by Demi Dumond
With that thought going through my head, I dashed through the hallways to get to my first class.
22
Keira
The morning was a haze of zombie walking from class to class without thinking or engaging with anything.
Apparently, being kidnapped and nearly murdered all night by your own Headmaster will leave a person tired, emotionally drained, and unfocused.
Well, that last part wasn’t entirely true. I was focused all right, but on the book about the mutated species, not my actual classes. Otherwise I would have fallen fast asleep by now. Probably the head on desk, drooling sleep too. I was exhausted.
That was the headspace that I found myself in as I stepped into Professor Kiln’s class. The events of last night and this morning came slapping me back into reality when I saw her turn to face me. She was here early, that was unusual. Her expression was grim. That was completely normal.
Nodding in acknowledgement, I crossed the room to my seat. Malachai was already in his chair and I smiled at him. For the first time in a while I really stared at him.
Since the first time I saw him I could never forget those golden, brooding eyes, bulging biceps, and square jaw. He smiled back and I felt my cheeks get hot.
My stomach twisted into knots thinking about the Headmaster’s threat of making the people I care about forget me. Even my mates. Was that even possible? It was the saddest thing I could imagine, and the cruelest.
I knew that I should tell Professor Kiln that part of the threat, but it scared me to death and made me ashamed at the same time. And it felt petty to worry about that when all of our lives were on the line.
Settling into my chair, I grabbed my notebook and pencil. It was all for show, though. I also took out the book that I planned to read for the entire period.
Before I got started with the book, I waited to see what Professor Kiln would do. Now that I studied her, I could see that she looked as tired as I was. Maybe even more. Deep wrinkles lurked under her eyes, making her nose look even beakier than usual, but her eyes still gleamed and looked as sharp as a hawk.
For a moment, I worried she would actually teach something important that I would have to pay attention to, but a few minutes later she launched into a tirade about the flawed and illogical male hierarchy structure that the entire magical community was still steeped in.
Thank goodness. The book opened with a small creaking noise and I stopped to look around and make sure that nobody else was paying attention to me. They weren’t.
Unfortunately, they weren’t paying attention to Professor Kiln either, because she was really getting on a roll. If I wasn’t so desperate to find a way to stop the Headmaster, I’d have been hanging on every word.
As it was, I kept looking up from my book to hear snippets of especially emphatic examples. If I didn’t know better, I’d say what she was really getting at was her position here at the school and the Headmaster, although it was impossible for me to be sure.
She was getting so worked up that when the bell rang to signal the end of class I realized I had stopped reading my book altogether. Shit.
I gathered up my things quickly, hoping to catch Malachai before he left. I wanted to connect with him, even if it was only for a second.
As it turned out, Malachai wasn’t hard to catch up to. He looked at me and his face scrunched up with suspicion. “What’s up with you, Keira?”
“You mean other than almost being killed,” I asked, trying to throw him off the trail of what was really bothering me.
He shook his head. “No, it’s not that.” His eyes continued to search mine, and then they wandered down over the rest of my body, sending chills through me. I had never wanted to skip class and be naughty more in my entire life. I closed the distance between us with a step and then lifted onto my toes begging for a kiss.
He leaned down to meet me. He threw his arms around me as I leaned into his hungry kiss. My hands roamed his biceps and his chest. He slipped his tongue into my mouth, teasing me and I moaned. His hands reached downward until they ever so gently caressed my ass, sending a wave of warmth between my legs.
He broke off the kiss at the sound of the next bell and fixed me with a smolder, one lip curled up into an impish grin. “Whatever’s going on with you, I like it.”
23
Keira
Shit, I was late again. And this time it was to Professor Smythe’s class.
I could hear his voice droning on and on before I even entered the classroom, so I rolled my eyes and got it out of my system before I went in.
Of course, Professor Smythe stopped talking when I entered, and all eyes turned to me. The joke’s on you people, I’m used to this sort of thing.
As I made my way to my seat I made eye contact with Ian, who visibly relaxed when he saw me. He shot me a weak smile. When I saw it, I felt bad for being late. Of course, he was worried about me after this morning.
Sitting next to him made me feel all kinds of better. And not just because he was the sexiest vampire here. I could always count on Ian. I didn’t even want to think about my life without him.
Right on cue, I saw his lips curl up into a smirk, exposing a fang that thrilled me to my core. Every single time I saw his fangs, I felt a tingle of excitement, knowing what he could do to me and how good it felt.
“It’s a bold move, pissing off Smythe,” he whispered without turning his head.
I sat up prim and proper and attempted to return the daggers that Professor Smythe was shooting at me with his eyes.
“You know me, I’m a rebel,” I whispered back through the fake smile I was projecting toward the front of the class.
After a moment and one last sneer, Professor Smythe carried on with his lecture, pacing the classroom. He was even more agitated than usual today.
As soon as Professor Smythe broke eye contact, I turned to stare at Ian, taking in his beautiful face and his long, muscular limbs. He was a tall, dark drink of water, every bit as intoxicating as the first time I saw him when he showed me around the school.
