“Have fun?” I asked as she walked inside and threw off her trench coat. The hem was covered in human blood.
“I wouldn’t call it fun. But it made the night interesting.”
I sighed and sat back in the chair.
“Don’t get too sad,” she said. “We managed to save the blokes before Lothar could hand them a worse fate.”
“You mean we have new initiates?” I asked.
“Yep. Two of them. Now if you excuse me I’m going to go wash the sweat and blood off.”
She tore away her shirt and threw it to the floor.
“Mind if I burn that?” Her clothes smelled completely wretched and were stained beyond repair. I had the distinct feeling that even if I were human I would have smelled the god-awful stench without my lycan senses.
‘Is that what I smell like when I come in after joining them?’
“Go ahead,” she yelled as she turned the showerhead on from the bathroom. “I want to make a trip to the human realm soon anyway. I need new boots.”
I went over to my bed and dabbed a new circle of the mixture around the outside. Then I did what had become my nightly routine. I knelt on my knees just outside the circle and let my crowning magic pierce through both my palms, enveloping the mixture around the bed in a single chain of magic roping around the herbs and creating a shield surrounding my bed. A magical force that would stop me from accidentally setting the room on fire. Then I chanted the incantation written in Edward’s journal five times as the magic dissipated into nothing, turning the mixture bright red before becoming translucent and sealing the area off from any havoc I might accidentally cause.
“That’s still the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” Alina spied from the cracked open bathroom door.
“You chop off heads, bury bodies, brand initiates, and this is the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“Magic is still magic. It’s a rarity in this world. I never thought I’d room with someone who could use it.”
“You could do much worse than me.”
“I already have. I was forced to share a room with Jake for two weeks when my previous dorm room flooded.”
I cringed a little, not wanting to imagine going through such an ordeal.
“Wake me up if you need anything,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked, remembering she was a touch annoyed when I struck her with a pillow the previous night.
“Yes, I’m sure. I might be a bit foggy but you can wake me if you need me. Even if it’s just to vent. Do you understand?”
Alina was quickly becoming the protective and bossy older sister I never had. It made me like her even more.
“Yes, I understand.”
She shut the bathroom door and I made myself comfortable in bed, hoping for a dreamless sleep after reading about the torment Edward went through. I considered myself lucky.
‘Poor Edward had to watch his love slip away to the Dolch Erbe. With Dirk, I only have to deal with the aftermath.’
4
It didn’t matter how many layers of concealer or foundation I used on my face, the damn scars forever reminding me of Dirk’s betrayal were still visible. The four slash marks going all the way down from my brow to the corner of my lip shined with a silver hue in the bathroom mirror. I huffed in frustration and threw my concealer into the rubbish to the side of the sink.
‘No point. It’s there for good.’
I reached for my side satchel that Alina helped me pick out in London along with my trench coat and I was off to class. Tonight started once more with Professor Huxley. I only had a matter of weeks before my first exams and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. I was never a natural student. Well, at least not for topics that didn’t interest me. But I was determined to get through with flying colors. Even if it meant pulling a few extra hours after dawn to study after my exhaustive lessons with Rodrick.
I hustled down the stone steps of Alina’s bedchamber and headed to class, not bothering to try looking more presentable. It was no use trying to cover up my scars. At least Professor Huxley and I would match. It was difficult to deny that I had become increasingly curious as to how he got his scars. Maybe we could share war stories over a whiskey one day.
I recalled the first night I walked into class with my new scars cascading down my once pretty face. Professor Huxley gave me a brief glare that left little doubt in my mind that he thought I probably did something foolish to deserve them.
‘Not all of us have a rumbustious youth on our own volition,’ I thought quietly to myself, refusing to meet his penetrating glare.
I walked into class and took my usual seat in the back corner. I resisted taking off the hood of my trench coat until the class was full of students and Professor Huxley walked in with his usual gruff manor.
“Open your books to page 232,” he ordered before even reaching the platform before the class. “I trust all of you did the reading and you’re well-read in the theories regarding using prudence with your brands in the human realm.”
The sound of pages shuffling reached my ears as students around me opened up their books. I heard a few of them groan. Professor Huxley saying we should “be well-read” on the reading could only mean one thing. He was prepared to call on random people for answers about the chapter we were assigned. Apparently the Socratic method was well and alive in the lycan realm. If someone couldn’t answer his questions, he would turn up the intensity of the fake magical moonlight hovering just under the ceiling.
“Well,” he said expectantly with one hand on his hip and another resting on the podium. He had a way of standing where his posture was never quite right. He leaned forward to let everyone know that he was always looking down at them. Some found it intimidating. I didn’t mind it. I preferred it when people wore their attitudes on their sleeves. Rodrick drove me crazy leaving so many things a mystery. Most of all himself.
“Diana Pinsent,” he said, addressing a young woman in the front row with a perfectly trimmed blond bob. She jerked her head up in surprise. “Can you give me a brief summary of the chapter? Keep it to a few sentences.”
