Alec watched me sipping my drink, the bitter tasting liquid promising a nice buzz in a few minutes. Anything to chase away how much I wanted to jump into Alec’s arms until that suit was in a pile on the floor.
Damn it. One touch of his magic and I was dying with need for him. This was effing ridiculous. I didn’t even like him. Like as a person. Just because I wanted to tear his pants off didn’t mean I wanted to sit with him and discuss the things we loved as we ate from the same bowl of pretzels.
“Not even your soulmate for five minutes and you’re drinking. That can’t be a good sign.”
I gulped down my drink and hissed at him. “I’ll say it for the second time today, we’re not effing soulmates.”
“What do you call that, then?” He waved a hand around to imitate the way our magic had reacted to each other. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never gotten a magical erection before. My magic was drowning in yours. It was like a quick screw. So satisfying, but leaves you wanting more.” Focusing on my glass instead of the glint in his eyes, I furiously sucked my drink out of the straw. “You think it’ll happen every time we kiss?”
“I don’t know,” I grumped between sips. “I’m not eager to find out.” Only because I knew exactly where it would end. “I’m sticky, and I feel like shit. I’m going to finish my drink, and then I’m going to my dorm to shower and fall asleep. Alone.”
He let me continue drinking, my glass growing less full by the second, and a lovely warmth covered me like a bath when it hit my stomach. “Well, it’s not ideal, but, so be it. I’ll protect you, as I said I would. No expectations whatsoever. You don’t have to kiss me ever again, and I’ll still keep you safe either way.”
Sighing heavily, I picked up my glass to remove the straw, drained the rest in one long gulp, then I slammed it back down on the table and wiped my mouth with my coat sleeve. “I’m glad for your assistance, and I hope you won’t take it the wrong way when I say I wish I didn’t need it. Can’t even handle a few effing bullies on my own.”
“Oh, you definitely can, Jaz Neck. But there’s nothing wrong with having someone in your corner.” He lifted his glass and saluted it to me. “Happy to be of service.” He started drinking in long gulps without coming up for air. It gave me a nice view of his neck, which wasn’t unpleasant to look at.
Stop staring at him.
Distracted by his bobbing Adam’s apple, I spoke without thinking. “Hard to be of service without actually servicing me.”
He surfaced from his drink, spewing me with it as he started laughing, only adding to my stickiness. “Shit, Neck,” he sputtered, wiping his chin. “Roasting me like that. You have a death wish.” The smile on his face slowly fell, his eyes taking a fiery hue, igniting the heat inside me once more. “I want to kiss you again.”
Even though I was feeling the same, I looked at my empty glass and stood up. “That’s the booze talking.” He stood as well, rifling through his pockets to toss a few Scales on the table to pay for our drinks. I pushed past a couple of drunk old dudes and went out to the dark night where Gilbert was waiting for me.
“You kissed him!” he shrieked, flapping his arms around like a bird. “Magical soulmates, that’s almost as ridiculous as you being the Lycan’s mate!”
Alec shut the tavern door behind him and joined me on the street, putting his arms around himself even though he had a really thick coat on. “Where’s the ghost?” I pointed, and he squinted really hard but still couldn’t see Gilbert eyeing him with disdain, which was probably a good thing.
“He says you suuuuuck,” I said, giggling to myself at Gilbert’s immediate indignance.
“I never… Jaz, I’ll thank you to not put words in my mouth!”
“I’ll put more than words in your mouth, hey-o!” I winked and shot him two finger guns.
Angry and flush, he was starting to make the air around us even colder. “Jaz!”
I groaned loudly and rolled my eyes. “Oh lighten uuuuup, Gilbert. I’m rocking a buzz, and you’re a killjoy. Lesssgo, Alec.” Struggling with the effort of putting one foot in front of the other, I led them both down the street with wobbly knees, my boots slapping on the concrete from the exertion I was making to stay upright as the world swam around me like a pool of wonderment.
“Figured you were a lightweight,” Alec commented under his breath, reaching a hand out to steady me when I stumbled as we got to the edge of town.
