Chapter 14 Aiden
AIDEN
We were less than two days into this semester, and it felt like it’d been two years.
After decades of pain and confusion, followed by a semester of stalking and torturing people for information, Elijah finally had a solid lead in his hunt for his mother’s killer. It had also given him a single-minded focus that we could only hope would keep his beast occupied for the time being.
And, after years of holding out hope that Richard and Charles, who were the least tyrannical and backwards of my fathers, would find it within themselves to step up to protect my sister, I’d finally cut off contact with both of them with one final heated phone call last night.
And, after being challenged on the first day of class by one of my female students, I later watched, with my jaw on the floor, the footage of said female student destroying some of the toughest SWIM sequences in the Guardian training program with only the aid of her blades and her fox brother.
And finally, after a morning spent in relative peace with my coffee, research, and one uneventful class, I happened upon several injured students in their beast forms out on the campus lawn as I walked from the Magical Ed building to the dining hall.
I was then informed by a gaggle of chatty freshmen that the new girl had defeated three Prime challengers with only her fists and a sword and that my brother had hauled her off the infirmary afterward.
All of that in two fucking days.
Things were perilously close to spinning out of control already, and we still had a long road ahead of us.
It was now midafternoon, and I’d dismissed my last class of the day. Normally, I’d wind down in my office, answering emails, meeting with the occasional student, or reviewing lesson plans. But not today.
Today I found myself stomping up the stairs to the top floor of the upperclassmen dorm, where the rest of my quad had a three-room suite.
They spent their downtime here during the week, and on the weekends, they often escaped to my house in the faculty complex on the far west side of campus. I’d bitch about them invading my space, but the truth was that it felt more like home when they were there.
My brother and I had been inseparable since he learned to walk and could chase me around the house.
When Heath was twelve years old, he met Wyatt and Elijah at the private shifter boarding school we’d all attended.
I was fifteen at the time, but they spent more time in my room than theirs.
We ate, trained, and spent most of our time together until I graduated, which was how I ended up with two extra younger brothers and an overpowered quad with a laundry list of problems.
I let myself into their suite and found Wyatt on the couch, shirtless, his sweatpants slung so low, we were lucky his dick wasn’t out, a Playstation controller in his hands.
Elijah was sprawled out in the nearby recliner, reading a paperback that he’d propped on his knee.
My brother sat at the small kitchen table, aggressively typing on his laptop.
George slept in the huge terrarium that Housing had not wanted installed in the suite’s living room but was too terrified of Elijah to forbid him from doing it.
Only Heath looked up at my entrance.
“You interfered in a formal challenge, submitted Rip Ashton, and then physically dragged Avery Baxter to the infirmary in front of half the school?” I asked him dubiously.
“Rip’s a little bitch,” Wyatt hollered from the couch. “But I agree with Aiden. Should’ve let the wildcat stab him through the skull.”
Elijah hummed in agreement. “My dove is so vicious. I’m devastated I missed her slicing the Ashton Quad to ribbons.”
I arched a brow at him. “Your dove? How are you in pet-name territory with Avery when you’ve been back on this campus for less than twenty-four hours?”
“It is my excellent fortune to have Folklore class with our stunning new student,” he replied, shooting me a smug, fangy grin. “And to sit next to her. I was only able to taste the barest hint of fear from her, but it was delicious.”
Great. Another fixation for our most unstable quad member.
“Rip was going to kill her,” Heath said darkly.
“I sensed his loss of control, and Avery was pretty beat up by that point. And she refused to shift, even to heal. I should hope that any one of you would’ve stepped in if you happened across a quad issuing back-to-back challenges to a single student, especially one without a Prime beast.”
I shifted my messenger bag around to my front and sagged against the door. “I’ve never seen that happen in all my time here as a student or a teacher. I guess I don’t blame you, if you really thought she was in that much danger.”
Wyatt scoffed. “Heath tells us he got there just in time to watch her nearly hack that panther’s head off with a fucking rapier. She was doing fine.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face and groaned. “Fuck.”
“She ended up with a bunch of stitches and some broken ribs,” Heath told me. He shifted his attention back to his laptop screen, muttering, “and Dr. Lee had to put his hands all over her to fix them.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dr. Lee has had his hands all over every single one of us, many times. What’s your deal? Is it your wolf?”
