Chapter 15
Sanctuary
Elijah
“Hey, mate.” Rapid greets me as I enter the kitchen, then smiles and reaches out to pat the lion cub in my arms. “Hey, Porky.”
My cursed lion cub familiar rolls in my arms and purrs for him, blinking large golden eyes.
“Hey, Rapid. Are the others here yet?”
“We’re just waiting on Tomashi.” Fade answers from the loungeroom, tucked up into the corner of the sectional with a thick book on his lap.
I hadn’t seen him upon entering and silently berated myself for my lack of awareness. When I failed to notice things like that, it wasn’t hard for me to understand why my father offered to hire bodyguards for me each year.
Don’t get me wrong, I could rip an enemy to pieces and fight my way out of a hoard if necessary. But I’d have to notice them first, and my lack of awareness gave them a perfect opening.
“What does he want to talk about?” I ask them.
Rapid snorts, pulling open the fridge. “I can’t believe you actually need to ask that.” He laughs before selecting an apple and letting the fridge door slam closed.
“Son incapacité à accepter le changement.” Fade mutters.
:His inability to accept change.:
Being the children of Elite, we were all fluent in at least four languages – including English and the Fae tongue.
Which meant I perfectly understood Fade’s French blurt.
I wondered if our new roommate spoke another language.
Speaking of her, I hoped she was finding her way around the Academy okay. The place could be like a maze for the first few weeks.
“Mr O wouldn’t have put someone dangerous in a House with us. He’s a good judge of character.” I sigh. “But I admit I’m not sure she should stay. We aren’t safe to be around.”
“It’s a shame Tomashi doesn’t have your special brand of faith in our Counsellor. He’s gone to interrogate Mr O and bribe whatever information he can from the office staff.”
I frown at Rapid, but my disappointment is geared towards Tomashi. He was protective to the point of ruining peoples lives if they so much as looked at one of us wrong, and I didn’t want him to do that to Sinta when she hadn’t done anything to us.
I didn’t think she was a threat. Usually, my beast was a very good judge of character – cats tended to be whether they were big or small.
He hadn’t raised a protest against her yet, and that was a very good sign.
“He should leave it be. If she does something we don’t like, then we’ll deal with it.” I assert.
“Would it not be better to cut the head off of the snake before it can bite, hmm?” Fade murmurs, head still buried in what I now realised was a large spell tome.
I wrinkle my nose at the shifty-looking leather cover. The last book he’d brought home had been bound in human flesh.
I now refused to touch or go near them.
“You don’t think she’s trouble.” Rapid scoffs. “You would have been the first to voice kicking her out if you thought she was a danger to us.”
“True.” Fade concedes. “But I also believe in knowing thy enemy – or thy possible enemy. Tomashi doing a little digging into her will hurt nothing if she means us no harm.”
Rapid, leaning against the bench and therefore out of Fade’s line of sight, pulls a face at the male then takes a bite of his apple.
“Still doesn’t feel right.” I mumble, taking a seat on the lounge and running my hands through Pork’s fur.
The front door slams, Tomashi’s signature stomping gait preceding him into the room.
Fade sighs, placing his book down. “That cannot be good.”
Storming into the loungeroom like hell on two feet, Tomashi doesn’t even wait for Rapid to drop over the back of the couch before he starts talking.
“She’s a literal fucking nobody, and Orichalcum is covering something up for her.” He roars.
I stop petting Pork, all of our attention solely on Tomashi.
“What is it?” Fade demands.
“I don’t fucking know. No one does – he’s redacted her entire file, with permission from Bladgood.” Beginning to pace, his hands fisting with agitation, Tomashi emits low growls that stir my own beast. “The only thing I got was her original intake form, the staff were supposed to shred it but hadn’t yet. The female I got it from said Orichalcum had to redo her paperwork and immediately classified her information; no one but he and the headmistress have access.”
That…. Wasn’t what I was expecting.
“So she is a threat to us?” I question.
“I don’t know.” He snarls.
Rapid slumps down in his seat, feet resting on the coffee table. “Well, what information did you get?”
“Snake shifter, powerless, orphan fostered by an Elite family from House Onyx and Bone. Twin sister also attending the Academy who is apparently a Unicorn with full powers. She’s paying for her courses but received the partial Housing and Essentials scholarship. Has signed up for two physical courses and an arts degree. And she hasn’t yet chosen a major.” He recites stiffly. “She was born and raised in New York.”
“That is all information we could have gotten from simply talking to her.” Fade points out with a frown.
“I’m going to contact my PI, set him on her trail.” Tomashi announces. “Something about her is off; she’s a risk.”
