Chapter 449: Chapter 449- A Devil’s Magic~!~

Her throat closed.

She could see Harline over his shoulder — the professor folded over the edge of the table, skirt around her waist, the fat bald man’s pale belly pressing into her from behind, his stubby hands gripping her hips with the proprietary ease of someone who’d been waiting for this for a very long time. Two more men jockeyed beside him. Three had gathered around Yinna where she’d been laid across the adjacent section of table, her champagne dress shoved upward, her limbs arranged with the practiced casualness of men who were no longer performing restraint.

Marla turned her face away from all of it.

Her forehead found Raven’s chest, just for a second — involuntary, she told herself, just vertigo — and she felt his hand at her back, large and still, neither pressing nor retreating.

"Except him," she whispered. Not to him. Just out loud. The quiet clarification her mind made despite everything. "Every man in this room is garbage. Except—"

She stopped herself.

She looked up at him.

"Say it," Raven said. Quiet. Almost amused.

"Don’t push your luck," she said, her voice gone threadbare and ferocious at the same time.

His mouth curved.

"So." He tilted his head slightly, like he was genuinely asking. "Should I claim you now, or somewhere more private?"

Marla stared at him.

Behind her — ’Pah Pah PAH!’ — and a woman’s muffled, rhythmic whimper that had gone from resistance to something else entirely, something that turned Marla’s stomach in ways she didn’t want to examine.

She looked at the men she’d spent seventeen years being professional around. Men who’d reviewed her papers and chaired her committees and asked her to smile more in faculty photos and watched her cleavage over wine glasses and counted down — she understood now, she understood completely — counted down to a night exactly like this one.

Then she looked at Raven.

Twenty-something. A student. A student who had walked into her office and touched her like she was something he’d been owed, who had kissed her until her brain had gone white and her body had betrayed everything she’d built herself around, who had ’left’ — covered her with a blanket and left, like he was making a point — and then burned words into her wall that she’d painted over twice.

She hated him.

She grabbed his collar tighter.

"Remove every trace of this room from me," she said, each word bitten off clean. "Every smell. Every sound. I don’t want to carry a single atom of these men with me."

His eyes were dark and very still.

"I’ll make sure," he said, his voice dropping just slightly, the amusement not gone but richer now, warmer, "to replace it all with mine."

She opened her mouth.

Didn’t argue.

’Pah PAH —’

"’Now,’" she said.

Raven’s hand spread flat against the small of her back, just above the curve of her hips, and he leaned down — close, very close, his lips almost at her temple, and she felt the air pressure in the room change in a way that had nothing to do with the ventilation system.

Purple.

The color bloomed at the edge of her vision — not alarming, not aggressive, just ’present’ — like a tide coming in on a shore that already knew it.

And then the chandelier, the portraits, the sounds, the table, the smell of wine and men and the particular sick sweetness of violated trust —

Gone.

"Haha, as you say my Lady though, I warn you, I have more stamina of all these men combined."

SWISH 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

They vanished.

The suffocating musk of sweat, wine, and raw sex vanished too.

The oppressive purple hue bled out of the air like watercolor washed down a drain, replaced by the crisp, warm glow of the crystal chandelier overhead.

No wet slapping of flesh. No ragged, guttural moans.

Just the polite clinking of silverware against fine china and the low, refined murmur of academic debate.

At the head of the long table, Professor Harline sat perfectly upright. Her sharp pencil skirt was unwrinkled, her silk blouse buttoned to the collar—though the sheer fabric strained ever so slightly across her full bust when she leaned forward to sip her water, the dark outline of her bra barely visible underneath.

Beside her, Professor Yinna was laughing at a mild joke. Her champagne wrap dress was immaculate. The plunging neckline remained neatly tied, offering just a tasteful, tantalizing hint of pale cleavage. Not a single tear in the silk.

The heavyset, bald professor who, mere seconds ago in Marla’s mind, had been grunting like a feral beast between Harline’s thighs, was simply dabbing a drop of peppercorn gravy from his chin with a linen napkin.

Director Haas frowned, setting his half-empty wine glass down. He looked toward the vacant chair where Marla had been sitting.

"Well," Haas murmured, adjusting his tailored cuffs. "That was... certainly unusual. Is Marla alright?"

Yinna sighed. The delicate sound drew the eye to the subtle, unhurried rise and fall of her chest. "Poor thing. It came on so fast."

"Food poisoning, perhaps?" the bald professor suggested, cutting a neat piece of his steak. "She took one sip of that cranberry blend and just turned pale green. Barely got the cloth napkin to her mouth before she was ill."

Harline nodded, her expression pinched with mild concern. "And the tears. I’ve never seen Professor Thornwood break down like that. It was quite jarring."

The table grew quiet for a moment. They all pictured the same odd, disruptive scene.

The sudden arrival of that young man. Tall, striking, moving with an easy, predatory confidence that seemed entirely out of place in a room full of aging academics.

"Who was that boy, anyway?" Haas asked, his brow furrowing in thought.

"A relative? A younger brother?" Yinna offered. Her cheeks carried a faint, lingering flush just from recalling the sharp line of the stranger’s jaw and the broad cut of his shoulders. "She practically threw herself at him. Said she needed to leave with him right then."

"I offered to call a taxi," the bald man chimed in, taking a slow sip of his merlot. "But he just waved me off. Wrapped his coat around her shoulders and walked her right out the double doors."

An awkward silence settled over the polished mahogany.

The bizarre disruption left a strange, metallic taste in everyone’s mouth. The pristine veneer of their evening had been cracked by Marla’s uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. It felt wrong to dwell on it.

Haas cleared his throat, pushing the lingering unease aside. He raised his glass, the amber liquid catching the overhead light.

"I suppose we should send a bouquet to her office tomorrow," the Director said, his tone shifting back to professional cheer. "But for now, I believe a toast is in order. To the new academy initiative."

"To the academy," they echoed in a disjointed, polite chorus.

One by one, the faculty members finished their drinks. The strange tension in the room hurried them along. Within twenty minutes, briefcases were snapped shut, formal farewells were exchanged, and the professors filtered out into the cool night air, leaving the dining hall looking perfectly, blissfully normal.

"Hahahaha... should we see salary hike then?..."

"Nope."