Chapter 3
“I can’t believe this class is at six in the morning,” Kasi groaned as she crawled her way out of the shadows beneath her bed. “Shadow swatted me when I told her it was time for breakfast and Jahrdran just rolled over and went back to sleep. He didn’t even kiss me goodbye.”
“Elliot didn’t even stir when I got up,” Mikaela said from where she lay on Kasi’s bed. She’d been lying there for the last five minutes, having only made it from her room to ours before proclaiming she needed to lie down again.
I could relate, seeing as I’d done the same thing after staggering to the bathroom.
“I blame Jasmine,” Mikaela muttered into the bedsheets.
“Hey, why is this my fault?” I lurched to my feet, clutching my head in agony, and staggered to my bookshelf.
“Because you’re the reason we’re taking this class in the first place,” Mikaela said.
“You’re also the one who suggested hunting for the wine cellar yesterday,” Kasi said.
“Like you guys weren’t up for the adventure,” I said.
“Ooh, and you were the one who wanted us to ditch the guys and hang out, just the three of us,” Mikaela said. “If we’d stayed together, Elliot would have dragged me off for sexytimes and I wouldn’t be so miserable.”
“Good point,” Kasi said. “So basically, Jasmine’s not only responsible for our misery this morning, but also for our lack of sexytimes last night.”
I would have rolled my eyes, but I was afraid my head would fall off from the effort and I needed it to find what I was looking for.
“And all because she wanted to avoid the gorgon,” Mikaela said.
“Just for that, I’m not sharing when I find what I’m looking for,” I threatened, bracing an arm on the wall as I bent at the waist to stare at the books on my shelves.
It took entirely too long for my eyes to focus enough to pick out my potions textbook from all the others and then to achieve enough hand-eye coordination to extract it and find the page with the tonic I’d marked my first year at the Academy, but I finally succeeded.
“Oh, thank the goddess. I have all the ingredients in my suitcase.”
“What ingredients?” Mikaela waved an arm, beckoning me closer.
I staggered forward and shoved the book in her face, swaying a bit as I did so.
Mikaela blinked blearily at the page.
I tried holding the book with both hands to keep it from shaking, but I was a little—okay a lot—unsteady on my feet.
Finally, I just set it on the bed beside her, stepped over Kasi, who was lying prone on the floor, and walked into the closet to find my suitcase.
A moment later, Mikaela exclaimed, “Oh, shit. I take it back, Jasmine. You’re a goddess and I wholeheartedly support your efforts to avoid the gorgon.”
“Aha!” I gathered the ingredients I needed and headed for my desk, where Mikaela was now seated.
She’d already set my book on its stand and had it propped open to the correct page.
I grabbed my mortar and pestle and set to work.
“I approved anyway,” Mikaela rambled as she watched me struggle to open a bottle of sage, “because you know how I feel about snakes, but now I approve even more. Avoid the gorgon, share the cure. Please tell me there’s enough ingredients for all three of us.”
At that, Kasi stirred. “Cure?” A few moments later, she joined us at my desk, where she first examined the book, then stared down at the mess I was making as I tried to follow its recipe. “Oh, yes,” she groaned. “Please let there be enough.”
Fifteen minutes later, the three of us were a little less miserable. However, the tonic wasn’t the cure-all I’d been hoping for. Either it hadn’t been enough and we’d each taken less than a full dose or I’d screwed it up, which was entirely possible given how impaired I still was.
“That tonic sucked,” I announced as we made our way down the hall to the stairs.
“No, it helped a little,” Kasi said.
“Yeah, but we’re still stumbling around like drunkards.”
“That’s ’cause we are drunk,” Mikaela mumbled.
“Which is another reason Jasmine’s to blame,” Kasi said.
“Hey, I made the cure, didn’t I?”
“You also cast the doubling spell that made each bottle last twice as long as it should have,” Kasi said.
“Shit, that’s right,” Mikaela grumbled. “Why did we think that was a good idea again?”
“It made the fun last longer,” I said.
“It’s also making the misery last longer too,” Mikaela groaned.
“Should have found a potion for sobriety,” Kasi said.
“Shit, we’re a mess,” I said.
“Food,” Mikaela announced, “to soak up some of that wine.”
“Time is it?” Kasi asked.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and peered at the screen, but couldn’t decipher the numbers. I finally held the phone out so they could see it.
They stumbled closer, almost knocking heads as they stared at my screen intently.
“Five twenty-three,” Kasi said proudly.
“Plenty of time for food,” Mikaela said, leading the way into the cafeteria.
We then proceeded to eat everything in sight, as quickly as possible.
