“Now,” Professor Addair said as she moved away from the podium and placed a single hand on her hip. “I want all of you to close your eyes.”
We did as she instructed.
“Take three deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Once you’re finished I want you to focus on your skin. Smell the area right above your wrist to get a whiff of your own scent.”
I definitely knew when I needed a shower or if I had broken a sweat by my scent once I became a lycan. My sense of smell was incredibly enhanced. But I had never gone so far as to sniff my own skin. When I did it was something rather remarkable. There was a definite uniqueness to my body. The scent of pine along with sandalwood. And another smell that I hadn’t expected to be there. A lingering powder that my mom used to use on herself when we lived abroad. It was a special French one that she routinely bought at a Parisian pharmacy. Only it was on me. I wasn’t sure how, but the scent attached to me in some way. I started using it after she died and even ordered it on the Internet when I couldn’t find it in England. Somehow, it was there.
Memories of my mother flooded my mind. The pain of her loss. The promise Adeline made that she would help me find her killer. It all came rushing back to me at once. I opened my eyes to realize that the scent was around my body like an aura. It was apart of me. Like an extra limb. Just how I felt when I shifted with objects in Professor Huxley’s class.
“Good,” Professor Addair said, clasping her hands together. “Now I want each of you to project your scent outward. Push it away as though you’re flexing a muscle. Only this muscle is a part of your senses.”
I shut my eyes before Professor Addair could notice I wasn’t entirely focused only to take a peek when she wasn’t looking. But opening my eyes gave me a glimpse of what everyone was experiencing. I couldn’t see their scent or their aura. And yet, I could see and sense my own. As soon as other students tried projecting their aura as Professor Addair instructed, our auras clashed against one another.
“Do you all feel that?” she asked.
I opened my eyes once more at the feeling of another student’s aura, his scent, touching my skin. I instantly gravitated to his eyes and we locked our sights on one another. Somewhat startled, the young man let his aura dissipate instantly. I did the same. The last thing I wanted was for some stranger I had only seen in passing around the academy to follow me around like a love sick stalker because of a mishap in class.
Awkward laughter broke apart the tension in the room.
“It’s hardly a laughing matter,” Professor Addair said, moving away from her podium and walking between the center aisle of desks. “Now you understand the full power of your scent and how it can attract humans and lyc-”
“How dare you!” Maribeth Carter shouted at the front of the classroom. Her shrill voice was followed by the sound of her thick textbook smacking against the head of the guy sitting next to her. “Don’t think I didn’t feel that!”
Maribeth was sitting in the front row, attacking the student next to her. When the textbook didn’t prove heavy enough to do sufficient damage, she threw it to the side and used her fists.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he cried, trying to block her strikes.
“Don’t act like you don’t know!”
“Mr. Robert Donahue,” Professor Addair shouted from down the aisle of desks. She closed the gap and approached the two of them. “Would you care to tell the entire class what you just attempted?”
“It wasn’t just now!” Maribeth shouted. “I can sense it. He’s been doing this to me since I first arrived! For months!”
“You mean to say that he’s been projecting his scent onto you?”
I recognized the young man. To me, he was just another face in a classroom. I occasionally saw him with Maribeth, walking hand in hand around the courtyard. It was enough for me to understand the gravity of what just took place.
“Oh, please!” Robert said once Maribeth finally stopped hitting him. “She enjoyed every second of it!”
Professor Addair’s eyes widened. She rushed over to Robert and reached for his throat. As it turned out, Maribeth wasn’t the one he had to worry about.
“We don’t allow projection of scent outside the classroom at this academy, Mr. Donahue.” Professor Addair had him pinned against the wall by his neck. This sort of treatment toward a student certainly wouldn’t be tolerated in the human realm. It would be enough to get a professor arrested. But this was the lycan realm. The rules were much different here. “Did he do anything else untoward, Miss Carter?” she asked.
