Root Rot Academy: Term 2

by Watson, Rhea

  Perfect time for a counterattack.

  I mean, I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected sirens had solid night vision.

  How do I get him out—

  Wait.

  Not just him.

  “Alice—”

  While the water was mostly still, something bobbed at the surface a good ten feet from the altar.

  Something dark at the top—and white all around.

  “Alice!” I tripped over Jack’s body in my haste, which sent me tumbling into the icy depths, limbs flailing and adrenaline soaring. Lungs rebelling against the cold, I barely managed to keep my head above water as I paddled over, hoping, praying to all the gods and their ancestors, that it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

  That I was seeing things.

  But she was real—vivid and bone-chilled, her eyes hooded and vacant, her body bobbing, then sinking somewhat when I reached her.

  “No, no, no, no.” For such a little thing, Alice weighed a ton in the water, so much so that I could only get her head and neck above the surface, legs kicking furiously to keep us both afloat. Struggling, I clapped a hand over the gaping wound on her neck and uttered the sealing spell.

  Not that it mattered.

  She had no pulse.

  “Alice, no,” I whispered, heart on the verge of pounding out of my chest. “No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—give me a s-second. I’m here. I’m h-here with you. It’s okay. I-I’ve got you. Just… Hold on.”

  Brin had slit her throat and… left her there to die.

  Alone.

  Always alone, my Alice.

  Shaking violently and taking in water, I sealed the gash on her cheek, then smoothed her matted curls from her face. The color had leeched out of her skin, lips blue, and if I didn’t support it, her head flopped forward, backward, side to side, whatever direction I let it fall.

  Sobbing, terrified of what might be lurking below, I rotated her onto her back and hooked an arm around her, then started the slow, desperate swim back to the altar.

  The cave growing darker by the second.

  Jack unconscious.

  Alice…

  No.

  “H-help me,” I croaked, freezing water sloshing up my nose, into my mouth, my limbs like lead and my toes numb. Despite kicking as hard as I could, paddling forward with one arm, we barely moved, every inch claimed an inch earned. Another strangled cry cut up my throat, tears blurring this awful place into darkness. “Somebody, please…” I sucked in a deep breath to scream it. “Help me!”

  27

  Bjorn

  Even as a gentle thunder rumbled in the distance, the black clouds held firm, keeping the storm at bay, as if sensing that Root Rot Academy had dealt with enough calamity in the last twenty-four hours—and now we needed rest, only if for a night.

  Having discovered yet another of Alecto’s regular haunts empty, I shut the door of the smallest greenhouse firmly behind me, darkness alive and well in the three rectangular buildings, then stood tall amidst the chill. Silence and tragedy ushered in the month of March, the first day a gloomy one, most students home for their break and those who stayed kept within their towers while the administration sorted out recent events.

  Jack unconscious in the infirmary.

  Alice’s parents en route to retrieve their daughter’s corpse.

  Alecto… Nowhere to be found.

  Until now.

  Hands in my pockets, I grinned when I finally spotted what I was after: fireflies dancing in the conservatory. Charmed to keep the tropical plants happy, it was the only place on campus where you could find the little light bugs all year round, impervious to the winter rains and the brief stretch of summer heat. Like them, the elements didn’t bother me. I strolled toward the domed building unfazed by the cold and the wet, dark damp hanging around campus even as we inched toward spring. All that mattered was finding her—making things right.

  I would never forget the crazed look in her eyes for as long as I lived, stumbling into my classroom last night in the middle of my final lecture for the term, panting, gasping, sobbing, bleating for help. Soaked to the bone. Bleeding all over the floor. Everything crashed to a halt right then and there, and while a few students I trusted were sent to raise the alarm, I followed Alecto into the abyss.

  Helped her haul Jack’s unconscious, half-drained body back to the shores.

  She wouldn’t let me touch Alice.

  Wounded and bloodied, Alecto insisted on swimming the girl back herself.

  Even on the other side of the portal, in familiar corridors, surrounded by familiar faces, it had taken loads of coaxing to make her release Alice, threats from Iris falling on deaf ears, same as my gentle words of encouragement, pleas from the girl’s den mother.

