Chapter 4 #2
Her eyes—those impossible, knowing eyes—meet mine with intensity that sees through every defense I've ever constructed.
"Her decisions can be erratic, unpredictable, and sometimes wicked in nature," she continues, each word landing with the precision of arrows finding targets. "But you trust her more than you do all the men out there waiting for your departure from this room and seeking answers."
Yes.
The acknowledgment surfaces without permission.
I trust her.
Despite her recklessness. Despite her tendency to headbutt solutions into existence rather than thinking them through. Despite the fact that she's currently unconscious because she pushed herself beyond reasonable limits without considering consequences.
I trust her more than anyone I've trusted in centuries.
The realization should be uncomfortable, should threaten the careful independence I've cultivated across lifetimes of solitary scholarship. Instead, it settles into my chest with the warmth of finally understanding something I'd been studying without comprehending.
Professor Eternalis shrugs, the casual gesture contrasting with the weight of her observations.
"You are one of the most knowledgeable individuals on this team, Mortimer."
The compliment hangs in the air, clearly incomplete.
I arch an eyebrow in question, waiting for the qualification that her tone promises.
Her smirk widens.
"But that familiar of a cat demigod god of sorts has unlocked knowledge his master simply hasn't unlocked yet."
Wait.
What?
I frown at the revelation, mind racing to reorganize everything I thought I understood about our feline companion.
Zeke is a demigod cat familiar?
The words echo through my consciousness, triggering cascades of connection. His nine lives. His impossible knowledge of events he shouldn't be able to remember. The way his magic carries undertones that never quite felt purely feline. The devotion that seemed to transcend simple bond-mate dynamics.
A familiar.
But not just any familiar—a demigod familiar, whatever that means.
And he knows things his "master"—presumably Gwenievere—hasn't accessed yet.
"Zeke is a demigod cat familiar?" I mutter, the question emerging before I can consider whether voicing it is wise.
Professor Eternalis begins to pace—a movement that somehow makes the chartered space feel smaller, more intimate, as if we're having this conversation in a study rather than a pocket dimension.
"Youth is what allows one to have time to grow and morph into their destined paths," she begins, her voice taking on the particular cadence of teachers who have given this lecture many times before.
The words feel familiar—not the specific phrasing, but the concept. Something I've read in ancient texts, something whispered in libraries that existed before written language became standardized.
"You already know this, as you've gone from scholar to one who has read thousands of books in various libraries. You hold knowledge that many wish to carry, like a walking encyclopedia of information. Now..."
She pauses, turning to face me with expression that carries challenge and promise in equal measure.
"Imagine one with immortality after their nine lives. A nice bonus when you're young and have started life in a cycle of stillness."
Cycle of stillness.
The phrase triggers something in the deepest archives of my memory—texts I'd dismissed as mythology, legends I'd catalogued without truly believing.
"I don't understand," I admit, the words tasting like failure on a tongue that prides itself on comprehension.
She nods, accepting my confusion without judgment.
"It's not necessarily meant for you to understand," she explains, her voice carrying patience that speaks of endless repetition. "None of this will truly 'make' sense, because your group is the first to finally reach this cycle of wickedness."
First.
The first to reach this point.
But if we're the first...
"You make it seem like you've lived through this on repeat," I observe, watching her reaction carefully.
She doesn't answer.
The silence stretches between us, pregnant with implications that make my scholarly mind race through centuries of accumulated knowledge.
Fragments surface from the depths—legends dismissed as fantasy, scriptures written in languages that predated the Academy, whispered stories about beings who existed outside normal time.
The Eternal Watcher, one text had called such beings. Those who observe the cycles, waiting for the pattern to finally complete.
Guardians of possibility, another had suggested. Present at every iteration, guiding without interfering, watching for the combination of souls that might finally break the chain.
"If there was never truly a Seven," I say slowly, pieces clicking into place with the particular satisfaction of puzzles finally solving themselves, "then you were waiting... until one worthy enough with the right timing would rise to the positions..."
