24. The Rose
Chapter 24
The Rose
H e hopped back a full foot, and it took conscious effort to keep a smile of victory off my face. A few students snickered alongside me but abruptly stopped when his fury-filled eyes looked around the class.
“Let’s make a deal,” I suggested. His face had grown red, the vein in his neck pulsing against the golden skin. He didn’t want to entertain my offer. It would only strengthen my standing in this war between us, but if there was one thing a Fae was helpless to resist, it was a bargain.
“You want to make a deal?” he asked almost too calmly. “Didn’t you prevent your friend from striking a bargain with me just now?”
“I did. I suppose it’s up to you to ask yourself: Would you rather bargain with a pack member or a Pack Leader?” In other words, where do you want to fall in the hierarchy?
He considered it a moment, but I knew his answer before he spoke. What other choice could he make with the entire room watching? He may think of us as children, barely ready to leave our parents, but he did know our parents—well, other student’s parents. For the students surrounding me to report he gave in to the demands of an eighteen-year-old girl would surely gall him to no end, regardless of my rank and title.
“What’s your bargain?”
“Quiz me,” I dared, “Ask me three questions on today’s assignment of your choosing. If I get one wrong, then you can enact whatever you deem fair for Naomi’s honest mistake throughout the duration of this class period. If I answer them all correctly, you’ll say you won’t use your magic on a single student the remainder of the school year.”
Murmurs broke out across the classroom. Naomi’s face had turned deathly pale in the corner of my eye. It was risky, but the alternative was for her to walk into an open-ended bargaining with a vindictive fae. The agreement could mean a lifetime of servitude. I’d seen him leave students frozen for a full day without a bargain in the mix, goddess only knew what he’d do to someone who naively entered one.
“I need neither your permission to govern my class nor your approval for my methods.” He asked, “Pray tell, what exactly do I have to gain from this bargain?”
“Respect.” Had a feather fallen to the floor in that moment it would’ve been audible from every corner of the classroom.
“I have that now.” The underlying layer of violence in his voice sent chills down my spine, but I held my ground. Show no weakness. Fenrir’s past advice kept me grounded. Better to be confident in the face of a threat than uncertain. A cunning opponent will sense both but only benefit from one.
“Do you?” I asked. Even I didn’t dare blatantly disrespect a fae to his face. Plus, I did still need to survive at the Academy for four years.
“Fine,” he drew out the word, “If you answer three questions correctly, I will say I won’t use magic on another student for the remainder of the school year. If you answer a single question incorrectly, I get to do whatever I want to whoever I want. Agreed?”
“No,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest, “Not agreed.”
“Miss Lennox, you set the terms of the bargain I was merely repeating them. Did you change your mind or do you simply enjoy wasting everyone’s time?” He splayed his hands out in front of him and looked at the students gawking at us from around the room.
“It’s not me wasting everyone’s time, Professor,” I said, “The words you spoke are not the bargain I proposed but one of your own, so how could I agree to it?” His hands fell back to the desk and his eyes narrowed just enough to confirm I’d been right. The funny thing about spending your entire memorable life deceiving everyone around you, you learned how to detect when someone else was deceiving you.
“Fine,” he drew the word out, “Then why don’t you say the words?”
“If I answer three questions about the content covered in today’s assignment correctly, you agree to say you will not use your magic on a single student for the remainder of the school year. If I answer incorrectly, you are within your right to enact whatever consequence you deem fair on Naomi for the remainder of this class period.”
The white of his teeth reflected the bright green of his shirt when he smiled and said, “I agree.”
“Ask me the questions.”
Naomi muttered a prayer to whatever god or goddess was listening. The gossipy girls behind us were gasping, asking if I’d lost my mind. Eris sat as the picture of composure beside me. I forced myself to be the same.
My heart beat faster in my chest every second. Professor Richards stayed silent while considering his first question. I didn’t know if the heat rushing through my veins was from fire or panic—at this point, I wasn’t sure which I preferred.
