Root Rot Academy: Term 1

by Rhea Watson

  Then literally dropped both my pen and my jaw.

  Because…

  Oh.

  Fuck.

  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck I was so screwed.

  Finally she had forgone all the oppressive colors for pure gold. A skintight bodice clung to her torso and cupped her breasts, soft, subtle cleavage spilling over the top of a gown that looked like golden armor—like she was a goddess from an age gone by.

  In that dress, Alecto was Freyja, mistress of magic and love, death and war and unspeakable beauty. It clung to her figure right down to her upper thighs, where the metallic material gave way to flowy tulle that spilled like a waterfall to the floor. Golden bead and pearl embellishments gave the gown depth and texture, swirling around her curves, a veritable homage to the delectable female form…

  “So, uh…” Alecto fidgeted with the paper-thin straps at her shoulders, so much creamy skin on display that it was fucking agony to just sit here and not investigate—to not run my nose along the column of her throat, breathing in her rapid-fire pulse, then drag my tongue over the sharp blade of her collarbone. My flatmate cleared her throat, cheeks flushed, the plume plunging to her chest the longer I gawked, and then smoothed a hand down the gown that fit like a glove, that was fucking made for her. “I branched out a bit with this one. It’s from the Helios Collection.”

  Yes, yes, that was perfect. In that, not only was she a goddess, but Alecto was the sun—at least how I remembered it anyway, golden and warm and breathtakingly vibrant.

  I shot to my feet, work falling to the wayside, TV forgotten, and offered a tiny dumbstruck nod so that my hungry, roving gaze wasn’t so obvious. “Yes—this is the one.”

  “You don’t think it’s a little too…” She crinkled her nose as she gestured to the straps, then her cleavage—as if I wasn’t aware of the delicate, womanly curves peeking over the top of her bodice. “A little too showy?”

  “I…” Fuck, when had anyone ever left me well and truly tongue-tied before? Blinking hard, I forced myself to focus on the details, to be clinical in the way I assessed the gown. Under a more critical eye, it was a bit much for a gala predominantly populated by teenagers. “Maybe it’s a little… ostentatious for a, er, school event.”

  “It comes with a cloak,” she insisted, hitching up the tulle skirt and pivoting around. “Hold on. I thought it was, too, you know, opulent, but maybe it’s just right…”

  Of fucking course her ass looked spectacular.

  This was torture.

  Sheer, unadulterated torture.

  Friend, friend, friend—your only friend, you ancient fuck.

  Right. Many of the friends I’d made over the centuries had either died of old age, met the sun, or disappeared off the face of the Earth—by their own doing or otherwise. For now, Alecto was good for me, and perving on her in a vulnerable moment was a shitty thing for a friend to do.

  The witch hurried back a few moments later draped in a cloak white like cat’s cream with gold trim. It squared off at the shoulders, the fabric rigid for definition, then billowed down to the floor in a pliant brocade. A pearl clasp held it closed at the hollow of her throat, covering her just enough to shield her bits from horny teenaged boys.

  And horny vampires, apparently.

  “That’s perfect, Alecto,” I insisted, the gold and white a complement to her complexion, her eyes—her everything. “It suits you, and, really, if you can’t be opulent on Samhain, when can you?”

  She shrugged. “Yule?”

  Ah, yes. The supernatural community really loved their extravagant rituals. “Well, sure, but that’s months away.”

  Closing in on her, I scrutinized the entire outfit, trying my best to remove her from the equation and just inspect the look. Lovely, really, the way the gown clung to her figure, yet the cloak kept it all appropriate and aboveboard. Jack certainly didn’t need another scandal to his name after Mabon…

  Couldn’t have Alecto and her scrumptious body setting the gossip grapevine on fire. All the busybodies on campus twittered viciously enough already.

  Head cocked, I adjusted the rigid squared-off shoulders, the damask gold stitching impeccable and intricate. With that sorted and the garment hanging better, my hands fell to the cape itself, flaring it and smoothing it and letting it fall so the hem lay flat over the floor.

  Never thought this would be how I’d spend even a fraction of my time at Root Rot, but here we were—a former Viking raider fiddling with a cape so it draped just right.

  “Okay. There we go.” I straightened, pleased with the shape and flow of the material, only to find her right there. Mere inches away. Our bodies hovered in front of each other, the proximity dangerous, like we’d be sucked into orbit with a deep breath and then there was no turning back, no escape. Her amber eyes flicked up to mine, full lips slightly parted with a shocked inhale, and I swore heat touched my dead flesh—caressed the frost, thawing it ever so slightly beneath my jumper, my jeans, my wool socks. Warmth flared between us, sharp enough to coax that frozen heart of mine, only ever beating thrice per minute, into a dance I’d never experienced before.

  Pitter-pattering away, all aflutter.

  Fucked. Absolutely fucked.