  Alecto wouldn’t let go.

  As if holding her would bring her back to life.

  They separated eventually. Seamus had patched her up, her wounds substantial—but they paled in comparison to Jack. In a potion-induced sleep, Root Rot’s headmaster would survive, but he had a rocky road to recovery ahead.

  Same as my girl.

  And she was all that mattered to me at the end of the day. We may not have kissed yet, may not have formalized whatever we were, but she was mine and I was hers. Even with an uncertain future for the academy, I couldn’t think of anyone but her.

  The moment I saw Alecto’s hunched outline through the conservatory’s tinted glass walls, I finally slowed, relief coursing through my veins like a fire through kindling. Fixed on her silhouette, I let my feet guide me on the path I had walked many times before—with nurses and professors and librarians, the ones who used me on a dare or because some witch magazine told them you hadn’t lived until you climaxed from a vampire’s bite.

  Never had I nudged through the double doors at the entryway with someone I truly cared about. Someone who made me feel alive again—who made my heart dance and sing and somersault from her scent alone.

  Someone who made me feel less alone in the world.

  I had been waiting for the weather to turn before asking Alecto to take me on a tour of the conservatory. Let her talk my ear off about all the green darlings, each and every one, long into the night while I melted at the sound of her voice—and then I’d kiss her beneath a full moon, amidst flickering fireflies and the tropical heat.

  Tonight, the sauna hit hard, same as always, the cacti and palms happy as can be, and the fireflies scattered as soon as I shut the door, my presence an intrusion. Fronds folded overhead in a thick green canopy. Tropical blooms thrived, flora arranged along the perimeter of the huge circular structure, then throughout to create winding walkways.

  I found Alecto in the center of it all, in the heart of her Root Rot kingdom. Seated on a bench beneath an overhang of reaching flowery vines, hands limp in her lap, eyes down, she looked defeated. Dressed in a pair of black leggings, the ones she lounged around the flat in on weekends, she drowned in all that unflattering plaid, sporting one of those flannel shirtdress things that had been all the rage a few years back. Curls wild. Face drawn and pale. From the smell, her wounds hadn’t reopened since Seamus sealed them. She shivered when I stopped a few feet from her, my boots entering her line of sight, and I glanced at the massive tartan shawl bunched up beside her on the bench, then sighed.

  With her hiding spot discovered, Alecto slowly shifted on the bench, no longer slumped forward over her knees but hunched back against the wood panels. Her amber gaze soared to mine a moment later, tinged red with grief.

  “Hi,” I offered, tone soft and kind and nowhere near pitying. The corners of her mouth kicked up halfheartedly.

  “Hi,” Alecto croaked back. If it wasn’t obvious from her eyes that she had been crying for hours, the strain in her voice was proof enough. I understood the sorrow, of course, the guilt of carrying someone’s death on your shoulders. Hundreds of souls tainted mine, centuries of bloodshed and slaughter leaving scars in my icy flesh no one would ever see but me.

  “It’
s not your fault.”

  She blinked up at me, once, twice, then folded over again to sob into her hands. Of course that would trigger her, but she needed to know that unlike me, she hadn’t intentionally stolen a life. The distinction mattered.

  Jaw clenched, I swooped in and dropped to my knees before her. While it would have been easy to grab her wrists and pry her hands from her face, I let her struggle against my grasp, let her fuss and pull and fight to hide from the world.

  “Alecto—”

  “Stop,” she rasped, lowering her hands just enough to peer over her fingertips, the liquid gold waterlogged and bloodshot. “I’m a-all snotty.”

  My heart whumped an extra drumbeat at that. Grinning, I finally dragged her hands aside, then tugged my taupe sweater sleeves up to my palms.

  “I don’t care,” I assured her, wiping her cheeks dry with the twill as a mama cat cleaned an unruly kitten, even dragging my forearm under her—yes—snotty nostrils. Alecto battled me the entire time, squirming and wincing and shoving uselessly at my arms. But in the end, she let me take care of her, dry her tears, and wait for her breath to settle. In time, her pulse came close to even, the anthem of anxiety and panic settling into a beat I recognized.

