Chapter 29 Avery
AVERY
Ispent most of the next day convalescing in bed and watching the gayest anime I could rustle up from the buffet of streaming apps on my phone. Mal showed up to check my wound every few hours while she delivered the latest gossip.
The report was that the whole school knew what’d happened to me in the arena yesterday, and opinion was divided on whether I was the victim of an underhanded attack by a more powerful shifter or I’d been asking for it.
After a light run with Ian and Brody around campus, a giant burger for dinner, and a long, hot shower, I gathered my supplies and wandered outside, headed to one of the Magical Ed building’s smaller courtyards.
It was nearing midnight, and I wanted to take advantage of the Full Moon at its zenith and the relative quiet of the school on a Saturday night.
Many students left campus on Saturday nights for the local bars and clubs in the nearby shifter towns.
For example, Ian, Brody, Mal, and Allen were out tonight, listening to some band that was playing at a gin distillery half an hour away.
I’d learned that others liked to head west to a neighboring college town to parade their hot shifter bodies in front of unsuspecting human students in an attempt to get laid.
I liked to get out as much as the next person, but I had work to do tonight.
When I entered my favorite courtyard, I found it blessedly deserted.
I loved the mood of this space. The bright rays of the Moon illuminated beds of night-blooming jasmine and other pretty plants.
A few stone benches were tucked against the landscaping.
Classroom windows, which were completely dark on a Saturday night, abutted this side of the building.
The professors’ offices overlooked the larger courtyard on the other side, and there was always at least one night owl up there with the light on, ruining the perfect moonlit space below.
I laid my swords on the bench that had the fewest trees surrounding it.
The moonlight bathed my steel blades, and the rune etchings on the steel sparked with a soft glow, beginning their charge.
Next, I dipped into the pocket of my hoodie and retrieved my drypoint etching needle.
I placed it next to my swords and then sat down on the ground in front of the bench.
I’d need to meditate for a few minutes, establishing my connection to the Moon’s magic flowing through me alongside my beast.
I’d been in this quiet mental space for ten whole seconds when the sound of light footsteps on the sidewalk behind me told me I was no longer alone.
“Avery?”
My beast unfurled her body and flicked her tail.
“Aiden,” I said, releasing a resigned sigh.
I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, there he was.
Professor Blackwell, dressed in nice jeans and a long-sleeved shirt sporting the college’s coat of arms, the strap of his leather messenger bag draped across his body.
Draped in the other direction was the strap of the leather harness that held his sword, the handle of his saber just peeking over his shoulder.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked, creeping closer.
“What are you doing out here?” I retorted.
He arched an imperious brow. “I was in my office, catching up on the work I did not get done yesterday because I had to show up to Guardian training. And because I had to watch Elijah after… what happened.”
“After I was attacked by my own teammate, you mean?”
His eyes sparked turquoise for a second, and then he blinked it away. “Yes. You don’t need to remind me. I was there.”
I turned back to my swords and picked up my needle. The thin wooden handle was smooth and comforting in my grip. “Is Elijah okay?” I asked casually.
“He’s fine.” More footsteps sounded, inching closer. “We had a dicey couple of minutes after Mahoney first attacked you, but after that, it was more about keeping human Elijah occupied. Elijah’s beast isn’t the only part of him capable of murder.”
That gave me a little shiver, and it wasn’t from fear. “I see.”
“Are you blessing your blades?” he asked, suddenly eager. He shrugged off his bag and sat down on the ground next to me. We weren’t touching, but his knee hovered about an inch from mine. Reaching behind his head, he unsheathed his saber. “Let’s do mine too.”
“You’ll need a drill—”
He pulled a handheld rotary drill from his bag. “I come prepared,” he announced with a smug grin. “Most runes teachers have something for permanent etching.”
“How convenient,” I drawled. “What do you need a Moon-blessed blade for, Professor? Planning on dipping outside the state’s best wards during curfew to try your hand at killing something that can actually kill you?”
He gave me a droll look. “Are you going to impress me with your magical prowess or are you going to be a brat?”
I bristled, but my beast rumbled a little purr and flicked her tail. Quit that.
“Fine. Do you have the sequence you want to use?”
He peered at the etchings on my swords. “I like yours just fine.”
Runes used for any given spell would differ by practitioner, and the Moon blessing was no different.
I presumed everyone stuck within a standard theme, but the real trick was in the casting of the spell and channeling the Moon’s magic into your blade so that it was a) lasting, and b) strong enough to kill a high-level wraith.
My sequence started with Lifeforce, which shifters associated with the Moon herself.
Then I went with Strength/Power, followed by Heritage, as a nod to our ancestors, the First Guardians.
Then came the rune for War/Victory, and finally, the death knell—inverted Strength/Power and inverted Lifeforce.
“Cheater,” I said without any heat. “I don’t chant, by the way. I just whisper a prayer as I channel, and it hasn’t failed me yet.”
“Interesting,” Aiden mused. “The Guardians’ rune specialists chant. There’s power in the combined voices, I think.”
I shrugged. “When I become a Guardian, I won’t be handing over my blades to anyone else to bless. I like my way.”
He was quiet for a moment, as aware as I was that my place in the program was no longer secure. “I don’t want you to fail, Avery,” he said softly, “but yesterday was hard to watch.”
“It was even harder to experience, but I’m still here, Aiden. I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I didn’t dare dream that you had.”
I blew out a frustrated breath and rolled my shoulders. To business, then. “You’re distracting me. Get ready to etch.”
He chuckled, and I felt the sound low in my belly. “Yes, ma’am.”
I closed my eyes and settled in, doing my best to ignore the heat of Aiden’s body and the scent of heady leather and masculine spice.