“Mm’not a lightweight, you Christmas package. Next time Santa comes to town, if my present isn’t in your pants, I don’t want it.” I barely noticed his eyebrows raise in surprise because his face was getting swirly.
“I know you’re drunk, but damn. If your Santa jokes are going to be like that, you can do it all the time.” He tried tugging me closer by my jacket sleeve, but I noticed something moving in the forest to our right. Even with my limited visibility, the shape was too unmistakable to miss. Alec tightened his hand on me when he saw what I was seeing, and I slipped out of his grip in his moment of hesitation, heading straight for it.
Pierce in his giant silver wolf form paced the edge of the forest, becoming less fuzzy to my blurred vision the closer I got, until I was right next to him and he was staring at me with his glowing blue eyes.
“Cute widdle doggo!” I jumped at him and put my arms around his furry neck, reveling in how warm he was compared to my cold body. “You’re so soft and fluffy, so warm.” At that moment, I didn’t care that he was a Lycan, I only wanted to hold the fluffy closer to me.
“Jaz, what in the piss are you doing? You can’t snuggle a Lycan! We’re at war. Remember that part?” Pierce growled slightly at Alec’s noisy ranting, bumping my shoulder with his nose in a doggo caress.
I turned, pouting, sitting my ass on the hard ground. “But he’s fluffy!”
“I’m never taking you drinking again. Let’s go, Jaz.” Alec stalked closer, arms out ready to grab me, and Pierce responded with a snarling snap of his jaws, almost sinking his teeth into Alec’s arm before the warlock pulled away at the last second. I should’ve run up to check on him, shoved Pierce away, done anything except what I actually did.
I started bawling out chest wracking sobs that probably had nothing to do with Alec almost getting his arm ripped off. Pierce whined, his ears perking at the sound of my wails, and I looked up at him through a curtain of tears.
“You can’t hurt Alec,” I shrieked brokenly. “He’s my soulmate.” I put a hand on the wolf’s side and shoved lightly, rocking his body back and forth with my hand. “If you hurt him, then you’re a meanie, Pierce. I don’t like—” I cut myself off with a loud burp and smacked my lips, swallowing the icky taste of it. “—meanies. Ahh, shit. I hope I don’t barf.”
Alec slowly approached me, making sure Pierce stayed where he was and didn’t try to attack again when Alec picked me up off the forest floor, settling my limp body in his strong arms.
“Well then, you’re lucky my suit is already ruined. Hurl away.” With a ghost above us and a wolf beside us, Alec walked to the edge of the school barrier with me in tow, and he stopped just outside it, turning around and looking up at the sky. “Ghost, ahh, sorry, Gilbert. If you’re there, could you stay with the Lycan? I don’t give a rat’s ass about him, and I’m certain you don’t either, but I think Jaz will take a rusty potato peeler to my nuts if he gets hurt.”
“I’m not staying out here with a bloody Lycan!” Gilbert protested so loudly it made my head hurt and Pierce whined again.
“Mmm,” I groaned, shutting my eyes. “He says hell no.” Alec swore under his breath. “Also, you assume I care about doggo here. I cuddled with him, it wasn’t a wedding ceremony. Big deal. I haven’t decided how I feel about pupper.” Pierce gave me a very scoffing sneeze. “Oh, hush. If you don’t want to be called pupper, you shouldn’t be so adorable. You only have yourself to blame.”
“God damn it,” Alec swore, turning and walking along the barrier line. “You two had better be following me, because I�
�m only doing this once.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, peeking my drooping eyes open. “We can’t bring either of them into the school, you moron!”
Alec stopped, looking down at me against his chest. “And if the wolf stays in the forest, the guard will find him, and they’ll execute him as a war criminal. Do you want that, Jaz?” My chin trembled under his wrath, and I shook my head. “We’ll figure out something in the morning, let’s just get inside and get you cleaned up.”
He took off again, stopping once we’d reached the gateway at the front of the school, the only part of the barrier that was visible. It was a random empty doorway, sticking out like a sore thumb against the countryside. Alec set me down carefully, pulling his wand out of his back pocket, and Pierce came to steady me with his head under my arm.