“Maybe,” he growled. “I don’t fucking know. She was reckless, she got hurt, and it pissed me off.”
“Our fearless leader has never met a female he couldn’t boss around,” Wyatt quipped. “Why don’t you give Phoebe a call, Heath? After your two dates with her last semester that were, in your words, ‘perfectly fine,’ I’m sure she’s waiting by her phone and at your beck and call.”
Heath scowled at him. We all knew there was a reason he’d failed to contact Phoebe Atkins, latent daughter of a quad of Alpha wolves who were also the biggest real estate moguls in Northern Georgia, even once over the holiday break.
No spark. No flash of interest from the beast. No pull toward a lifetime commitment. We’d all been through the same once we started getting serious about dating.
My brother’s practical reading of the situation was that while a girl like Phoebe was mostly his type (pretty, well-mannered, wolf blood) and kind of my type (pretty, smart, agreeable), she wasn’t Wyatt’s (hot, mouthy, wild), and she sure as hell wasn’t Elijah’s (we’d yet to unlock this mystery).
Or had we?
Damn it.
“Shut up, dickhead,” Heath growled at Wyatt. “I wonder how many times Callista will knock on our door this week after you let her blow you at the Bergs’ holiday party.”
“Mmm, yes, she did give that her all, didn’t she?” Elijah said, chuckling. “So generous of Wyatt to let me watch.”
“Heath’s just salty because his dick’s about to atrophy from lack of use,” Wyatt drawled.
I sighed and banged the back of my head against the door.
“Anyway. I’m meeting Avery in a few hours for runes tutoring.
No—” I held up a hand as Elijah sat up in his chair, his face brightening.
“—none of you are invited. Get your heads on straight about her. She’s a beautiful novelty, but that’s it. ”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. Heath glowered—at who or what, I wasn’t sure.
Elijah’s smile was a dare, his pupils slitting. A flash of his insane beast. “Have fun, Aiden,” he purred.
Avery arrived at my office exactly on time.
I’d set our tutoring session to begin at 5:00 p.m., when the winter sun would begin setting.
Those of us who chose to hone a secondary affinity could become skilled enough to work the magic even in the daylight, but it was easier to do under the Moon, and the strongest spells were always performed under the Full Moon.
We were at the first quarter Moon tonight, so it would be a good time to see what my new pupil was made of.
“Welcome, Miss Baxter,” I said as she entered.
She closed the door behind her with a click. My beast stirred, watching her with a level of interest he showed in very little else.
“Professor,” she said, rolling the word in her mouth like she was only using it to humor me. “Thanks for taking the time. My guidance counselor seemed insistent I hone a secondary affinity so I can be a proper latent shifter, and I apologize you got roped into it.”
She slinked toward the chair in front of my desk, her gait fluid, her steps light.
She wore a sweater cropped just high enough above her jeans that I could glimpse a sliver of her toned stomach.
Her jeans molded to a round ass and strong, lean thighs.
She smelled good, too, like jasmine and lavender.
Her presence set my beast on edge with a wary anticipation that was more exciting than off-putting. She appeared relaxed, seeming almost soft under that lithe, strong figure, but I sensed that she was also tightly coiled and ready to strike at any time.
She was a trained killer, yes, but I wondered now if she was also a feline.
Is that what your fucking problem is? I thought at my beast half.
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, watching her closely as she approached.
She dropped her backpack to the floor, slung the harness containing her two swords onto the back of the chair, and sat down.
Her striking blue gaze dipped to my forearms, where I’d rolled my dress shirt sleeves to my elbows. I smothered a primal, satisfied smirk.
“If I’m going to spend my evenings helping you work your magic,” I said drolly, “I’d appreciate it if you’d dispense with the bullshit. We both know you’re not latent, which means we’ll need to work on the balance of the beast and the magic in our lessons.”
She just shrugged, a coy smile pulling at pink lips. “If you say so.”
And in a blink, I went from maintaining a semblance of professional calm to riding the urge to dominate and submit this female, preferably by marking her ass with my palm while she was draped over my lap.
“Oh, I see the jaguar wants to come out and play,” she teased.