by Erin R Flynn
And I was fairly sure I’d missed at least one.
Oh boy.
That would have to wait as I had a bone to pick with someone, going right past Craftsman and telling him in my head we needed to talk. I didn’t slow down, heading right for his lecture hall, assuming it would be empty. I knew there were still more finals, but they were done for the day.
I was pretty sure there were only a few left the next day for master’s students, but I wasn’t certain.
I stopped by his desk and set down my bag, yanking off my jacket. “That was stupid. Really stupid. You don’t even know—”
“Yes, I do, because I saw the guilt in your aura that night and for days now,” he said gently.
“I don’t feel guilt,” I lied. I didn’t regret what I did, but I hoped I would feel guilty and bad for killing people. Justified or not, I didn’t want to become a cold, brutal person who that stopped affecting.
He simply smiled at me as he took off his jacket as well and tossed it on his chair. “I would do a lot more than be your alibi anytime you needed it.”
“They’re students. You couldn’t handle me hurting students.”
He let out a slow breath. “With what I taught you in that setting so brutally. I’ve long since dealt with that, love. Those gits hurt someone again, right?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to implicate him or drag him into this mess.
“I know they did. I trust you. You wouldn’t have done anything unless they had.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he argued, grabbing me by the arms and shaking me. “I know you.” He mashed his mouth to mine before I could think of what to say or even argue.
“Julian, that was unwise,” Professor Campbell chastised as she walked into the room… And found us kissing. “Julian!”
I shoved at his chest and broke the kiss, but he was slower to move away, seeming more annoyed at the interruption than that we’d been caught.
Idiot.
“When did this start?” she hissed as she hurried to close the door behind her.
It wasn’t until Craftsman gave me a curious glance when I stepped away that I realized I was an idiot as well. I shrugged as I put several feet and the desk between us as if that would help. “I smashed the mistress charm when we split.”
“Split?” Campbell exclaimed, her voice taking a higher octave than I’d thought the reserved teacher could reach. Rage filled her eyes as she stormed towards us.
But then I realized at the last minute she was coming for me. I had my telepathy off, resting my mind on instinct after all those people and such a high intensity situation. I was still taken aback from what Craftsman had done out there and now in here, and I wasn’t paying attention to her flipping out.
Well, until her hand connected with my face.
Then I was supremely focused on her.
And not in a way she would probably like.
“You trashy little bitch,” she hissed at me. “You know—how could you with a teacher when you knew—you hear everything—”
“I’m closer to his age than you are,” I reminded her. We were five years apart and they were at least six. “And I’m fairly certain ‘trashy’ is slapping a student, no matter what they’ve done.”
She flinched, but steam about came out of her ears. “Finals are done. I’m not your teacher right now and we both know it. I’m here as a woman. A woman you betrayed after all your rhetoric about being good to each other and—”
I snorted. “You’re right, I do hear everything. You don’t remotely respect me, so don’t give me that shit like you’ve been good to me and are the victim.” I pulled back my arm and let my fist fly, knocking her on her ass. “Since you’re not currently my teacher, that’s for wanting my lover’s last name more than him and being a bitch who chased after him when he told you he was with someone.”
“Not sure that helped,” Craftsman sighed, gesturing to Campbell who was now crying and holding her face.
“It helped me. I’ve been holding that in for a long time.” I shot him a nasty look. “You forget, I do hear too much and see it. I had to sit through her fucking class and listen to her thoughts about—too much before I could control it all. It was horrible. It was horrible to listen to her go on and on about how much you enjoyed talking crystals and magic with her while you were blowing off dates with me and…”
I turned to leave but he grabbed my arm, not letting go when I struggled.
“No, I will not let her come between us again,” he said as he hugged me to him. “I got lost my head but it was never about her. Yes, it sparked all kinds of excitement as I cannot produce those kinds of crystals yet. But a lot of it was researching them so we could have projects and experiment over the summer. I wanted to know them better so we could do more. Together.”
“I have to go.”
“No. Not yet. You were right we need to talk.”
“With your tongue down your student’s throat?” Campbell sneered as she stood. She glanced between us and she snorted. “I’m so stupid. You really are more like your family than I thought. All the lies you didn’t want anything to do with them and yet here you are, just like them.”
“Are you having a laugh?” Craftsman asked her, not understanding what she meant.
But I did. I knew assholes well, and I knew exactly what she saw when she looked at us.
“He actually wants me because I’m seriously fantastic in bed and can rock his world in a way you never could, Campbell. It has nothing to do with his family wanting the council seat or me being the brass ring. Nice you would consider it though. I’ve heard it in your thoughts several times. You’re the sellout, not him. He flat out refused his family and the council.”
“You’re more than a fantastic shag,” Craftsman grumbled. “She’d really sell you out?”