“The barrier is an illusion spell to hide the school, mixed with an incantation spell to keep out all non-witches. But the doorway is a single point where the barrier can be moved aside to let anyone through,” Alec explained in his boring teacher tone.
My head bobbed forward, and I felt sleepy. “I already know that, Professor Santa. Are we going to stand here all night, or are you going to cut the chit chat?”
Alec growled at me again and held his hands up, one clutching his wand and the other manipulating the barrier’s magic with twists and turns of his wrists. Loud groaning like the walls of an old building came from the barrier, and Alec contorted himself almost in a ballerina type pose, flinging his hands out until a click sounded and the air in the doorway visibly parted.
“Go in, go in,” he shouted, a sheen of sweat forming on his forehead with the effort of keeping the barrier open. Pierce and Gilbert guided me inside the doorway, and Alec dropped his hands, falling to his knees and gasping with exertion, like he’d just finished hundreds of pushups. “Ahh, shit, that’s hard.” He heaved himself up, taking a few moments to catch his breath, and walked through the barrier like it wasn’t even there. “I’ve got enough juice for him,” he said, motioning with his wand to Pierce, and he waved his hands around in a few motions, then pushed the spell to smack the wolf in the face. Pierce did the dog shimmy shake like he’d just gotten out of the bath, and then he sneezed on my boot.
I eyed him with suspicion, because he still looked like a Lycan wolf to me. “What’d you do to him?”
“No one else will notice he’s a Lycan now, I put an illusion over him. We’ll be the only ones who can tell. It might not fool Headmaster Cauldron, but he’s the only one here at my power level. Besides you, Jaz, because you’re higher than me. If he notices, we’ll deal with it. This is temporary, dog,” he noted, shaking his finger at Pierce. “I’m not happy about you being here, I just don’t want you killed because of Jaz.”
“You big soft…” I swallowed, my throat growing thick, the world spinning out of control. “Alec,” I whimpered, and passed out cold.
7
Cold steel and smoke
Swimming through a mountain of pain and a head that felt like it was stuffed with cotton, I woke up in my dorm bed, groaning and clutching a hand to my forehead.
“Morning, you.”
With extreme effort, I opened my eyes towards the voice, finding Pierce in human form sitting on my windowsill, Gilbert hovering up near the ceiling with his arms crossed over his chest, and Alec lounging in my desk chair, legs crossed and wearing a fresh black suit, sipping something from a mug.
I held my hand out to him. “That had better be coffee, and if so, it’s mine now. Gimme.” He smoothly set his mug down and picked up a matching one from my desk that he brought to me, hovering over my blanket covered body until I sat up and took the mug. “Thanks,” I mumbled, warming my hands over the sides of the cup and taking a sip to find it plain and bitter, but I swallowed it down anyway.
“That was quite a night,” Alec said, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets, staring down at me. “How much do you remember?”
I took another sip of coffee, sniffed, picked at the corners of my eyes. “Everything. I told you I wasn’t a lightweight. It’s not my fault the barmaid gave us enough booze to kill a Hobbit.” Tapping my fingers against the ceramic mug, I looked down at my pajama covered body, which was not what I had been wearing the night before, and back up at Alec, narrowing my eyes in accusation. “I’m wearing a different outfit.”
Gilbert came down from the rafters, swooping next to the end of my bed. “Pierce and I made Alec find a girl to help change you. He wanted to do it himself.”
Eyes narrowing further, I stared at Alec over my mug, imagining all the ways I could punish him. “Did he now.”
“The ghost is tattling on me, isn’t he,” Alec said in annoyance, turning around. “You can hide all you want, ghost, but one day I’ll see you and then it’ll all be over.”
Gilbert got right in Alec’s face, gritting his teeth at the warlock. “And I’m going to put a cold, swift wind up your ass.”
Mid-sip, I coughed and spewed a bit of my coffee onto my blanket, trying not to spill the rest as I laughed. “Jesus, Gilbert. You were never this violent before.”
“Call it a new leaf,” he said, snarling at Alec’s vacant expression. “I don’t like this warlock, I don’t care who he is to you. He should be nothing to you. Let him see me, Jaz. He needs to know what’s waiting for him if he mistreats you.”
