Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Elodie
With every step I take toward Professor Raith’s office, I regret my last “divination” more. I hadn’t planned on cutting quite so deep or so blatantly.
But when Asher made his comment about my back, the need to shut down any further conversation bowled over every other consideration—and common sense—I might have.
Possibly I shouldn’t have used the exercise to needle Professor Raith in the first place. It just got my hackles up so high that he was pitting me against Asher, prodding for something to criticize about me... I had the idea I was turning the tables on him.
I’m not sure it worked. And the memory of Asher’s deer-in-the-headlights expression when I hurled out my last accusation burns in my mind.
I never meant to hurt him. It’s the one thing I’ve been trying to avoid more than anything else from the moment I arrived in this world. I just got so caught up...
At least my hasty retraction seemed to stop Cole from thinking I’d revealed something true about my partner. If this Asher ever wants to tell his older brother how stifled he feels, it’ll be on his own time.
Professor Raith brushes past me to unlock the door to his office. A swipe of his hand twists the ephemera embedded in the lock as effectively as a key.
I stiffen against the flush that blooms over my skin where his shoulder grazed mine. My fingers press my stinging palm.
The door squeaks faintly as it opens. A waft of Cole’s piney scent, intensified by all the years he’s worked out of this room, seeps into my lungs.
Oh, this is a very bad idea. An ache is already wrapping around my heart... and condensing low in my belly.
Things got fraught enough in the library where anyone could have walked by. Letting myself be shut away in an enclosed space with just him?
I don’t have any choice. Professor Raith motions brusquely for me to get a move on, his mouth a slash of resentment, his eyes still smoldering with fury.
And hopefully not any other emotions.
As I follow him inside, my pulse hitches at the familiar scene.
This Cole has styled his office almost identically to mine.
The tall window only lets in a thin stream of hazy light along the edge where the heavy curtain is mostly shut.
The muted glow touches the broad oak desk set in the very middle of the room.
Bookcases cover two of the other walls, stuffed with a mix of old and new texts as well as various esoteric devices meant to examine or conduct ephemera in various ways.
Yes, he even has a literal crystal ball.
A potted plant sits on the desk across from a pen holder and a stack of a few books. A larger plant sprouts dark, waxy leaves from its pot next to the window. A light herbal scent that’s meant to settle the nerves mingles with Cole’s cologne.
The latter means the former has absolutely no effect on me.
It doesn’t appear to be calming Professor Raith either. He moves to stand beside his desk, drawing his posture so intimidatingly straight I’d swear he’s two feet taller than me rather than one.
An image from the past wells up behind my eyes.
Professor Raith straightens up as I nudge the office door open. I take in the boxes lined up on his desk, and my heart sinks.
He’s already packed more than half his books.
My voice comes out thick. “I heard you resigned.”
The Divination professor gives a noncommittal shrug. He’s tensed the way he often does when I’m anywhere nearby. “My work here has run its course.”
My fingers tighten where I’m still gripping the edge of the door, not quite daring to step all the way inside. “Is it because of me? Because of...?”
I trail off, my gaze dropping to his gloved hand that I know bears the same bond mark on its palm that mine does.
He hasn’t wanted to show it. Hasn’t wanted to acknowledge me as his match. Has barely wanted to be in the same room as me since it appeared, gritting his teeth through every class and the brief tutoring session he offered.
I can’t even blame him. I just hate the thought that he blames me.
Even if it is my fault.
The professor’s jaw works. His shoulders come down slightly.
He motions me the rest of the way in. “We should talk.”
About how much he doesn’t want to be my match? How any fond feelings he might have been able to develop for me are too tangled up in his brother’s death?
Swallowing hard, I ease inside. The door clicks shut. I stay on the opposite side of the room, respecting the distance the most reluctant of my matches has wanted.
Professor Raith moves a little closer, his eyes holding mine. His expression is still taut, but his gaze feels a little softer than it’s usually been when he looks at me.
“You were good friends with Asher,” he says. “I’d imagine he told you why I took this position.”
I nod. “So Luminary would have to admit him.”
“And now that’s... no longer a factor.” A thread of strain creeps into his voice.
