Root Rot Academy: Term 1

by Rhea Watson

  I’d like to conquer it.

  Someday.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight was for a good pipe and a brandy in bed alongside a stack of nicked student files to peruse.

  Because as fascinating as she was, Alecto Clarke and her fetching temper weren’t the center of my world here at Root Rot. In fact, the herbalism professor only barely scratched the surface, more of a fun distraction than anything serious. I had students to court and collect for Lucifer, and as the end of the first term loomed on the dark horizon, I was still no closer to selecting anyone.

  But there were a few standouts in each year, thank fuck, so at least I had something to do to fill my time outside of working hours.

  Laughter and chatter erupted from the edge of the courtyard, this time closing in fast as a group of fourth years meandered through one of the arched doorways. From the direction, they were headed back to their tower and cutting through the yard, and my gut instinct was to roll my eyes and recoil, hoping they carried on moving instead of plopping down on the smattering of benches beside my own. Puffing away, I melded into the shadows of the ancient oak—only to stiffen when I spotted one of my potential standouts.

  Lovely.

  In the fourth-year class, the popular clique was helmed by an American wolf shifter named Leroy and his reform school fling—a preppy little green-haired French witch named Malorie. All the confident, spoiled, pampered, rich delinquents in their year flocked to the pair, sucked in by their charisma. A few third years tried to cling on as well, their status outside of Root Rot implying that these were the uppity fucks they should associate with.

  Lucy Eastwick was one of those clingers. Third year, top marks in all her classes—her file sat on my bedside table with the rest of my standouts. I had taken a shining to her at first because of her stellar academic performance, but after watching her—this dorky, stumbling, awkward girl with stick-straight blonde hair and a too-big nose—I had a new set of suspicions.

  She craved the attention of the cool kids. Desperately yearned to be part of their posse, always inserting herself into conversations, trailing at the back of the group but trying to shoulder her way to the front.

  Her stepmother, a witch of the prominent Beaconsfield coven, insisted she was a filthy thief who needed to be taught a lesson—quoted straight from the transcript of the initial interview she gave while trying to get her enrolled. Lucy had been with the school since she was thirteen, and now, three years on, she had really blossomed into her magic.

  Yet despite her prestigious family name, her social standing floundered.

  This socially awkward mayfly had recently shot to the top of my suspect list for the Mabon incident. How else would one impress a gang of snooty wannabe criminals?

  Why, play the greatest prank the academy had ever seen and get away with it, of course.

  Slowly, the clump drifted across the courtyard, their voices echoing off the surrounding stonework. When Lucy finally passed the oak, hurrying to keep up with the older kids, her legs short and twiggy, I emerged from the shadows. Her bright blues flitted my way, and I exhaled a smoky cloud that immediately formed a slithering serpent—flicking tongue, shimmering belly scales, the whole nine yards.

  Fire engulfed her cheeks the second she saw it, and wide-eyed Lucy stumbled, then cowered under the glare of the dimwitted bird shifter she had knocked into.

  Made of a simple fae illusion, my viper launched itself at her, only to disintegrate into wispy grey nothingness a heartbeat later. No one else noticed. No one else seemed to care about her distress, her subtle gasp and flinch. But Lucy saw—me and the snake.

  Found you, prankster. I grinned, fading into the shadows again as she scampered off. Naturally, I’d need further confirmation that she had, in fact, conjured all those serpents a few weeks back, but given her raw talent and her desperation to impress, to get attention from even the shittiest of supers, Lucy Eastwick had just secured a spot at the top of my standouts list.

  Target acquired.

  Let the Darkwell Academy seduction begin.

  18

  Jack

  If the high council of academies could get off my back about Samhain, that would be bloody fantastic.

