by Rhea Watson
Sure enough, there it was—a discarded Root Rot Academy uniform. Skirt. Sweater. Dress shirt and shoes. Wool leggings. Shit. Quiet cut through the constant buzz in my brain, all else cast aside for this catastrophe waiting to happen. While panic tried to make my chest tight, I breathed through it as I crouched beside the pile, and a cursory stroke confirmed my suspicions: the fabric was cold.
It had been sitting out here for some time.
Jaw clenched, I grabbed the skirt—extra small, new, and perfectly pleated—then dug two fingers into the pocket. Out came the platinum identification tag issued to all students upon their acceptance, which detailed their supernatural lineage, their family name, and their age.
Fiona Simpson. Vampire. Thirteen. Orphan.
Gods.
She was new this term.
New and terrified of everything—of herself, her cravings, her diet. A substantial vampire coven in Galway had sponsored her stay, unwilling to take in the girl who had been illegally turned by a rogue but also refusing to let her wander the streets, starved and mad and terrified. Most orphan vampires didn’t survive their first year; with Bjorn on staff, we intended to change that. Hell, we had sent letters to all the major covens in Europe and the United Kingdom offering to take in local orphans.
What was Fiona doing out here?
Root Rot Academy was her new home—for the next five years, at least, the Galway coven offering to fund a full ride.
Gripping the platinum dog tag tight, the ridges gnawing into my palm, I stood and swept a keen eye over my surroundings, focusing on the shadows of the arcing hills and the nearby clump of gnarled bushes. “Fiona?”
The crinkly foliage answered with a murmur, a soft breeze tousling the autumn-tinged leaves, a few fluttering to the ground. Gods, the sun had been scattered but very much out for a good forty minutes by now. If she were still outside, she would be in there, clinging to the shadows of the brush—totally nude.
“Fiona?” I called again, sharper this time. The highlands answered with a painful silence. Teeth gritted, I stalked out of the grasses and over the worn-down path, her uniform forgotten, focusing on the sprawling shrubs, their twisting branches, their orange-and-brown tops—
Dust whirled around my feet the moment I left the trail.
No.
Not dust.
Ash.
Black and thick, velvety smooth—no mistaking it.
I had walked right through her.
Oh, gods.
Crushing her ID tag in my fist, I sank to my knees and brushed a few trembling fingers through the pile. Feathery soft. This… She…
I closed my eyes tight. At Bjorn’s request, Fiona Simpson had been on suicide watch. After noticing her mood and attitude nosedive earlier this month, he spoke with me about it and I had ordered Iris to assign her an extra den mother—someone whose sole responsibility was this one little vampire.
But vampires were so fast.
There one moment, gone the next. Impossible to monitor at all times, especially at night.
She must have slipped her detail and skirted security…
Then wandered out here to… die?
My gut somersaulted, bile burning up my throat, and I shuffled back so that no part of me touched her ashes.
It had finally happened.
A student had died on my watch.
Overcome by it all, she had chosen sunlight over shadow.
Fuck.
“Oh, Fiona,” I whispered, smoothing the blackened pile into the grass, offering her to the highlands. “I’m so sorry.”
Vampires had no lore about the afterlife—not like witches and warlocks. Even shifters saw themselves destined for the stars, turned into constellations alongside their fated mates. I always pictured my soul passing over to the beyond when my time eventually came, and if she would take me, I would very much like to rest my weary bones in Freyja’s great halls.
Vampires turned to dust.
Went back to the earth.
And that was so… sad.
“If there is a beyond for you, Fiona,” I murmured, kneeling there beneath the sun, clouds parting as the wind picked up, my hand dusted with her remains, “I hope you’re happy there.”
Still clutching her identification tag, I stood and asked the gods to watch over her, wherever she might be—for them to watch over all my wayward vampires, the odds stacked against them without a coven’s guidance. Heart heavy, shoulders rounded, I then drifted back to her things. Collected her uniform, folding each piece, tucking her undergarments in her wool stockings.
