by Rhea Watson
Or better yet, swallow him whole—carry him straight to the lake of fire.
“Cutting it close, yes,” he mused, arms crossed, unrelenting eye contact engaged. Maybe it was a personal quirk, but the guy didn’t blink.
Not around me, anyway.
I flinched when the nine-o’clock bells tolled through the castle, curfew in effect, then let out the most forced laugh ever because for a beat I couldn’t muster anything else.
“Was he… doing something?” I finally managed. Come on, you can do this. You can have a conversation with him without hyperventilating. Sure. That was a swell goal in theory, but my heart was already racing, palms sweaty and mouth painfully dry. My body hated him just as much as my heart, trying to wilt away, to put some distance between us; knees locked, feet planted, I refused to let him see me scamper off again.
“Who, Arnold? No.” Benedict chuckled and smoothed a hand through his salt-and-peppery brown tresses, his smile relaxed—just two coworkers having a moonlit chat. The last time I’d been alone with a colleague in one of these arches, things had taken a very different turn. “He’s a little homesick. Found him crying under the tree, figured I’d give him a talking-to before bed. A lot of them really struggle their first week here, you know?”
“Oh. Right.” Well, aren’t you a fucking saint? “That’s… nice of you.”
Guh. Paying him a compliment set my teeth on edge, and if he didn’t stop trying to stare deep into my fucking eyes, tonight’s chicken, mash, sweet peas, and gravy might just make a reappearance all over his stupidly traditional warlock robes.
Like—a cloak? Seriously?
Fuck him. Even if he could pull it off, looking all silver fox distinguished, fuck him. Pretentious ass.
Pretentious ass who had left me to burn—
“Some say I’m a nice guy.”
I swallowed down a burst of mouth sweats, then whipped up a few breathy titters. Want to make a gross dude think you two are really clicking? Just laugh. Worked every time—this gross dude practically basked in it.
“Sure, of course, yeah,” I babbled, hoisting up my mug and stack of research papers. “Totally. I, er, have to go do stuff with these. Essays won’t grade themselves.”
“Unfortunately,” Benedict added, and I offered him a much louder, way more obnoxious giggle before zipping around him. Although my legs burned with the urge to just run, to bolt across the courtyard and disappear into the shadows, I paced myself like I wasn’t trying to get as far away from him as possible. Once I was out of sight, however, I booked it back to the staff tower, then made it up two whole floors before slumping against the wall beneath the soft yellow light of a flickering lamp.
He wasn’t a nice guy.
Maybe to everyone else, but not to me. Never to me.
Inhaling shakily, I tapped my skull back against the wall, once, twice, three times, then closed my eyes. Nice guy or absolute scumbag, what was I supposed to do with him? Report his whereabouts to some high council back in Canada? Open an inquiry? Succumb to the tangled bureaucracy of witch governments and give him the chance to run in the meantime—make him aware that I was hunting him, that I had survived.
What if he weaseled around the accusation? What if the wealthy Hammond coven rallied to his defense? Worst of all, what if they smeared my mom and dad, made the murder justified?
Told the councils some convincing bullshit—like Benedict had gone into hiding for totally legit reasons, that he feared for his life and that was why he changed his name…
My parents had been found in pieces, our house in ashes.
A human neighbor had had to scale the rickety trellis to reach my room. He had broken the window as I sat in bed, frozen, petrified, screaming for my mom, my dad, smoke billowing under the door and choking me, an inferno roaring on the other side, flames eventually crashing through the wall. The guy had fucked up his arm just to drag me out, blood everywhere from the glass. Said he saw the night-light in my bedroom and took a chance.
A good Samaritan had saved me.
My grandparents raised me.
And Benedict Hammond ruined me.
Now we were here, and I…
I had no clue what to do about it.
Years of fantasizing meant nothing anymore now that I had to make a real plan—now that reality was here to throw a wrench in at every turn.
