Root Rot Academy: Term 2

by Watson, Rhea

  “Can you sit?” I asked, shifting my tone from stern and commanding to soft and warm. Still masterful—my voice had always possessed a natural richness to it, which worked well in scenes—yet comforting, too. Or so I’d been told, anyway.

  Alecto’s nod had me easing her into the chair, utterly enraptured with her slight wince as she settled, and I stooped to pull the jacket tighter around her. Even though she positively drowned in all that fabric, its embrace would help ease her back to the now.

  My arms would always be better—ideal, really—but I had no idea how Alecto Clarke liked her aftercare, and smothering a new sub was such bad form.

  Crouched in front of her, knees cracking angrily on the way down, I tipped my head to the side and scrutinized her expression. “Would you like some tea?”

  Lower lip snagged between her teeth, she shook her head.

  “Would you like to talk about it?”

  Her eyebrow flicked up, and Alecto looked pointedly at the desk with the brattiest little smirk. I bit back a grin of my own.

  “No,” I said with a lightly chastising tap on her knee. “Not that—about what put you in the state I found you in.”

  She deflated, her slight head shake a very resounding no. Right, then. I wouldn’t push—tonight.

  “Okay.” Still crouched in front of her, as low as I could risk without kneeling at her feet, I pinched her chin and forced her back to me, catching her eyes as I said, “Are you all right? Did someone hurt you?”

  The smirk returned with a vengeance, and once again she glanced slyly toward the desk. Brat. Brat times ten.

  My grip tightened on her chin. “Alecto.”

  “No,” she finally croaked, her first word all night. Her hands went for my forearm, perhaps to clutch at, maybe to remove, to shove it out of her orbit, but I was already on the retreat, our dance out of sync suddenly. So, she gathered up the jacket’s empty sleeves instead, brought them to her nose, and took a deep, damning inhale that had every drop of blood in my body zooming for my cock.

  Bloody hell.

  Not good. Not good. Redirect—

  “No one hurt me,” she whispered after lowering the sleeves and clutching them to her chest. Her dark lashes painted her cheeks as she fidgeted with the fabric. “I’m sorry you found me like that… I’m sorry, Jack, for—” Her breath snagged, and she shot up as if jolted by a cattle prod. “Oh, no, Headmaster. I’m so sorry, Headmaster, for—”

  “Please—Jack, I insist,” I said with a chuckle, holding up a hand to stop that runaway train. “Really. I just spanked you… I can be Jack for tonight.”

  Alecto sank back into the chair, her little smile beyond endearing, stoking my protective side as no one ever had.

  “Really though…” I brushed a curl from her face, then another, then another, her hair made for distraction. “Given your state and our last, er, discussion, I thought this might help… I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Alecto gave me a long look, emotionless in a way that made me start to sweat, before another bratty smile split her face.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “You did.” Shit. “But I liked it.”

  Double shit.

  Swallowing a groan, I finally felt confident enough to leave her and perch on the edge of my desk. Gods, what a mess. Scrubbing at my face, I glanced at the clock through my fingers and then exhaled briskly. Nearing midnight—hardly a good look should anyone catch a professor exiting my office at this hour.

  “Let me walk you back to your flat.”

  Fussing with her hair, Alecto frowned. “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes,” I rumbled, pinning her with a don’t question me look that made past submissives quake in their boots. Alecto merely stared back, fearless and calm but still a bit bratty—just the headspace I had hoped to put her in. “I do.”

  And now I ought to see her home, make sure nothing else happened along the way to ruin our good work. Not only had this helped her, but as she stood and shrugged off my jacket, I found myself in a much better place than I had been even an hour ago. Sure, the stresses of this job remained, the uncertainty of my place at Root Rot, the pressure from the high council, but in Alecto’s presence, having finally played again, I just…

  I could draw a real deep breath for the first time in eons.

  I hadn’t climaxed—and was forced to tuck my erection into my belt when she turned her back—but as I escorted Alecto out of my office, relief felt even better. Relaxation. Warmth and contentment. Just being near her, this much too young witch who knew and kept my secret, who hadn’t judged me, who leaned into my heavy hand without question, was heavenly.

