Root Rot Academy: Term 2

by Watson, Rhea

  “Nice,” I said through a mouthful of giggles. Yeah. I fancied him. After tonight, I really, really did.

  And from the little twinkle in his eye, the feeling was mutual.

  Gods, we were so screwed.

  Gavriel and me… What a mess.

  Maybe Bjorn could balance us out. Hell, with his level head and even temper, maybe he could actually fix us, the ultimate basket cases, the crown jewels of his professional career—

  “To secrets among friends,” the fae announced out of nowhere, swiping his half-drunk diet garbage and hoisting the bottle high. Sighing, I went for one of the untouched bottles and cracked open the lid.

  “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this Darkwell deal?” I asked, trying to sound as nonjudgmental as possible as I held up my hissing drink, bubbles fizzing at the mouth. Gavriel shook his head.

  “Not a chance. I’m not hurting anyone, fury. It’s all about free will—that’s Lucifer’s kink, remember.”

  I ducked my chin as heat exploded across my face at the word kink. Because. Apparently, I had a few of my own that Gavriel had coaxed out and Jack was all too happy to indulge in.

  “Right. Sure. Free will.”

  “You sure I can’t just kill Ced— Hammond?” The question sounded like he was asking if he could crush a cockroach under his boot. “He’s suuuuch a prat.”

  Grinning, I leaned forward and held out my bottle so we could clink. “No. I have to do it, no matter what it ends up being.”

  “Fine,” Gavriel said with a long, over-the-top groan, “but if it’s not done by the end of this school year, I’m going to take him out back and shoot him. Fair?”

  If only it was that easy. If only I could have just hired a hitman and got it over with. “Let’s play it by ear.”

  “Righteous bitch,” he whispered affectionately. Lips pursed, I lifted my bottle a little higher, exhaustion creeping in as the conversation wrapped and the wee hours of the morning dragged on.

  “To secrets between friends,” I said back to him, “and mutual self-destruction.”

  “Hear, hear, fury.”

  We knocked our plastic bottlenecks together and chugged it all down, eyes locked, goading the other on to finish every last bitterly sweet drop.

  Then polished off the last of our greasy feast. Chatted a little more about safer topics. Teased a lot. Groped and kissed and fucked against his office door one last time, serenaded by the three-o’clock bells.

  And eventually went our separate ways, to separate beds…

  Parting, for the first time, as friends.

  What?

  Okay. Fine.

  Parting, for the first time, as a little bit more than friends.

  23

  Gavriel

  “And now, as one, light your candles and embrace Imbolc.”

  Bold move to host another sabbat feast featuring darkness and candles, but that was Jack Clemonte: bold and progressive, stubborn to the last, because here we were, on the second day of February, celebrating yet another distinctly witch ritual.

  Not that it mattered. Lucy Eastwick was long gone, and no one had come close to her potential in the long, dreary winter months that followed her expulsion. Was it really a wonder why I drank? Really?

  The rest of them remained unaware that my potential offering was responsible for the chaos on Mabon, which kept the staff table laughably tense tonight. Still, Jack pushed forward, determined to foist his beliefs and rituals onto the student body, and we all played along, bellies howling and goblets full of untouched wine, lighting candles and waiting for it to be over.

  Well, that was my approach, anyway. Sandwiched between Ash Cedar to the left and some ancient warlock on my right, I was surrounded by sycophants, biased traditionalists who lived for this type of shit.

  Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my green candlestick, the whole dining hall moving in unison after another tedious Clemonte speech about the meaning behind all this. Something about the first taste of spring—I’d zoned out a few sentences in. But we were welcoming back the light, the darkest time of the year behind us.

  In the literal sense, anyway.

  While massive black tri-flamed candles dotted the tables for Mabon, we had white ones tonight—for the purity of spring, or some such nonsense—and bright green candles for personal use. Which we were supposed to… hold after? Maybe? Hadn’t been listening.