You’re letting them down. I clenched my eyes tighter to stem the prickle of tears. Some of the guilt I had carried my whole life ebbed when I’d first decided on this, and I had made it all the way here. Then I went and looked in his eyes—no matter how fleetingly—and did nothing.
Now they were back with a vengeance, guilt and shame, forever feeling like I was letting the Corwin coven down, letting my parents down, with my indecisiveness. They were dead—slaughtered—and he got to walk away unpunished and live the life here in Scotland. The justice system wasn’t always just. He deserved to burn, but…
“I’m not a killer,” I whispered. “I’m not—”
My eyes shot open at the sound of feet descending the stairwell above, and seconds later one of the grey-haired warlocks who taught some dumb magical philosophy class rounded the curve. He slowed, frowning at me, then carried on without a word. Fantastic.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Gods.”
Nothing like being that weirdo who talked to herself in the stairwell. Shaking my head, I jogged the rest of the way up to the fourth floor, then trudged into the flat to find Bjorn pouring our respective red drinks at the coffee table, TV on and muted.
And when that hulking Norwegian vampire smiled so handsomely, offering me the wineglass like a life preserver, I let everything fall off my shoulders and committed to a night of grading, drinking, and shit-talking reality TV characters…
For the sake of my sanity, I could pretend I was just an ordinary witch, basic and unburdened.
Until the next time I looked into those black eyes and felt the fire licking at my heels, I could lie to Bjorn…
And most of all, I could lie to myself.
9
Bjorn
Even though Alecto was probably already waiting for me in the dining hall for supper, prompt and punctual as always, I took a detour. Went left when I should have gone right, the buzz of the huge hall fading with every step. While my flatmate’s workday had come to an end with her last afternoon lecture before dinner, I had two more on the horizon, my evening classes mandatory through every year. Tonight, my fifth years in the first ninety-minute block would engage in a little Socratic conversation—something they dreaded, no one ever in the mood to talk about their issues, but I found it the most enlightening of all my seminars.
Because of that, I zipped down the corridor toward my classroom, bypassing the odd student or den mother, to set up the desks ahead of time. Arranging them in a circle—as much of a circle as rectangular desks could form, anyway—allowed for unfettered conversation. No leader. No followers. Free-flowing discussion while I sat on the outside, only facilitating when there was a lull. On tonight’s menu: control and what that meant in their lives outside of Root Rot. Control from their covens, their society, their parents—and control from within.
One month into the year and I already had several shift-happy shifters to contend with, along with four orphan vampires who struggled to regulate their bloodlust. My class demanded mastery of one’s self—over the inner monster, a beast I had battled with for centuries after giving him free rein to paint this island bloody. It was unrealistic to expect complete control from children in just a few months, possibly even the full year if that was the length of their sentence, but while I had them, I did all I could to make them feel like they had power over their bodies.
They were in the driver’s seat. Not their clan leaders. Not their alphas. Not their parents or siblings. Them.
A tough pill to swallow for some, but any progress, no matter how minute, was still progress.
With thoughts of AB-negative on the brain—Wedn
esdays were AB-negative nights, soup bowls of perfectly warmed blood delivered to the castle’s vampire population from the kitchen—I almost didn’t notice.
Almost.
Mouth watering—AB-negative was my favorite—and fangs nudging into my lower lip, I rounded the corner and spotted it at the very last moment.
Down the corridor, my classroom door was open.
Just a smidgen, sure, but I always kept it closed, and no one used it during the daylight hours. It was rarely locked, but the sliver of yellowish-orange light spilling through the crack was telling. I slowed, thoughts of supper fading fast, and cocked my head to the side. Tuned out the dull roar of the castle’s interior. Silence. Whoever had left the door like that had come and gone already.
Swift as a specter, I blitzed down the twenty feet of hallway, whooshing to a stop in front of my classroom door and scrutinizing it briefly. Nothing broken. Copper doorknob intact. But the bowels of the room had a distinct smell that—
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, poking the door open. Carnage greeted me on the other side, and I speared a hand through my hair, scowling. “Well. This is disappointing.”
