Root Rot Academy: Term 1

by Rhea Watson

  “The Samhain celebration has been vetted and approved by the administration,” he continued gruffly, hands threaded behind his back, parchment notecards stacked neatly off to the side of the table. Going off book now. How uncharacteristic. “So, we’ll be moving forward accordingly, same as every year.”

  My colleagues exchanged glances with one another along the table, a few clearing their throats, others shaking their heads with disapproval. Of course, none of them glanced my way to swap displeasure with, and the only one among them who usually did was lost in her own little world tonight. Seated across from me, Alecto continued her staring contest with the tabletop, dragging her finger back and forth, drawing abstract shapes along the wood.

  Strange: whenever Jack spoke at these Sunday night staff meetings, Alecto Clarke was among the handful who really listened, her attention undivided and her pulse pitter-pattering.

  Tonight? Nothing. Not even a flutter.

  But we had all been a little off lately. Ten days after the Mabon incident, Root Rot Academy was still finding its way back to normal. Students had gone on lockdown for seven days following the serpent outbreak, ushered from class to class, den mothers and security working overtime to ensure no one walked the halls unsupervised. All our classes had a few unfamiliar shadows lurking about, watching, jumping in to quell any nonsense—usually too abruptly for my liking, but I had let it pass. The punishment only lasted a week; I could handle someone sidestepping my authority for a measly week.

  While the administration might have approved the Samhain celebration, Halloween and ancient rites combined into quite the party here at Root Rot under the Clemonte administration, Jack had been on edge for days—and from the look on his face, the tension in his shoulders, he wasn’t about to draw a carefree breath anytime soon. On the rare occasion that I happened upon Iris Prewett stalking the halls, she had also been in more of a piss-poor mood than usual, her patience paper-thin and her temper triggered by something as simple as a student sneezing.

  Clearly they had been fighting about it.

  Despite public perception that her and Jack were on the same team, that prickly witch shared the opinion of many around the table: students shouldn’t be allowed to celebrate anything after what happened in the dark that night.

  I understood it—the fear. One day it’s a hex gone wild, the next it’s an assault that the victim doesn’t wake up from. I had faith that all my students could rise from the ashes of their old life, but rose-colored glasses did us no good: these teens were here for a reason.

  Some of the reasons were fucking stupid, sure, but they had broken laws. Hurt people. Hurt themselves. Failed to control their temper, their inner beast, their magic—everything. Treading cautiously for any future events wasn’t the wrong course of action, but in my opinion, it was unfair to punish the majority for the wrongdoings of one prankster.

  Or, more likely, a group of them.

  The culprit was still at large despite Prewett ordering her security goons to haul kids up to speak with Jack every day of the weeklong lockdown. No one snitched. No one flipped. We might never know who had filled the dining hall with snakes, and it wasn’t my area of expertise to suss it out.

  I assisted in the fallout. Even if the intentions behind it had been harmless, a prank gone wrong, many students had been traumatized that night. For a shifter to change forms out of fear, they had to think they were going to die. I’d talked several of them down as the others dealt with the hex, earning a few scratches along the way.

  Childish mischief was one thing—this was another.

  Whoever had done it deserved to be expelled, but the rest of them—the students who had blown out their candles and giggled in the darkness because they were fucking children who deserved to have a bit of fun every now and again—shouldn’t be punished indefinitely.

  Let them have a dance, for fuck’s sake.

  “We will discuss the specifics of the thirty-first next week,” Jack remarked, the date putting us at the first Sunday of October, end of term on the horizon. Students prepped for exams in the weeks leading up to Samhain, and from my experience under Jack’s regime, they finally had the chance to let loose the last day of October, whether they adhered to the religious aspect of the night or not.

  Afterward, as my colleagues nursed their hangovers, many would return home for the break between terms. Most of the staff, myself included, remained for the seven blissful days of quiet, catching up on sleep and preparing for another four-month term. As far as I was aware, Jack rarely ever left the academy anymore.

  “Until then,” he continued, dark gaze jumping from face to face, all the way down the line, “I will need volunteers to organize the student council responsible for the event.”

  Ah, yes, here it was: the opportunity for a lucky pair to work overtime outside of our usual clubs and classes. As much as it pissed the rest of them off, I loved that we had student councils to organize some of the bigger equinox events—namely Samhain in October, Yule in December, and Beltane in May. Not only did it give go-getters the chance to shine, it counted toward their community service quota issued alongside their sentence. Students built skills, worked on interpersonal relationships, and achieved a sense of pride when the whole thing came together.

  Same as last year, a tense quiet settled over the room once Jack asked for volunteers. Everyone was busy as fuck at this point in the term; no one wanted to add to their workload. All around me, eyes darted everywhere but Jack, avoiding him at all costs. A few more throats cleared. Some shuffling of clothing and feet under the table. Heartrates spiking. The longer it dragged on, the bristlier Jack’s aura seemed to get, frustration seeping into a face that was usually so cool and collected, no matter the circumstances.

  Fuck it. The man had enough to deal with lately—couldn’t let him take this on, too. I raised a finger and leaned forward. “We volunteer.”