  Mine caught fire the moment I tipped it over the white candle flame, stretched to the left across Cedar to reach our shared fire source.

  No. Not Cedar.

  Two weeks on and I still couldn’t believe this boring prat had fooled me. Benedict Hammond had pulled the wool over my eyes for years, just the rest of these dullards, and even now, despite my bored expression, it fucking infuriated me that I hadn’t seen what was going on.

  Because now that I knew, bullshit and fakery was all I saw in him, all I smelled whenever he entered a room. With Alecto’s traumatic family history shared, her secret safe with me so long as my Darkwell affiliations stayed exclusively with her, the warlock had a great neon sign chiseled into his smooth forehead: liar.

  In big, blocky, obnoxious letters.

  Just before I settled back into my seat, the dining hall erupting with candlelight, the windows charmed to look like a rosy sunset, I caught him looking.

  Staring—intently—at her.

  My fury.

  Down the staff table, she and Bjorn whispered amongst themselves, all smiles as they leaned forward to light their candles. Given her past, I finally understood her aversion to fire—why she had insisted I light her cigarette that night on the beach, so un-witchlike as she shied away from the flames. She did well with it all here, her gaze soft—smitten, even—as she focused entirely on her handsome vampire flatmate.

  Did the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, I wondered, the longer Cedar—Hammond—burned a hole into her forehead? That black gaze refused to lift, even with his candle lit. My eyes narrowed.

  Quite the little train we had going: Alecto gazing adoringly up at Bjorn, Bjorn locked on her, Hammond staring relentlessly at Alecto, and me glaring daggers into the side of Hammond’s too-big head.

  My grasp tightened around the candle, nails gritting into the wax, and the flame shivered as a strangely unfamiliar urge swelled in my chest.

  The urge to… protect.

  I’d experienced it before with my siblings, my mother, even the fae in my battalion.

  Rarely had I ever felt so inclined to aggressively protect a woman—a lover. No one had ever stirred that side of me before, yet when Alecto shared her struggles with vengeance, I hadn’t hesitated.

  The offer to smother this twat in his sleep had been genuine—and I would have done it in a heartbeat if she accepted. Back then, I hadn’t questioned the surge of protectiveness, the need to eliminate a threat.

  As annoying as it was to consider, even worse to accept, obviously I had a soft spot for Alecto Clarke.

  Corwin. Alecto Corwin.

  My fury. My girl. My friend—apparently.

  It was the last one that stilled my hand. Above all else, I understood the need to exact one’s own revenge. Benedict Hammond had hurt her, destroyed her life, cut down her family tree and set it ablaze before she had the chance to watch it grow. She needed to be the one to swing the axe, and while I predicted it would be something boring—taped confessions were such a snooze—I still crossed my fingers for a bloody, violent showdown where my girl could stand over his charred corpse, triumphant and finally free from her past.

  For now, I held my tongue.

  Forcefully, sometimes, because not only did I smell bullshit anytime this lying sack of shit entered my orbit, but she had opened my eyes as to how he treated her.

  How he looked at her—like he owned her.

  Whether he suspected she wasn’t who she claimed to be remained to be seen, but Benedict Hammond had eyes for my fury, bold in his flirtations, aggressive in asserting his claim at Sunday staff m
eetings.

  Hell, he had literally shoved one of the shifter professors aside to sit next to her at the last one, and not only had I been seconds away from scalping him just because, but Bjorn had glowered at him so venomously from across the table that it was a miracle he hadn’t turned to stone.

  If Alecto allowed it, on her day of righteous vengeance, I’d like to break his hands. Both of them—all the fingers, too. Because he had touched her more than once in my presence.

  And now that I knew the truth, now that I had begrudgingly accepted that stupid soft spot, his hand on her body—anywhere—fucking pissed me off.

  I wouldn’t kill him, of course.

  But I’d like to see him suffer, even if she eventually chose boring over bloody.

  All of that meant something.

  More than friendship, I cared for her. Her safety, her well-being, her heart and her mind and her feelings.