I snorted. “Oh yeah. She’s long since thought I wasn’t worth any of the hype and tired of all the drama surrounding me. She doesn’t like I’m the cool one in with the cool teachers and it used to be her. She doesn’t think our world is as bad as I say, content to leave her head in the sand. Even White is annoyed and disgusted with her. The council is forcing powerful witches to mate and Campbell just ignores it and—”
“That’s enough,” Campbell snapped, coming out of her shock I was saying all of that.
“Or what? You going to hit me?” I purred. I glanced up at Craftsman who was still holding me. “One, we’re not together, but I doubt that matters to her since she knows we used to be a thing. Two, she would tell everyone just to spite me or maybe to get you from your family, she’s getting so twisted up. She is not a woman who deals well with losing. Especially to someone like me.”
He spun me around so he could see my face, glancing between us. “What about you?” His eyes went wide as he saw something in both of our auras. “Disgusting. Vale is—”
“Nothing,” Campbell spat. “A street rat who probably stole that money she has or faked whatever paperwork for her inheritance. Edelman sensed her power and—”
“You’re going to take this memory from her, right?” I checked with Craftsman, smiling when he snorted. For the first time, I felt my ego stir since I’d learned the truth of my lineage. Here this prim and proper bitch of “good breeding” was seriously looking down her nose at me—nothing new—but it irked me because I’d thought she was a better match for Craftsman for the same reason.
She gasped. “Julian, you would never.”
“Of course I would,” Craftsman snapped. “I love her, and you’re an obsessive twat who loves my last damn name. I’ve always known that.”
Tears filled her eyes and she glanced away. “My feelings for you were real.”
“That’s true,” I confessed. “She truly felt something real for you.” They both gave me a shocked look but I wasn’t done. “She fully planned on changing just about everything that made you who you were so you’d be a suitable mate for her and she loved your l
ast name just as much, planned on you getting a better position among your family like she would want, but her feelings for you were real.”
And that was why she was such a bitch.
“The truth was always right in front of you, Campbell. If your head wasn’t so in the sand, you could have figured it out,” I taunted. “White did.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re a witch.”
“I’m not.” I took off my charms and set them down on his desk as I went over to her. I didn’t write a rune and threw up a barrier, locking the door as well. “Is that the magic of a witch?” I studied her as she still ignored what was in front of her. “Why was I so curious about the magic of Faerie? Why—just why stay undeclared when it would be so much easier to just fucking tell? I have the protection of the royals and now the head wolf elder. Why not tell?
“What could possibly be worse than saying I was a witch and your elders trying for me harder than they already are? What would have all the councils come at me worse than they are?” Still she blinked at me. “The fae dogs listen to me. They protect me. The hobgoblins love me like no other, no matter the excuses we give. I cannot stand to let them be hurt and kept captive. It’s all right there.”
Her eyes went bug wide. “No. No, you’re taunting me.”
I smiled at her. “Yeah, but I’m not lying. You can see enough of my aura to understand that, right? I took off the charm and I stopped using the fairy rune to mute my aura.” I chuckled when she went pale. “When they found me and I held the species crystal, it turned red and then shattered. That’s the big secret, Campbell. You want the real kicker? You want to know why you’re no one here?”
“You’re no one,” she whispered, her voice shaky.
“I’m not, and others know this,” I purred. “Vale is the last name used in this world for the light fairy royal bloodline. I’m Queen Meira’s daughter, smuggled out of Faerie during the war to save that world and all fairies, so I’d say I’m very much not no one, you stupid bitch.”
And just because Craftsman was going to take the memory anyways, I punched her again.
2
“The memories are gone, but I cannot change her feelings,” he explained when it was done. “She won’t like you, but won’t know why or—”
I snorted, giving him an amused look when he seemed confused. “She hasn’t liked me for months now, Doc. “She was miffed even over the summer that I let Pillay into the cool kids club because of certain projects and with the crystals and seminars. I told her she could help out, but Pillay wasn’t part of it all, and it wasn’t a club, but a war we were fighting.
“She talked to White, but even then she wouldn’t—some people prefer their ignorance. She didn’t want to hear that she was part of the problem and accepted what she shouldn’t. Campbell ignores tons of what goes on right around, and that’s why I poked her. She wants to be kept in the dark and then bitches about it.
He studied my aura and bit back a smile. “Sure, love, it was only that.”
Damnit! I hadn’t put back on my charms or the runes yet. He could see in my aura it was jealousy and anger on his behalf too.
“I also healed her from those punches.”
“She deserved them.”
“Yes, and I thank you for giving them to her.”
I shrugged. “Anytime.”
He snorted, giving me an impish smirk. “I’ve got more than enough juice to keep wiping her memory and healing her. The twat deserves nothing less for insulting you like that, and not because of your true birth. You know I don’t care about that. I never did. Being from certain families isn’t a blessing but—”
“A burden,” I whispered, glancing away. “I know. And I know that never bothered you. It bothered me when it came to her. You were two peas of the good breeding pod and I was a street rat for a while. She wasn’t wrong about that. I ran away from that foster dad and lived on the street until Mel found me. I still see that girl when I look in the mirror somedays.”
