Chapter 19
Nineteen
Felix
The look on her face was priceless. He wished he could frame it.
It was the cherry on top of the plan he had haphazardly thought out this morning.
The witches’ constant proximity was starting to grate on him, especially after he had been caught last night.
He needed a way to move around without suspicion.
Students had cover. Ergo, he was a student.
Simple math. Never mind that he stood a head taller than every witch in the room and was far older than any student here.
Already he was pulling unwanted attention from the women in the class.
Their giggling and staring, and worse, the whispers of the filthy things they would do to him.
He had exceptional hearing, and they had an exceptional lack of subtlety.
Truly, he didn’t blame them; even with his best features glamored away, how could they stand to be in front of such a handsome specimen as himself without acting accordingly?
But the only person he was interested in hearing from at the moment was silent.
Her lips pursed into a hard line, glaring at the innocent shadow beings on the table.
So she was pissed. Fine. He could work with that.
It was what he wanted all along, anyway, to not be reminded of her existence.
Yet for some reason, it annoyed him that she was annoyed.
And yes, he needed a better term than annoyed, but with the way she had his head frazzled, a dog could probably eat alphabet soup and shit out a better sentence than him right now.
“Healing the self,” Professor Bran started, pulling their attention to him as he scratched his salt and pepper beard, “is one of the most important skills a witch can have before they enter the field.” He cleared his throat, pausing for effect.
“Before you can repair another body, you must understand the mechanics of your own.”
He stopped at a student’s station.
“The first stage of healing requires you to locate the wound with your awareness, not your eyes. Your eyes will lie to you. Your magic will not. A healer who cannot do this for themself is a healer who will kill her patients.”
The little witch looked down as the professor’s gaze landed on her.
“After all, how can you expect to help others if you cannot help yourself?”
Felix watched the teacher continue to move around the room, etching his face into his mind for when he eventually got around to killing him for the whole collar thing.
“Begin,” the professor declared.
Metal clinked against wood across the room in a cacophony of noises as each student picked up a myriad of medieval-looking torture devices that were splayed out on the desks. He wondered what they could possibly use them for when healing was the main priority in this class.
They rolled up the sleeves of their uniforms, only to slice a thin line with a scalpel down their forearms. Blood welled to the surface, staining their palms. They moved in tandem as if they were spelled to do so. Some visibly winced, others didn’t even blink.
So that was the reason. This was how they taught healing?
It seemed extreme even for him. Surely there were better ways to learn than this.
But it was a testament to the witches just how little they cared for the sanctity of magic.
Their bodies were only tools, a vessel in the pursuit of power. It was how they always had been.
“Feel the wound, feel how deep it goes, feel the way the body rushes to save itself even if it’s futile,” the professor said with a tad too much passion.
“The body is a marvelous thing, but magic is the true marvel. It can heal everything except the wounds of the heart, which are often the most painful.”
Felix rolled his eyes at the Shakespearean performance the professor was putting on; he knew Bran was a wet blanket at parties.
“When you have located the true injury, channel from your familiar, and imagine you are an artist, and the wound is your canvas.”
Good god, he was insufferable. A few students sent tentative looks to their familiars.
A crow ruffled its feathers. A small serpent wound tighter around its witch’s wrist as they started to heal their wounds.
Felix shoved his sleeve up and dragged the blade down as rivulets of hot blood seeped from the wound.
But before the blood could even drop, the wound knit itself shut.
He narrowed his eyes on his arm and then did it again.
The wound opened and closed just as quickly.
What the fuck? Unease wove through his gut; this was not normal. Not even close to normal.
Usually, it took at least a minute for anything to start healing, and complex wounds took even longer. Even something as minor as a paper cut wouldn’t heal for at least a minute. He really hated paper cuts, though; they had no business being so painful.
It wasn’t even the speed that bothered him the most. It was that he didn’t even need to think about it. Before, it took intense concentration; now it was automatic, like his body knew what he needed before he could tell it.
Felix looked to where she had taken the scalpel, her face as pale as a cat that had dipped its face in milk as she stared at it, the shiny reflection glinting against the clinical light hanging above their station.
She hovered it just above the crook of the elbow, her small hand trembling.
Would her body heal as fast? He wanted to find out.
Her breaths quickened, becoming shallow with each one. For a second, he thought she would pass out when the professor’s gaze landed on them, his beady eyes looking her up and down. Shreds of panic found their way down the bond, tightening Felix’s chest.
This was going on too long. Felix reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.
“I can do it,” she said.
One second of contact was enough to send a current of electricity running up his arm, the world narrowing to the two inches of skin where they connected, and he became suddenly, painfully aware of everywhere they weren’t touching.
Usually, when someone touched him, it was repulsive.
Even when he fucked someone, it would be with his shadows, never laying a hand on their bodies.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to.
The last time he’d let someone close enough to try.
Until her. Until the little witch summoned him, and apparently, he left everything about himself back in London.
Each day that passed, he became something more unrecognizable, a shifter who craved a witch’s touch.
The witch still hesitated.
Felix rolled his eyes. “Any day now.”
“Shut up,” she snapped back, her brows furrowing. “Give me a second.”
To be fair, Felix did wait a single second before he wrapped his hand around hers, pushing the knife into her fair skin. He told himself it was a necessary touch to keep up appearances. She didn’t wince as the knife slid down her skin.
The professor nodded, turning his attention back to the other students.
Felix’s gaze wandered back to her, something he found himself doing more often than not as the days went on.
He blamed it on his cat instincts, the way he saw it, and what he told himself so he could sleep at night, was that while threats surrounded him, he had to stay vigilant.
She was a threat, so he had to keep his eyes on her.
Completely normal behavior that had nothing to do with anything else.
Felix licked his fang, resisting the urge to bend down and lick it all up.
Why the hell did her blood taste so good?
He expected her to look away from the cut, or worse, faint.
The color still hadn’t returned to her face.
She forced herself to look at the wound, to hold her eyes there even though he could tell she so desperately wanted to turn away.
A flicker of respect took him by surprise. Most would turn away. She didn’t.
She had, however, forgotten to breathe.
“Breathe, little witch,” he said into her mind.
A controlled noise escaped her, like she was pretending she had been breathing normally this whole time.
“Why do you care?” she said, her gaze meeting his.
“Because you are no use to me passed out.”
“Right.” Even through her sarcasm, he watched as her chest rose and fell, taking deep breaths at his command. A sense of calm replaced the bothersome panic that had been filtering through his walls before.
“Good girl, just like that.”
Something else flickered down the bond at his words.
Something he vehemently ignored lest he get a boner like a fucking teenager.
The bond flared to life in his chest, its golden tether searching for its other half.
As if she felt it too, her eyes flicked to his, lips parting in recognition before both of them took a step away from one another.
A stony wall wedged between them. It was only the bond. And that was all it would ever be.
The professor looked down at the pair, judging their progress through his thin spectacles.
All the others had closed their wounds. The only one left was the little witch, her blood dripping slowly onto the floor as she hid her arm from the rest of the class.
The professor gave her a disapproving look, as if he had caught a child awake during nap time and moved on without a word, nose plastered high to the sky.
Felix ran a hand through his hair, something knotting in his stomach. He had not only caused the wound, but the humiliation along with it.
Laughter broke out behind him, stealing his attention. Two students, one of them with the wolf that sniffed his ass the other day. A growl rumbled through his chest. They were not laughing at him; they were laughing at his witch.