  Ugh. Tedious.

  But, tiresome as it was, as big a distraction from my overall goals, clearly this was the path my heart had embraced—against my consent and without my knowledge. While I had denied it from the beginning, Alecto had always intrigued me, excited me. She knew how to push my buttons and soothe my temper. She called me on my shit and took my mind off everything—Darkwell, the nightmares, the betrayal, the horrors dwelling deep in my own history.

  That night, spilling our secrets, embracing mutual destruction, had bonded us, forged a tether between our hearts that, if broken, could destroy everything.

  I glanced down the table again. Strangely enough, Alecto wasn’t the only creature here with whom I suddenly shared a bond. Despite the miserable winter weather, Bjorn and I had enjoyed many a drunken night on top of the staff tower, each nursing a flask, each offering a part of ourselves with the other.

  War stories.

  Some good, some bad.

  Reliving them out loud might have brought back the nightmares, possibly even made me drink more, but to thrust them onto someone who so intimately understood that life was… a relief.

  No judgment.

  No fear.

  No squeamishness. Bjorn took tales of brutality and bloodshed, conquest and expansion, without batting an eye.

  For he had been just as brutal, just as bloody, just as obsessed with land grabs and material gain.

  A lifetime ago for us both, we donned armor and cut down foes on the battlefield.

  Today, we connected over trauma and failure.

  Two people in this castle knew me. Bjorn remained in the dark about my deal with Lucifer, but he had seen my ugliest scars—only to show me some of his own.

  The rest of the supernatural ilk seated at this table were totally oblivious to who we three were…

  Just like they were with Hammond.

  Head cocked, I stayed still as a statue, watching him watch her, even when Jack dove headlong into the second half of his sabbat feast speech. My eyes narrowed when Hammond grinned, the flash of teeth like a match to gunpowder—the spark that ignited the hatred in my heart over the way he looked at her, smiled at her, thought she belonged to him.

  Hit on her.

  Made her feel small and uncertain and furious, wrathful with no outlet.

  With a sniff, I tipped my hand to the left as I eased back into my chair, angling the newly lit candlestick just right—

  So that his sleeve caught fire. So that his stupid, poufy, Tudor-esque traditional warlock robe-jacket-thing tasted the inferno he had left Alecto to die in as a child.

  Then, for good measure, I willed just a touch of my innate power, the air sizzling with my influence, so that the flame spread rapidly from his wrist to his elbow.

  “Good gods, man!”

  Another of our colleagues noticed before Hammond, but the second the warlock glanced down, he leapt from his chair with a shout, making Jack flinch and trail off mid-speech.

  “Stars above, apologies, old boy,” I drawled, blowing out the offending candle and setting it on my empty plate, then snatching my napkin to help smother the wildfire on his sleeve. “Wasn’t paying attention—”

  “You filthy little…” Hammond left it at that, mouth twisted in a snarl as we two battled the flames made to dance by fae magic. By the time we put it out for good, the entire hall buzzed with whispers and nervous giggles, security on the prowl between the tables and den mothers struggling to quiet the student body.

  Jack looking ready to strangle us both with his bare hands.

  “Goodness,” I said with a chuckle, tossing my burnt napkin aside and shaking my head. “Cheap fabrics really just go up in flames, don’t they? Hope they put a warning on the label.”

  Red-faced and flustered, Hammond collapsed into his seat and faced forward in a stormy silence. Hands up in a contrite—fake—apology, I slowly sank into my chair and tucked back in, motioning for Jack to continue with a little chin thrust toward his audience, all of them hanging by a thread and desperate for drama. Scowling, Jack slowly turned around at his podium, then took a few moments to collect himself before restarting his spiel.

  Yeah, that little display might have just earned me my first Clemonte lecture. Fabulous.

  I stole a glance at Hammond’s flayed sleeve, flesh peeking through the ruins of the dress shirt below.

  Worth it.

