Chapter 50 Raven
Raven
The wolf shifters continued to give me shit, despite Kai getting the better of them in the pool building. From what Glynda had told me, Jagger was the new alpha of the campus pack.
I’d not seen him around campus for a few days, but two of Jagger’s minions watched me from the edge of the vegetable garden as I let Fig root around in the compost heap. The pig snuffled and snorted, happily gobbling up vegetable peelings and critters.
“Want me to cast a stay-soft spell on them?” Glynda asked as she wandered past with a basket of freely cut sage for our potions class later.
I squinted at her. “How come I don’t know that spell?”
“It’s not taught here, but I picked it up on WitchTube. There’s an influencer I follow who does tutorials for spells every witch needs to know if they venture onto the dating apps.” My bestie glared at the two asshole wolves. “To protect themselves from pricks like that.”
“Ooh, show me the channel?” I turned my back on the wolves and watched as Glynda pulled her phone out. She unlocked it and scrolled through her WitchTube app. “Um, why is your feed full of sexy fae men?”
Glynda blushed furiously. “I’ve, um, been researching the fae. For an assignment.”
“Really? How come I don’t have that assignment?” We had the same classes.
She coughed. “Extra credit from Dunton.”
Wow. I hadn’t been given a chance to earn extra credit. Did that mean he thought I was dumb? Probably. The bastard never lost an opportunity to make me look small in class.
“You should talk to Farris,” I told my friend as I waited for a video about the stay-soft spell to load. The description said it was super easy to cast, which meant even I could manage it. There were several wolf shifters I planned to practice on.
“Farris?” Glynda’s question came out a little breathless.
Did the fae scare her? Given how he’d acted when they met, it would make sense.
My friend was a bit like Kai in that she lacked confidence, and Farris had called her a weak witch. Knowing Glynda, she had taken his brutal dismissal to heart.
“Never mind. Forget Farris. He’s a total cock goblin, and no female should talk to him, like, ever.”
I whistled to catch Fig’s attention, but he ignored me, too entranced by what he’d found in the compost heap.
“Cock goblin?” Glynda choked on a laugh.
“Zane told me a cock goblin is a rare and disgusting lesser fae from the Ring of Fire in the Far East. He said they have weeping sores on their cocks, which they use to infect drunk females.”
Glynda’s hysterical laughter strongly suggested Zane had made that shit up. I scowled to myself. “You’re banned from my bed,” I huffed down our mental connection.
“What? Why?!”
I didn’t get the chance to reply because he blinked into view in front of me, a worried frown marring his handsome face.
“You lied about cock goblins!”
Glynda snorted loudly and disappeared into the hothouse to pick some purple sprouting mushrooms. Thank the goddess Miss Windborne had given her the list of ingredients, not me, or we’d have achieved nothing so far.
“I didn’t lie, pet, I merely embellished the facts for your entertainment.” Zane pouted adorably. “Cock goblins exist.”
My eyes narrowed, and he shuffled on the spot while refusing to look directly at me.
“In fiction books.”
As I opened my mouth to tear a strip off him for lying, Fig dropped something at my feet that smelled awful. Slapping a hand over my mouth to stop myself from hurling, I looked down to see a green hand crawling with maggots.
Fig tried to tear a chunk off the rotten hunk of flesh, but Zane kicked it away.
“Damn, I wondered where I’d dropped that thing,” he cursed. “That’ll teach me to drink elkwine on a hit job.”
Vomit worked its way up my throat. I swallowed hard, not wanting to draw attention to the horror show happening in front of me. Zane reached to grab Fig, but he wasn’t fast enough.
Fig the pig scuttled after the grisly hand like he was a star NFL player, snatched it up in his snout, and shot into the hothouse. I heard an almighty scream before Glynda ran out and promptly fainted at my feet.
“Can someone please explain why the pig is chewing on a hand?” Maverick demanded through gritted teeth. A vein throbbed in his temple, and I wondered whether he was in danger of a life-threatening aneurysm. My poor bear.
Rasmus picked up Fig, ignoring the pig’s enraged squeals, and snatched the hand from his mouth.
“It smells like wolf,” he said, not fazed in the slightest by the stomach-churning stench of decay and a few remaining maggots.
Glynda retched again, so I shoved a glass of elkwine under her nose.
“Drink this,” I advised before grabbing the bottle and necking several long mouthfuls.
Kenji trotted in, sniffed, and then licked his lips.
“The pig has gone up in my estimation, if it took down a wolf,” he told me. “I may offer it an internship if it continues showing initiative like this.”
“Fig didn’t kill a wolf shifter! This is Zane’s work! Fig merely exhumed and tried to eat part of the evidence from the compost heap.”
“I suppose destroying incriminating evidence shows a modicum of talent.”
“No, it shows Fig has a cast-iron stomach, rather like you.”
“How rude. I eat only premium meat products.” He turned his beady black eyes on Fig. “Such as freshly roasted free-range pork or the finest cured bacon.”
“If you harm a single wiry hair on that pig’s body, I will…”
Kenji scoffed. “I have better things to do than worry about a dumb pig, witch. Like evading Professor Oakman’s attentions.”
That caught my attention. Oakman had been spamming my school email inbox with requests for a meeting with Kenji and me. He seemed obsessed with studying Kenji, even though I’d told him my familiar wasn’t a research subject.
While Maverick and Zane argued about the hand slash prop from a horror movie, I chewed my lip. I was due at Montgomery’s office in an hour, allegedly for a student review, whatever that entailed. I’d asked Glynda earlier, but she’d had no clue, not having been called for one.