“I’m not well,” Kasi moaned as she set her head down on the table. “Instead of just drunk and hungover, now I’m also bloated and sluggish. Why did we decide we should each have a bottle of wine? We could have just shared one bottle, especially after you cast that doubling spell, Jasmine.”
“But the bottles were our reward for finding the cellar. It even told us so,” I reminded her.
“Yes, but those bottles were supernaturally potent.”
“I’m still disturbed at the idea of a sentient wine cellar,” Mikaela said.
It was kind of freaky.
In fact, overall, the entire experience inside the wine cellar had been a little strange, something we should have expected considering the supernatural nature of the Academy.
From the moment we’d entered the cellar, it had felt like another world entirely.
The air had been cool, with stone walls all around and aisles and aisles of wine to choose from. The selections had been diverse enough to be intimidating. In fact, it’d been so overwhelming, I’d felt paralyzed to choose.
When I’d said that out loud, the rack I’d been staring at had pushed one bottle forward.
The others had immediately asked the cellar to do the same for them.
Vorzak, Mikaela, Elliot and Jahrdran were each offered a bottle almost immediately.
Kasi, though, had to explore deep into the cellar, eventually disappearing into its shadows completely.
Jahrdran, of course, had gone with her.
While we waited for them to return, Elliot made the mistake of reaching for a second bottle.
This was clearly forbidden because the cellar began shaking right down to its foundations, wine bottles all around us rattling in their racks.
Vorzak, who’d been practically glued to my side the entire time we’d been in the cellar, stepped even closer.
I’d been going insane trying to ignore the flirting of his snakes, not to mention the sexiness of him, and now he was even closer than before, heat radiating from his body as he hovered protectively.
“My bad,” Elliot exclaimed, stepping away from the bottle he’d been about to touch. “I was just curious, didn’t mean to be greedy. We’re very thankful for your generosity.”
The shaking stopped and a moment later, Kasi and Jahrdran streamed from the shadows, regaining their physical forms.
Kasi had a huge grin on her face, a bottle of wine in her hand and her eyes on Shadow, who was slinking along at her side, a tiny wine bottle clenched between her teeth.
“That’s adorable,” Mikaela exclaimed.
“The label says it’s Purrlot Cat Wine, and that it’s made with catnip.” Kasi chuckled. “Shadow is so thrilled to have her own bottle.” She pulled a second, miniature bottle out of a pocket and handed it to Mikaela. “I asked the cellar to gift another one for Miki-Leopard and it agreed.”
“Oh, my gosh. Thank you, Kasi. Thank you, cellar!” Mikaela looked so thrilled, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d burst into tears. “Miki is throwing confetti and doing kitty cartwheels in my head.”
“That’s so dang cute,” I muttered.
I had to admit I was a little jealous of my friends with their cat companions. At one time, I’d believed Vorzak’s snakes would fill that emptiness inside, but no longer.
I scowled as I remembered my conclusion from the night before that I might be better off just finding a familiar of my own. “How does one go about finding a familiar anyway?” I asked as Sunny, and her best friend, Daya, lynx and panther shifters respectively, plopped down at our table.
“You’re getting a familiar?” Daya asked.
Before I could answer, Mikaela let out a whimper and started scratching her shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Sunny asked.
“It’s Miki-Leopard. She’s making me itch!” Mikaela wailed.
“That’s weird,” Daya said. “Are you sure it’s your leopard?”
“Definitely,” Mikaela said.
“Is it a scratch under your skin?” Sunny asked.
“Yes!” Mikaela exclaimed.
“Oh, yeah, that happens all the time,” Sunny said, “but it’s weird that you haven’t shifted yet.”
“I don’t think that’s what she’s talking about,” Daya said. “Not if it’s only her shoulder that’s itching.”
“Sometimes it’s my elbow,” Mikaela said. “Or my thigh. My ankle. My neck.”
“But not all at the same time?” Daya asked.
“Oh, no. That would be awful!”
“But that’s what it’s like when we shift. An inside itch all over,” Sunny said, “but it shouldn’t take very long at all.”
“Yeah,” Daya agreed. “Like ten, maybe fifteen seconds at most.”
“And then we’re shifted. Is Miki trying to shift?”
Mikaela groaned. “No. She’s trying to lay on my skin like a tattoo.”
I snickered at the stunned looks on Sunny and Daya’s faces.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Sunny said. “Is it?”
“Shadow does it,” Kasi said without lifting her head from the table.
“Yeah, but Shadow’s not a shifter,” Daya said.
