Chapter Seven
Ava was ready to kill someone.
No, not just someone.
A very specific individual.
Professor Craig Blevins deserved to die for the shit he was trying to pull on her class.
Not only had he changed up the rules for the Magical Combat midterm, making it individual testing instead of a team assessment, he’d also added a new restriction.
He made it mandatory for each shifter to wear a magical bracelet that limited their ability to shift.
He claimed that was the only way to ensure that shifters were utilizing their new skills. It grated on their nerves that they weren’t being trusted to follow the rules on their own. Although the reasoning made sense, Ava thought the bracelet felt like a fucking shackle around her wrist.
It made her want to rip the damn thing off and shove it down his fucking throat.
The individual aspect of the testing was doable, but it made things way more competitive.
Despite what the professor said, her friends had planned to help each other within the maze.
At least, that had been the plan until he informed the class that they would be split into four different locations at random.
Waiting for her turn to enter the maze, she thought back about all she’d learned from Castiel over the last few days.
True to his word, he had called her back the night after they had first made contact.
He’d handled the situation with the dragon and the devil fire, but every day since, there seemed to be another emergency that had limited their time together.
Perhaps that was a good thing, though.
Every time she spoke to him, she fell a little deeper. That wasn’t shocking. He was highly intelligent, witty, and had a smooth, effortless charm that made it easy to forget she was talking to someone ancient and dangerous.
Once they started talking, she never wanted the conversation to end.
She could listen to him for hours, letting his deep voice sink beneath her skin, warm and steady.
Hanging up felt like being woken from a dream she wasn’t ready to leave.
Talking to him had become an addiction, one she had no desire to give up.
Somewhere along the way, she’d started craving the intimacy of it.
Sharing her life with someone was a new experience for her.
She wanted to tell him everything, from what she was doing to prepare for her midterm to discussing what she should order for dinner.
It was as if sharing the small aspects of her life might anchor him to her.
And the surprising thing was, he seemed just as willing to share pieces of himself with her.
He talked about dealing with the reapers that were staying with him and told her about his past. He never dodged her questions, never deflected or cast them aside.
If anything, Castiel seemed to enjoy her inquisitive nature, though he often paused before answering as if he needed to consider the best way to respond.
It wasn’t that he was being evasive. It didn’t feel like secrecy, either. Instead, he gave her the impression of someone reacquainting himself with conversation itself, as if he were someone who was out of practice speaking with anyone.
They had expanded from just using the app to talking, texting, and using the phone’s regular video call function.
Using all three methods allowed them to stay in constant contact throughout the day.
Sometimes it was a quick text. Other times it was a call that lasted for hours.
No matter which method they chose, all of them were precious to her.
Since he was always on her mind, it had been easy to complete several different sketches of Castiel.
Some of those drawings were of him in casual settings, but most of them were of him wearing his golden armor and holding a sword in his hand.
She figured that would be enough for the image of him on the battlefield to fade from her mind, but she’d gotten another flash a few days ago that seemed like an extension of the first vision she’d had of him.
That had never happened before.
Her visions were usually pretty self-contained.
One sharp flash, one lingering image, then relief once she sketched or sculpted it into something real.
But this time, the second glimpse had come days later like an echo.
It was as if whatever thread had yanked her awareness onto that battlefield with him had tightened around her and snapped her back again, not wanting to let go.
She supposed it wasn’t all that surprising, considering how obsessed she was with him.
Castiel Stormborn had gotten under her skin with ridiculous ease, and now, her thoughts were consumed by him.
Her pulse jumped whenever her phone buzzed, and she felt a deep sense of disappointment if it wasn’t him.
She kept replaying memories of their conversations whenever she should have been working or reviewing spells.
She’d even caught herself looking for him in crowds, even though he was half a world away.
Her dreams were also haunted by images of him. Of the way his lips moved when he spoke. The way his throat flexed when he swallowed. She was utterly obsessed, and she knew it. And the worst part was, she didn’t even want to fight it.
Not when thoughts of him steadied her nerves as much as they unraveled them.
With his guidance, she had made major progress with her magic.
She had started off by practicing her magic while running on the treadmill.
It was low impact, but had turned out to be a successful experiment.
After that, she asked a few of her friends to spar with her while she tried some simple magic.
It had been a little more difficult, but she had managed to make it work.
When they moved on to practicing more challenging spells, she discovered her method even ended up helping her friends.
Castiel seemed pleased that she had been able to figure out how to stabilize her magic on her own. His encouragement gave her a boost of self-confidence that seemed to steady her, though the midterm would be the real test to see if she had finally conquered her magical block.
Figuring out her soothsayer powers was far more challenging.
Castiel had done some of his own research, but they still had more questions than answers.
While she was in no rush to figure it all out, she didn’t want another vision to hit her at the wrong moment.
She had to be careful, or it could end up putting herself or someone she cared about in danger.
Now that she was heading into her midterm, she was kind of relieved they wouldn’t be going into the maze as a team. If she ended up having a vision, she didn’t want to risk tanking her friends’ grades. Her ranking in the class would be her own, not dependent on anyone else.
When the professor called her name in the next group, she moved into position to go through the portal that would send her to one of the four chosen locations.
Since she was called up with Claudia, Starla, and Jessica, there was almost no chance they would be sent to the same maze.
Lana had been put in the next round to be called up since she had gotten points deducted for mouthing off to the professor, and poor Justin would be in the last group since he was new to the class.
Ava made sure her sunglasses were in place, then she hit the button to raise the mask over the lower portion of her face. Her hair was secured in a tight braid to keep it out of the way, and her uniform had been outfitted with thicker elbow and knee pads for added protection.
Once again, they had been equipped with enchanted knives, but they had also been allowed to choose one more item to take with them.
Some had chosen a sword, a spear, or some other weapon, while she had picked a magical rope that could be extended to any length.
It wasn’t fancy, but it was one of the most useful items available.
She coiled the rope like a whip and secured it to her belt.
As soon as Ava stepped onto the portal, she felt as if her body were being squeezed tight. She held her breath until the pressure eased, then she let out a vicious curse when she realized where she had been sent.
The middle of the fucking desert.
There was nothing but miles of sand in every direction, and the oppressive heat was already making her extremely uncomfortable.
In the distance was the entrance to the tomb she was supposed to enter.
The underground maze was probably her least favorite location out of all the levels in the magical greenhouse.
It sucked to be stuck underground for hours, but there was nothing she could do about it now.
Normally, she would have shifted to run across the sand, but that wasn’t an option this time.
Instead, she used her magic to teleport directly to the tomb’s entrance.
A lot of students didn’t know how to teleport, but that had been one of the first things Ava had wanted to learn once she had gotten her magic.
When she reappeared exactly where she wanted to be, she gave herself a silent cheer.
She was sort of shocked that her idiot professor hadn’t created magical wards around the tomb to stop people from taking the shortcut.
Obviously, he hadn’t thought of it, which was a bonus for her since it saved her a lot of time trekking through the sand.
Entering the tomb cautiously, she sighed with relief when she noticed the firepits had already been lit inside.
That made sense since other students had entered the portal before her.
Taking off her sunglasses, she studied her surroundings.
The setup was different than the last time she had been in there, which meant the entire underground maze was probably different.