She had no family on record and few friends—if any—at the academy.
No one to miss her.
No one but Bjorn, anyway.
Uniform clutched to my chest, I walked back to the castle, exhausted and heartbroken, unable to jog anymore. The high council would need to know of this—but not today. Not until I had a definitive cause of death: suicide or murder. No other footprints on the path. No lingering auras in the air. From what I could tell, Fiona had been out here alone, but Occom’s Razor didn’t always apply to the supernatural world.
At the very least, news of this could wait until after Samhain. Get the biggest event of the year out of the way, then permanently damage my career by admitting that a student had died on my watch.
Right.
Can’t carry this all by yourself, sneered my self-conscience. Can’t become one of the guilty parties in her story, Jackie boy.
I glared up at my forehead. Piss off.
While I planned to keep Fiona’s passing to myself for now, as I pushed through the back gate and shut it securely behind me, I decided to tell Bjorn at sunset.
He had a right to know.
Perhaps that would encourage him to keep a closer eye on the other vampire students, the few who might actually notice Fiona’s absence. But students came and went from these corridors all the time. Just this term alone, we’d had charges with a one-month stay—two weeks was the shortest and most ineffective sentencing I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t my place to raise a fuss about it. We took them in, housed them, fed them, taught them, and sent them on their way when we were told. That was the job.
Stalking through the silent grounds, morning mist swirling over the vegetable gardens and across the athletics field, I looked down to her old uniform, folded over and over so that I could clutch it with one hand, then clenched my jaw.
No, we did more than take them in, house them, teach them—we were supposed to care for them, too.
I had failed her.
If I didn’t get my kingdom back under control, I could very well fail them all.
And that, frankly, was just unacceptable.
Never again, Fiona. I swear it.
Never. Again.
16
Alecto
I hadn’t been to the library since Madame Prewett’s tour that first day.
It wasn’t like I had been purposefully avoiding it, but it was on the opposite end of the castle compared to everything else in my world. Hell, three floors up and it might as well have been on a different planet. Tonight, as I strode in after a very full, hectic Monday of potting and sapling transfers and exam prep, my stomach did a little loop.
This was Gavriel’s kingdom.
And I had been purposefully avoiding him.
Which had been pretty easy, actually. Given the distance between our workspaces, the fact that he ate most of his meals outside of the dining hall, and that he surrounded himself with other pretty professors and librarians and nurses at staff meetings, we didn’t interact with each other unless absolutely necessary.
I’d liked that.
The guy was a dick.
No need to prolong what should have been a fantastic one-night stand and nothing more. Even though our second rendezvous had been just as pleasurable—if not more, thrilling as the winds howled and a darkly beautiful fae bent me over a table and really just fucked me—the ending had soured our connection, probably for good.
But now here I was, trudging through the first week of October with a million other things on my mind, and as soon as I stepped into the sprawling space, the architecture light and airy, the glass rooftop dark beneath a black sky, all I could think about was him. Not the Samhain preparations Bjorn and I were neck-deep in, our student council selected and a million meetings scheduled between now and the thirty-first. Not Benedict Hammond and his lingering presence in my life. Not my work. Not the fact that I continued to act like an idiot around Jack Clemonte.
Not that I needed to go, having promised Bjorn a work-free TV night with lots of wine and blood and shit-talking the human dumpster fires on the screen. He had been so down since Saturday, and I just… I wanted to fix it. While I hadn’t pried, something was bothering him way more than that bit of classroom vandalism. He’d gone for a meeting with Jack Saturday night, then dragged himself back to our flat an hour later and disappeared into his bedroom until the following evening.
So not Bjorn. He might not hang out with the rest of the staff like I sometimes did, but if we had downtime, we made the most of it: walks around the grounds, grading papers in the courtyard, dissecting student flirtations in the dining hall—and TV. Lots and lots of TV.