  As I went for my goblet, feeling rather alive all of a sudden, I caught Alecto out of the corner of my eye doing the same. We glanced toward one another, her expression straddling the line between admonishment and affection. I smirked, pleased that I could decipher the nuances of her mood lately with almost as much skill as I played her body. While there had been no further late-night rendezvous in my office, I’d joined her and Bjorn for the odd meal in this hall over the last few days. Nothing serious, mind you. I had no intention of charging headlong into best-chums territory just because we bared our souls in the shadows—but it was something.

  Something different, something I hadn’t experienced within the Root Rot walls since my contract started.

  Something I hadn’t felt since before that failed raid, the Amber Court decimating my closest companions and the Ash Court burying me while I grieved.

  Camaraderie. Connection.

  Understanding.

  I didn’t hate it.

  And if this continued, feeling alive and selfless for the first time in ages, like I had done a good deed for someone who mattered—like I could just be the hero, not the hero and the loser at the same time…

  Well, Benedict Hammond had better watch his back.

  Because there might be more accidents in his future.

  His very near future.

  24

  Alecto

  “Professor Clarke?”

  Ugh, gods, just let me fucking eat.

  Eyes heavy and smile strained, I slowly looked up from my steaming bowl of minestrone after only slurping down one measly spoonful. February 29—the extra day of a leap year. Final day of term exams. The day every major assignment was due across all classes, leaving me with a literal mountain of grading to tackle over the upcoming spring break, most students headed for home tomorrow morning while the rest of us recovered.

  But even if they got to leave, the entire castle was just fried at this point in the school year. I had chosen a seat at the far end of the staff table—alone—to just enjoy my massive bowl of soup with the three fresh-baked crusty bread loaves I’d snagged from the dining hall’s buffet table. No one to talk to. No students to fight with. No den mothers to snipe at me over portion control. Just—peace and quiet.

  This would have actually marked the first meal I’d eaten alone in weeks, and as much as I adored Gavriel and Bjorn’s company, on good days and bad, I needed the solitude to decompress. Bjorn skipped dinner to prepare for his final classes of the term this evening, while Gavriel had been barricaded in his office for the last two days on a never-ending interview spree to pad the library ranks after a mass walkout two weeks ago.

  No one knew why they left.

 
; But half his staff vanished one night, along with a handful of the new security hires who, frankly, weren’t cut out for this academy from the start. So, in more of a mood than usual, the fae popped in and out of my bubble a few times in the last forty-eight hours, mostly to grab coffee or food, grouse a bit about what horrendous candidates he had to entertain, then disappear in a snit.

  Jack rarely ever ate in the dining hall with the rest of us outside of sabbat feasts. He was the only one I’d entertain right now of the three weirdly consistent men in my life, if only to listen to his soothing aftercare baritone, the one that lulled me to sleep during our last playdate. Unfortunately, we had both been so busy lately that one Saturday in February was all we could swing.

  Another trip to that crumbling fort.

  Another early morning strung up and spread open, vulnerable and at a sadist’s mercy. Another hour of bliss and pain, totally disconnected from the outside world.

  Jack had used a paddle this time, which sucked way worse than the flogger. It hurt. A lot. A dull, achy, constant throb across my ass and down my thighs—and I’d loved every second of it. We both did, his huge erection impossible to ignore even if I wasn’t allowed to do anything about it. No touching him without permission. No kissing. Those were the rules, and my Dom was a stickler for them.

  Which, just, ugh—Jack’s obstinance did things to me, made me feel, made the butterflies in my chest surge and swarm despite the warped circumstances.

  That session had stayed with me for over a week, our filthy secret inked across my skin during classes and meetings and meals. Infatuated with the slow burn of natural healing, I had refused to take a potion to dull the pain or use a balm to mend the bruises.

  Of course, everything was gone now, leaving me hungry for another session, a glutton for punishment and an addict for Jack’s brand of cuddly aftercare. But lately I was too tired to even consider playing, and just the thought of jogging all the way out to the fort made me want to crawl into bed and never come out.