Chapter 23 Raven
Raven
“Did you hear what happened?” Glynda whispered as we sat down at a table in the corner of the dining hall. Outside, rain spattered against the windows. The ones not boarded up, at least.
I tried not to stare at the scorched circle on the polished wood floor while eating my oatmeal. Every mouthful tasted like ash as my brain replayed a highlights reel of the awful crime scene in the forest.
Maverick had taken me back to my dorm and then left to get rid of the evidence. He’d seemed surprisingly nonchalant about the whole affair. In fact, I’d go as far as to say mentioning the incubus’s part in what happened riled him up a lot more than me being an accessory to a murder.
“No,” I mumbled while doing my best not to choke on oatmeal. I’d left the kitsune asleep in my bed. The little shit had stolen my covers and seemed way too comfortable for my liking.
Why hadn’t the goddess gifted me with a nice familiar? Something cool, like an eagle or a panther. Hell, even a rat would have been a better choice.
“It was the full moon last night, but because of the storm, the party in the forest got canceled, so most of the wolves let loose in their dorm. Anyway, a few went for a run later. Only, three of them somehow ended up dead.”
My food got stuck in my throat and I choked. Glynda passed me a glass of water.
“Thomas is still missing, but one of his friends tracked down his severed hand. Colin and Trevor were found dead in their room. Demelza said it looked like they’d been scared to death. Literally.”
I frowned. Scared to death? My bear could be scary when he got mad, but scaring someone to death didn’t seem like his work. He was more likely to rip a male to pieces.
“Is it possible to die from fear?”
Glynda gulped. “Remember the Vanyx case?”
“No.” Human news occasionally filtered through to me via Willow, but she was way more interested in celebrity gossip than anything important.
“Xavian Vanyx was Zane Vanyx’s father. You know, the incubus who treats this school like a hotel.” My heart thumped loudly in my chest. Past-tense meant dead. I shivered when I remembered the look in Zane’s eyes after the wolf shifter said something about his father.
“Xavian Vanyx was an incubus like Zane. A really powerful one. When Zane’s mother was killed, he lost his mind.
” Glynda looked sad. “They were soul-bonded.” She shook her head.
“So sad. Anyway, Xavian really went off the rails. Like, massively off the rails. It all reached boiling point when he lost his shit at a party full of really powerful magicals and humans. They say he poured so much lust, fear, and anger into the air that the people at the party fucked and tore each other to pieces.”
I stared at her in horror. “What?”
“Yeah. He made them all go mad and they died in horrible ways. Nobody at the party survived. Just Xavian. When the cops and magical security people arrived, they found him lying in a bath of blood and body parts, cackling like a madman, high as a kite.”
No longer able to swallow food, I shoved my bowl of oatmeal away. Student chatter washed over us, but most people seemed subdued this morning. Unsurprisingly.
“They put him on trial, and then, a week later, they executed him.”
Oh my stars, poor Zane. Not only had he lost his mother but his father too. And in such horrible circumstances. No wonder he’d reacted badly to the wolf shifter’s mention of his father.
“What happened to Zane? And how old was he when this happened?”
“He was ten. He got sent to live with his maternal grandparents. They’re wolf shifters. I don’t imagine he had much fun being dumped with a pack of wolf shifters. His mother’s family was furious when she mated an incubus. And with Zane being an incubus too…well.”
My heart bled for my poor incubus. He must have suffered horribly. And none of it was his fault.
“So Zane is probably the only magical alive who can literally scare someone to death.”
Glynda’s words sank in. Was Zane responsible for murdering the only two witnesses who could tie me to the crime scene?
If so, why would he do that? Then I realized.
As well as being a prime suspect, I was also a witness to his killing the wolf.
Of course. He wanted to ensure that even if I told someone, there was nobody else to back up my story.
Then the penny dropped. What if he decided he had to get rid of me too?
“I have to go.”
“Wait, what??” Glynda looked concerned as I shot to my feet. “I thought we were going to study and then watch a movie later?”