  To the one I preferred, frankly.

  Still, even if her heart had stopped racing, Alecto sat before me with rounded shoulders, utterly drained from last night’s ordeal, from her injuries, from her loss. Despite my hands curved over her knees, a touch I had hoped would ground her, she looked up at me sad and shaky, way beyond my reach no matter how hard I tried.

  “It’s my fault,” she muttered, hand flying up as soon as my lips parted in protest. “No, stop, it is. I-I should have gone straight to Jack—”

  “You filed a report with security ages ago.” She had kept this little Alice drama a secret for months, but as Seamus patched her up last night, her legs dangling over the edge of an infirmary bed, eyes wild but body weak with blood loss, she spilled everything. The head healer and I learned about Brin, about Alice’s infatuation, about the portal and who exactly she spoke with on the new security squad. All things considered, she had done what she needed to: security had failed Alice. Period.

  Of course, Iris had probably made my girl feel like it was her fault—that she had misjudged the situation and fucked up royally somewhere along the way. While Jack slept off his near life-threatening blood loss in the infirmary, his second-in-command sat in his office today, in his very chair, and no doubt sneered over her spectacles while Alecto made an official statement about the incident.

  Oblivious to how that went, I assumed from the look of her now, and knowing Iris Prewett as I had for the last six and a half years—not well was the understatement of the century.

  “You did what you were supposed to do,” I argued, drawing her trembling hand to my mouth and kissing the underside of her wrist. Immediately her skin erupted in little chilled bumps, and I let go, ashamed that my frost might extinguish what little fire she had left, and then waited for her to retreat into her sleeve. Instead, Alecto’s hand fell to her lap, and I gave her thighs a little squeeze, firm enough to force her eyes back to mine. “You made security aware so the portal could be sealed. You told Alice not to go back to him under any circumstances. Alecto… You did everything you could.”

  “But I should have saved her,” she whispered. Anguish dripped from every word, breaking my smitten heart piece by piece. With a sigh, I shuffled closer and shook my head.

  “Alecto, you were in an impossible situation. No one can prepare for that, no matter what hindsight tells you now.” I brushed a curl from her face, one that stayed put for a moment before stubbornly falling back into place, dangling over her eye and caught on her watery lashes. “You did what you could, and Jack is alive because of it.”

  Sniffling, Alecto ducked down as if to fold in on herself again—and I couldn’t have that. Without a word, I cupped her chin and forced her back up, using my strength against her, and once again her skin erupted in gooseflesh.

  Too cold. She’s touched enough death already—

  “Sorry,” I muttered, withdrawing to tug my sleeves up for some added protection against the ice in my veins, “wait—”

  “No.” She caught my forearms with speed impressive to even a vampire, clutching at me and drawing me in so I had no choice but to cradle her face with both hands, cheeks slick beneath my palms. Alecto sniffed softly, golden gaze plummeting to my lips as she murmured, “I… I like the way you feel.”

  A first in my lifetime.

  A compliment so rare it stole away what little breath lived in my lungs.

  Blinking back the shock, I surrendered to the fire burning beneath her skin, all-consuming and distinctly alive. When our eyes met this time, we both tripped, me into molten gold, her into a frosty blue that made others so obviously uncomfortable.

  Fireflies winked out of the corner of my eyes as Alecto and I accepted the free fall.

  “I’m here for you,” I promised, hating the breathy quality my words took. Alecto nuzzled into my palms in response, the lift of her full lips authentic this time, not forced.

  “I know.” Her hands crept along my arms, settling on my biceps like she needed them for balance in a world that wouldn’t stop spinning. “You always are.”

  Now wasn’t the time.

  This wasn’t what I had imagined, what I had planned since we acknowledged that we were more than friends, the shift in our connection these past weeks subtle and beautiful. Our first kiss wasn’t supposed to come in the fallout of death and tragedy, but I couldn’t help myself.