Ordinarily, my classroom had the same bare bones aesthetic as the flat. Like every other room on the lower level, it lacked windows, completely underground for the safety of my fellow sun-sensitive brethren. Scattered candles on desks and bookshelves and tabletops created an ambient glow if I was in the mood for something atmospheric, but the modern recessed lights illuminated the rest. Stone floors and walls, the ceiling slightly domed. My desk sat at the front beside a chalkboard, while the other desks were generally more free-flowing, arranged to suit the lesson at hand.
Usually, the place was immaculate. Tidy. Minimalistic. Medieval, to a degree, for my own nostalgia.
What I found now was anything but immaculate. Nowhere near tidy. Minimalism shattered. Someone had yanked all the books off their shelves and hurled them to the floor, spines cracked and pages trampled. Garlic salt littered the ground, the overturned student desks, pungent and slightly crunchy underfoot when I stepped over the threshold. My chalkboard, which I erased after each lesson, had been vandalized with detailed drawings of crosses—and a few very veiny dicks.
Hands clasped behind my back, I wove through the butchery to my desk, which from a distance had looked untouched.
Not so.
Fuck Leeches stared up at me in blunt, rudimentary scrawl, carved deep into the wood. To really drive the point home, the vandals had even left a neat pile of dead, dried leeches on top of my desk calendar. And my chair, still tucked in…
“Ah.” As soon as I pulled it out, the stakes that had been arranged pointy-end up on the seat toppled over and clattered to the floor. Lovely.
The vampire I was centuries ago—hell, even seventy years ago—would have raged at the sight. Gone on a killing spree. Eviscerated everyone, guilty or not, just to soothe my pride. Tonight, as I took in the mess, the layered insults someone thought so clever, like I had never heard or dealt with any of this before, disappointment chilled in my heart. Frosty and apathetic, it hardened from ice to a diamond, unbreakable, forever disheartened by the choices made by other supers, by the insults leveled against my kind even in this environment.
Shaking my head, I moved on to righting all the upturned desks, brushing the garlic salt off with a scowl. Despite human pop culture, garlic and salt were nothing to a vampire—but the bitter smell of the little white bulbs could turn one’s stomach in the right circumstances.
“What the fuck?”
Lost in thought, I hadn’t even heard her approach—perhaps wouldn’t have even noticed if one of the little shits responsible snuck up on me. Holding a desk by its leg in one hand, I turned and found Alecto in my destroyed classroom’s doorway, hands planted on the frame as she took it all in with wide eyes.
I liked her little black dress today—very gothic chic with the white lapels and cuffs, her stockings opaque and her heels low.
“What the fuck?” she demanded again, darting inside and slamming the door behind her. My flatmate stalked deeper into the mess, arms limp at her sides, hair trailing down her back in a frayed braid. “Bjorn—”
I set the desk down on its four legs. “Alecto—”
“What the fuck is this?” Tiptoeing around fallen books, she pointed a trembling finger at my desk, at the mountain of dried leeches destined for the trash can. “What…? Who…?”
Who indeed. While I had scented the sandalwood-musk cologne all the lads wore these days when I’d first stepped in, that was common in every classroom. Honestly, it was like they traded in the stuff, all the girls sporting jasmine this year with a hint of rosewood. Root Rot should have been scent-free given how many of us had ridiculously heightened senses, but that was one reform Jack hadn’t touched yet. In fact, if anything, he gave students more personal identity despite the uniforms, allowing for watches, jewelry, and makeup when they had been banned before his arrival, while also discarding the preapproved hairstyles for boys and girls.
As it stood, nothing said culprit at me beyond the fact that it was a bunch of males.
Each year had its fair share of troublemakers, but that was hardly enough to go on; even the quiet ones could be hateful.