  As it stood, no one was thrilled with me moving forward with the event, which had been approved months ago but was called into question after Mabon, and now suddenly my judgment on everything was being called into question. Based on the outcome of the night, a hearing might be called to scrutinize my every decision made since becoming headmaster. I’d received a letter about it this morning, stamped to hell with all the councilmembers’ signatures; each one of those foggy old bastards stood behind the ruling, which meant if just one little thing went wrong at the end of the month and Iris Prewett tattled on me again, the position I had worked my whole life to achieve could be in jeopardy.

  Nothing upped one’s stress levels like the risk of a public firing, shame in the academic community, besmirchment of the family name and a retreat into oblivion once all my frenemy peers finally had a justifiable reason to shun me.

  Unfortunately, the rest of the world didn’t stop spinning just because I had the council breathing down my neck. This job came with a million irons in a million different fires, and a little outside pressure—all because I wanted to give the student body something to look forward to, something brilliant to work toward as a community—had no lasting impact on my regular duties.

  But as I sat in my office tonight, midnight come and gone and a stack of paperwork still left to do, I just… couldn’t. Couldn’t look at my desk anymore. Couldn’t stand the glare of my computer screen. Couldn’t stare out the window at the same view—even if it was slightly different at the moment with rain drizzling down the panes. Thunder boomed over Root Rot, the rest of the castle asleep, the admin quarters outside my firmly shut door empty, and I just wanted to sleep.

  Nothing knocked me out like a really good storm.

  Yet here I was, another hour of work left to go at least.

  I had to get out of here. For my own sanity, I couldn’t sit in these four walls anymore, the letters from the high council burning bright even locked inside the top drawer of my desk. Scowling, I finally shot up, stiff and creaky and exhausted, then collected everything into a pile: paperwork, tablet, quills, stained coffee mug. Suit jacket abandoned, tie loose and trousers annoyingly there, I scrunched up my dress shirtsleeves, cuffs unbuttoned and onyx links in my pocket, then slipped my wand into the thin leather holster on my left forearm.

  This wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, that the job hammered me from all sides, and I’d found one of the best ways to get back into a productive mindset was a change of scenery. As tailored as this office was to my tastes, the last headmaster’s gaudy touch long gone, it could be stifling, day in and day out spent inside and at this same desk. As I stalked through the dark castle corridors, just the swing of my legs and the pounding of my feet over cobblestone roused some fight back from the depths, and by the time I made it to the staff room doorway, the odd den mother and security personnel greeted gruffly in passing, I felt marginally more functional…

  And then wide-awake the moment I shouldered open the door, every nerve in my body on fire to discover the huge space empty save for one individual.

  The most distracting one in the whole bloody castle.

  In a figure-hugging black dress and a slouchy grey cardigan, Alecto Clarke shot to her feet at the sight of me, her eyes wide but visibly tired. Cheeks pink, her hands immediately went for that giant nest of messy curls but then shot back to her sides as if trying not to draw my attention to it.

  “Headmaster,” she greeted somewhat breathlessly. Always a bit of a mess in my presence, this witch—always stirring my Dom side out of nowhere, the urge to fix and protect and guide flaring more than it had in years.

  “There’s no need to stand, Alecto,” I insisted, gently closing the door behind me. “Really.”

  “Oh, I…” S
he blinked a few times, glancing down at herself, brows knit—perhaps in confusion, as if her body had responded to me without her realizing. Maybe it had been instinctive to stand, to position herself in some way to recognize my authority, and just the thought ignited a visceral thrill that blazed straight to my cock. If she were my submissive, I would have encouraged that, though I preferred my subs kneel rather than stand.

  But she wasn’t my submissive.

  And it was inappropriate as hell to carry on thinking of her like that.

  “Sorry,” she floundered, fidgeting with her baggy cardigan sleeves, that amber gaze looking at my face but not my eyes—somewhere just above, probably my forehead. The damn thing was big enough. “Right. Sorry, I just—”

  “There’s no need to apologize, either,” I told her gently, Dom instincts on high, guidance and control boxing it out to see who would emerge victorious. Anger won the day, however, disappointment in myself taking a close second. Strolling in, I risked a quick peek around the corner—nope, no one in the sitting area. Totally alone, her and I, for the first time since her ill-fated attempt at running back in September. And, honestly, she looked just as rough tonight as she had then. “Why are you up so late?”