“How can a bond be both fated and formed by choice? Provide an example in your answer. Knowing the right answer is one thing, understanding it is another entirely.”
“A bond can be fated but still requires confirmation to fully form. One example is a fox’s bonded. When the two meet, one will inevitably feel drawn to the other, but it’s not until they first touch that their magic begins to unlock. Unless they choose to complete the bond they’ll never receive their tails and come into their full power.” Bless Kenna for making me curious enough to research this. “It’s fate that they find their bonded. It’s a choice to keep them and complete the bond.”
“And which is stronger: a bond formed by fate or a bond formed by choice?”
“Trick question.” He inclined his head as if congratulating me for noticing. “It’s not about the type of bond, it’s about the people forming it. I know you love your examples so let’s use one with a shifter’s fated mate. They’ll be drawn to each other when they meet, but it’s nearly unheard of to find them. More often than not, we take a chosen mate and form an imprint. If we come across our fated mate after we’ve fully imprinted, it doesn’t matter. One does not supersede the other. A brittle bond will break and a strong bond will hold.”
“What are the consequences of a broken bond?”
Chills ran down my arms, leaving raised flesh in their wake.
“Unspeakable pain,” I answered. “Possible insanity. Death. The deeper the bond, the more dire the consequences.” A fate I didn’t wish on anyone.
“Well Miss Lennox,” he drawled, still leaning over my desk—some people never learned, “It seems you’ve adequately prepared for this class after all.”
Excited whispers, maybe even a soft giggle, erupted around us.
“A bargain is a bargain.” I wanted to smile as relief coursed through me. Naomi’s eyes shone with happy tears beside me.
“A bargain is a bargain,” he repeated, “I will not use my magic on a single student for the remainder of the school year.”
Actual applause broke out amongst the class, and I did grin then, at least I did until I realized Professor Richards was still smiling. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Something inside me snapped with it. This was not what we agreed.
Naomi had turned to stone beside me, but she wasn’t alone. I counted three, no four, other students who’d been turned into statues. Their faces were frozen in expressions of joy and disbelief.
I lunged out of my chair and growled an inch from his face, unable to take even a tiny bit of pleasure from the brief flash of panic in his eyes.
“You made a bargain.” My words sounded more animal than person and I had to pull my hands from my desk for fear they’d set the wooden table top ablaze.
“And I fulfilled it,” he answered, “I didn’t use my magic on a single student, nor will I for the remainder of the school year. Instead, I’ll use it on multiple.”
“You slimy, little?—”
“Careful Miss Lennox.” He held up his hand. “That’s no way to address your superior.”
“I assure you, you’ll never be mistaken for that,” I snapped back at him.
“I think you’ll find that when we’re measured against each other, I will always come out on top.”
He snapped his fingers.
And me? I did nothing but tilt my head to one side, as the satisfaction on his face gave way to rage. Eris’ laugh cutting through the silence was more chilling than any angry stare the Professor could send my way. I lowered back to my seat.
“Professor, I see you haven’t noticed the ring on Briar’s finger,” she said indulgently. Professor Richards’ eyes settled on the moonstone ring wrapped around my finger. Every hint of smug satisfaction left his face. “I’m afraid your little tricks simply won’t work on her. You are, after all, an expert in bonds. Surely you know what this one entails. ”
She briefly looked at me to say, “Foxes are immune to Fae magic. His ring affords you the same protection,” before returning her attention to the Fae in question whose fingers were beginning to leave grooves in the edge of my desk.
I was not reimbursing the Academy for those damages.
“So you convinced some unsuspecting fox to grant you their protection, have you?” His lip curled as he, again, leaned forward to tower over my still-sitting form. Some people never learned. “Will this be your approach for leading the pack? Hiding behind those around you?”
“I don’t hide.” Unless things started to get sparky, but really that was for the good of us all.