“I still see the lad whose family talked about him like an investment they weren’t getting the right return on,” he muttered as he moved closer. “Everyone besides my parents. That’s how they’ve always spoken of me. I had the potential for more, the value was there, but I wasn’t giving them the return they wanted. It was horrible after my dad died and they put the squeeze to my mum. Good breeding doesn’t mean manners.”
Amen to that. The polite society of supes was more dangerous than some of the crack houses I’d gone in to help people or the ghettos I’d been to when I’d needed to handle pimps.
For real.
“Now back to you yelling at me for being your alibi?” he murmured as he surrounded me against his desk.
I sighed, forgetting that was why we had come in there in the first place. “It was stupid.”
“No, it wasn’t. I’d do anything to protect you.” He tried to kiss me again but I ducked him.
“Julian, I’m guilty as shit,” I whispered. I sat on the desk and pulled up my legs, spinning away from him and landing on the other side so we were staring at each other. “Jordan Holmes and his friends are dead. I ordered Chief and the pack to burn them to ash and they did. They’re not missing. They’re gone forever and no trace of them are left. That’s what you just gave the alibi for, okay?”
He swallowed loudly but kept my gaze, not even flinching otherwise. “What did they do this time, love? Why did you do that?”
I couldn’t even hide my shock. It took me several moments to get my mouth to work. “What does it matter?”
“It does. Tell me. Get it off your chest if nothing else. I can see the pain pulsing in your aura.”
He wasn’t wrong. I might have brushed it off until that last part. I’d kept it all inside and it was eating at me.
The tears instantly came and I angrily wiped them away. “They sent me a picture of a woman’s hip without a birthmark this time. They set a trap for me.”
“I figured if you went to them. What did they do, Tamsin?”
“They bought a fox shifter,” I choked out. “They just bought her from her family, Julian. The family knew what they sold her for. They didn’t care because she was just a girl and it was lots of money. They showed me the whole thing, bragging in their minds because I could hear it, see it all. They raped her, a virgin no less, over and over again, not drugged this time.
“And they drank from her as they brutalized her, taunting her they were going to kill her, and all so they could make me blow a gasket and reveal I was a witch. It was all so they could get proof I was a witch and get their places back among society and with their council. That she was nothing but a purchased tool and no one cared for her, not even her family.
“They tortured her with that. It was hours, Julian. They did that to her for hours before they finally drained her. Her body was—” My voice cracked as I tried to swallow a sob. “She had limbs broken, they were so brutal with her. They were savage as they bit her. Her skin was covered in blood and it was all over the snow. She kept healing because she was a shifter but—what I saw was monstrous.”
“And all to make you lose it and out you as a witch,” he rasped. He didn’t wait until I nodded, coming around the desk and hugging me to him. He kissed my hair as I broke down crying, finally letting out the pain I’d been feeling and holding in since it had happened. The agony I’d been locking away during finals. “You did the right thing, love.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“The bloody fuck I can’t,” he growled. “You didn’t get your jollies off by murdering some poor saps, Tamsin. You took out murderers no one would punish. They were sick fucks who clearly had murdered before to enjoy it that much. Do you really think she was the first?”
“No, I know she wasn’t,” I admitted, having heard it in more than one of their thoughts.
“Then I’m glad you did it.” He shook me again when I tried to argue and push away. “You could have been their next victim!” He finally said
something I didn’t have a response to and he took advantage of that, picking me up and sitting me on the desk, gently cupping my face. “Others have gotten you, love. We can’t always be on guard all the time. You have to sleep.”
“I know,” I whispered, not wanting to bring up Mason or Darby’s family.
Especially since him not being there for the second one had been a huge issue for me.
“And assholes like them would have probably been first in line to rape and kill the last fairy, steal all she had,” he explained, fear thick in his eyes. “There are so many ways you could be a prize to so many. I know you’re scared of breeding and control, but there are other horrors many sick gits would want with a female fairy. Our world is very dark.”
I honestly hadn’t ever thought of that which was stupid. I knew how sick and twisted people could be for sure. I should have thought of that. There were sickos all over the human world who specifically bought women from sex traffickers because they wanted certain races or ethnicities.
Why would supes be any different? I could be the highest price ever paid by all the sickos.
It was seriously hard not to vomit in my mouth at the thought.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to have to think too hard on that.” He cupped my face and made me focus on him. “But it’s a reality, and as much as I hate Neldor, he means it might never come true as you’re the key to freeing his friends. But I’m glad you had the dogs kill those monsters. I am. I’m proud you gave that lass justice and killed those gits.”
I stared into his eyes and saw nothing but the complete truth and conviction in his words. “I don’t understand. How can you be okay with that and not what—”
“I know,” he sighed. “It’s all tied up in hurt for you and my abandoning you. I see it in your aura every time we discuss it that your brain and emotions practically short out. You don’t see the topic logically because of your pain any more than I did.”