61
A Beautiful Werewolf Disaster
Melody
My hands are still shaking when I stand in my room, washing my burned hands from where that evil stone seared away my flesh.
“I will eat her alive!” Aris’s voice thunders as he approaches, and I know he somehow heard from someone what happened.
When I turn off the faucet, I try not to meet my eyes in the mirror to see how much this reminded me of what Caryan once did to me. To see how close I’d been to failing. To find that still-frightened girl somewhere in them.
Instead, I walk out and spot Aris’s massive dragon form through the window, spearing toward the campus.
“Calm down, I made it!” I say, thanking the campus as a flacon with healing elixir appears on my desk next to me. I gulp it down in one go and all my aches disappear instantly, my burnt flesh healed.
“I won’t!”
“Then eat her. But don’t come to me when you get food poison because she’s got so much venom in her veins.”
A heartbeat later, he lands gracefully in my room, shrunk back into his usual form.
“And I’m not sure Caryan appreciates it when you fly in your big form over the campus,” I say quietly.
“He has different problems these days,” Aris snarls, still far from calm. “Besides, he will understand my mood once he learns about what happened.”
“He will not learn about that,” I say sharply, whirling on him.
Aris blinks once at my fury, his golden eyes dimming a bit. “That woman nearly tortured you, Melody. How can you still want to protect her? That is no way to treat a student, and she knows this. You should take her head for this.”
“Do I really have to explain this to you too?” I ask, exasperated.
“You could try,” he shoots back, for once rising to my temper.
“Granted, she’s a mean bitch. But if Caryan learns about that, he’s going to rip her head off…
literally. With his bare hands. And sorry if I think that stone thing doesn’t deserve her death as punishment.
Besides, she was right, I should have come to class.
And funnily enough, she even taught me something,” I say, decidedly ignoring yet another of Aris’s snarky remarks about me being too kind for a fae.
“If I didn’t know it any better, I’d say you’re a bit disappointed that there isn’t some gory show coming,” I say, combing my hair and trying to get my look back to a more collected version of myself before I head back out to my next exam.
I glance at my schedule and cringe. Magical combat.
“You apparently do not know better, then,” he rumbles, cursing in the dragon-tongue I pretend I don’t understand too well.
“Bloodthirsty demon,” I tease. “I guess you’re taking more after Caryan after all.”
“You mean he’s taking more after me,” he says, before the magic of the dark coercion can stop him.
For a second, we look at each other in awkward silence while I try to make sense of what he just said. And even more importantly—the way he said it. Like a father speaking about his son. With no small amount of pride in his voice.
“Wait…are you some kind of parental figure for Caryan?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replies at once. “Caryan has been an adult for a very long time.” The snark is there, but so is the evasion, his wings tucked in tight.
I frown and step closer. “You know exactly what I mean,” I press.
He looks up at me then. His golden eyes are round and clear when they meet mine.
Fine. Maybe he can’t say it out loud. But the look he gives me is answer enough, and my stomach flips hard.
Yes.
He had been a parental figure to Caryan.
Still is. Probably.
“So,” I say carefully, “you raised Caryan or something.”
He blinks once.
I rake my hands through my hair, messing it up all over again. Damn it. I really need to stop doing that. But—no. No way.
“So he’s…like your son?”
Another blink.
Hells.
“And Noxus…”
One more blink.
I stare at him, my mind scrambling to catch up to this information. What the actual nine fucking hells.
“ Who are his real parents? I mean…do you miss his brother? His wicked, evil twin?”
Aris just watches me sadly, and a part of me cracks open and bleeds at the outright sadness I see in his aura.
Yes, he misses Noxus. Misses Noxus like mad.
All this time, I’ve never seen him like this.
Had never even thought that Aris might know Noxus better.
That he might have been some kind of parent for Caryan, of all people.
I always assumed he was some kind of demon, some kind of…
I don’t know, creature who teamed up with Caryan during dark times.
But the way Aris keeps looking at me makes my throat work. “So you actually knew Caryan as a kid?” That sounds so absurd I wince a little.
Aris blinks again.
Unholy hot-as-shit hells.
“Wow,” is all I say, still reeling.
Gods, I really need to focus on my exams, or I’ll mess them up.
But what in the Abyss’s name? I can’t even begin to grasp what this actually means.
And what a weird, complicated relationship Aris and Caryan must have.