“Um, about that…” Stars above, I still hadn’t told her about Kenji. She would lose her mind when she found out I now had a familiar.
“How rude, witch. She’ll be impressed and jealous that you were so blessed by the goddess.”
“I thought you were asleep?!”
Something furry brushed against my leg. I looked down but saw nothing. Then the chair next to me moved a fraction before, to Glynda’s surprise, a white kitsune with two tails blinked into view, frantically cramming bacon into his mouth.
“Surprise!”
“What the fuck?” Glynda leaped away from the table, knocking over a glass of orange juice.
I inwardly sighed while praying for the goddess to sweep me away to the afterlife.
If I got linked to any more mess or destruction in this school, the powers that be would revoke my place.
And I was pretty sure the mage who dropped me off warned option two was magical prison.
“Not sure I like your witch friend,” Kenji observed before grabbing her last sausage. “She seems kind of hormonal.”
“Don’t be mean. Glynda is my only friend here.”
Kenji snorted bacon fragments out through his nose. “Why am I not surprised?” He blinked away briefly. We heard a commotion coming from the kitchen followed by irate yells, then the kitsune reappeared with a stack of ham and pancakes in his paws.
“What is it?” Glynda peered down at Kenji but seemed reluctant to sit down.
“Glynda, meet Kenji, my familiar.”
She relaxed and smiled with genuine pleasure. “Oh! How amazing and also how lucky!”
“Not sure I’d describe being paired with a felonious fox as lucky, exactly,” I muttered.
“Hey, I have no outstanding felonies, I’ll have you know!”
“Only because you’ve not been caught yet.”
He coughed. “Well, now that you mention it, if you spot a bounty hunter called Dog, tell him I moved to Nova Scotia.” Kenji blew a kiss at me. “Dog’s a mean bastard, and the last time we crossed paths, I may have pissed him off a teeny bit.”
“You know what? I don’t want to know.”
“So when did you guys find each other?” Glynda bounced on her toes, excited about my news.
“The forest last night.”
“The forest?” Her eyes widened, and I realized I’d put my foot in my mouth. Oh stars. Now she knew I’d been in the same location as a dead shifter.
“A quick trip to collect some flowers. Saw nothing,” I added breezily.
Kenji jumped onto the table, lifted his tails, and proceeded to lick his butt. Glynda and I both gagged.
“Seriously? People have to eat at these tables!”
“Hey! I’m a very hygienic kitsune. I eat and then I wash. Deal with it.”
Peals of laughter drifted our way before an unwelcome witch and her bitchy friends assembled in a circle around our table. Demelza pulled a disgusted expression at the sight of my kitsune washing his butt. He glanced up and then returned diligently to his task.
“Why is that in here?” Demelza screeched at me. “Have you lost your mind and started inviting the wildlife in for breakfast?”
“He’s my familiar.”
Demelza burst out laughing. “No fucking way!”
“Hey, at least she’s met hers,” Glynda said, coming to my defense. “I don’t see you with a familiar, unless yours is that slug eyebrow on your face.” She leaned in and frowned. “I swear it moved a second ago.”
Demelza’s new high-definition eyebrows loomed large on her delicate face. Glynda made a good point. Those things were…big.
“Oh fuck off, Glyn!” Demelza sniffed in disgust one more time and then glared at me. “I’ll be filing a report about this! The school does not allow familiars with fur in the dining hall!”
Kenji retched loudly before hacking up a disgusting hairball. We all joined him in a sympathetic retch because, stars, that was so gross I had no words.
“Oh my goddess, I just can’t.” Demelza ran off looking like she wished she’d made better life choices this morning. Frankly, I felt like joining her.
“Um, congrats on meeting your familiar.” Glynda grimaced in sympathy while staring at Kenji with what looked a lot like horror.
“I’m heading to the library to finish my assignment for Mr. Dunston.
I’ll catch you later.” She scurried away, leaving me with a suspiciously cheerful kitsune and a pile of hairball vomit.