  Neither of us said a word on the walk to her flat, but the surrounding air stayed serene even as the elements battered the castle at every turn. Wind screamed through the corridors. Rain pounded the roof like war drums. Lightning illuminated the windows, and thunder cracked down to Root Rot’s deepest foundations. Yet with her, I walked on air.

  And she seemed much the same, ambling along at my side, forcing me to slow down to accommodate her shorter stride. Her gentle smile, her hooded eyes, her relaxed posture: whatever had hurt her earlier was gone—for now. I wasn’t foolish enough to think a bit of spanking was the cure, but if it had helped her calm down enough to attack the problem with a clearer mind, then I had done my job as a Dominant.

  All the while failing miserably as her headmaster.

  We exchanged soft good-nights at her door, and as soon as it shut behind her, I sprinted out of there to avoid anyone catching me.

  Only to slow in the stairwell and lean back against the wall, the minutiae of life outside of the scene creeping in bit by bit. With her, the world went quiet. My mind wasn’t cluttered with a thousand racing thoughts—just her.

  And that was… alarming.

  Unhealthy, probably. I rarely engaged in an emotional connection with submissives beyond friendship, but Alecto Clarke had me yearning for something more.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned. Like every Saturday night, I ought to retire to my office and resume work for at least another two hours.

  Get a measly three or four hours of sleep, then up for a punishing run before dawn if the weather allowed it.

  Instead, I pivoted and climbed all the way up to my flat. My empty, dark, silent flat in need of a woman’s touch and a whiff of vanilla. While I usually rooted in the chair before the hearth, books and folders stacked high on either side, I veered into the bedroom. Stripped down. Climbed into bed thinking of her, of her fingers twisting my jacket, her shocked gasp, the lush fullness of her backside in my palm.

  And for the first time—possibly ever—I fell asleep within minutes. No potions, no pills, no tricks, no magic. Just—out.

  Out and dreaming of her.

  No stress-induced nightmares.

  Just Alecto Clarke…

  And everything my heart wanted to do to her.

  10

  Alecto

  “Hello, Professor Clarke.”

  I gritted my teeth as yet another staple crunched through the thousandth midterm prep packet I had put together this afternoon. Of course she found me back here, tucked away in no-man’s-land, the far corner of Root Rot’s library quiet and relatively student-free: Alice was a little Alecto bloodhound, and I had no doubt she searched the greenhouse first before coming here for her usual Thursday afternoon study hall.

  “Hello, Alice.” Pretty standard procedure: if I had a free period that coincided with one of hers, she was right by my side. Two short, dark weeks into December, I found the greenhouse too chilly to work in most days and only bothered with heating charms if I had classes. The other two greenhouses and the conservatory had regulated heat orbs working around the clock to take care of the flora inside, but the main one, packed with students five days a week, needed more finesse to account for the fluctuating number of people present.

  And without the twenty or so extra bodies in there this afternoon, I couldn’t be bothered to finagl
e with the heat, the glass panes ice-dusted and temperatures supposed to take a nosedive this evening. So, I’d ventured inside with my mountain of work. Bjorn had started sleeping more regularly in the afternoons, which put him in a better overall mood most nights. Disturbing him, therefore, with the constant crunch of a stapler eating parchment was on the bottom of my to-do list.

  Like the rest of the faculty, the staffroom was always at my disposal, but I had avoided it since the anniversary—since that awful night that ended in such a strange, wonderful way that I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. That I couldn’t stop fantasizing about, Jack’s hand on my ass, the solid wood of his desk propping me up—keeping me in position, bent over and vulnerable. Helpless. Throw in a dash of pain and a dollop of hot headmaster who didn’t press for too many details and I was golden.

  In the fortnight that followed, I hadn’t spent alone time with either Benedict—thank fuck for that—or Jack.