Zane said it was most likely a fact-finding mission now that Montgomery knew I had more than one soul-bonded mate, which didn’t exactly fill me with excitement.
I’d not bothered telling Maverick about the meeting, as I knew he’d worry. Montgomery was apparently angry because Maverick had left campus without notice, even though it was for a legitimate reason, so if my bear tried to intervene this afternoon, there was a risk Montgomery would fire him.
“Could Oakman kidnap you?” I asked Kenji.
“No.”
“Oh, phew.” I relaxed. “I’ll tell Montgomery Oakman is harassing us. Maybe that’ll persuade the professor to back off.”
“I don’t trust Montgomery either. None of the mages can be trusted.”
“What about Alaric?” A knot formed in my stomach. I hadn’t seen the storm mage since our, ahem, moment in the library, and was beginning to wonder if he was avoiding me.
“The storm mage is your mate. He’s different. But his father…”
It was rare for Kenji to have an open and honest conversation with me. Mostly he bitched and whined about my lack of skills, Fig, and anything else he could blame on me. So for him to express concern about the mages, and in particular, Oakman and Montgomery, was worrying.
“Goddess, Raven, can we please go before I throw up?” I turned to my friend to see she’d turned a nasty shade of green. Almost as green as the hand that was currently the subject of a tug-of-war between Fig and Zane.
“For fuck’s sake, get that hand away from this dorm!” Maverick yelled. “If we’re caught with it, one of us will end up in the fucking penitentiary! And it won’t be me,” he added with a glare in Zane’s direction.
“Calm your tits, care bear. I’ll deal with it once the pig stops fighting me over it.” The hand tore apart. Fig ran off with two fingers, leaving a few bones and chunks of rancid flesh behind. Glynda gulped hard and then rushed to the bathroom. We all heard her emptying her guts in dramatic style.
Honestly, I didn’t blame her. The smell had me seriously considering a vegan lifestyle.
Zane picked up what remained of the hand and then blinked away. I stared down at the stain on the tiled floor and pulled a face.
“Go, little mate. I’ll clean this up. Fucking incubus,” Maverick muttered before he pulled a bottle of bleach from a cupboard and squirted it all over the floor.
“I’m so sorry about the, um, thing,” I apologized as Glynda and I reached the entrance to the main building.
“It’s fine.” Glynda’s wan complexion said it was anything but fine, but I decided it was best we moved on. “I’ll see you in Miss Windborne’s class later,” she said before hurrying away.
There was no sign of Kenji as I stomped up the stairs to Montgomery’s office. The headmaster’s personal assistant, a snooty witch called Mrs. Peabody, sneered at me when I arrived.
“Take a seat. The headmaster is very busy.”
I guess Mrs. Peabody was not a fan of cross-species mate bonds. It seemed no witches were apart from Glynda. Faking a smile, I sat on the hard wooden bench outside Montgomery’s office and waited for what felt like forever. Certainly well past the time I was told to be here.
Was this a power play? It sure felt like it.
I fidgeted with my bag, read some of my mage politics textbook, and then, after another thirty minutes, stood to go.
“I’m going to be late for Professor Oakman’s class,” I explained when Mrs. Peabody raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at my audacity.
The door behind me swung open. A shiver ran down my back as Tiberius Vane strode out of Montgomery’s office. He barely gave me a second glance, which left me free to scrutinize him as he exchanged a goodbye with Montgomery.
The Supernatural Council leader’s suit reeked of wealth, and the watch around his wrist twinkled with gems.
I could see where Alaric got his looks from, but Vane senior was about as warm as a polar ice cap and gave the impression laughter was for losers.
“I’ll be in touch about the thing we discussed, Montgomery.” The headmaster dipped his head before Vane strode away.
“Miss Blackstone, please come in.” No apology for keeping me waiting. Clearly my time wasn’t important.
“I can come back if you’re busy. My next class is about to begin, and I’d hate to miss Practical Magic.” It wasn’t the worst class, all things considered, even if Professor Oakman was a bit too interested in Kenji for comfort.
“Professor Oakman’s been called away, so the class has some assigned reading, which I’m sure you can catch up on later. Now please take a seat, Miss Blackstone.”
Hmm, okay, that was a surprise. I could have sworn I saw Oakman earlier. Perhaps he had a family emergency.
Montgomery spent the next twenty minutes quizzing me on how I was finding my classes. Then, just as I’d begun to relax, he threw me a curveball.
“I understand there have been some changes in your personal life since the solstice, so I think it’s time we test your magic once again.”
“Wait, what?”
Montgomery’s thin lips curved up in a sinister smile that had me recoiling in my hard leather chair. I’d always seen the headmaster as a fairly benign mage. He floated around the campus, rarely interacting with students.
The only time he’d ever addressed me directly was on that first day.
“Relax, Miss Blackstone. I analyzed your magic when you arrived at the school. Back then, I felt there was more to you than met the eye, so I’m curious to know whether your powers have unlocked now that you have gained several consorts.”
“Everything okay, pet?” Zane’s comforting voice helped calm me down. I knew he’d appear if I called him. Perhaps not in Montgomery’s office, but certainly outside.
“Yeah, all good.” I forced myself to remain calm as the headmaster fixed his creepy eyes on me. A cold slither of magic prickled across my skin, different from the previous time he assessed my magic abilities.
His aura darkened from a deep royal blue to near black. I tried to move as the pressure inside my skull increased, but my limbs locked in place. Zane’s voice echoed through my head before a barrier came down and he vanished.
Was that Montgomery’s magic?
“Well, well, Miss Blackstone. How interesting.”
Nothing in that statement gave me a good feeling.