  Because she’s a grown witch who doesn’t need to ask anyone’s permission, you fucking pervert.

  “Samhain meetings cut into my grading time.” Alecto motioned to the dual stacks of parchment packets on the table, one booklet open in front of her with a red pen strewn across it and a coffee cup edging onto the corner. She risked a stain like that. My jaw gritted briefly, but I swallowed the urge to correct her and glanced up when she cleared her throat. “And Bjorn’s out for the night anyway, so I…” Alecto shook her head with a little shrug of one shoulder. “I don’t know… The flat felt small. I thought I’d find a few other night owls in here, but I guess everyone’s riding out the storm elsewhere.”

  Right on cue, lightning flashed in all the east-facing windows, stark white against the warm chandelier light. While Alecto craned her head back to catch the next bolt, my gaze dropped to her face, then the lovely stretch of her neck—

  Enough.

  Gods, this was pathetic. I wasn’t a nineteen-year-old Dom anymore. This wasn’t my first infatuation with a woman who could just be my perfect submissive. Over the years, I had grown into my self-control, perfected dominance over myself before anyone else.

  Alecto Clarke was a threat to all that, and for the life of me, I had no idea why.

  But it infuriated me, and if I wasn’t careful, that would translate outward.

  Then I’d have yet another professor intimidated by me—by my size, my voice, my power, my family name.

  “Bjorn’s out?” Thunder cracked over the tower, followed by an assault of heavy rain against the various windows. My only vampiric professor came and went as he pleased, descended from a tribe of people who never settled for long, and the only reason I’d focused on that particular detail was to break the silence—to get that look off her face, like she was expecting me to take charge and dictate the way the conversation went.

  And, in essence, I’d done just that. Perfect.

  “He went to the village, I think,” Alecto mused, casting a wary look to the nearest window just as lightning slashed through the stormy black. “I assume he’s waiting for all this to blow over before, you know, vamp-speeding back. His…” Her brows furrowed again briefly, sounding somewhat defeated as she added, “His phone’s off, anyway.”

  “How has he been lately?” While still personally guilt-stricken after finding poor Fiona’s ashes outside the castle walls, the news had hit Bjorn hard when I told him. In the few years we’d worked together, I noticed he interpreted every orphaned vampire’s failing as his failing, taking all of it to heart.

  Not that I blamed him; I felt the same about almost everything that went on at Root Rot. We didn’t have much in common, the old Viking and me, but we both carried more than we should on our shoulders.

  “Uh, okay. He’s seemed a bit off for the last few days, but I’m sure he’s fine.” Alecto threaded a wayward curl behind her ear, eyes falling to my hands as I adjusted my grip on the giant stack of files and parchments and the tablet that suddenly felt annoyingly heavy despite its paper-thin size. Traitorous to a fault, my blasted coffee mug lilted to the left of the pile in the shuffle, threatening to fall until I propped it in place with my forearm. Once I’d gotten that under control, I found Alecto studying me with her lower lip caught between her teeth, only to smarten up when she realized I had caught her staring. “I mean, we’re all kind of stressed at this point in the term… Totally normal.”

  “Hmm, yes.” Drifting toward the massive table, I hesitated over where to put my things. Usually I settled at the head, my seat always left empty, but we were the only two souls in here. Should I sit nearby? Across the table? Take the opposite end, closer to where she was sitting?

  Could I even concentrate with her around, or would it be better to trudge back to my office and try again there?

  Gods, when had I transformed into a teenager fretting about where to sit in the dining hall? Pathetic, really. Shoulders back, I went for my usual chair and left it at that.

  “Can I get you anything, Headmaster?” Alecto asked as I passed by, still standing, still waiting—and above all, still wanting from me. “Coffee?”

