12. Asha
Asha
Blood. Truth. Maybe some other things.
It’s the ‘maybe some other things’ that worry me.
My stomach growls and clenches, and I frown down at it. “What do you want?”
My belly answers itself with another vicious growl, and I press a hand to it like that’ll shut it up, but the urge to devour a beast with my teeth rears its head, and I ponder the source.
This body has needs I’m unfamiliar with. It’s exhausting being tethered to something so demanding.
Another rumble echoes around the room, and I sigh. “Fine, let’s go find you a beast.”
I leave my room and stalk down the hallway, following a delicious scent which makes my mouth water. I speed up and follow it to a place where students are gathered with platefuls of food in front of them, eating with utensils or their hands, seemingly dependent on what they are feasting on.
“Right,” I mutter. “Feasting. I can do this.”
I grab a tray without really looking at what’s on it and pile on anything that resembles meat. Rare. Bloody. My mouth waters in a way that should disturb me more than it does.
I find an empty table in the corner and tear into the food like something feral. Three bites in, I catch a group of younger students watching me from across the hall. I give them the finger, and one of them sends a zap of something sharp and magical at my head.
That would be the consequences of this attitude I can’t back up. Tobin was right. It’s getting old. Fast.
The meat helps. My belly stops its complaints, and the shaking in my hands eases off, but the little zap of magic that hit me a second ago is still crawling under my skin like an insult that hasn’t finished.
I turn my head slowly towards the second years. Three of them, all smug, all convinced that a low-level witch with a bad attitude is fair sport. One of them, a female with a sharp jaw and dark curls, waggles her fingers at me like she’s proud of herself.
For a brief moment, I consider just trying to pummel her to death with my fists, but I’ve already proven how fragile this body is. Instead, I look away and carry on eating.
It’s humbling in a disgusting way that makes my skin crawl.
A—Asha doesn’t look away. Actually, Asha does. My goddess self, whose name I can’t even think of, let alone say, doesn’t. But I’m currently not her. I’m this feeble creature who needs to eat bloody meat and rely on three arrogant arseholes to protect me.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I finish the rest of the plate anyway because what else is there to do? When I push the tray away, the second years have lost interest, moved on to some other bit of gossip that doesn’t involve me, and I let my shoulders drop half an inch.
Small mercies.
I sit there a moment longer and try to work out what the fuck I’m supposed to do with myself now.
Tobin’s offer sits in my skull like a splinter I can’t dig out.
He wants to poke around inside whatever I am until he finds something useful, and the worst part, the part that makes me want to break my own knuckles on the table, is that he’s not wrong to try.
I need control. I said it myself.
He knows more about this situation than anyone, and he’s gleaned that by being who he is. No one told him. That makes him powerful and useful. And incredibly hot.
“Hey,” Hale says, looming over me, looking none the worse for wear. He sits without invitation, with his overfull plate, but I’d expect nothing less at this point,
“Hey. You alive then?”
“Blackridge gave me a lecture about territorial declarations. I nodded a lot. Didn’t listen to a word of it.”
“Sounds productive.”
“I’m a productive guy.” He starts shovelling food into his mouth at a rapid rate.
I give him a once-over while he is preoccupied. He looks fine. He doesn’t look like he went a round with some wolf-type creature after shifting into a beast with three heads. “You heal quickly?” I ask casually.
“Almost instantly,” he replies, giving me a curious stare. “As do most creatures here.”
“Handy.”
“Normal.”
“Hmm.” I stop talking.
He gives me a curious stare that I pointedly ignore.
“Since you are here,” I say. “I could use your bulk.”
“My bulk?” he asks with a smirk.
“Yes. It seems that those idiots over there want to pick a fight. You’re bigger than me.”
“No shit,” he says as he turns to look where I’m gesturing. “Second-year witches. In theory,” he says, turning back to me, “you shouldn’t need my help.”
“In theory. But here we are.”
“Here we are,” he agrees, and something in his tone makes me want to smack the smugness off his face. “Which one wronged you?”
“The curly-haired one. She sent a spark at my head while I was eating.”
“Terrifying,” he says, but his eyes have already found her, and something in them goes flat in a way that makes the hair on my arms stand up. “You want me to scare her, or you want me to watch you scare her?”
“Neither. I want you to sit there and look big while I finish deciding whether she’s worth the effort.”
He laughs around a mouthful of food, and it’s obnoxious, and it does something warm and stupid low in my belly that I refuse to examine. “I can do big.”
I raise an eyebrow at the amusement in his expression. “Yes, you can.”
“That’s the least violent thing you’ve said to me all day.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He glances at the second-year students again, and this time, two of the three students catch sight of him watching and suddenly find their food fascinating. The curly-haired one goes pale under her dark hair and says something sharp to her friends, who both stop laughing at once.
“See,” Hale says, turning back to me with a grin. “Big works.”
“You didn’t even do anything.”
“I existed near them threateningly. It’s a skill.”
“An unimpressive one.”
“You’re welcome, by the way.”
I roll my eyes and push my empty tray further away. “I didn’t say thank you.”
“You don’t have to.” He says it lightly, but there’s something underneath it, some thread that pulls tight between us and makes my skin prickle in a way I don’t want to name.
“You can go now,” I say absently.
“No, I don’t think I will. Leaving you alone seems like a bad idea.”