  Which…

  You know, made things a little weird. We hadn’t found the time to talk or dissect what had happened in his office, but maybe that was for the best. Maybe it had been nothing more than a warlock helping a distraught witch in a way that was private, personal, and intimate to them. Because fuck me, it had helped. He had been so good about everything, so sweet in the aftermath, so thoughtful and tender but still… gruff. Manly. Masterful and powerful in a way that didn’t make my hackles rise.

  Fuck misogynist assholes. I saw a lot of them in my profession, and my patience for their bullshit had thinned to nonexistent over the years.

  It hadn’t been like that with Jack.

  Even though he had spanked me, steered me around, fed me a shot of bourbon that burned bright in my belly, the interaction felt oddly… equal. Somehow. I still couldn’t put my finger on the nuances, but Jack always looked like he was buried in work, hounded by the administration, then stuck dealing with truant students day in and day out—I didn’t want to add to the load.

  I owed him that.

  Not only for what he had done for me that night, but for the trust he put in me while doing it. Our conversation at the start of term had been risky, but it was just talk. This had been action. I… I could have filed a report. Gotten him fired and ostracized in the academic community. Jack Clemonte, for all his power and prestige, for the heft his family name carried, put himself at my mercy.

  He had trusted me, just like I’d trusted him not to hurt me, to take care of me, to drag me out of the depths as I slowly drowned.

  I owed him however much space he needed.

  At the very least, things weren’t awkward at staff meetings. My heart raced, sure, but for an entirely different reason these days. Overall, I woke up the following morning—and every morning since—feeling better than I had before the anniversary of my parents’ murder. Still not 100 percent sure what to do about Benedict Hammond, I had finally made a decision, at the very least…

  Trust my gut.

  Trust my intuition.

  Trust the gods to shine a big, fat, blinding spotlight on the solution when it was finally ready to be seen.

  I had been a survivor since that psycho tried to burn me in my bed: I needed to put more faith in myself. Trust that when it was time to make a move, I’d know.

  Hopefully. As long as my anxiety and wavering self-worth didn’t get in the way.

  For now, I figured it was acceptable, for the sake of vengeance, to string Benedict Hammond along as necessary. Put on that fake smile. Nod. Make polite chitchat about shallow crap.

  But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him in. He wanted to know me, but that wasn’t happening.

  Nor would I ever find time to go for that stupid fucking lunch he kept trying to push on me. No dates. Nothing private. Just—stay in his good books to keep his suspicions low.

  Maybe even let him trap himself.

  Self-incrimination.

  Wouldn’t that be satisfying?

  As Alice unpacked her massive backpack, spreading her things throughout mine so she could hunker down for the next hour, I twisted around in my chair and did a quick scan of the nearby stacks. Nothing and no one as far as I could see but books and wooden shelves, which was just how I liked it. Sure, I enjoyed chatting with my kids, but not when I needed to get shit done on an encroaching deadline.

  “So, how are things?” Alice and I spent a lot of time together, in and out of work hours, and this was the question I had been dying to ask for weeks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t phrase it how I wanted without her assuming Bjorn and I gossiped about the Clíodhna incident behind closed doors, and if she thought that, poof, there went her trust in me.

  Still, breaking curfew wasn’t her thing, and last week I could have sworn she had a hickey on her neck—or a bruise from something more nefarious; it was substantial enough to be either.

  And no matter the cause, I did not approve.

  Alice was a good girl, and if someone was hurting her, or messing with her, or trying to turn her into a bad girl, they’d have my foot shoved so far up their ass everyone would see my toes wiggle when they talked.

  A hand-knit scarf in Root Rot’s school colors—maroon, gold, and white—draped her neck today, blocking my scrutiny when I turned it back on her.

  “Oh, you know,” she said with a sigh, arranging her pens and highlighters in stick-straight rows, “same old.”

  “Made any new connections lately?” Friends or otherwise. Despite my best efforts, she remained a bit of a loner around campus. Alice shrugged, unfazed by the insinuation.

  “Not really.” She dug into her backpack and hauled out the massive alchemy textbook that probably gave these kids premature back problems. “Same as always, you know?”