“Are you okay?” he whispered to me. “What’s up?”
“Nothing’s up,” I whispered back. I was a little too loud though, and Professor Smythe’s head jerked back to stare at us. His eyes were hate-filled and wild looking. Taken together with his long grey beard and haggard appearance, he was giving off a very get-off-my-lawn-vibe that was even more hostile than his normal demeaner.
I froze, not even daring to breathe when I saw that wild look in his eyes. I didn’t exhale until he turned to start pacing again and continued his lecture.
Ian and I didn’t whisper to each other after that. Unfortunately, the lecture was even more boring than usual. I wanted so badly to pull the book out of my backpack and read it, but I worried about what kind of apocalyptic response that would draw from Professor Smythe.
He’d probably take it away if he saw it. A wave of fear washed over me at that prospect. I couldn’t risk it.
Instead, I sat there stomping on my own feet painfully to stay awake as he droned on and on. Finally, he asked us to read a chapter in the book while he sat down with a sigh into the chair behind his desk.
He pulled out a book of his own and fixed his attention on it. I toyed with the idea of taking out the book I wanted to read instead of his text, but I decided against it.
The textbook Professor Smythe assigned to us was voluminous and when I pulled it out of my backpack and onto the desk in front of me, it landed with a loud thud. I flipped through the pages, sneaking a peek at Ian.
He was wearing his usual jeans that made his ass look amazing. And a green tee shirt that brought out his eyes and his hair was the perfect amount of mussed up with mousse. It wasn’t fair. I wondered how he found the time to make himself look perfect this morning when I barely had time to make sure my clothes weren’t on inside out.
He stifled a laugh, reminding me for the millionth time that he could read my mind. I slid my tongue across my teeth. If h
e was reading my mind, then maybe I would give him something to really chew on.
I thought back to the last time we made love. I closed my eyes for a moment to fully picture what it felt like, our naked bodies entwined and sweating and the thunderous sound of my heartbeat in my ears as I felt him enter me, fill me, pierce me with his fangs. A wave of moisture spread between my legs. Oh boy, that was my signal that I needed to knock it off. For now.
Ian turned to face me and his expression was pure, animal lust. The look on his face alone was almost enough to make me whimper. I fought the urge.
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and then turned back to his reading. So did I. Everybody read in silence for a few moments. In fact, if a pencil were to fall off a desk, it would have startled all of us. The room was that quiet.
That’s when I heard the Professor mumbling. It started low at first and then got louder and louder, which I found odd. His voice grew until it was actually distracting. I looked around the room, but nobody else seemed to notice. Either they were too afraid to say anything or they didn’t hear it or they were pretending. It was hard to tell.
Finally, it freaked me out enough that I dared to glance at him. When I did, he was staring right at me. His lips were twisted into a hideous, cruel smile, and the chanting got even louder.
What the fuck? I looked around again to see if any of the other students were going to react, but they didn’t. What the hell was going on here? I felt a chill of worry wash over me and I looked over at Ian. He was looking down reading his book, like the rest of them, seemingly oblivious.
I tried again to make eye contact, but he wasn’t having it. If he thought this was funny, then he had another thing coming. I reached over and lightly kicked his ankle.
“Ow,” he said loudly enough to get everybody’s attention in a bad way. Now they were all staring angrily at me. And the worst part was that now Ian looked annoyed. I had to admit that I had no idea what was going on here.
Professor Smythe continued his chanting, his voice rising to a hysterical pitch. The sound of his voice was starting to scratch across my brain, and a pain rose in my head. I pushed myself back from the desk, reflexively, trying to get further away from the source of the pain. The chair scuffed across the floor noisily.
“Quiet down, new girl,” one of my classmates hissed.
New girl? What kind of mind screw was going on here? My attention snapped back to Professor Smythe, who had turned up the volume on the maniacal grin to a hundred, and the sound of chanting continued.
I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening. How was Professor Smythe doing this?
“Ian,” I said frantically, ignoring the annoyed looks of my classmates. Ian gave me a reluctant side-eye and then went back to his book. No. Whatever spell Professor Smythe was casting, it was making Ian and everybody else in the class forget who I was. I knew Professor Smythe and the Headmaster were working together on this, what I didn’t know was that he could work the same kind of dark magic.
Rage boiled in my belly and mixed with my own dark magic. If this was how he was going to play it, I was going to send it right back to him. I sat up, my heart racing. Was I really going to use forbidden magic in the middle of a classroom against a teacher?
He was doing it to me. Fair was fair. If these assholes weren’t going to play by the rules, then neither would I. I saw the expression on his face change when my mind was made up. He stopped chanting, but it was too late.
I lifted my hand and pointed a finger at him, then I let the spell that was bubbling just before the surface fly.
The spell I cast made a sound like a jet airliner as it crossed the room and hit Professor Smythe in the chest, knocking him and his chair backward. Luckily for him, the chair was on wheels. It slid back into the wall with a loud thump.