She stiffened a bit and took a deep breath before speaking, buying herself a few seconds to think of a proper summary. “The chapter summarized how lycan can make their brands invisible in the human realm so the human eyes cannot see them. It also described the necessity of making our brands invisible for our own protection given there are some humans that are aware of our existence.”
A young man chuckled in the opposite corner from where I sat. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quiet enough to escape Professor Huxley’s ears.
This time I was among everyone else that groaned when Professor Huxley increased the intensity of the moonlight by rolling the dial on the podium. Whoever laughed had shown disrespect. And Professor Huxley had a short fuse. After spending years around my father I didn’t see Professor Huxley as a threat or even frightening like the other students did. He and my father could compete for attitude but not muscle. My father was a bully. Professor Huxley just wanted his students to try harder. It took someone who had seen both sides to know the difference.
“What’s so funny, Mr. Perry?” Professor Huxley stepped down from the podium and walked right over to Thomas Perry. The young man didn’t seem to think he had done a single thing wrong. In fact, he looked somewhat stunned Professor Huxley would be so bold as to even ask him why he found the summary comical.
“It’s just...” He started. “Well, you know as well as I do that we shouldn’t fear humans seeing our brands. What can they possibly do to us? We’re dangerous creatures. They can’t exactly fight back.”
Professor Huxley leaned in closer to Thomas. His eyes fixed on him like a snake focusing on his potential prey. “And what are you going to do if you’re exposed in the human realm, Mr. Perry? Shift before unsuspecting eyes and slaughter whoever sees you regardless of witnesses around you? I’d like to see you explain that in front of the vixra council who have been so generous as to
provide our species with a realm for our safekeeping.”
Thomas shrugged, clearly not seeing the error in his logic. I could sense a bit of smugness from the way he squinted back at Professor Huxley.
“Are you suggesting humans can put up a fight?” Thomas asked.
“Are you suggesting young man that you’re willing to break the lycan way you vowed to uphold upon enrollment here at the Lycan Academy of Shapeshifting to feed your ego and murder innocents in plain sight?”
Thomas suddenly realized his mistake and swallowed hard, losing all sense of confidence in the blink of an eye. His indifference to the vow he took could easily mean expulsion. And as an untrained lycan, being cast out into the human realm could mean almost certain death.
“I didn’t think so,” Professor Huxley grumbled at him with squinted eyes. He backed off and slowly stepped away from the podium. Each step of his foot echoed over the freshly polished wood floor between the thick stone walls. Everyone was too stunned by Thomas’s brazen attitude to speak up.
“We hide our brands from humans because we’re dangerous. The few who know of our existence can spot them if we don’t take necessary precautions. Normally wearing adequate clothing will suffice. But not always.”
“Why not just avoid the brands altogether?” McKenzie spoke up with her hand raised, pretending as though Professor Huxley had already called on her.
“Your brands are your bond to this academy and the lycan way. They seal your vow and your commitment to our laws handed down by the vixra. Did any of you experience a sort of rebirth upon being branded? A part of you that changed and felt compelled to follow in line with the way of the lycan?”
A few students nodded. I certainly remembered the feeling. When Nurse Roslyn let her magic consume me it was as though I was entering a new life altogether. One that wasn’t what I would have chosen for myself but I would forever stick to nevertheless.
“That was no accident,” Professor Huxley continued. “Our brands are our bonds. Our vow. It’s common practice for many other magical beings to brand themselves, or tattoo their bodies to showcase their commitment to a way of life or a cause they are bound to. This academy is no different.”
My mind returned to the memory of Edward’s journal entry. He claimed he saw markings on Sybil’s skin in the light of the fireplace. Only they disappeared within seconds.
I discreetly flipped the pages of the text to another chapter, trying to find an answer to the question now distracting my attention away from Professor Huxley’s lecture. I found the page in the conclusion to the chapter and wondered why it never occurred to me before now that I read about this only a night ago. There were certain types of brands and tattoos among magical beings that could only be seen when reflected by magical fire. Fires like the one burning in the cauldron during the ritual Dirk put me through.
Were the brands of the Dolch Erbe forming on his body before he ever joined them? If they were on Devon I never would have known. He was a master shifter after all and probably good at hiding them like the chapter of our text described.
“Miss Blackburn!” Professor Huxley shouted my name from the podium. “Care to answer the question?”
Panic sunk deep inside my gut and toyed with the breakfast rummaging around in my stomach.
“Ummm…”
“Stand up, Miss Blackburn.”
‘Damn.’
I did as he said, knowing full well that it would only be a matter of seconds before he figured out that I didn’t know the answer and the class would hate me when he assigned extra homework for my mistake. Professor Huxley’s hand was dangerously close to the dial, threatening to intensify the moonlight directly over our heads.
“I repeat, Miss Blackburn. What does the law handed down by the vixra proclaim as the proper procedure for hiding one’s brands?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think. I knew the answer. I read the chapter and made sure I had committed it to memory before leaving the library.
‘Aha!’
I opened my eyes and got ready to answer when a droplet of something wet spilled over my lip and stained the collar of my shirt under my trench coat. I peered down to see what it was only for the droplets to continue falling in quick succession.
‘What the hell?’
Students started whispering.