“I don’t know if it’s possible,” Mikaela said. “All I know is she’s making me insane with the attempts. And we have to head to class. Maybe the dragons will distract Miki.”
“Don’t count on it,” Kasi said as she lifted her head and slowly climbed to her feet. “Cats are notoriously stubborn and from what I’ve read, shadow-cats are the worst of the lot.”
“Great,” Mikaela muttered.
“We’re going to grab a couple more snacks,” Sunny said.
“And refills,” Daya said. “You guys want anything?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“I might burst if I ate one more thing,” Kasi said with a groan.
“We’ll see you on the field, okay?” Mikaela called as we headed out.
By the time we reached the front door of the castle, I was feeling like a new woman. “Maybe that tonic wasn’t so bad, after all.”
“Or maybe I was right and the food made a difference,” Mikaela said as she led the way outside. “How about you, Kasi? Are you feeling any better?”
“You know what? I am. Maybe the tonic was on a delayed release.”
“Or maybe it was the food,” Mikaela insisted, now frantically scratching the back of her neck.
“Well, whatever it was, I’m never trusting a sentient wine cellar again,” Kasi said.
“Or just don’t trust Jasmine next time.”
Kasi laughed.
“Hey!”
“Speaking of sentient wine cellars,” Mikaela said, now scratching her neck with both hands, “Where do you think it went?”
Kasi grinned. “Are you trying to distract yourself from the itching?”
“Of course, I am! I thought the shoulder was bad, but the neck is way worse. Besides, I can’t stop thinking about it. The cellar just disappeared.”
“Well, the entrance to it did anyway,” I said. “For all we know, the wine cellar’s in the same spot, but its door moved to some other passageway in some other tunnel.”
“Good point,” Kasi said. “Either way, the timing of it was pretty cool.”
“Or freaky,” Mikaela muttered what I was thinking.
Jahrdran had been the last to exit the cellar and the minute the door had closed behind him, it had disappeared. So quickly in fact, it was a minor miracle he still had both feet attached.
I was about to agree with Mikaela when I saw who was waiting with the rest of the class up ahead. “You’ve got to be kidding me! What is he doing here? He’s not even in our class.”
Kasi chuckled. “Man, he must be really desperate to be out here this early just to see you.”
“Especially if he ended up drinking as much as we did last night,” Mikaela said.
“How is this even fair?” I demanded. “I was looking forward to spending the morning admiring Professor HDB.”
“HDB?” Kasi asked.
“Hot, Dark and Broody,” Mikaela and I said together.
“You mean Professor Vesely?”
“Of course, we mean Professor Vesely,” I said impatiently. “He’s the only one who qualifies for that designation.”
“Well,” Mikaela drawled. “Sometimes Elliot and I play Stern Professor and Naughty Student. When that happens, he definitely qualifies.”
“By those standards, so does Jahrdran,” Kasi said with a grin.
Great. I was surrounded by horny comedians and the one man I could never have.
I glared at Vorzak, who had yet to notice me. It was absolutely infuriating how oblivious he could be.
Of course, it was also infuriating that he hadn’t been oblivious yesterday. Maybe that’s why I was so taken aback by his lack of awareness today.
Idiot gorgon.
As if Vorzak heard my thoughts, his head jerked around and his snakes started waving and dancing the moment they saw me.
This time, though, Vorzak didn’t ignore me. Instead, he started walking toward us.
“Why is he coming over here?” I hissed. “You two didn’t beckon him over, right?”
“No way,” Mikaela said at the same time Kasi shook her head and said, “Nope.”
“I just can’t figure out why he’s noticing me all of a sudden.”
Before they could respond, Vorzak reached us. “Hello, ladies.” He gave us that sexy, half-smile of his that practically made me melt into a puddle at his feet.
Luckily, I was made of sterner stuff than that.
“Hey, Vorzak,” Mikaela said as she darted to the other side of Kasi. She wasn’t even subtle about her attempts to get away from his snakes. “Didn’t know you were in this class.” She sent me a look that somehow communicated she blamed me for this unexpected development.
I sent her a look back that clearly denied any and all culpability, and furthermore, demanded she stay and act as a buffer.
Instead, she shook her head and edged further away.
Such a baby!
“I just joined the class,” Vorzak said. “Figured it’d be a good idea to work on getting my snakes used to dragons.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “But why?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? Might need to ride a dragon one of these days.”
“Give me a break.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re not fooling anyone. I know you were up to something in the stables last night and it didn’t have anything to do with learning how to ride a dragon.”
He grinned, but before he could answer, Professor Vesely clapped his hands and called out, “All right, everyone. Gather around.”