I lock gazes with him, and he narrows his eyes. “So you want to play my bodyguard then?”
“No play about it. I am your bodyguard.” He smirks.
“Wonderful.” But maybe he can be as useful as Tobin reckons he is. “What do you want in return?”
He sets down his fork and studies me like I’m a puzzle he’s already solved but wants to gloat about anyway. “What do I want?” He leans back, and the chair creaks under his weight. “You, obviously. Naked. Under me. Preferably in my bed this time.”
“Predictable.”
“You asked.”
“I regret it.” I drum my fingers on the table. “Try again. Something that doesn’t involve your cock near me.”
His grin widens like I’ve handed him a gift. “Fine. I want to know what you are.”
“Everyone wants to know that.”
“Everyone’s an idiot who wants to study you. I just want to know so I can decide how hard to hold on.”
I pick up his cup and take a slow sip of something bland.
I look away, back towards the second years, and let the silence stretch until it stops being comfortable.
He’s studying me the way Tobin does, except cruder, hungrier, like he wants to eat the answer straight out of my skin instead of coaxing it out with clever words.
“You keep saying you’re mine,” I say, setting the cup down harder than necessary. “Soul to soul, or whatever nonsense you spouted earlier. That doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”
“I didn’t say you did.” He shrugs easily, as none of this costs him a thing to admit. “It doesn’t change what I feel. Doesn’t need your permission to be true.”
“That’s the single most arrogant thing I’ve heard since I got here, and I’ve been insulted by Tobin.” I lean back in my chair and cross one leg over the other. “You have astonishing egos for creatures who spend half their time getting their heads nearly bitten off in a courtyard.”
“Occupational hazard. You could just admit you liked what I did to you against that wall.”
“I could. I won’t.”
“Of course not.”
I glare at him, but there’s no real heat behind it, which annoys me more than his actual words. There is something here that I’m not touching. But it’s here. And it’s got absolutely fuck all to do with this body. It’s me. The real me.
That is bordering on terrifying, which is why it is staying packed away. “I need to get to class,” I mutter, reaching for my book bag and pulling out the timetable.
“What class do you have?”
I scan the parchment. “Introduction to Realm History.”
Hale groans. “That sounds fucking tragic. Where?”
“West Hall. Second floor.”
He eyes me. “You want escorting, princess?”
“I want directions, not devotion.”
“You’ve already got the second one.”
I ignore that because if I don’t, I’ll have to stab him with a fork, and I’m trying to make fewer scenes for at least an hour. “Then show me.”
He jerks his chin towards the doors. “Come on.”
I stand and sling the bag over my shoulder. He gets up with me, a wall of muscle and smugness, and together we cross the dining hall. The second years don’t look at me once as we pass. They daren’t with Hale by my side. I give them a smug smile even though they aren’t looking at me.
Outside, the sky is its usual night vibe. The courtyard hums with wards and gossip. I can feel eyes on us before we’ve even made it halfway across the stone.
“Hale.”
“Mm?”
“You say that you can feel me, soul to soul. What do you think I am?”
“Are you asking because you don’t know, can’t remember or as a test?”
I shrug. “Just answer the question.”
He looks ahead as we walk, hands in his pockets like he isn’t escorting a volatile anomaly across a warded campus. “I think you’re old,” he says.
“That’s it?” How disappointing.
“I think you’re dangerous in a way that has fuck all to do with your current magic. I think this body is a cage, and whatever’s inside it was never meant to be kept small.” He cuts me a glance. “And I think if you ever get all of yourself back, this realm is going to have a very bad day.”
That satisfies me.
“Finally,” I mutter. “A sensible male.”
He laughs. “Don’t get excited. I also think you’re a pain in my arse.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain trouble.”
“No argument here.”
He gives me that smug look again, then steers me around a cluster of students with one hand briefly at my waist. I let it happen for half a second before I shove him off.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
“You didn’t seem to mind earlier.”
“I minded plenty. I was just distracted.”
“By my cock.”
“By the possibility of temporary oblivion.”
“Same compliment in different wrapping.”
I look up at the black stone building ahead of us and say, “If this is where you dump me and vanish, I’ll assume you’ve finally developed self-preservation.”
“Tempting,” he says. “But West Hall is a miserable place full of lecturers who think dates matter more than bloodshed. You’ll need emotional support.”
“I’d rather gnaw my own arm off.”
“Sounds painful. Still escorting you.”
The entrance yawns open under a carved arch thick with silver wards. The moment I step through, the air changes. Rows of portraits line the walls, all of them moving, all of them watching students pass with varying degrees of disapproval.
One old bastard in crimson robes points at me. “That one looks troublesome.”
“I am,” I tell him.
He looks delighted. “Excellent.”
Hale laughs under his breath. “You’re going to fit in eventually.”
“I’m going to burn this place down eventually.”
“Also believable. But that would require an immense load of power. SilverGate has stood here for centuries.”
“Hm.” So have I.
We head up the stairs to the second floor, where a polished brass plaque reads Introductory Realm History.
The door stands open. Students are already taking seats inside, arranged in curved rows around a lecture space with a huge floating map turning slowly in the middle.
It shows this realm in silver and black, with borders that pulse faintly.
I stop in the doorway as Hale goes nowhere and groan. “You were coming here anyway, weren’t you?”
He gives me a cocky smile and saunters past me to a desk at the end of the aisle.
Arsehole.