“We need to get Jack,” Alecto muttered as she ghosted a finger over the new carving at the top-right corner of my desk. All the color had left her lovely face as soon as she walked through the door, pale with anger, her whole aura radiating contempt. Arms folded, I forced a sigh and shook my head.
“No, don’t bother Jack with this—”
Ignoring me completely, the witch stalked toward the door, off to tattle to our boss about this, but that was beyond unnecessary. I caught her with a burst of vamp speed, hooking a hand around her elbow and clamping down with an iron grip. She jerked forward at the abrupt stop, then unleashed a cloud of her natural scent straight at me when she whirled around, glaring.
Vanilla.
Cozy and warm, reminiscent of quiet nights in with good, cuddly company—the sort of night I hadn’t craved until I finally set the bloodlust aside and calmed the beast within.
Finally let the guilt of all the lives I’d stolen consume me like a biblical flood.
“This is disgusting,” she argued, words tinged with a quivering anger. “Someone needs to be punished for it.”
“It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last,” I told her smoothly, fingers coiled around her elbow, her arm hoisted between us courtesy of the height difference.
“Bjorn…” Her eyes flickered to her arm, to my hand dwarfing her, the drumbeat in her chest accelerating just enough to pique my interest. In a blink, that liquid gold flashed to me. “You can’t stand for this.”
“Look.” Fairly certain she wouldn’t bolt, I let her go and stepped back. “Jack has enough on his plate. I really don’t care about some childish pranks.”
Pranks laced with a vampiric prejudice that had been on the rise over the last century. When I first left the mortal coil behind, ravenous and immortal, free to pillage and plunder and take whatever the fuck I wanted with an axe in hand and fangs bared, supernatural communities kept their distance from one another. Over time, like the human world, we had fallen into one big melting pot—and, surprise, surprise, not everyone got along.
Unfortunately, my blasé take didn’t seem to satisfy her. Alecto stood there, hands in fists, seething for me.
It had been ages since anyone became indignant on my behalf, but that was just one of the reasons I enjoyed sharing the flat with her. In the month since she had moved in, the physical attraction remained, but a blossoming friendship tempered it. The witch was a good conversationalist. She kept her things in order and didn’t add too much clutter to what was once my private, lonely sanctuary. No loose hairs stuck to the shower wall, no mess around our dual sinks. Above all, Alecto Clarke possessed a blinding passion for this job, but unlike many I’d met in the academic sphere, she wasn’t stuffy or pretent
ious.
And now this display of loyalty—after just a month.
To her, it was probably insignificant, like she was just doing what she thought was right.
To me, it meant the world.
“Well, I care,” she fired back, still scanning my disaster of a classroom like she couldn’t believe what had happened. Please. Like no one had ever gone out of their way to fuck with me before.
“Let it go, Alecto.” I grimaced when I noticed her rubbing at her elbow. Had I cuffed her too hard? If I had, I doubted she would tell me. For all that I liked about her, this little witch came with a stubborn streak a mile wide. And secrets. All those curls were full of secrets that only added to her intrigue. “Please—for me. Just drop it.”
Cheeks gaunt like she was gnawing away at them, Alecto offered the slightest of nods, stiff and sullen, then fished her wand out from its holster up her sleeve. Still visibly shaking, she fisted the cherrywood tightly and let out a huff.
“Fine.” One flick and a soft muttering under her breath had all the desks upright again. “Just this once.”
Before I could thank her—honestly, no need to add even more stress to our boss’s life when he was trying, perhaps foolishly, to make this place better—Alecto got to work on tidying my classroom in silence. Whisked the books back onto the shelves. Erased the chalkboard. As I maneuvered the desks into a circle for tonight’s Socratic seminar, she demolished the pile of leeches with a spell that gobbled them up in a silvery cloud, and once it evaporated, it was like they had never tainted this room in the first place.
The stakes would meet their end in my seldom-used hearth in the far back corner, where I planned to burn them sometime later, alone.
Maybe she sensed I needed that, because she left them untouched—though if looks could kill, her glare would have reduced them to ash.