“You may want to, though,” Eris said sweetly. Her smile was borderline angelic. “After all, when Asher finds out you threatened someone under his protection, I suspect he’ll be paying you a visit.”
He froze, and for a moment I wondered if his spell had rebounded. If he couldn’t move to un-cast the spell, would it hold him there forever? I hoped so.
He tilted his head to one side. Damn it.
“And why would she be under Asher’s protection? Since when does he care who wears one of his subject’s rings?”
“Since she started wearing his.” There was a second of silence and then it was as if a bind that held everyone’s tongues had been undone as a chorus of disbelief sounded throughout the room.
“Oh my goddess, is she the one who?—”
“There’s no way Asher would single out someone like her.”
“Oh, he is so dead.”
“I could die of jealousy! Can you imagine?”
“She’s not even powerful.”
“A fox can only give that to one person!”
What felt like more exclamations than there were people in the room erupted around us. Professor Richards pushed away from the desk and turned his back on us to take his place at the front of the room.
Halfway there, he looked over his shoulder and said, “You may have a barrier around you, Miss Lennox, but you’ll find those around you do not. I think I’ll keep your serpent for the remainder of the day. Feel free to collect her after dinner. I will try to remember to leave the door unlocked.”
He reached the front of the room and faced us fully, his back against the blackboard which only made his obnoxiously bright shirt appear that much brighter.
“Isn’t it sad that the followers are always the ones to pay for the leader’s mistakes?”
The absolute last thing I wanted to see when I finally burst out of the classroom at the top of the hour was Grayson, hands drawn behind him, with half the pack waiting for me in the hall. My blood was, quite literally, boiling with rage at being forced to leave Naomi behind. Seeing Grayson’s smiling face had my hands itching to claw at it. I would have if the scars would achieve anything more than making him that much more handsome.
“I do not have the energy for you today,” I bit out, “I think we’ve said more than enough to each other the past twenty-four hours. So unless you have something critical to say or lives are at stake, I’d rather we kept our distance.”
Despite my best efforts, even I could hear the defeat in my voice, so I wasn’t surprised when Grayson’s smile dimmed. I was, however, surprised when he drew his hand out from behind his back holding a cake. He passed it to a concerned-looking Isaac beside him and strode over to meet me. The students who’d managed to make it through class with their mobility eyed us with curiosity as they filtered out of the room behind me.
“What happened?” He reached toward me to tuck my hair behind my ear, cup my cheek, or something else I’d never know because another man, fully dressed in black, slid in front of me, stealing the air that had been between us.
“You’re in my way, Your Highness,” Grayson growled.
Asher said nothing. He ignored the seething wolf entirely, or maybe he didn’t notice he was there at all. He looked me over slowly, meticulously from head to toe.
“I’m speaking to you,” Grayson planted a hand on Asher’s shoulder and pulled. Still, he did–he said–nothing. There was only one focal point of his attention. Me.
“I’m not hurt,” I told him. I took a step to the side, putting some space between us and re-entering Grayson’s view. We’d had enough bloodshed and conflict for the day, there was no need to create it amongst ourselves.
He raised a single brow in my direction as if to say, “I’ll be the judge of that” and strode into the classroom I’d just left, barely pausing to nod to Eris as he passed.
A crash followed by a high-pitched yelp sounded only moments later.
“I almost want to go back inside and watch,” Eris said wryly, “But I suppose we can let him have his fun this time around.”
“Did he—” I started, “Did he come here because of me? Because of what happened?” Even as I asked, I knew it was true, but didn’t understand how—or why. No one had left the classroom. There was no way for him to know, and truly, I’d never been in any real danger anyway.
“You’re under his protection,” she stated as if commenting on the color of the sky, “He’ll always sense if something’s wrong with you. Didn’t anyone explain this when he gave you the ring?”
“Fabian said it was a great honor when I went to take it off, but no,” I said emphatically, “No one said anything about sensing me or coming to my aid when I didn’t call for it. I thought it was just symbolic of an alliance or a token of respect.”