For the last two days, he had drifted around the castle like a ghost, and as his first—and maybe only—roommate, I couldn’t let it go on. I’d already put in an order for a bottle of AB-negative with the kitchen, which they should have been warming to body temperature as of this very moment. Once I was done here, I’d swing down and grab it, go back to the flat and throw on a low-cut top—because every guy liked a bit of cleavage when they were in the dumps—and stream his favorite reality trash.
Whatever it took to boost his mood, I was game.
Clutching a stack of obnoxiously heavy tomes in both arms, I scanned the almost oppressively silent space with a frown. There had to be other librarians I could deal with to get these beauties back where they belonged. Having spent the evening harvesting gourds for the kitchen, soil under my nails and its very distinct smell in my hair, I’d strolled back to the main greenhouse to lock everything up and discovered someone had forgotten all their books on one of the desks.
And rather than have a certain head librarian sniffing around my domain again, here I was returning them, in need of a librarian to set them aside—given the overarching theme, they were probably research material for a spellwork essay—until the student in question came looking for them.
With curfew some ten minutes out, students were scarce, and the few I saw in passing blitzed by with a den mother at their heels, hurrying them along back to the tower before the hour struck. The odd one flashed me a smile, which put a bit of pep in my step; nothing better than when your students actually liked you, rare as it was in a place like Root Rot. To them, we were the enemy, but as the year went on, I had started to grind a few down—kill ’em with kindness and fashionable clothes. In another month or two, they might even be willing to chat with me during their study halls.
One could dream, right?
Empty stacks, empty chairs, empty tables. As the lighting lifted across the entire library like last call at a nightclub, I rooted around until finally stumbling on the information desk in the middle of the vast bookish empire—also empty. Not a librarian in sight, the rolling carts cleared, all the books but mine shelved. Nibbling my lower lip, I plopped the textbooks on top of the round desk, then peered over the counter to the lower tabletop where the librarians sat, a blend of magical and human tech neatly organized and tucked away, shop closed for the night.
As soon as the nine-o’clock bell tolled, its chimes echoing through the castle, I waited for the gonging to end, then reached toward the little bell on the upper counter. I mean, I couldn’t just leave these here with no explanation; someone had taken the time to find them for their coursework instead of using the internet, and it seemed unnecessarily douchey to make them hunt through this maze of shelves and aisles a second time.
Just before I could tap the little copper service bell, however, someone cleared their throat behind me, and at the first hint of masculine musk, the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
“Come to exact a little revenge, fury?”
For fuck’s sake. I closed my eyes and sighed, then rounded in place to find—yup. Head librarian. Ordinarily, this was your guy if you had a book-themed emergency, but Gavriel’s smug handsome face was the last thing I wanted to see. Leaning against the end of a nearby bookshelf, dressed down in a loosened black silk tie, a crisp white button-up with the sleeves jerked to his elbows, then a pair of smoky-grey trousers and shiny leather oxfords, the fae looked good enough to eat—like always. Sporting a bit of coarse stubble, his devilish mouth quirked when our eyes met, and he speared a hand through his hair, ruffling it in that roguish way that made you want to swoop in and finger-comb it back into place.
Ugh. He really knew all the moves, didn’t he?
I raised my eyebrows at him, schooling my features to cool disinterest even as interest made my belly all pleasantly squirmy. While I’d never admit it now, my body still remembered how good he made it feel—just like my mind recalled, in vivid detail, his plundered herbs scattered on the floor at our feet. “What?”
The fae shrugged, eyes twinkling. “I take a little from you, you take a little from—”
“Someone left these in the greenhouse,” I said flatly, beyond annoyed that despite everything, I still found him physically attractive. All wiry muscle and subtle strength and silvery beauty like the gods had forged him out of pure starlight. Double ugh. “I’m just bringing them back.”
