Chapter 28 #2
Hardwicke begins class as soon as the hour is set, today’s lesson focusing on our performance in the Mating Games, just as Aesir’s lesson had not an hour prior.
“You cannot hope to find a mate if you cannot attract one,” Hardwicke announces to the room with a disappointed shake of her head.
“Aesir tells me that your combat prowess leaves much to be desired, but I’ve seen the holos of your interactions with each other outside of combat. They are equally as alarming.”
Thorn scoffs. “What, are we getting lessons on courtship, now?”
“Precisely.” Hardwicke nods to confirm his statement. “And you, Thorn Mason, should not be seated in this classroom. Or shall I tell the headmaster that you’d like to repeat your first-year lessons?”
No one in their right mind would repeat an entire year’s worth of study—
“I’d appreciate it, Professor. Thank you.”
Gemma turns to glare at him in the same moment Hardwicke scowls. “Request denied. Get back to your second-year studies, Mr. Mason, and leave Miss Rose to her own.”
Thorn bristles as he stands, not challenging Professor Hardwicke but clearly not happy about it, regardless. “See you after class, Gem.”
She ignores him, but I watch Thorn leave, curious about his increased attachment to her. Once Hardwicke continues the lesson, I lean into Gemma’s side. “Why is he so clingy today?”
“Hells if I know.” Gemma purses her lips. “Actually, I think he’s angry that he’s the sibling stuck babysitting me, but I never asked him to! He’s just—gods, he’s suffocating sometimes.”
Resisting the urge to look over my shoulder at Revyn, I murmur back, “I know the feeling.”
Although Revyn and I are ex-lovers with a complicated relationship. Gemma and Thorn are—what, exactly? Close siblings? Friends? More than that?
I bite my lip to keep from asking her while we’re in public. I’ll have to steal her away soon to get the full details of their relationship. She may not want a mate for reasons I have yet to riddle out of her, but Thorn definitely has more than friendship on his mind.
“He’s trying to protect you,” Callum interjects, his voice as soft as his statement. “Do not be angry with him.”
“I’m sorry,” Gemma snaps, twisting in her seat to glare at Callum. “Did I invite you into my private conversation?”
Professor Hardwicke claps her hands loudly, interrupting us and simultaneously gathering the attention of everyone in the room.
“Unlike shifters, who tend to mate with their own species,” she continues from whatever lesson she’s attempting to give, “witches are free to mate with all magical races on account of their receptive genetics. Witches are perfect conduits for any number of magics, which is why they’ve survived as long as they have.
Adaptability breeds survivability.” Leveling Gemma with a stern look, she gestures for her to come to the front.
“Gemma Rose, if you’d join me at the front, please. ”
Oh gods.
Gemma curses under her breath but plasters on a smile as she stands. “Of course, Professor.” Carefully navigating the rows of seats, she weaves through the other students to the front of the room. Once there, she clasps her hands behind her back. “Would you like for me to demonstrate my magics?”
“No,” Hardwicke replies, “but I would like for you to hold out your hand.” She snaps her fingers and summons another student—a merfolk, judging by the dampness of his jagged lavender locks—to stand beside Gemma.
Once they both hold their hands out in front of them, Hardwicke angles each over a glass bowl sitting on the table at the front of the room, then produces a dagger from a hidden sheath at her back.
“Hold still, you two.” With a quick but precise motion, she slices into both of their palms and overturns them, dripping their blood into the bowl.
The merfolk flinches but Gemma stands resolute, easily wrapping her hand with the cloth Hardwicke offers a moment later. Once her binding is secure, she helps the merfolk tend to his wound.
Witches are known for dabbling in all kinds of magic, and despite Gemma’s affinity for plants, it seems that she is no stranger to bloodletting.
Her voice echoes in my head.
And I thought my matriarch was scary.
I know very little about witches and their traditions, but I know even less about how their greater community is structured. Shifters settle in packs with a reigning alpha in charge, so perhaps the term ‘matriarch’ is similar in status to alpha.
But to demand blood from your kin?
A shiver rolls down my spine, although I shouldn’t be so wary of witches’ conduct with blood on account of how vampires’ entire existence depends on it. Maybe in this arena, shifters are the odd ones out.
