeping it that way. If word gets out that there’s an unclaimed Extension Rune near the city, every guild in the district will be camping on that bluff by Tuesday. I want to go in next Saturday, just the four of us."

Chloe looked down at the three dark pieces on the desk, then at the leather bracer sitting on Arthur’s nightstand. "Is it guarded?"

"There’s a guardian in the bottom chamber, and probably traps in the outer hall," Arthur said honestly. "An Extension Rune only binds to one person, so obviously I’m going for that. I’ll pay for the horses and supplies. If we find anything else worth taking inside—gear, cores, coin—you three get first pick."

Felix glanced over at the windowsill. "You already knew about this, didn’t you?"

"Who do you think found the bead in the auction catalogue?" Emily said.

Chloe stood up from the mattress and walked over to Arthur. Before she answered him, she took his bare left hand and pressed her thumb firmly along the tendon below his palm, testing the joint.

Arthur felt a faint pull, nothing more.

"Doesn’t hurt?" Chloe asked.

"Just a little tight."

She let go of his hand and looked up into his eyes. "You’re insane if you think I’m letting you three walk into a trapped ruin without a healer. I’m coming. Provided you don’t touch a heavy bowstring until Friday."

"Deal," Arthur said, his hand brushing hers before he looked back at his roommate. "Felix?"

Felix leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at the three keys. "Brunhilda’s apprentice left a message at the gatehouse this morning. My shield’s ready to pick up tomorrow. If I have to stand in front of whatever’s guarding an ancient class rune, at least I won’t be doing it with academy plywood."

"So you’re in?" Arthur asked.

"Somebody has to keep you from getting flattened before you reach the altar," Felix said. He reached out, picked up the Black Prayer Bead between two thick fingers, and squinted at the notched stone. "All three of these open the same door?"

"That’s the idea," Arthur said.

Felix set the stone back on the linen. "And you found the last one in an old woman’s drawer?"

"Cost me five silver."

Felix stared at him for a moment. "Brunhilda is charging me six to fix the dents from last Saturday."

Arthur grinned, folding the cloth back over the keys. "Should’ve gone antique shopping."