Maribeth swallowed hard. I could tell she wanted to speak but she refused to admit anything too personal in front of the entire class. I secretly hoped she hadn’t given herself to him. She shook her head. “Nothing too much, I swear it. I’m not like that.”
“But he projected his scent onto you, did he not?” Professor Addair asked, tightening her grip on Robert’s throat as he squirmed to get away from her. Professor Addair wasn’t about to let that happen. She shifted her arm so it was in lycan form. Her claws gripped tight around his neck and scratched into his skin. I could hear him groan as her claws dug deeper.
“Yes. He did,” Maribeth answered. “I never realized it until now.”
Professor Addair shook her head in grave disappointment. Then she let go of Donahue’s neck, allowing him to topple to the ground in a heaping mess of coughing and gasping for air. “Report to the Bloody Tower, Mr. Donahue. I’ll have one of the guards show you how we treat those who break academy rules.”
“I didn’t know it was against the rules!” Robert argued.
“To manipulate our women by projecting your scent before a student can graduate and know how to defend herself is indeed a grave offense here at the academy. It’s no different than trying to drug a woman in a pub to get her to come home with you. Do you understand, Mr. Donahue?”
He got up in a huff and went over to grab his leather bag before heading for the door.
“I’ll tell the guards inside the Bloody Tower to come collect you if you don’t show up within the next few minutes,” Professor Addair warned from across the classroom. “Do you hear me?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look back. He simply walked out with his chin held high, not even considering for a moment that he was in the wrong.
“Well then,” Professor Addair said as she clasped her hands together. “Now you all understand the depth and implications of your actions should you attempt to attract another lycan with the use of projecting your scent. And given some of you aren’t aware, it is indeed an offense at L.I.T. to project your scent upon another student without their expressed consent. And even if they do give consent, it’s not an honorable practice against our own kind. Once you graduate, it’s not our concern. Until then, do well to remember that it’s not tolerated here.”
The students were silent for the rest of the lecture. We learned how to sense for when someone was projecting their scent onto us so we could defend against it, per Maribeth’s personal request, of course. I didn’t mind. I had been a victim of it too. The second Professor Addair described it, I knew. That’s exactly what Devon did to me on the train. Then again when I saw him in the pub. He angled his scent directly at me. He had me in his sights and he didn’t let go. Only he was masking his own scent with Rodrick’s.
One thought haunted me once the class was finished and everyone was packing up to leave. Rodrick definitely had his own unique scent. As did Lothar. I had already decided that whatever I might come to feel toward anyone would put them in danger. Devon was aware of it. He was even aware that I would be drawn to Rodrick. Did that have something to do with the scent that Blackatters give off? Is that why Devon’s trickery against me worked so well given Rodrick was a Blackatter?
I couldn’t go back to my room and sleep properly without knowing.
I waited for everyone else to walk out of the classroom and approached the podium where Professor Addair
was gathering up her lesson plan.
“Professor Addair?” I said her name softly.
“Yes, Miss Blackburn. What can I do for you?”
I cleared my throat, trying to buy time as I thought of the proper words. “I have one question. A somewhat personal one that I didn’t feel the entire class needed to hear.”
She leaned forward on the podium with an arch to her brow. I had piqued her curiosity. “Go on,” she said.
“Well… about the scent thing. I’ve definitely noticed it. I mean, on the men around the academy. And I was wondering if it worked differently for Blackatters.”
She cocked her head. “What a strange question. Why?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’ve just noticed that my senses tend to be a little more drawn to…um…”
“Ah!” she understood my meaning before I had to go through the discomfort of speaking Rodrick’s name. “I see. Well, you wouldn’t be the first,” she said with a wink.
I immediately thought of turning around right then and there as a touch of pink struck my cheeks, but I pressed on. “I just want to know if there’s anything I can do to prevent it.”
“Prevent it?”
“Yes. I don’t like it. It’s distracting.”