  His black brows shot up. “We?”

  Nodding, I locked eyes with an unassuming Alecto across the table, and as soon as she clued in to what was happening without her consent, her amber pools widened—then narrowed to slits.

  “Yes, we.” My smirk had her jaw clenching. “Alecto and me. We share a flat—it’ll be simple to coordinate outside of office hours.”

  The mere insinuation set off more snide glances and grins around the table, as if the rest of them didn’t also double up in a flat with another professor, occasionally the opposite sex.

  Let them think whatever they wanted; there was no underlying implication here. With a creature as lovely as Alecto, all curls and curves and short skirts on windy days, there should have been implications abound, but I’d fought my carnal interest all this time to keep the focus on our friendship. At the end of the day, the bonds of brotherhood endured. Flings withered. Sex muddied the waters.

  As an immortal finally in control of himself, I preferred a kinship that would last.

  I had so few of them in my life anymore.

  Besides, this had been going well. Not only was she my first flatmate in six years, but Alecto Clarke was probably my first friend—my first female friend, at that—in far longer. Bogged down with work and surrounded by supers who dismissed me at every turn, I’d walked this world alone for so long that I just accepted solitude as the status quo.

  I wasn’t an introvert—never had been. I reveled in the company of others, those who shared my interests and my humor. As a human, that had been my raiding party, the men in my village, the warriors who held the shield wall by my side. As an orphaned vampire, it was whoever I could rope into my bloody madness.

  But the world had changed. In time, my comrades died. Vampires blessed with covens had no interest in hand-holding a wildling. One by one, my social circle dwindled to nonexistent.

  Then the guilt set in, the realization of the carnage I had left in my wake.

  I’d had to adapt, change, become a better man and tame the beast within, but even then, few wanted my kind in their orbit.

>   Alecto’s companionship meant more to me than she would ever know.

  And it wasn’t every day that I found someone whose company I genuinely enjoyed, whether chatting about our students or shit-talking reality TV contestants or complaining about our colleagues. Sometimes just sitting in silence, grading or reading or listening to the raging storm. I liked all of it.

  At no point did I plan to fuck it up, and that was final.

  “Alecto,” Jack said sharply, the whip-sharp crack of his voice startling her out of our silent, glaring conversation, “are you volunteering?”

  Cheeks sunken, she scalded me with one last irritated look before plastering a wide, indulgent smile across her face. “Yes, sir… Anything I can do to help.”

  I swallowed a snort, disguising it as a cough, while Jack nodded, fidgeting with his notes for the first time in ages, his eyes dropped briefly to the table. “Good.” When he straightened, he looked slightly less murderous, though he spoke with the same crisp brevity as always. “You two will stay back for further discussion, and the rest of you are free to go.”

  As chair legs scraped and bodies rose all around us, Alecto and I only had eyes for each other. Hers narrowed. Mine shimmered. Her lips thinned. Mine twisted into a shit-eater grin. Huffing, my flatmate flipped me off from across the table, hiding the gesture in the flurry of movement. I blew her a kiss, delighting in the way her cheeks pinked, and she added a second finger for good measure, not bothering to hide it anymore.

  “Thank you,” she grumbled, “for this. It’s just what I needed.”

  “Temper, temper…” I clucked my tongue when she lowered her middle fingers, hiding them under the table as the herd thinned. “You have dues to pay, newbie.”

  Rolling her eyes, Alecto pushed up and scanned the condiments table behind me. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a coffee for this.”

  One sugar, one cream, a splash of vanilla—the same order every time, complementary to her natural scent. Whenever she brought it back to wherever we were sitting, be it this table or the couch or a bench near the greenhouses after sunset, the combination always reminded me of her. Sweet but not cloyingly so, pleasant and cozy and soft, tempting but comfortable, like you wanted to nuzzle right into it and never come up for air.

  Even though her gaze was a million miles away tonight, I tracked Alecto as she glided down the long table and around the far end. Those jeans really hugged all the right curves, her ass like a plump peach beneath the fabric, her hips the perfect slope. The knit sweater cinched around her waist, her figure positively delectable…

  And so not what I should have been focusing on. Friends didn’t assess the little—beautiful—details of their friend’s body. Not to the extent my male brain would have liked, anyway.

  So, I stood and drifted to the head of the table, pulling out the chair next to Jack and settling in for another hour of back-and-forth before he released us like all the rest.

  Ready, above all else, to help my headmaster—and put my focus where it belonged.

  15

  Jack

  Stress came with the job.

  Hell, stress came with every job I’d ever had—it had been imprinted on me from the second I was born, stamped right alongside the Clemonte crest on my birth certificate. As the eldest son, I had the full weight of the family legacy on my shoulders. All my parents’ expectations fell to me. Nothing had ever been good enough—always strive for more. Do more. Be better. Come first in any race or don’t bother coming home.

  Root Rot Academy was the first endeavor in my illustrious career that teetered on failure. I had suspected as much going in, given the school’s reputation, the students themselves—the sheer scale of work needed to reshape them into better supernatural citizens. But the Mabon incident had put a strain on the administration. Iris had been nipping at my heels ever since, demanding we reinstate some of the older punishments.