“Now, watch as we mix their blood.” Professor Hardwicke adds a clear liquid to the bowl and swirls the mixture, Gemma’s crimson blood merging perfectly with the merfolk’s blue, turning the solution a brilliant shade of shimmering violet.
“See how neither of them rejects the other? That is the major benefit of mating with a witch. When you join magics, you each receive a boon. Enhanced strengths, secondary magics, perhaps even an attunement with nature, depending on the witch’s individual talents. ”
A boy in the second row raises his hand. “If that’s the benefit to selecting a human mate, then what’s the downfall?”
Hardwicke’s gaze softens. “Humans, and by extension, witches don’t have a long lifespan. How old are you, Miss Rose?”
To Gemma’s credit, she lifts her chin as she answers. “I’ll be twenty-three this summer.”
“And how long do witches in your bloodline live, on average?”
Color blooms across Gemma’s cheeks. “A little over a hundred and fifty years, depending on their magics and—”
“A hundred and fifty years,” Hardwicke interrupts, her brows knitting. “Which means that should you mate within the next five years, you will have barely over one hundred years with your partner, should you survive that long.”
“Witches have lived for hundreds of years, Professor; over six hundred in one lifetime, according to our records—”
“Records of the past, Miss Rose, which do little to aid you now.”
Gemma flinches, as do the other witches in the room.
“The risk of mating a witch is time, Ambrose,” our professor sighs, the gentle shake of her head causing her mating marks to glint a pretty aquamarine in the morning light.
“Shifters live for hundreds of years, as do merfolk. Vampires are essentially eternal, as are the fae.” She nods in kind to various students of said species within the room.
“Fae are the most limited among us in terms of numbers, however, and merfolk often do not mate with those who cannot tolerate life underwater. So where does that leave us?” Her gaze roams the room.
“With an even smaller pool of options in an already dwindling population? And you want to argue among yourselves and present your worst traits within these academy’s walls?
” Jutting out her hip, Hardwicke crosses her arms over her chest. “It is hard enough to find a mate outside Heartsflame. Your best chance at survival—yes, survival—is to spend your time here wisely. Enhance your natural talents. Strengthen your connections with others. Find a mate you are compatible with or risk graduating alone. The wilds are not forgiving, and they will feed off the weaknesses in you if you let them.”
Revyn’s presence at my back is a force of its own—a reminder that among everyone in this room, he has spent the most time alone in the wild and survived. Yet even he is here seeking a mate, unable to resist the need for one after decades of trying.
I bring out the most desperate parts of him.
Half the room turns to stare at us—the two wild wolves fighting to survive in a world that would rather see us perish alone than find our other halves.
Despite my opposition to mating at this precise moment in time, I’m not opposed to it, so long as mating comes after graduation, or none of my efforts to enroll in and excel at Heartsflame will have mattered.
No one will take me seriously if I mate without proving my strength beforehand.
I’d be accused of being a Pack Princess—a fertile female who has sex with alpha shifters until one of them knocks her up.
Pregnancy is one of the automatic acceptance rules within packs; if you’re carrying an alpha’s offspring, you’re brought into the pack regardless of whether they form a mating bond with you.
Unbonded pairs having children together is rare, but it happens if you’re not careful and knot your partner during a full moon—a fact that has aided many Pack Princesses in securing homes within packs much stronger than their own.
My gaze slides to Alistair. I haven’t heard of anyone within the Dire pack siring offspring with an unmated partner . . . but there’s always a first time for everything. He pointedly stares at Hardwicke rather than at me, but the blonde bitch glued to his side smiles at me in mock kindness.
It’s tempting to rip her throat out.
Pinching my lips to keep a growl from rumbling past, I tear my gaze away.
Thinking of, and staring at, Alistair is pointless.
Yes, he is the next alpha in line for the strongest pack of our generation, but no, he won’t ever mate with me on account of the fact that he thinks I killed his older brother—an incorrect assumption that I have zero proof against.
Besides, I’d never compromise Revyn’s safety just to clear my name . . . even if it could land me a spot in the most coveted wolf pack in the realm.
I clench my fists as my claws sharpen. Yeah, not fucking happening. Ever.
Revyn’s breath is warm against my ear. “You alright?”