“Yeah, because that little female that you just called powerless is such a huge risk.” Rapid drawls lazily.
Tomashi throws a savage snarl at him, his hair beginning to smoke.
“So she’s not a spy, Mr O wouldn’t protect her. But can we assume she’s not a danger to us?” Fade muses over their bickering.
“Maybe she’s involved with something – a legal matter or other. It could explain her redacted file.” Rapid suggests, ignoring Mashi’s glare.
“We need her gone. We need to get her out of this House.” Mashi mutters darkly.
“Mr O won’t move her. He’s made that clear.” I argue.
“Yes, he won’t move her. But if she requests a different placement, he has to at least look for alternate housing for her.” He points out with a decidedly wicked look in his dark eyes.
“Mashi.” Rapid scolds, glaring.
“What? I won’t even have to lift a finger.” He scoffs. “A word or two in the right ears, a few engineered sightings, and the girls of this campus will take care of it for us. Hell, Grande may even incinerate her and cut out the paperwork aspect.”
“Tomashi, for Gods sake.” Fade snaps, his face hardening. “The girl hasn’t done anything.”
“Yet.” Tomashi hisses.
“And she probably won’t. I mean, she might decide to drown you, but since you’ve been an asshole since she got here, I wouldn’t blame her. I’d say the rest of us are safe.” Rapid pipes up.
“We won’t do anything.” Fade asserts. “Leave her be. If she does something, we will follow the proper channels and have her removed. But we are not going to steam roll an innocent girl – or throw her to the wolves.”
“I’d take a rabid wolf over that vindictive bitch of a witch.” Rapid mumbles about Grande.
“But—”
“We should wait until Bastien gets back.” I cut Tomashi off, giving him an imploring look. “That’s at least four weeks, maybe a bit more. Plenty of time to suss her out, make a decision.”
“You can’t be serious. What if she turns out to be like the last psycho we let in here and succeeds in tying our souls to a fucking voodoo doll or some shit?!”
We all wince at the reminder of that particular incident, Rapid absently rubbing the scar she’d left on his temple when she’d used an iron knife to hack some of his hair off.
Suffice to say he no longer brought fuck buddies home.
This house was our sanctuary, our safe space.
I understood Tomashi’s distress about having an unknown entity among us, and I could even understand his anxiety regarding her character. But that didn’t mean I would support him setting her up to be hurt.
“We are all powerful in our own right, and you just said she has no power at all.” Fade reasons. “I imagine subduing her if we have to will not be difficult. I agree with waiting for Bastien.”
“Me too.” Rapid mumbles around a bite of apple.
Tomashi whips around to stare at me, jaw clenched.
“I’m sorry, but she’s been nothing but nice so far. I’ll be the first to help you drag her out if I need to.” I try to soothe him.
Hair catching flame with a startling pop, Tomashi vibrates with fury as he storms out of the room and up the stairs.
“He either needs to get drunk or laid.” Rapid announces.
Fade and I both reach to smack the back of his head, but he ducks our reach and rolls away. “I’m hungry. What are we doing for lunch?”
Rapid
“Give me the fucking remote, you cheater!” Elijah roars, trying to smother me with a pillow.
“Make me!” I laugh, rolling.
“And now you are both dead.” Fade hums, nuking Elijah and I’s characters on the TV.
“Fuck!” Elijah growls.
He wrenches the pillow away only to then nail me in the face with it.
Pushing up from the lounge, I bound away as Elijah struggles to grab me but ends up on the floor.
Cackling, skipping away, I taunt him and pull faces.
Growl rumbling his chest, face beastial, he lurches upwards and comes for me.
I yelp, running.
“Will you never learn, Rapid?” Fade calls, tone humorous.
Whipping out a shield of water, I watch Elijah slam into it – and continue to power through it.
It looked as though he was moving through molasses, but he was still moving.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I chant, already sprinting for the door.
Elijah was easy-going and a great friend. But he was still a lion shifter.
And lions – like all cats – were mercurial creatures. They could be friendly and cuddly and purr for you for hours.
Piss one off though? And you become the prey of a single-minded, skilled hunter.
So of course, when he finally got through my shield and I was standing upon the threshold of the front door, I egged him on and slapped that pretty face of his with a water whip.
He roars, charging, fur sprouting along his arms.
Bellowing a laugh worthy of a hyena, I bolt out the door and towards the forest.
“Hi, Sinta!” I call to our new roommate, watching us in stunned silence. “Bye, Sinta!”
She waves a little and then I lose sight of her as the sound of Elijah’s approaching gait goes from a two-footed run to the thumping beat of a four-legged beast.