  More effective, she called them.

  With the right curse, the right pressure, we could have had the culprit by now… Apparently.

  Never mind that torture risked false confessions.

  Never mind that these were children in need of guidance and leadership and compassion.

  Never mind any of that. Just beat the information out of them, and in doing so, lose all trust I had cultivated with the student body.

  Not a chance.

  But the high council of academies wanted answers. My second-in-command had tattled to them the very next day, firing off an incident report to, quote, cover all our bases.

  More like add a strike against me.

  Panting, I slowed at the helm of a jagged hill, hands planted on my hips. A cool morning frost kissed the landscape below, the highlands quiet today beneath a grey dawn. Slopes loomed in the backdrop, brown and harsh, unforgiving, while the grassy tundra all around me had a burnt-summer feel to it, even now as the year delved into darkness. My Saturday morning runs were always especially punishing: two hours out, two hours back. I started long before sunrise and usually returned to campus just as the first breakfast buffet reached the dining hall.

  I was behind this morning—dragging, even without any blustery breezes ripping through the jogging paths. The higher the altitude, trails twining into the steeper elevations, the worse the wind. Most of the staff runners avoided the footpaths I took, but I liked the challenge.

  Conquering the challenge tasted even sweeter.

  Today, I’d failed. I’d struggled through every mile, my feet like lead and my mind scattered.

  And that infuriated me. Like my father, I took pride in my focus, in my ability to put my mind to the task at hand and complete it—plus everything else on my plate—in a timely manner. Lately, my to-do lists remained unfinished at the end of the day. I slept less, worried more.

  The term had started so easy, the new faculty competent and on board with my rehabilitation philosophy. Now, as we neared the end, student outbursts were on the rise. I saw more surly faces in my office by the day. Over half my people thought we should cancel Samhain—and then there was the bloody high council breathing down my neck, forever demanding updates on the Mabon situation along with everything else they asked of me.

  Stress came with the job, yes, but in the last few weeks, it had skyrocketed into oblivion.

  Things needed to get back on track.

  I needed to fix the trajectory of this year. Nudge the staff, the students, and the administration in the right direction. Yet I was failing.

  In times of frustration, anger, and intense introspection, there was one surefire way to bring my inner self back—to realign the soul.

  And I hadn’t indulged in ages.

  Domination. Control. Sadism. Pain.

  Nothing made me feel more myself—my best self—than when I had a submissive totally at my mercy. Brandishing both the whip and the balm, as a Dom I could be the best sides of Jack Clemonte: master and protector. Captain and healer. Tormentor. Mentor. Leader. Comfort. Stability in a world that rarely made sense.

  Slipping into my Dom shoes was freeing. I let everything go to revel in the moment, and for a warlock always thinking ten steps ahead, forever onto the next five-year plan, that was a godsdamn gift.

  Unfortunately, I still wasn’t comfortable bringing that side out at the academy—any academy.

  I just had nowhere to play, no safe space…

  Mind you, there were actual ruins on the Root Rot property. The castle itself was enchanted to look run-down and dangerous to humans, but I knew of at least one building that was in legitimate disrepair. Secluded. Tucked away in a patch of ancient, twisting, gnarled foliage, behind a soaring mountain and on the shores of a loch… It was perfect, actually.

  Alecto flashed across my mind’s eye suddenly, quite unwelcome—and very naked. Strung up, arms above her head, hanging from a hook, her eyes wet and wanting, her skin flushed with the sting of pain and the fire of pleasure…

  Damn it. I exhaled sharply. Stop this, Clemonte.

  Despi
te all the other shit stacked on my shoulders, I had done a bloody good job at repressing my interest in Alecto Clarke. Not only was it wildly inappropriate given our professional status, but she was young.

  Ten years too young, probably.

  She just had the perfect look, the one I’d hunted for all my adult life that no submissive had ever matched—

  Never mind. It didn’t matter. Wildly inappropriate, remember?

  Still, if I didn’t find an outlet for the stress soon, I’d crack.

  And Clemonte men never cracked.

  Hence the punishing daily runs.

  Only today had been a poor performance all around, and as I begrudgingly started back down the steep slope, I did so with even more failure closing in. After all, the run wasn’t complete yet, but if I dragged this on for too long, I would be behind on everything all day, and that was just unacceptable.

  Jogging back, I focused on my breathing, on the horizon, trying desperately to block everything else out and tunnel my mind into something singular. Frustration made that near impossible, and with Root Rot and its glorious walls soaring in the distance, the path twisting and twining around bogs and hills and scattered patches of thorny brush, I gave up. Just this once, just for now, I let it all come crashing down, surrendering to the calamity, drowning in disappointment.

  Until something caught my eye.

  Something that shouldn’t be there.

  Clothes—scattered in the grass, just off the path’s sharp turn. The morning’s chill finally whispered across my skin as I slowed and eventually came to a complete stop, sunlight streaking brilliantly through the overcast, and the thawing damp brushed my pant legs with every stride into the grass.