Xavier stood up from the seat in front of me. “Are you alright, Riley?” he asked.
I drew my hand up to my face and rubbed a tickle from under my nose. The droplets were blood. My nose was bleeding.
“Miss Blackburn?” Professor Huxley spoke.
“I’m fine. I just need a tissue.”
Xavier lunged away from me and nearly knocked over the candles on his desk.
That was when I noticed my body was glowing. My crowning magic was steadily piercing through my skin and enveloping my entire body like a lingering cloud.
“Miss Blackburn!” Professor Huxley hollered down at me. My eyes shot up at the sound of his thundering voice. “What have I told you about using your abilities in my classroom?” He walked away from the podium to get a closer look at me. “Miss Blackburn?” His voice changed. It was full of concern.
I looked about at the other students to see them all staring at me. Not because of my magic or because I couldn’t answer the question. My nose was bleeding even heavier. Followed by my ears. Then a single trickle from my right eye near the edge of a claw mark Dirk left behind.
My legs turned into jelly. The muscles inside loosened as if I didn’t even have feet to support me. I toppled onto the floor before I even realized I was falling.
“Riley!” a sharp female voice shouted my name.
I focused all my attention on my magic, forcing it back into my body.
‘No! I can’t do this again. I can’t hurt people like I did to McKenzie. I’ll be expelled for sure this time.’
My magic slowly dwindled into nothing and absorbed back into my body. I stared up at the ceiling only to see it go dark. Professor Huxley turned off the moon’s false light and let everyone off the hook, including me.
A pair of hands scooped under my head, bringing me up to feel for a pulse. I struggled to keep my eyes open. My eyelashes fluttered, showing me an image I couldn’t quite believe was real. McKenzie was kneeling right over me, trying to help me up and checking for my pulse.
She gradually faded away. Everyone did. My mind drifted elsewhere. I wasn’t seeing through my own eyes anymore. I stood before the circle of ruins in the forest back in the Czech Republic. The same ritual spot where Devon kidnapped me and I had my strange dream revealing the burial ground underneath. My arm was extended before me holding the same wand I saw Dirk wield when he sprang from a coffin and attacked me. Only my arm was covered in brands meant to look like tattoos. The same ones Dirk had on his arm when I last saw him.
‘Good god. I’m seeing through Dirk’s eyes! He’s back at the ritual site.’
His crowning magic was seeping through the ivory wand, glowing at the tip and swirling down to a woman lying lifeless in the center of the circle where the cauldron once stood. She moved her head, proving she was alive. But barely.
She was covered in sweat. Her chest moved up and down as though she had been heaving. And her eyes were full of terror.
‘What’s Dirk doing to her?’
She shook her head at the sight of Dirk’s magic running through the wand and threatening to smash into her.
“No!” she said weakly, shaking her head. At first, I thought she was begging. She wasn’t. She was being defiant. Fighting back in the face of impossible odds. “I won’t help you!” she yelled in a thick French accent. “I will never help you!” She spit at him, narrowly missing his leather trousers.
Flashes of blue magical light shot out of her fingertips. She tried to protect herself. It was no use. She was tired and weak. Dirk had tortured her to the point of nearly passing out.
“Yes, you will,” he mumbled quietly.
Dirk’s mag
ic struck her right in the ribs and shot over her entire body like a wave of electricity, causing her to shake and then go rigid. She barely had the energy to scream.
He let up only when she was an inch from death, pulling her back from the cliff and forcing her to hang onto hope that she might make it through alive. But I knew the truth. I could see her stamina slowly dissipating into nothing.
“No!” she whispered, barely able to get the word out. She blinked several times, trying to see clearly through hazy vision.
Dirk walked over to her, pointing the wand even closer until it was aimed directly at her heart. It was a kill shot. If she kept fighting him she wouldn’t survive.
Her long chocolate brown hair fell from her perfectly braided bun, showing just how much she tried to fight him off. She looked perhaps in her forties. And she was tough. So much toucher than Dirk anticipated. His efforts to subdue her took more strength than he realized. That’s why he was bleeding. He was struggling to force her hand.
‘It appears even you have your limits when it comes to your crowning magic, Dirk.’
“You’ll have to kill me,” she muttered. “I will never join you. Tue-moi!”
“I don’t need you to,” Dirk said. Then he let his crowning magic flare out of the ivory wand, channeling everything he could muster through it until the woman convulsed on the ground as though she was having a seizure.
‘This is why I’m bleeding. Dirk is trying too hard. He’s using too much of his magic. He doesn’t have a witchling helping him anymore.’
The woman stopped moving. And for a few seconds, I was sure she was dead. Far from it.
Dirk leaned down, holding himself up by one hand on the ground to balance his dizzy head. Then he placed a single hand on the woman’s chest just above her heart. A funnel of bright light burst through the ground, right where one of the coffins lay underneath forming the star shape. It wafted through the air, weaving like a ribbon until it met Dirk’s hand. The light pulsed through his skin and traveled down to the woman’s heart. I could hear it nearly come to a stop. She was almost dead. But not quite. Just enough for Dirk to finish whatever it was he was doing.
Resist Page 4