‘And I can’t afford to care too deeply about anyone right now. Anyone close to me could get hurt. I can’t go through that anymore.’
“No, dear girl. I’m afraid not.” She gathered up her bag and slung it around her shoulder. “Curses are generally designed to be complex so they can’t be broken.”
“Curses?”
Professor Addair stopped dead in her tracks. I watched her bite down on her lip and risk ruining her perfectly applied berry colored lipstick. Or perhaps it was a part of her master shifting facade. Either way, she knew she had messed up.
“What curse?” I insisted. “What are you talking about?”
“I-it… well, many Blackatters consider having crowning magic a curse. Nothing more.” She walked right by me and hopped off the platform. She was halfway through the aisle between the desks when I ran after her.
“Wait!” I hollered. “No, no, no! You’re not walking away.” I grabbed onto her shoulder and forced her to face me. When she did, she was back to her normal self. Nothing more than an older woman with long gray hair tucked in a bun and her trench coat covering her wrinkled arms all the way to her fingers.
‘Nice try. I won’t be distracted. No matter which appearance you take.’
“Professor Addair, please tell me. I need to know! What curse? What are you talking about?”
She tapped her foot on the wood floor. Now it was her turn to pick her words wisely. “Dean Everleigh will be angry with me.”
“I’ll never speak your name.”
“If you are indeed attracted to him then you likely won’t be able to lie to him. Few women can when they lust for someone. Especially lycan.”
That caught me off guard. It was exactly what I had experienced with Lothar. I couldn’t lie to him. Nor could I entice him in the way Alina wanted me to.
I shook my head, refusing to get distracted even though my mind was running amuck. “Tell me the truth,” I said to her, taking her arms into mine and refusing to let go until she answered. I might have been breaking some sort of professor and student relationship rules by approaching her in this way, especially if she felt threatened. But she was a master shifter. That meant she had to have a unique set of skills. If she wanted to thrust me away and refuse to tell me more, she could certainly do so.
To my surprise, she didn’t.
“Miss Blackburn, having such knowledge can be dangerous,” she muttered even though the classroom was seemingly empty. Not that I minded her lowering her voice. After being eavesdropped on by McKenzie I definitely understood the need to be discreet whenever necessary.
“I have a feeling that the more people keep from me, the more danger I’ll be in,” I said, trying to encourage her to keep going. “So please, Professor Addair, tell me. What curse?”
One look into her eyes told me that she was engaging in some sort of inner battle. And she was losing. Perhaps I applied the perfect amount of pressure.
“You’ve felt drawn to Dean Everleigh since you first arrived?” she asked. “I take it you know what he is. And that he prefers to keep it private.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed hard. “Blackatters aren’t simply drawn to one another to procreate and prolong their lines of crowning magic. They’re drawn toward one another because the Dolch Erbe placed a curse on their family lines. If Blackatters partnered with one another, their bloodlines would be easier to trace. And if they’re easier to trace-”
“They’re easier to hunt down and kill.”
She sighed. “Correct.”
“So what I’m feeling for the Dean is nothing more than a curse?”
She scoffed. I didn’t see the humor but apparently, she did. “Every girl here has a crush on Dean Everleigh. He’s handsome, masculine, and carries an air of mystery. You wouldn’t be the first young lady to attempt winning his heart. Which I can tell you right now is surrounded by steel. Women far more attractive than you have entered these walls and failed to snatch him up.”
“I don’t want to snatch him up,” I said. “I already told you, I want to prevent it. I know what I am is dangerous. It will place anyone I care about in harm’s way. I can’t have that. So please, tell me if there’s any way to stop it.”
She motioned away from me, pulling out of my hands and backing up to leave. “You can’t prevent it, my dear. I would be lying if I claimed your discipline to prevent such entanglements won’t be far more difficult than others.”
“But I’m right?” I asked. “It’s nothing more than that? A curse?”
