5. Tobin
Tobin
Alow-level witch doesn’t hold my fire in place. She doesn’t force a collision hard enough to crack the air. She definitely doesn’t nearly tear her own arm off doing it. The last arsehole who made my shirt smoke… okay, there was no last arsehole. No one gets that close to me with their magic.
Who is she?
Asha lifts her chin, fury burning through every line of her. She looks breakable. She also looks like she wants to rip my throat out with her teeth.
Intriguing doesn’t cover it.
Leith’s presence is moving closer, but he doesn’t make a move. Probably a good thing. She couldn’t handle both of us.
“Mr Tobin,” Vey snaps. “What are you waiting for?”
With a grimace, I bring a level one silver fire to my hand. “Ready?” I ask Asha with a smirk that I don’t quite feel. No part of me wants to hurt her, but at the same time, I want to knock her off her feet because that is who I am.
“Give it your best shot,” she growls.
I don’t. Nowhere near. But she isn’t ready. She has no power, and what little she does have, she has no control over it. I flick it at her in a way that could be construed as insulting.
She takes it as such.
She plants her feet and raises her hand but nothing happens. Not even a spark. The spell slams into her and knocks her off her feet.
“Ouch,” Eska drawls. The massive werewolf looms closer with a laugh. “Fresh meat can’t even defend herself.”
Asha rolls to one knee with a snarl that shuts half the laughter down.
Eska should know better than to bait anything with that look in its eyes.
I move before I think about it and step into Eska’s path as he comes in from the left, all bulk and smugness, and put a hand up to stop him. “Try it, wolf.”
He looks at the flickering silver sparks before he drags his gaze up to mine. “Protective already, Tobin?”
“I’m stopping you from making a mistake that could cause me to separate your jaw from the rest of you.”
“My fight isn’t with you,” he growls.
“Neither is it with her unless you want to know what it feels like to be turned inside out.”
Before Vey can stop him, he lunges for me.
I block him with magic he doesn’t possess and catch his wrist in a binding line of silver before he can get a hand on me.
Power lashes out of me on instinct, sharp and clean, wrapping his forearm, shoulder, throat.
I twist, redirect his weight, and slam him down onto the mat hard enough to shake the floor.
Eska snarls and bucks against the spell.
“Stay down,” I tell him, voice flat.
He tries to shift.
That’s ambitious in Vey’s arena.
The wards in the walls flare red and strike him where he lies. He yelps, body jerking, half-man and half-wolf for one ugly second before the arena forces him back into his skin.
The bell clangs throughout SilverGate, a warning that while violence is tolerated, expected even, this is one fight that won’t be going further.
Everyone takes a step back, not wanting to be anywhere near this in case Blackridge decides to back up the bell with a personal appearance.
He doesn’t. But it doesn’t stop everyone from pretending to do something else.
“Mr Eska,” Vey barks. “Since you’ve decided basic instruction is beneath you, you can spend the rest of the session on your back contemplating discipline.”
Eska spits blood onto the mat and glares at me. “This isn’t over.”
“It is,” I say. I tighten the binding just enough to make the point, then release it and step back. “Step anywhere near her, and I will make good on my promise, bell or not.”
He stays down. Smart.
Asha is still on one knee. Her hair has fallen across her face, and it makes me want to brush it away. She gets to her feet slowly, angry enough to shake, but holding it in by force. Her eyes cut to me, bright and vicious.
“Do that again,” she says, “and I’ll make a coat out of your skin.”
I smile because I can’t seem to stop doing that around her. “You need to get near enough first, Saga Minima.”
Leith snorts, but has the decency to keep his mouth shut.
Asha, on the other hand, isn’t impressed. “Latin,” she scoffs. “You think you can insult me in a language I read and speak fluently?”
Now that impresses me. “Oh?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “You have depth, Saga Minima.”
“Call me that again—” Her face is red with fury.
“And you’ll what?”
“This is getting boring,” Vey says with a sigh. “Insult each other on your own time. Everyone, back to the instruction, or you will all end up in Blackridge’s office for detention.”
“I hate you,” Asha spits at me.
“And you have no power to do anything about it. You are the absolute bare minimum of a witch.”
“I said, call me that again and I will rip your fucking tongue out!” She flies at me, her hands hooked into claws.
I wasn’t expecting a physical confrontation, so I didn’t move. She hits me like she would a brick wall, and I stare down at her petite frame with a look of pure amusement. Her tiny fists slam against my chest, and she screeches at me.
I’m immobile. She has captivated me on a level that no creature has ever managed before in my twenty-one years in this realm. I doubt anyone will ever come close.