“I can’t say I ever enjoyed the work. I don’t think it’s a good situation to be grading you as your match, but even if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have stayed on longer.
You haven’t ruined anything I wanted to keep. ”
He says it so emphatically that I believe him. More relief than I was prepared for sweeps through me.
“Oh. Okay. I just… wanted to be sure.”
His throat bobs. For a second, I think he’s going to take another step closer to me, but he stays in place, his hand clenching where he’s rested it on one of the boxes.
“I’m sure this matching isn’t how either of us would have wanted it to go. But I’m not abandoning you, Elodie. I only need to wait until I’m sure what’s right. Until I’m sure I’m doing right by you. We’ll... we’ll sort it out, no matter how it started. All right?”
A burn forms in the back of my eyes...
...and I’m blinking at a Cole two and a half years older but nowhere near as considerate, who’s cleared his throat.
“Are you going to explain your hostility toward Asher, or am I going to have to drag the answers out of you?”
Just like that, a fresh wave of irritation prickles through me, chasing away any affection that lingered from the memory.
I glare right back at him. “If you think you’ve got to protect your brother from me, maybe you shouldn’t have paired me with him in an exercise designed to humiliate each other.”
“I was giving you a chance to prove me wrong. Instead you decided to charge off in the opposite direction.”
“And you think that’s because I have a problem with Asher.”
Professor Raith’s eyes narrow at the derision in my tone. His voice seems to echo the gesture. “Who else?”
I ignore the wobble that runs through my pulse at seeing him annoyed with me. Suppress the urge that’s unfurling inside me to walk over and clasp his hands, as if I could make peace with a squeeze of my fingers.
This Cole doesn’t want me any more than mine did at first. Maybe even less, even though I’ve done nothing to deserve his low opinion of me.
“Most of my observations were directed more at you than at him,” I reply. “Which you might have figured out if you weren’t so convinced you always know everything already.”
Professor Raith stalks closer. My skin quivers with his nearness, but I hold my stance steady.
“Do you think that makes it any better?” he demands, rougher now. “Insulting one of your professors for what grave offence—not treating you like the princess you think you are?”
“How about for assuming the worst of me? For refusing to accept you’re wrong—let alone apologize—when you can’t find proof? For trying to bully me over your delusions? You’re the one who’s been following me around harassing me.”
My hand shoots out of its own accord to jab him in the chest—which it can, because he’s only a couple of feet away from me now.
I have just enough time to process what I’ve done and think, Oh, shit, before Professor Raith has snatched my hand out of the air.
His grip scorches through the leather of his glove and the silk of mine, his thumb pressed right against the spot where my bond mark used to be. That wild, fiery light is blazing in his eyes like it did the other day in the library.
My anger flares even as a melting sensation forms between my legs.
For fuck’s sake. This is not the time.
This isn’t the right man.
But the man who is in front of me tugs me even closer. His breath is a hot caress over my cheek. “It’s my job to keep students like you in line. And I’m going to keep doing that until you realize the rules do apply to you.”
My heart is thumping way too fast, dizzying my thoughts. I need to get out of here.
“Great. Message received. Now I’ve got to head to—”
I try to yank my arm away as I speak, gathering myself to retreat, but Cole drags me back into place.
His voice drops to a growl that sends an annoyingly giddy shiver up my spine.
“We’re not done yet, Miss Devine. You need to learn that there are some lines you shouldn’t cross.
You can’t go through life expecting to get everything you want like a spoiled brat. ”
The kind of sassy remark I might have said to my actual matches in my actual life—if the mood was right, so, not at all like this—slips off my tongue before I can catch it. “What are you going to do, Professor Raith? Spank me?”
He should recoil. My version of him would have if I’d said the same thing to him before we were matched—or even after, in the first year or so.
But I was seventeen then, not twenty. There wasn’t the pressure of denied fate shoving us together.
And I’m not sure how well I know this version of Cole at all.
The light in his eyes flashes hotter, wilder. “Is that how you’d like to do this? Maybe that would be reasonable restitution, spreading the embarrassment around.”
He turns toward his desk, tugging me to follow him. I stumble a couple of steps after him before I dig in my heels. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I absolutely can. It was your suggestion. Prostrate yourself appropriately, and let’s get this over with.”