“Oh, aren’t you a peach?” Gavriel pushed off the bookshelf and strolled over, hand in his pocket and stride lazy—like he thought I had all the time in the world to wait on him. When he finally lolled up to the information desk, he sniffed dismissively and surveyed the stack of books. Lips pursed, almost bored, he grabbed the pile and set it on the lower area behind the counter, then popped back up, all fiery and alive again as he zeroed in on me. “I’ll see that they find their way back to the student who checked them out.”
“Fantastic.” Thanks for doing your job.
“Good deed done for the night, Alecto.” He curled his tongue around my name like he was tasting it, picking through all the subtle flavors. “Are you sure you’re even worthy of that name, fury? So wholesome—”
Wow, what a poignant sore spot to pick at. Teeth gritted, I stalked off without a parting word, trying—unsuccessfully, at that—to force my brain onto the next task of the night: Bjorn’s preferred AB-negative blood warming in the kitchen, then Operation Trashy TV Cures All. Gavriel, however, seemed determined not to be ignored, his footsteps clicking after me.
“Come on, I’m only joking…” Before I knew it, he hooked a hand around my elbow and hauled me off between a pair of towering bookshelves. Indignant, I whirled around to shove him—maybe even slap him, because as handsome as Gavriel was, that gorgeous face was made for slapping.
He had me pinned to the shelves before I so much as lifted my hand, boxing me in, lording over me by a few extra inches, strong and masterful and ugh.
“We really need to work on your sense of humor, fury,” he rasped, his hips falling to mine a little too easily. I offered him a cutting smile in return, eyes narrowed, and pushed uselessly at his chest.
“And you need to work on not being a dick, fae.”
“Teach me, then, Professor,” Gavriel growled, then slammed his mouth to mine in a kiss that made my treacherous body sing. It descended into madness the instant we touched, lips parted and tongues clashing, all teeth and anger and bitter sharpness. My fingers raked up his chest, his neck, right to that rugged jawline that felt so good cupped between my hands. They yearned to go farther, to twine into his hair and tug just as roughly as he ground me back into the shelves, the wood biting into my shoulders, my hips, but I forced them to still.
Then shoved.
Pushing his face yield
ed better results than his steely chest, and he reared back with a snarl, eyes glinting dangerously, both of us chasing our breath and glowering at each other.
“No,” I hissed, jabbing my elbow between us and really digging it into the bony middle of his rib cage. Gavriel tsked down at me, batting a few wayward curls from my face, his head cocked and his mouth twisted in a sneer that had me seeing red.
“Oh, really, are you still upset about all the herb nonsense?” He cuffed me by the chin, forcing me up onto my toes, then grunted and gripped harder when I pinched ruthlessly at the delicate skin of his underarms. “I’m sorry, Alecto Clarke, for all that I’ve done to offend you. Please forgive me… I’ll never steal from your stores again.”
“Apologies work better when you’re not being a patronizing ass about it,” I shot back, grappling with the hand at my chin, slashing at his forearm—all angular and veiny and corded with muscle. Fuck him for being a gorgeous douchebag. Even his snide grin and the suggestive arch of his eyebrow was hot.
“Is that so?” His jaw clenched when I drove my heel onto his toes, but no amount of stomping or shoving or snarling seemed to make a difference. Gavriel ducked in close, his breath warming my swollen lips, and then snapped at the tip of my nose. “Let me make the proper apologies, then—let me do it right.”
He moved too fast for me to track, ducking down and throwing me across his shoulder in the time it took me to notice he had finally let go of my chin. Dignity shattered, I squealed as he stood with me flopped over his shoulder, legs dangling and knees pummeling his chest. Heat flared painfully in my cheeks when he braced a hand on my upper thigh, my wool stockings useless at masking his touch, and my tartan skirt had the nerve to flutter when he rounded in place and started off down the aisle.
“Oh my gods, Gavriel.” Where was he from—the fucking Caveman Court? Thank goodness curfew was already in effect; if a student saw me like this, skirt hitched up and feet flailing and fists pounding at the head librarian’s annoyingly muscular back, I would never recover. “Put me down!”