I need a moment, the implications cascading faster than I can process them. Names surface in my mind, organizing themselves into patterns I hadn't recognized until this moment.
"Gwenievere," I whisper, the first and most important name.
The heir. The centerpiece. The one around whom everything else revolves.
"Cassius."
Shadow and darkness, protection and possession.
"Nikolai."
Duality and adaptation, Fae grace hiding deep wounds.
"Atticus."
Blood and eternity, aristocratic devotion beneath theatrical arrogance.
"Zeke."
Knowledge and guidance, familiar power serving something greater.
"Myself."
Flame and wisdom, centuries of scholarship in service of understanding.
"Damien."
The name feels wrong even as I say it. Not because he doesn't belong, but because...
My frown deepens.
Something's missing. Something doesn't fit.
Professor Eternalis walks toward me, each step deliberate, until we're standing face to face. I'm taller—dragon stature giving me physical advantage—but she commands the space between us with presence that transcends mere height.
"You wouldn't count the golden four-leaf clover among seven green ones, would you?"
The analogy settles over me like revelation.
I imagine it—seven clovers arranged in a pattern, six of them identical green, but one in the center blazing with golden light that transforms it from participant to centerpiece.
Gwenievere isn't one of the Seven.
Gwenievere is what the Seven exist to serve.
"Gwenievere's the centerpiece," I say, understanding flooding through me with the particular rush of finally grasping something profound. "The ruler... the queen of the chessboard..."
Chess.
The metaphor extends, pieces reorganizing themselves on an imaginary board. Queen at the center—the most powerful piece, capable of moving in any direction. And around her...
"And we're the Seven," I continue, mind racing to keep up with implications that cascade faster than I can fully process. "Meaning..."
Seven pieces serving the Queen.
But which pieces?
And who is the seventh if Damien doesn't quite fit the pattern my mind is trying to construct?
Professor Eternalis's smirk widens with satisfaction, the expression of a teacher watching a student finally grasp a lesson she's been trying to communicate.
She spins around with grace that shouldn't be possible for someone of any age, moving toward the door with purpose that suggests our private conversation has reached its conclusion.
"I've cloaked the final bond mark until she's awake and in better spirits," she announces, her back to me as she reaches for the doorknob. "I don't need you men fighting each other when we have other things to fight to let out all that sexual tension."
Sexual tension.
Heat floods my face—actual warmth spreading across cheeks that haven't blushed in centuries.
"There's no sexual tension," I protest, the defensive words emerging before I can stop them.
Professor Eternalis laughs.
The sound is genuine, delighted, carrying the particular joy of someone who has just witnessed something endlessly amusing.
She looks over her shoulder, those ageless eyes dancing with humor at my expense.
"Not everyone has dragon hormones where you lot get kinky for three to six months at a time and then are happily dormant for as long as you need."
How does she know about—
My frown deepens into something approaching genuine embarrassment.
The dragon mating cycle isn't exactly secret knowledge, but it's not something I discuss casually—the months-long periods of intense physical need followed by extended dormancy that makes dragons seem almost asexual to species with more consistent drives.
And apparently, we're in an active period right now.
Which might explain why my reactions to Gwenievere have been so... intense.
Professor Eternalis giggles—the sound surprisingly young given everything else about her presence—and looks away, returning her attention to the door.
"All paranormal shifters are the same no matter how you look at it," she observes, voice carrying the particular wisdom of someone who has watched countless species navigate the complications of physical desire.
"Sex brings unity just as it expands. Remember, your group are younglings in comparison to us who've embarked the world and the lust revolving our own kinds. "
Younglings.
The word makes me bristle slightly. I'm centuries old—by most standards, ancient beyond measure. But Professor Eternalis's casual use of the term suggests that from her perspective, my considerable lifespan is barely a blink.
What does that make her? What has she seen? How many "cycles of wickedness" has she observed, waiting for the right combination of souls to finally break whatever pattern has been repeating?