  Heat flared in my chest at the request, and while I loved that her instinct was to cater to me, only a bastard would encourage the behavior. I had a sadistic streak a mile wide—but only for consensual sadism. From the look on her face and the fact that she hadn’t even hit thirty yet, Alecto had no idea what we were doing, the steps of this dance unfamiliar and strange.

  “No, that’s fine,” I assured her as I deposited my things on the table. “Go back to your work.”

  She carried on looking at me, hesitating, openly defying me without saying a word. From the furrow of her features, it seemed like she wanted to say more, maybe even do something that went against my command.

  I couldn’t have that.

  I couldn’t have any of this, frankly.

  “Alecto,” I rasped, catching her gaze and holding it, “sit.”

  My much-too-young herbalism professor dropped into her chair, cheeks heated a lovely red that I suddenly pictured spreading elsewhere—perhaps under the strike of a lash.

  Shit.

  Teeth gritted, I busied myself with my folders, setting the coffee cup to the side, then fished out a few of the pens that were perpetually in my many pockets and dumped them onto the parchments. From the corner of my eye, however, I caught it: the uncertainty on her face. The twist of her mouth and the deepening of her brows. Confusion. Misunderstanding. Alecto wore the look of a submissive who didn’t understand what she had done wrong, beating herself up on the inside as she stared down at the open booklet with her red pen locked and loaded, ballpoint tip just touching the parchment.

  If I were her Dom, I would have fixed all that. Sat her down and soothed away the fear of wrongdoing—explained what had happened and why I took that tone with her.

  But I wasn’t her Dom, and I never could be.

  Nothing more than professor and headmaster, Alecto and me, and if I took it beyond that, then the high council deserved to sack me on the spot.

  So, I left it at that. Let her stew even as gut instinct demanded I coddle and reassure and fix. I might have been a sadist, but in all my years, I had grown into a proficient Dominant as well, and abandoning her like this as I went to fill my coffee from the snack table—like nothing was wrong, business as usual—was careless. Cruel.

  But such was life.

  Hardly ever fair, eh?

  After sorting out my midnight oil—black coffee, harsh and bitter—I settled at the head of the table as I’d done countless times before in the last three years, then tucked into my work. It should have been easy, diving back into things. Instead, concentration failed me—again—made more elusive by the whiffs of vanilla carrying
from Alecto every time she shifted about. Was it shampoo or body lotion or perfume—or just her natural scent?

  Perhaps my stubborn brain just wanted to make it right, and try as I might, I couldn’t leave her in the state I put her in. However, just as I eased my tablet aside and threaded my hands together, ready to apologize in a calm yet assertive tone, I found her standing.

  All packed up and ready to go.

  “Think I’ll… call it,” she remarked, everything about her deflated except for those wild curls. She might have a fury’s title, but tonight, she looked more like Medusa than anything. Not that that was the point—fucking focus. Before I could get a word out, she scooted around the chair and nudged it back in with her hip, then shot me a small smile as she looked at my forehead again and not my eyes. “Good night, Headmaster.”

  “Good night, Alecto.”

  She ducked her head under my scrutiny, then all but sprinted out the door.

  Fantastic. Another one terrified of me—one who seemed to matter more than most.

  But maybe this was for the best: if she kept her distance, we could carry out the year cordially and professionally.

  Pathetic, relying on some slip of a girl to set the tone because I was too weak to do it for us.

  Absolutely pathetic.

  Exhaling sharply, I stood and stalked back to the snack table, forgoing my black coffee for a piping hot shot of espresso, because something told me I wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon.

  Might as well embrace the insomnia now.

  Insomnia and self-loathing and disappointment and bottomless stress. Just what I needed. And, frankly, after that, after the look on her face because of my failings, just what I deserved.

  19

  Alecto

  Ugh. After almost three months of maintaining Root Rot’s extensive gardens, feeding both the kitchen and the infirmary with only a skeleton crew of eager fifth years, you’d think I would be used to getting up at the ass crack of dawn to harvest.