The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance, #1)

by Sara Raasch

What’s the point of magic if you don’t get to use it for silly shit anyway.

The Nec Lab gave me a few spells to control Sten, basic first-year necromancy stuff, and I rattle one off now. Could I have used one to keep him in place instead of making Orok hover around him, doing some weird herding dance? Yes. Would it have been as fun? No.

“Don’t bring logic into my feud,” I mutter

The autumn-chilled air stabs into my lungs. It smells like damp leaves. Dying, mildewy rot, but in the comforting way that promises the season’s changing so you can change with it.

But those aforementioned internet searches, while immediately telling me not to commit murder, led to an approach I have not yet tried: killing Elethior with kindness. We’ve been at each other’s throats. We’ve insulted each other and played dumb pranks. But neither of us has tried to be, gasp, cordial, so by gods, that’s what I’ll do. And the fact that I’ll be the first of us to attempt this feat of adult sensibility means I win the moral high ground forever and ever, so he can suck it.

“Go fuck yourself, Walsh.” “I will, and I’ll think of you while I do it.”

Kissing Elethior Tourael should be as catastrophic as the worst thing I’ve done. And it is. But it’s not a bad catastrophe, and I never knew, never fucking knew that calamities could be wondrous, too.

“Another of mine is that I don’t share. Even if this is only physical, I won’t be fooling around with anyone else. And I don’t want you to either. For safety reasons, and because I’m a possessive fucking bastard.”

“I’ll help you forget, I promise. I’ll fuck you so good you won’t remember your own name beyond me calling you baby. But I can do that and still respect you, so look into my eyes and tell me you want my mouth on your cock.”

We’re both broken, though. And our jagged pieces don’t exactly fit together, but we know how to move around the sharpest points of each other’s, how to adjust and make space so no one bleeds.