  Couldn’t stop.

  Couldn’t resist the lure of my girl a second longer.

  Ensnared by her mouth, I pushed up just enough to close the distance between us, my lips pressing gently to hers in an innocent peck. No pressure. No force. No expectations.

  Only my heart had never beat so soundly.

  Kissing a woman had never felt like coming home. Above the clashing scents of tropical blooms, Alecto’s natural vanilla reigned supreme, wafting over me, enveloping me, making me hers. Dark eyelashes fluttering shut, she leaned into me with a gasping moan, lips softening against mine.

  For a while, it stayed like that: soft and sweet and a little wet. Time stood still just for us. All those months, all the conversations and flirtatious banter and frustrated rants while we brushed our teeth before bed—everything had led to this.

  More than friends. More than flatmates.

  Soulmates, maybe.

  Yes.

  I liked the sound of that.

  Lovely as it was, kissing Alecto stirred something deep inside—something caged and controlled. Bloodlust. The monster loved her. Wanted to claim her. Bite her. Plunge fangs deep into her thigh so she squealed and writhed and ripped at my hair. That side of me remembered the brutality in my bones, the ancestry of violence and conquest attached to my family name.

  My heart insisted Alecto could stand all that and more, this fiery witch who took no shit and fought off an entire clan of sirens alone.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight was for this—for the first. For comfort and acceptance and change.

  Only Alecto was the one to take the next step. After drawing in a sharp breath between her plump, parted lips, she deepened the kiss. Flicked her tongue into my mouth—over my fangs. Made the monster snarl. Her fingers found my hair as the bloodlust surged, threading through the white-blond locks and tugging insistently.

  I always preached self-control to a full classroom of bored teenagers—yet I nearly came undone at her hungry moan, nearly threw all my tried and tested wisdom out the window against her frantic mouth, her body crashing to mine as she slipped off the bench and into my arms.

  Refusing to let so much as a speck of dirt from the floor touch her, I secured an arm around her waist and stood. My girl giggled ever so softly, hands growing bolder in my hair, her weight nothing as I held her like I’d always wanted to. We came together like a l
ock and key, the perfect fit, and Alecto hooked her legs around me, ankles crossed at my back, while my hands smoothed the undersides of her thighs.

  All the way back to her exceptional ass, the kind artists tried and failed to perfect on seductive marble statues for centuries. Little did they realize, they hadn’t been working with the right model, because this goddess could have changed the fucking world with her curves.

  This was more than I could have asked for, cock thick with need, the monster snarling in my chest, starving for a taste of her. Alecto rocked her hips, ground herself against me with breathy little moans that left me weak in the knees, her kiss progressively rougher, our mouths descending into frenzied territory a little too easily.

  When her hands abandoned my hair and went for my sweater, ripping at it, tugging, desperate to wrench it off even if that meant peeling it away piece by piece, my carefully cultivated control returned.

  Unwelcome as it was, my conscience had a point: this wasn’t the time for us to come together. Sure, our first kiss had some flexibility, but the first time I fucked her, ravished her—bit her and made her climax over and over again—would not be overshadowed by the death of a student.

  No.

  When she wouldn’t let me retreat, chasing my lips every time I tried to pull away, too much a temptation to resist, I uncrossed her ankles and set her down.

  But the shift in positions gave her better access to my sweater, and before I could catch her, Alecto had the twill yanked halfway up my torso, undershirt exposed.

  “Alecto—”

  “No,” she hissed, twisting out of reach when I went for her wrists. “Just let me—”

  “Alecto.” Her name thundered through the conservatory with a monster’s edge, snarly and rough. Even if I was the one pumping the brakes, this wasn’t easy for me. Being around her all these months and only just kissing her now had been painful; to stop on the cusp of something beautiful was torture. But we would regret it in the end, and I had enough regrets in my long lifetime. Alecto wasn’t about to become another.

  When I finally claimed her hands, I cuffed them together in just one of mine, and her golden gaze shot up with a wild energy that echoed in her aura, that magical charge buzzing angrily all around us—scaring the fireflies away.