Leith, however, has decided to make his move.
He appears behind her in a whisper of cold power and catches her by the waist before she can start climbing me out of pure spite.
She kicks back at him at once. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
“I’m tempted to drop you,” he says, voice calm enough to make nearby students edge away. “But Vey gets prickly when his class turns feral.”
I should tell him to let her go.
I don’t.
The realisation hits her that she’s no longer hitting me because Leith has hauled her half a step back. Her hair is wild, her breathing rough, her violet-blue eyes are bright with murder. She looks at me like she’s already picked the place to bury my body.
“Are you done?” I ask.
“Not even close.”
“Good. It was turning me on.”
She jerks against Leith’s hold. The movement sends another flash of blue over her fingers. It crackles and dies at once, but I see it.
Vey prowls closer, his expression grim. “Miss Asha, if you assault your partner again, I’ll have you pinned to the restraint wall for the remainder of the session.”
She turns that glare on him. I can see the second she decides that’s a battle she isn’t picking today. One day, but not today.
She stops struggling in Leith’s grip, going limp. He nearly drops her, but tightens his hold on her, bending his head to sniff her hair.
“Are you sniffing me?” she snaps, kicking him in the shin. “Between you and that delusional arsehole from last night, you have got some serious issues.”
Leith looks down at her with that same cold interest he gives open graves and fresh problems. “You kick like a kitten.”
“I’ll show you a fucking kitten!”
I let out a laugh before I can stop it. “That’s somehow not the threat you think it is.”
Her head whips towards me. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
“I’m enjoying that you’ve finally stopped trying to break your own wrists on my chest.”
Vey points at the floor between us. “Enough. Mr Leith, put her down. Mr Tobin, if you provoke her again, I’ll put you through the restraint wall myself.”
“That seems excessive,” I say.
“That’s because you enjoy being a pain in my arse.”
“Only for the lecturers I respect.”
Vey stares at me for a beat. “That was nearly charming. Don’t ruin it.”
Leith releases her. Asha lands lightly, then spins at once as if she’s considering whether to go for his throat instead. He only lifts one brow at her, hands loose by his sides, completely unbothered by the death in her face.
Most creatures back off from Leith before he even opens his mouth. She looks like she wants to test whether he bleeds.
“Perhaps we should split the three of you up after all. Miss Ness, you are now partnered with the new girl.”
Asha stares where Vey is vaguely gesturing and lifts her chin high as she stalks to the woman who will probably eat her alive.
She’s one of the upper fae, elegant cruelty and polished disdain, with white hair braided tight down her back and enough precision in her movements to make most people nervous.
Asha gives her a look that promises dismemberment.
Ness gives one back that suggests she’s filed the threat for later review.
“Gentlemen,” Vey says, glaring at us.
We both tear our gaze away from Asha and refocus. I’ve got Ness’s previous partner, who is a fae with manageable magic. It doesn’t take much to focus. My mind keeps drifting back to Asha and the conundrum she keeps presenting.
I redirect the fae’s cast without effort and send it back at half strength. He blocks late and takes the hit to the shoulder. Vey tells him to correct his stance.
Across the mat, Asha is a disaster.
A fascinating one.
Ness sends a basic deflection charm at her. Asha gets both hands up, catches the weave wrong, and the thing bursts against the floor in a spray of blue sparks. Two students jump back. Asha doesn’t apologise.
Each attempt gets messier. Each one carries too much force in the wrong places. Her body can’t take what she’s trying to shove through it. I can see it in the tremor in her hands, the set of her jaw, the way she keeps forcing her shoulders square when she wants to shake the pain out of them.
She should be producing weak, tidy witchcraft.
Instead, every failed spell looks like something bigger clawing at the walls of too-small skin.
My partner sends another line of green light at me. I catch it in a silver lattice, break it apart and send the fragments back.
Asha swears loudly enough to cut through the whole arena. Blue light spits between her fingers and lashes up her forearm. She flinches. The flare dies. Her mouth turns vicious.
My partner resets as my focus is divided and throws harder this time. I break his spell down into threads before it reaches me.
It isn’t just that Asha’s control is bad. Bad control is common enough. But it also isn’t untrained.
Her magic acts trapped.
Ness circles her once, assessing. “You’re anticipating impact instead of reading intention.”
“I’m anticipating your face meeting a wall.”
“Try that, and I’ll enjoy stopping you.”
“Focus, Mr Tobin,” Vey says, walking past. “Your partner needs your attention.”
Reluctantly, I drag my gaze from Asha and attempt to focus on the rest of the class until the bell clangs for the end of the hour.