Kassin's head swam. His heart pounded. His body sickened with sweat as he bucked his hips deep into Kordia.
He was thrilled to no longer be a virgin, but there was far more to the burgeoning love he felt for Kordia in his heart as he made love to her. As he watched Lapins kiss and caress her.
He'd never truly felt welcome at the Academy. The elites who'd clung to his shadow never spared him a moment without their expectations. Their views on "what Gra'Rhuel should become" as a new, burgeoning empire under his mother. Beastkin against the rest of the myriad, each of them mages and generals and power-makers.
Kassin had smiled and done his best, but he wouldn't consider any of his classmates as friends. The only friend he'd wanted was Kordia. For her kindness. Her beauty. The sense he'd always had that she, as a chieftan's daughter of the Mora clan, was exotic and powerful. That she had grand adventures while he was sheltered in a palace.
That she was herself, and he wasn't.
