Chapter 11 Alaric
Alaric
It hadn’t even been funny. The minute everyone fell about laughing at the little witch, I wanted to pick her up and fold my arms around her. She broadcast first her panic and then her embarrassment to the entire room because she’d not remembered to shield her thoughts.
I laughed even though it left a bitter taste in my mouth. But what else could I do? If I did what my magic wanted, someone would figure it out. They’d realize she meant something to me, and I couldn’t afford for that to happen.
“I fucking hate you, man,” Arron grumbled as he caught me up. “This bastard rain is killing me.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
He snorted. “Yeah right. Two atrocious storms in twenty-four hours? Highly unlikely to be a natural occurrence.”
“Fuck off, Arron.” Lightning blasted a nearby tree, frying a few sheltering birds. I felt bad for them, but each time I lapped the gymnasium and saw my witch standing next to that fucking bear-shifter asshole, my magic went haywire.
Only she wasn’t my witch.
We lapped the track again, passing several bedraggled females.
The longer I ran, the angrier I got. How dare fate fuck with me!
After witnessing my father destroy my mother thanks to a stupid soul-bond, I’d never wanted to be bonded to anyone.
Least of all a pathetic witch with no status in our world.
More and more students fell by the wayside as the storm worsened.
Soon, the rain turned to lumps of stinging ice.
So many ice pellets fell from the churning black sky the running track turned white.
The temperature plummeted below freezing, but I didn’t care.
I blocked out everything until all I could feel was the pain in my chest.
People yelled and cursed as ice stung their exposed flesh and the wind cut through their wet clothes. Only the shifters among us seemed relatively unbothered by the shocking weather.
By the time the bell signaled the end of the class, my legs were as numb as my heart.
Arron stomped off back to our apartment, utterly pissed off.
He knew the storm was me throwing a stupid tantrum and punishing everyone, but what I couldn’t admit, even to myself, was that I had no control over my magic.
Not while she was in the gymnasium, near enough to cause me physical pain.
She and the shifter asshole had disappeared from view ages ago.
I assumed he’d sent her back to her room.
The bastard hadn’t shown his face again, although nobody had been brave enough to quit running early, just in case he was still watching us.
Several witches and mages staggered back to the dorms after me, all of them miserable as fuck. Only one had the sense to use their fire magic to stave off hypothermia. Idiots, the lot of them.
“I’m going to kill that bitch,” Demelza muttered to her friend Cassie. “This is all her fault.”
I said nothing. If the others wanted to go after the little witch, that was up to them. I couldn’t get involved in any revenge plot, as I’d discovered actively hurting my witch caused me unbearable pain. But I certainly wouldn’t get in their way.
Maybe if they killed her, it would sever the soul-bond and my torture would end. Then I could move forward with my life.
The alternative was more pain and suffering, and I wasn’t ready for that.