Recent content by Calixtus

alixtus did not pull his hand away when she covered it. Instead, he turned his palm upward, letting her fingers rest there, and met her eyes with less of the the usual layers of confidence and calculation. "I remember," he said quietly. "Every correction." A faint huff escaped him. "You were...

Calixtus swung down from his horse with less grace than usual, the long ride having worked its way into his own muscles even if he would never admit it aloud. He handed the reins to Harlan without a word before turning his attention back to Bliss. His eyes flicked briefly to Ronan as the man...

Calixtus adjusted the reins of his black gelding, the horse shifting restlessly beneath him as moonlight filtered through the ancient stone arch of the gate. The night air carried the sharp bite of autumn, and he drew his dark cloak tighter, the Blodwyn crest at his throat catching a faint...

"Harlan," grunted the butler. He held out one hand and offered a firm grip. His hand had the calloused palm of a fighter. "The young master was trying to slip away with a carriage..." Calixtus rolled his eyes. "...and I offered to lend him some help." "Yes, yes Harland, thank you,"...

Calixtus paused at the threshold, one hand already on the door latch as her fingers closed around his arm. For a long moment he said nothing, simply studying her. There was a flush still lingering on her cheeks, the earnest worry in those wide blue eyes. This was, he reminded himself, no time...

"We tell no one except my family," he said firmly. "Not yet." He crouched beside the map again, studying the pulsing point with narrowed eyes. "Raising an alarm now would only alert whoever holds him. They made it inside the college far to easily." It would also tarnish their reputation...

Calixtus did not pull away from her touch. If anything, he leaned into it, eyes closing briefly as her fingers brushed his hair aside. The bravado he wore so easily had slipped somewhere onto the floor with the map and the blood, leaving something quieter in its place. He exhaled, slow and...

Afaint hiss escaped him at the sting. “Pain?” he echoed softly, voice a low drawl. “Hardly. One grows accustomed to far worse in the Blodwyn nurseries.” His gaze held hers as the crimson drops fell onto the map, dark against parchment. He tilted his head just enough to let a strand of dark...

Calixtus watched her rise from the bed with that telltale flush staining her cheeks. It was delightful, really, how easily she betrayed herself. He permitted a slow, appreciative smirk to curve his lips as she knelt on the rug. The way she bent forward to retrieve whatever was needed from...

"The spell...first..." Calixtus looked down at her incredulously. Bliss Gradimir was caught in the throes of passion. She was giving in to an itch that needed to be scratched. And she was scheduling it in around magic. "Fine," he said. He was rarely so short of words. Calixtus moved...

He listened. He often afforded people token attention when they spoke to him. He was hardly thinking clearly in the moment. But with a quiet stillness in the room he listened. Ambition, legacy, the weight of being seen as more than a name or a novelty. He knew those pressures intimately. It...

Calixtus should have moved. Every sensible instinct told him to pull back, to give her space, to let the moment pass and return to the problem that had brought him here in the first place. Instead, he remained where he was. He hovered just above her, caught by the way her expression shifted...

For all his composure, Calixtus had not accounted for Bliss launching herself at him with such single minded fury. Her grip was stronger than he expected. The sudden weight against his chest, the sharp pull at his arm, the bed frame protesting beneath them all combined into a perfect loss of...

Calixtus regarded her for a long moment, head tilting slightly as though he were reassessing a puzzle piece that stubbornly refused to fit the expected pattern. Her laugh, weak as it was, did not escape him. Nor did the heat in her cheeks. He straightened his cuffs, a familiar grounding...

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