“I fear you may never know. Now if you excuse me, I must return to my study. I need to plan next week’s lessons. Keep our conversation here between us, if you will be so kind. I don’t fancy losing my place. A woman of my age and my kind won’t easily find employment elsewhere.”
‘With your facade as a young babe teaching a class you could likely get a job anywhere you pleased.’
I kept my mouth shut as she left, not wanting to give her cause to believe I might betray her.
Did Rodrick know that’s what was happening between us? Was I drawn to him because of the curse? In addition to our magic wanting to survive the two of us long after we were dead? Did I even stand a chance in trying to fight it? And most of all, was that why Rodrick resisted me? Aside from the obvious reason. The Dean of L.I.T. taking up with a student was an offense probably worthy of his removal from the academy. And mine as well.
I could restrain myself. I could even keep a secret. I couldn’t, however, keep going without more answers. I was a lycan now. And when I had a scent for something being wrong, I wasn’t willing to divert my path away.
‘Rodrick owes me some answers. Right now!’
9
If there’s one thing in this world that I had begun to hate, it was secrets. Adeline never told me who she really was, Lothar never told me he suspected I was a Blackatter until magic was pouring out of my hands, and my own father never told me that he knew where my mother was the entire time we were on the continent. I wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore. I wanted the brutal truth no matter how much it might hurt me. If anything, I needed it to stay safe. How else was I supposed to make the right decisions if I didn’t have all the information?
At least that’s what was running through my messy mind when I scurried out of Professor Addair’s classroom and went right for the hidden passageway that led to Rodrick’s study. We didn’t have a lesson planned and he wasn’t expecting me. I didn’t care. I was done with the lies. And omitting information was the same as lying.
I pushed my hand into the stone that revealed the floor moving down toward a hidden staircase. With one final glance around, I made sure I wasn’t being watched. Then I went down the steps and barged into Rodrick’s st
udy. The fire lit torches on the side of the long hallway didn’t have time to magically light up. I was practically running through the hall. I burst open the door of his study without even knocking.
“Rodrick!” I shouted when I didn’t see him at his desk. He had to be around somewhere. “Rodrick, get out here! I need to speak with you.” I long suspected his bedchamber had to be close by. Hidden just like the rest of his quarters. Maybe he would hear me if I yelled loud enough. “Rodrick!” I screamed, walking around his desk and checking behind the tapestries to see if there were any other hidden rooms. I placed my hand on the stones behind pictures to make sure. Nothing moved. Maybe I was wrong.
I reached for one tapestry toward the corner of the study. It was longer than I was, depicting a man kneeling before a queen as she knighted him. The entire court looked on with dazzling eyes. I didn’t take time to admire it. I wanted to see if there was anything hidden behind it. To my surprise, there was. But it wasn’t what I suspected. Behind the tapestry was an enormous mirror. It scaled from the ceiling of Rodrick’s study down to the wooden floor. Only I couldn’t see my reflection very well. There was my silhouette and traces of my long black hair but it was foggy. Even creepier, the fog inside it wasn’t dirt, grime, or dust. It was moving. It swirled around and turned a bright shade of blue, spinning about in a circle of light and turning the fog into a storm getting ready to lash out with strikes of lightning. Which was why it probably wasn’t the best idea to reach out of touch it. But that’s exactly what I did. I reached toward the blue spirals of cloudy light and touched it with the tips of my fingers. The result was nothing short of a surprise.
The cloudy light zapped me in the finger, moved up through my arm, and lurched into my chest. I went flying off my feet before I even realized what had happened. My legs flew over my head as I landed hard on Rodrick’s desk and rolled off the back, crashing onto his large chair and knocking it backward onto the ground. I was flat on my stomach and struggling to get a single breath of air in my lungs for the first few seconds. I got up and peered over the desk, seeing the clouds of light in the mirror calm down once more until they were back to their regular murky gray shade. I ducked behind the desk once more when I saw the mirror turn blue.
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