I held my breath. The spell stunned him for a second and I watched him like a dove watches a hawk. He looked frozen in time. Then he gasped and wheezed back to miserable life.
“Forbidden.” He wheezed. “Illegal, immoral, and unethical.” His voice got stronger with every word. The other students seemed to break out of their trace. They stared at the Professor and then at me. “You are forever banished from my class.”
The words hit me hard. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. It figured that the same assholes who were murdering students and using forbidden magic would shame and punish me for fighting back.
I looked at Ian who blinked a few times and then gave me a strange look. Fighting back tears, I gathered up my things and stuffed them back into my backpack. I needed a place to go where I could be alone and clear my head. A place to think. A place to read my book and see if I had any chance at getting back the life I wanted.
24
Keira
I slammed the door behind me as I exited Professor Smythe’s class. Partially because I was angry, and partially because my hands were shaking.
Up until now I had hoped that the Headmaster and his lackey Professor Smythe wouldn’t be able to pull off the threat of making me disappear from the lives of my mates, but now the reality that I was wrong came crashing in on me.
I felt like I couldn’t get enough air as I looked around the empty hallways. I never felt so alone. I had to find someplace to think and to read the book. Where could I go?
A minute later I barged into the old wooden doors with the dingy gray paint that led into the library. Wiping tears of frustration from my eyes, I barged past the librarian. Luckily, she wasn’t paying attention or she just didn’t care because she never looked up from the giant tome that she was reading. I glanced over to see her fingers tracing long lines on whatever book she was reading.
Once I got far enough into the library to feel like I could let go of my emotions, the tears streamed down my face.
The room where I finally stopped was located at the opposite end of the library from the entrance. Beyond this room, rows of books formed tunnels deeper into the library. I had no idea how deep or how far back they went, all I knew was it looked dark and creepy. I decided to settle here, far enough from the librarian, but still in the main part of the library.
I set my backpack on the floor and sunk down into a comfortable, oversize olive-green chair with its back to the wall.
After a few minutes I felt a slight bit better. I wiped my face with my hands and tried to compose myself. Then I looked around. In all my time at the academy I had never been to the library before. And seeing as there was nobody else here, it wasn’t a very popular place.
Still, it had a certain musty charm with its ancient looking bookshelves, old and comfy chairs scattered everywhere and small circular wooden tables to set things on. I sucked in a deep breath. Despite the choice I had made out of desperation, this really was the ideal place to read and think.
And the best part was I was nobody was going to come looking for me here. I took another moment to look around and make sure I was totally alone, and then I pulled out the book out of my backpack. Again.
I had only gotten a couple of chapters in during my other classes and had not been able to fully focus for fear of getting caught. Now it felt like it was too easy.
All I had to do was stretch out in this ridiculously comfortable chair in this perfectly quiet place away from everyone and read to my heart’s content.
I wished I’d thought of it sooner. Missing classes would definitely put me on the Headmaster’s radar, but what else was new? That ship had already sailed anyway.
Settling in, I cracked the book open to where I had placed the black cloth bookmark. Everything about this book felt old and powerful. Even holding it in my hand felt like cheating somehow. And there was something else, an energy to the book.
Even though I had only pulled it out of my closet for the first time this morning, I still felt a very strong pull. As odd as it sounded, it felt like the book wanted me to read it. I frowned at the thought while I flipped through the gilded, aging pages feeling the wind from it on my face.
Then without further ado, I started reading. Before long, I was tearing through the pages until I turned to a page that literally tingled on my fingers.
My eyes scanned the page and stopped when it saw a word: Sobek. A cursed form caused by willful, prolonged use of forbidden magic. I read the description, turning pages like it was a thriller novel. It was engrossing, descriptive, and devastating. Apparently, he had the power now equivalent of to that of an ancient Egyptian god. I studied it, hoping there was more in the book. Looking for hope, only I found none. The power he wielded was nearly absolute. According to the book, there wasn’t any way I or anybody else was going to be able to stop him. Still, I kept flipping the pages and wouldn’t have turned my attention away from the book for anything in the world.
That’s what I thought, at least, until I heard the front door to the library slam. A door slam of that noise level would have startled any room but combined with the relative quiet and cocoon-like quality of the library it felt like an extinction level event.
I jumped and my heart raced. My mind went to a million wild places because of the events of the recent past and my body went immediately into fight or flight mode.
As quietly as I could, I closed the book after carefully making sure that the black cloth bookmark was in the right place. Then I slid the book into my backpack to make sure that it wouldn’t attract undue attention while I listened intently for signs of what was coming my way. Had the librarian ratted me out?
“Keira?” A familiar voice boomed through the library. Was that Malachai?
Leaving my backpack, I made my way back to the front of the library, where the librarian was not only looking up at Malachai, she was giving him a death stare.
And Malachai didn’t seem to care at all. His voice was a mask of worry which dissolved into joy and relief as soon as he saw me.