Tipping my mug over my mouth, my voice echoed inside it. “Jealous, much?” Gilbert made a noise, and I finished my coffee, setting the mug down on my nightstand. “Fine, whatever. I don’t even know how to make you visible.”
Pierce finally spoke, after having watched the entire exchange in silence, and I’ll admit that meeting his eyes brought a flush to my cheeks that I tried hard to ignore. “You should try touching him. He told me he draws his strength from your magic, maybe if you tried physical contact.”
“I’ve literally passed through his body before, nothing happened.” Throwing my blankets off, I swung my legs over the bed and stood up, noting I was wearing my pajamas that had cartoon witch supplies on them. I would’ve thought with Alec in charge of changing me, he’d have chosen something sexier.
“Maybe it’s about intent?” Pierce continued, shrugging. “I wouldn’t know. Just trying to help.”
“I suggest you stop commenting on things you don’t know anything about, dog,” Alec sneered, and Gilbert responded by shoving his hand into Alec’s body, right in the crotch, making Alec’s eyes pop open like he’d been stabbed. “Shit, is he touching my tackle? It feels like someone put an ice lolly to my balls.”
“Hands down, Gil,” I told him, stepping closer and reaching a hand out to the ghost. He floated over to me through the bed, his hand coming out as well, until our fingers touched. Actually touched. I could feel solid fingers against mine even though he was still incorporeal.
“Finally,” he breathed in a sigh, and he came at me, lips first, but instead of kissing me like he’d intended, he merely passed through me like always. Despite that, whatever we’d done had worked, because Alec’s face widened in shock.
“Hell, he’s real!” Alec exclaimed, like he hadn’t fully believed Pierce and I were seeing a ghost this entire time. “And he’s trying to kiss you. Piss off, ghost. She’s mine.”
“Doubtful,” Pierce mouthed, rolling his eyes and sliding off the windowsill. “Seeing as how I claimed her first.”
Alec turned to the shorter man, towering over him like a skyscraper, but Pierce met the challenge without a flinch. “Is that so, wolf boy?”
“Okay, this testosterone fest ends,” I proclaimed, stepping into the middle of all three of them. “I don’t belong to anyone. If you’re here, it’s because I let you be here. Let’s not start a contest for my affections, because I guarantee all three of you would lose to a piece of cake.” Then I whirled on Gilbert, holding an accusing finger out that he stared at with terror. “And as for you, Mr. Disembodied, crushing on me all of the sudden? Not into it.”
He opened and c
losed his mouth several times, trying to think of a retort that wouldn’t have me up his ass. “I’ve been crushing on you for years, thank you. I was unable to tell you of my affections until now, considering I could barely speak. But now it’s out in the open. I think you’re fantastic. You were always nice to me even when you thought seeing me meant you were insane. So there, that’s it.”
I groaned, gripping my neck with both hands and looking towards the ceiling, rolling my eyes. “God, I hate people too much to be this popular.”
A knock on my dorm room door made us all jump. I bounced across my bed and over to the door, opening it just enough to see who was there but they couldn’t see inside. It was a girl I didn’t know, and she tried to peer behind me for some juicy gossip material.
“What do you want?” I asked her, standing up on my tip toes to discourage her peeking.
“Headmaster Cauldron wants to see you in his office,” she said with a sigh of disappointment that she couldn’t see anything gossip worthy.
The door was thrust from my hand and Alec appeared with wolf Pierce at his side. “She’ll be there promptly, thank you, Mels.” Overjoyed at her new ammo that would be spread throughout the school within minutes, the girl trotted off down the hallway and disappeared around the corner.
“Mels?” I asked, leaning against the doorway and looking up at Alec, who shrugged at me. “Have you screwed every single adult here?”
“No,” he defended loudly. “Kissed, sure. Screwed, no. That number is slightly less.”
“Slightly?” Gilbert screeched with a glare.
“Okay, all three of you out. I need to get dressed.” I shoved Alec by his shoulder into the hall, pushing Pierce’s furry rump as well, and Gilbert dutifully followed, his mouth open to say something when I shut the door in their faces.
Neck-Romancer: A Neck-Romancer Novel Page 8