“Of course he did.” She rolled her eyes and said, “A moon fox can only extend their protection—their full protection—once. That ring links him to you. If you’re angry, he’ll find out why. If you’re scared, he’ll come for you. If you’re sad, well, to be honest, he probably won’t do much or care, but he’ll be aware of that too.”
“And he didn’t think he should,” I laugh humorously, “I don’t know, ask me before gaining access to all my thoughts and emotions. What right does he have to them?”
Grayson came to stand beside me, the heat from his body extending to mine.
“It’s not all of your emotions, and he can’t read your thoughts.” She waved a hand dismissively in the air. “It’s a great honor, Briar, even more so coming from him. Besides, if you haven’t noticed yet, Asher isn’t the type to ask before doing anything.”
The moon fox in question came back out of the room and strode down the hallway with little more than a glance.
“He’s probably heading to the library,” Eris commented, starting to walk in the same direction, “We saw Kenna there earlier too, but none of us have found anything on the symbol from the massacre yet. I’m going to head there and join them if you want to come after whatever this little pack gathering is.”
She gave us all a half-hearted wave and disappeared after her cousin.
“I can’t decide if I like them,” Grayson said when she was out of hearing range. “Something about Asher sets my teeth on edge, and no one’s as innocent as Eris appears.”
“You mean you feel uneasy around another powerful male who may or may not pose a threat to your dominance? How surprising. I’d have never guessed,” I said glibly, “Now tell me what you want and be quick about it because I’m tired, I’m hungry. Honestly, I’d love to throw knives at something for the next hour. I’m perfectly content to make that something you if you’re here to volunteer.”
Behind Grayson, Isaac coughed and ran a hand over his mouth to hide his grin. The others ranged anywhere from amusement, to confusion, to offense—the last being most prominent on Pax’s face. I neither liked nor appreciated the challenge in his stare. I held it until he looked down. Good.
“I’m sorry.”
I was still focused on his Beta and almost missed the two words that had my gaze snapping back to Grayson. “What did you just say?” Surely I hadn’t heard him correctly.
He cleared his throat, took a breath, and said, “I said I’m sorry.”
I mentally added another item to the list of things I didn’t expect to happen today. I was, once again, speechless. Alphas did many things. They led. They protected. They gave counsel. They made amends. They took action to acknowledge and rectify their mistakes.
The one thing they didn’t do? Apologize. If they did, it certainly wasn’t publicly.
My bewilderment must’ve been apparent on my face because after Grayson grinned and reached for the cake he’d handed to Isaac, the snow leopard placed his hand under his chin as if shutting his smiling mouth. I snapped mine closed.
“I made you this.” Grayson held out the woefully misshapen cake covered in chocolate frosting. “I was hoping we could go somewhere and share it.”
I wanted to say no. I should say no. He’d already proven he didn’t—wouldn’t—trust me. If I said yes, I’d only be setting myself up for further disappointment. And yet, the pleading, hopeful look in his eye had me wondering if just maybe, this time could be worth the risk. When I didn’t speak he continued.
“I shouldn’t have doubted you and I never should have accused you.”
“Then why did you?” I asked.
He stepped closer and dropped his head until his mouth was right beside my ear when he admitted, “I was afraid. I was afraid of what it would mean if I let myself believe you can do this, that we can do this. Together.”
He straightened his stance but didn’t step away from me. I turned his words over in my mind, debating if I was willing to risk it. A pack will crumble under weak leadership. And I was proving each day that I was anything but weak. I never had been, even if he was only just beginning to realize it.
“Walk with me to the library,” I said, not taking the cake from him, but swiping a finger along the top to place a dollop of the decadent dessert in my mouth. Delicious. “And you can tell me exactly what else you’re sorry for. Maybe if I like your answer, I’ll even let you sit by me when we get there.”
Maybe I’d like letting him. Maybe I’d regret it and drive a dagger through his thigh. Only time would tell.