I rolled the wooden handle of my drypoint needle between my fingers, and then I reached for the current of bright magic flowing within me, both separate and apart from my beast, who was curled up for a nap.
Under the Full Moon, the magical current roared.
I opened my eyes and began tracing the runes on my first sword, using my will to suffuse the blade with magic.
I began to pray, my voice low and soft:
“Goddess above,
Hear my plea.
Bathe my blade
In your glorious light.
May it shine through the dark
And be worthy of your gift
So that I may protect my kind
From the horrors of the night.
Bless this steel
With your strength and might
So I may honor your blessing
With courage and fight.”
I repeated my prayer once more as I scratched over the runes on my second blade with my needle. Aiden worked next to me, engraving his blade with runes to match mine, his lips moving in a quiet prayer of his own.
As I released the current, my blades glowed with a soft white light, the runes themselves shining a molten silver for a few seconds.
Aiden finished his prayer, and his blade began to glow, his with a bluer hue. Different flavors of magic, I supposed.
“Wow,” he said, a grin stretching across his handsome face. “It worked.”
“Maybe I should be tutoring you in runes,” I quipped.
He snorted. “Calm down. You’re excellent with the few spells you use regularly, yes, but your grasp on theory is middling at best.”
That particular gripe of his was getting old. “Theory doesn’t protect us from soul death, Aiden.”
“I would beg to differ.”
He rolled to standing, nimble as always, then held out a hand. I grasped it, and he pulled me to my feet.
He didn’t release my hand right away. His grip was warm and firm, his palm the rough and calloused one of a swordsman, not the smooth and soft one of a professor. Soft turquoise flames lit his eyes as his gaze dipped to my lips before skirting away.
“Thanks for letting me do this with you,” he said. “It really is impressive that you’re able to cast a strong and effective Moon blessing, especially as a shifter sharing magic with a beast soul.”
It was useless continuing to play coy about the existence of my beast, so I didn’t correct him, and I didn’t really want to. His praise was like a stroke down my back, and I preened under it.
“Thanks, Aiden.”
He smiled, and it was a little cocky. “Good night, Avery.”
He released my hand and collected his stuff. I sat down on the bench next to my swords and watched him walk away.
Aiden, at his core, wasn’t really the haughty, uptight professor he appeared to be. He was a talented, respectable male with a powerful, impressive beast. He was also a caring older brother and quadmate, a good teacher, and he was going to make an excellent Guardian.
His future bonded mate would be a lucky girl.
For the first time, I let myself admit, only for a moment, that I wished she could be me.
For the next few weeks, I threw myself into my studies and focused on rehabbing my shoulder.
I prepared for midterms with my friends in the dorm study rooms most weeknights.
I ran laps around the bleachers of the arena while the rest of the trainees did combat drills.
I lifted weights and drank a lot of coffee.
I kept my hands and mouth to myself when I sat next to Elijah in our shared class. He seemed fine—cordial, easy-going, and studious as always. He didn’t bring up Kace’s attack on me, but I caught him staring at my shoulder sometimes, like he was contemplating violence.
It had become a constant struggle to ignore the way my body and my beast acted around him, not to mention the others in his quad, but all I could do was keep my eye on the prize—full health and being ready to go hard in training by the time we returned from our two-week-long spring break.
The big “open” practice, where we’d have our last quad challenges, was scheduled for after school resumed.
Curfew came again, this time falling midweek. I took my freshly blessed blade, my brother, and George for another patrol around the campus perimeter the night of the New Moon, but all was quiet. A few screeches and shouts in the far-off distance, but no action near our walls.
Curfew expired, and the world outside became safe at night once again just in time for us all to prepare to head home for spring break.
Which was why I looked at Mallory like she was speaking Greek when she announced at breakfast on the last day of classes that most of the students wouldn’t be heading home tonight.
“A party?” I asked, my forkful of waffle paused in front of my mouth. “On the lake? Tonight?”
“Yes, and you’re going.” She pointed her cream-cheese-covered knife at me. “You have no tests left to study for, no wraiths to kill, and no spells to cast under the Full Moon. And Dr. Lee cleared you for normal activity. You have no excuses not to be social.”
“Except that half the campus thinks I’m an uppity female who deserves to be ripped apart.”
Mal waved a dismissive hand. “It’s more like a third. We don’t care about them.”
“And it may be our last big pre-spring break lake bash at this insane mansion,” Allen added. “The Crimson Quad graduates this year, and it’s Kellan Crimson’s family’s house.”
I’d heard whispers about this quad. They were the next hottest thing on the market besides the Blackwell Quad, and they were in the senior Guardian training class.
The seniors trained separately from the rest of us because, I assumed, they were out fighting real wraiths.
Kellan Crimson was also a griffin shifter—a mythic, like Elijah, and one of only two in the school and probably the entire state of Georgia.
Chance nodded enthusiastically, his puka-shell necklaces clacking. “There’s a two-tiered swimming pool, Avery.”
“And,” Mallory went on, an evil gleam entering her green eyes, “there are plenty of eligible males in this school, thirsting after our hot new sword-wielding female. The Blue Moon Ball is next month, friend, and we should start interviewing candidates for your date.”
Ian had watched all of this with his chin propped in his hand, his blue eyes alight with glee.
“Shut up,” I told him.
He sat back and put a scandalized hand to his chest. “Moi? I said nothing.”
“You were thinking it.”
He grinned. “Listen to our friends. They have sage advice. We’re in college now. When are we ever going to get to attend a rager at a lake mansion? We’re going, end of discussion.”
I sighed. When in Rome, as they say, and I did hate to rain on my little brother’s parade. “Fine. But you have to call Dad and tell him we won’t be back home until some ungodly hour in the middle of the night.”
He saluted me, and Mal clapped her hands in excitement. “Yes! Wear something sexy, Avery. Your swords do not count.”