Not to mention the lovely, slightly faeicidal, asshole named Noxus.
And what does that mean for me? And for my bond with Aris?
And—did he make them so dark? No. Aris is a soft marshmallow inside. But…does he love them? Like children? Well, I clearly saw the answer to that in Aris’s aura before, didn’t I?
Is he proud or disappointed? And who was their mom? What happened to their real parents? My mind spirals, questions piling on top of each other until I can barely breathe.
The bells chime, and I blow out a long breath. “I gotta go. Magical combat with Kyrith is up next. We can…maybe talk about this later?”
“As far as we can talk about it, little one,” Aris says gently.
I can tell he wants to say more, but I turn and hurry off, still not sure what to do with any of this. It feels like a betrayal to keep it secret—but Aris couldn’t tell me, and he never pushed me to use the stone to call Noxus. Never told Caryan either.
Why not?
I’m so lost in thought that I nearly crash straight into Kyrith when I reach the sparring rings. I’m the first one there; none of my friends have arrived yet.
Kyrith catches my shoulders to steady me. “Whoa. Planning on head-butting me to pass your exams, princess?” He smirks when I roll my eyes. “If so, I suggest aiming for my nose, not my chest bone.”
“Maybe your balls,” I offer dryly, trying to shove him off.
“Two seconds of looking at me and you’re already talking about my balls, sweetheart.”
“Ew—get out of my way!” I push him aside.
He laughs and hooks a leg under mine, trying to trip me—and we’re not even in the ring yet. Fucker. But if he wants to start my exam early, who am I to deny him?
I let myself fall into the sand, flinging a shield of lightning at him just before my hands hit the ground. He teleports, as expected—but starts cursing low and filthy when a chain of my lightning snaps around his leg and his trick doesn’t work.
I don’t look at him struggling. Instead, I bite my lip and focus on the rune I quickly draw into the sand—the same one I used an hour ago to neutralize Marryll’s stone. It seems to work on every kind of magic.
Interesting.
“What the fuck, princess?” He curses again, searching himself for a wound Nefarian steel might have left on his flesh to cut off his magic. “How the hells did you do that?” he demands when he finds none.
Whispers ripple through the class as I take my seat. Not loud enough to earn a reprimand, but sharp enough to prickle along my skin.
“The silver elf…”
“No wonder the Dark Lord’s interested.”
“She didn’t even touch him.”
I swallow and force my shoulders to relax, letting the noise wash past me. Let them whisper. Let them wonder.
I already know this won’t be the last time they do.
I lift my eyes to him from where I’m still crouching on the ground. “Does that mean I pass?” I tease, unable to help a cocky grin from spreading across my face. “Or do I have to knock you on your ass too first?” Because beating Kyrith has been a dream of mine for longer than I can recall.
“Yeah, if you tell me how you did it. Just untie me already.”
“Uh-uh. No fun in spoiling my secrets, professor,” I say, getting up and stepping over the rune before he can notice it, but careful not to destroy it either.
My heart beats fast, for one, because I beat him.
And for two, because I clearly just discovered a new way of binding and forming magic, though I’m not sure yet what to do with this knowledge.
I probably should have known this was possible.
My mother did things like this all the time.
I just always assumed she was far more powerful, far more trained than I could ever be.
So I never questioned it.
Like the way she tattooed magic directly into Caryan’s flesh.
I glance down at the tattooed runes Caryan gave me, shimmering black and gold on my wrist. Gifting magic from one fae to another clearly isn’t the same as carving spells into stone—or drawing them into sand, for that matter.
It’s something else entirely. I make a mental note to search the archives for books on it.
“So—” I stop in front of Kyrith, easily parrying every physical attempt he makes to break free of my magic. Without his power, it’s almost impossible. “Give me an A plus, and we’re done.”
He snarls, sharp and fae, clearly more irritated with himself—and with not being able to figure out how I did this—than with me.
“Well?” I yank on the magical chain.
He lands on his ass with a grunt.
A few students bite back laughter. Kyrith snarls again as I perform a brief, highly undignified victory dance.
“Fine,” he growls. “Princess gets an A.”
“Plus,” I add sweetly.
He growls his agreement. I release him with a smirk and turn my back, casually scuffing my foot over the rune to erase it. Kyrith doesn’t snarl again. Because technically—by fae pecking order—I now outrank him.
I join my wide-eyed friends on a wooden bench, settling in to wait for their turns.