She reaches for the doorknob again, but pauses before turning it.
"I'll be honest," she says, voice dropping to something more serious, more weighted with genuine warning. "You won't like your final teammate."
Final teammate.
The seventh.
Not Damien—she said earlier that the sixth mark was cloaked, implying Damien's bond is known but this other...
"No one does," she continues, the words landing with the weight of prophecy. "But the most complicated individuals are the most devoted and broken bunch anyone can have on their team."
Complicated. Devoted. Broken.
The description triggers memories of the stranger who appeared during Gwenievere's resurrection. The impossible purple blood. The refusal to identify himself. The power that tasted of nothing I could categorize despite centuries of studying supernatural taxonomy.
Him.
The seventh is him.
"Ensure the rest understand that," Professor Eternalis finishes, hand finally turning the doorknob, "as we hopefully break this cycle once and for all."
She opens the door.
Beyond it, I can see the larger space where the others wait—Cassius's shadows coiling with agitated energy, Atticus pacing with vampire restlessness, Zeke observing everything with feline calm that now carries different implications, Nikolai—or perhaps Nikki, or perhaps both—trying to recover from whatever separation their shared form has undergone.
And somewhere in that space, presumably still restrained, the stranger who apparently holds the final position in our unexpected configuration.
Professor Eternalis steps through the door without looking back, her presence withdrawing from the room and taking with it some essential vitality that I hadn't realized she was providing.
I'm left alone with Gwenievere's floating form and the weight of revelations that will take far longer than a few days to fully process.
The Seven was always a metaphor.
Gwenievere is the Queen, the centerpiece, the golden clover among green.
We—Cassius, Nikolai, Atticus, Zeke, myself, and two others—are the pieces that serve her.
Damien's position makes sense now—the sixth mark, the complicated redemption arc, the former enemy becoming crucial ally.
But the seventh...
I turn back to Gwenievere's sphere, watching her float in peaceful stasis while my mind races through implications I'm not sure I'm ready to accept.
The stranger with purple blood and impossible arrogance.
The being who saved her life when the rest of us couldn't.
The final piece of a puzzle we didn't know we were assembling.
Professor Eternalis's words echo through my mind: You won't like your final teammate. No one does.
But the most complicated individuals are the most devoted and broken bunch anyone can have on their team.
I think about Cassius—how his shadows seemed alien and threatening before I understood they were protection given form.
About Atticus—how his vampire arrogance masked centuries of lonely devotion.
About Nikolai—how their shifting form hid trauma so deep it required creating an entirely separate identity to survive.
We're all complicated.
All devoted in our own ways.
All broken by experiences that shaped us into whatever we've become.
Why should the seventh be any different?
But even as the rational part of my mind counsels patience and understanding, my dragon instincts coil with wariness that refuses to subside.
There's something about that stranger.
Something that sets every protective urge I possess on high alert.
Something that makes me want to position myself between him and Gwenievere and breathe fire until whatever threat he represents has been reduced to ash.
Time, I tell myself, turning away from the sphere to face the door Professor Eternalis departed through. Time will reveal what we need to know.
Time will help the others understand what I've just learned.
Time will show us whether this final teammate can be trusted, or whether Professor Eternalis's warning about not being liked carries implications more dangerous than simple personality conflict.
I move toward the door, preparing to join my... teammates.
My team.
My unexpected family of misfits and monsters, all orbiting the same fierce woman like planets around a sun too bright to look at directly.
And now, apparently, one more addition to our chaotic configuration.
The door handle is warm under my palm—residual heat from Professor Eternalis's touch, or perhaps just the charged nature of this between-space responding to my presence.
I take a breath.
Hold it.
Release it with the particular control of someone who has spent centuries learning to manage reactions that could level buildings if left unchecked.
Then I open the door and step through into whatever chaos awaits.
Time will make me realize that this new addition is going to be a wicked pain in my dragon ass.