  Slowly taking a sheet from each stack of parchment piled around me, I compiled my test prep booklets without looking, focused on her and chomping down on the insides of my cheeks. I couldn’t be her only friend. I just couldn’t. It wasn’t… professional. And it wasn’t good for her development. At thirteen, Alice was in a precarious position: a witch unable to cast, a teenager sporting a fresh batch of pimples and no new friends. Not ideal.

  “And how is, you know…” I looked pointedly at her hands as she flipped through her textbook. “How are you doing? Feeling any new tingles?”

  Cheeks pink, Alice pushed her textbook to the side now that she’d found her page, then grabbed her notebook and shook her head.

  “Well, that’s okay,” I insisted, tapping my parchment stack on the table before reaching for the stapler. “It’ll come.”

  “But how do you know that?” she whispered, watching me staple the corner of the new packet and set it on the pile of completed ones. I pointed the stapler at her, then arched an eyebrow and grinned when she finally met my eyes.

  “Because witches and warlocks don’t make human babies. They just don’t.” Unless her mom slept with a human, then maybe, just maybe, she had missed the magic gene entirely. I didn’t know the circumstances, nor would I ever float it as a possibility. “It’s genetics, Alice. You’re a witch. Your magic is in there. Sometimes it’s just a bit stubborn. Mine, for like a month when I first went to the academy, turned everything green. Just… No matter what spell I cast, whatever my magic touched turned green. It was a nightmare, but it sorted itself out. Yours will, too.”

  No telling whether stories of my own failings helped, but as she tucked her chair closer to the table, Alice beamed up at me, then grabbed her preferred silky black pen.

  Only to stop just shy of touching its tip to her notebook.

  “Can I tell you… a secret?”

  Hands flying from stack to stack, I prepped another booklet with a slow nod. “Uh, sure. Go for it.”

  After a quick check over both shoulders, Alice leaned across the table, all giddy and adorable, the aggressive whitehead between her brows glaring at me like a third eye. “I met someone.”

  I fumbled with the stapler, crunching the staple in wrong enough that I’d need that little metal remov
er to get it out. “You—”

  “A boy,” she clarified, her eyes bright and her smile toothy. She wanted me to be excited for her. She wanted me to squeal and demand deets, because that was what friends did.

  But I wasn’t that kind of friend.

  And like 99 percent of the teenage boys here were the worst, so…

  “A… boy?” So that was the best I could do, eyebrows up as I tore the warped staple out, my tone dubious. Ever the smitten kitten, Alice smiled dreamily as my skepticism zipped right over her head.

  “He’s just so awesome,” she gushed, and with the next deep breath, I braced for a wave of teenage girl word-vomit. “And funny and smart and kind. He listens to me for hours and never complains, always asks such thoughtful questions. He wants to know me… I can’t believe I got so lucky.”

  My heart dropped at the know me bit, but hopefully that stemmed from my own insecurities and not her reality. “Who is it?”

  She turned bright red as she fiddled with her rebellious mop of brown curls. “Uh, can that stay secret a little while longer?”

  Right. The full boyfriend package—in a teenager at Root Rot Academy? Sure. Sounded totally legit. Still, Alice had never been the type to embellish before despite her circumstances. She was awkward, sure, but she owned her opinions, her stories, and her trauma.

  In her own way, anyway.

  “Sure,” I told her gently as I stapled that test prep packet all over again, getting it right this time. “You can tell me when you’re ready—or not at all. Your decision.”

  She straightened, smile blooming once more and gaze soaring over my head. “Oh, hello, Professor Cedar!”

  Gods. The hairs on the back of my neck finally stood up, a delayed reaction to his approach, and I stiffened at the first hint of his cologne in the air. Sandalwood. Normally the smell didn’t make my stomach turn; common in men’s scent products, I didn’t mind it. Hell, Bjorn had a sandalwood-infused cologne that was to die for, the perfect complement to the rogue, manly smell he seemed to exude naturally. Throw in a splash of his dryer-fresh tweed and leather and just unf.