  My gaze dropped to her mouth, no longer in the mood to pretend I wasn’t attracted to her—all of her, not just her obvious beauty.

  Alecto returned to reality first, stumbling backward over the cloak and then hurriedly ducking down to lift it—to not look me in the eye anymore. “Uhm.”

  “Right.” I speared my hand through my hair, forcing a few steps back myself.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s…”

  “I think this is the, uh, one,” she managed, bundling the cloak up and holding it in front of her like a bulbous, useless shield. The frost crept back in, spiderwebbing across my flesh the more distance we put between ourselves, a stark reminder that I wasn’t meant for her—for anyone but my own kind, really, my lifestyle too alternative for those without this fucking disease.

  “I don’t think it’s even a question, really.” Every word a chore, I forced a carefree smile and made sure not to linger on anything too salacious. Not her hips. Not her calves through the tulle. And certainly not her mouth. “You’re saying yes to the dress, I guess.”

  Her snort kicked the corners of my lips into a more authentic grin, but then an almost painful silence followed, like we both expected the other to say something. Anything. Facing off, her not retreating into the bedroom like she should and me not flopping back on the couch with work and TV and my favorite red pen like I should, limbo took over.

  And I couldn’t just go back to work.

  Not with my dead heart still racing—relatively, anyway, compared to hers.

  Nor could I sit there and listen to her pulse flutter, pretend that this wasn’t happening to either of us—that we didn’t affect each other more than friends should.

  Don’t fuck up a good thing, Asulf.

  “Did you…” Don’t. Fuck up. A good thing. You cuck. “Did you still want a piece of cake?”

  Alecto blinked back at me, hugging her cloak tighter with a frown. “What?”

  “Cake.” I crossed to the flat’s front door, focused on it like things were business as usual. When we left the dining hall for the committee meeting, Alecto had dramatically bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t grabbed a fat piece of double-chocolate fudge cake that the pastry chefs had whipped up for dessert. “I… I’m… I’m going down to the kitchen anyway, so do you want cake?”

  The question was perfectly reasonable, only it came out as I’mgoingdowntothekitchenanywaysodoyouwantcake?, all hasty and inflected with an accent I’d let go of centuries ago.

  “I’ll grab you a slice,” I said gruffly before she could answer, flinging open the door and flashing a ridiculous smile that only made her frown deepen.

  “Oh.” Alecto shifted her weight back and forth between each leg. “Okay. Uh. Thanks?”

  “Yep, yep, yep, yep, no p
roblem.” The door slam reverberated through the small stone alcove, its crash no doubt carrying all the way to the basement.

  Smooth as silk, Asulf.

  Cursing under my breath, I blitzed down the staircase at full vampiric speed, just a shadowy blur to anyone in passing. Never had I panic-offered a woman cake before, but hopefully Alecto would forget all that nonsense the second double-chocolate fudge touched her tongue.

  Because I for one would never live it down.

  21

  Gavriel

  Fruity tobacco smoke in my lungs and a gut full of roast pheasant, I ambled down the dusty stone stairwell, dried fallen leaves crunching with every step, surrounded by other latecomers on the way to the last football match of the season. Chattering students and their den mother escorts whizzed by to snag the few remaining seats in the stands on either side of the athletic field. While the Samhain festivities were still two weeks out and were, in general, the talk of the school, this grudge match between the two best co-ed teams in the league was all I’d heard any of the little urchins discuss today.

  While various supernatural communities had their own sports that catered to their specific abilities, Jack had introduced human-centric sport leagues back when he’d first started. Nonexclusionary, he had insisted, because no super really knew how to play football or kickball or baseball or whatever, which meant everyone was on an even playing field.

  Personally, I’d rather watch shifters beat the holy hell out of each other, their games driven purely by strength and their competitive drive to be alpha, but hey, this was what we had. Teams had formed within the first week of term, all ages welcome so long as there were seven players and at least one was female. Since then, there had been a match every other week, weeding out the weak and leaving only the strong to battle for term championship.

  Always after sunset, these matches, to allow the miniscule vampire population to play or attend as spectators. None of them did—none save Bjorn, who I noted was in his usual spot near the far end of one of the stands. Bottom bench. Left corner. Space all around him.

  If he were a warlock with those crisp Scandinavian good looks, schoolgirls would have flocked to him. Instead, nocturnal and bloodthirsty, he sat alone, handsomeness counting for nothing.

  Having left the dining hall late to make the most of the wine and pheasant on offer, the game was already underway by the time I arrived. Pleasantly warm on the inside, I tucked my chin down against the wind, wishing I’d thrown on a scarf, and took the long way around the field to grab a seat next to Bjorn.

  Spotting a special someone along the way.

  Seated with the other females in her clique, Lucy Eastwick was once again on the outskirts, nearly falling off the side of the bleachers while her faux friends cheered. The king of the fourth-year cool kids wore a blue jersey, wolf shifter Leroy captain of his team and fiercely competitive. Lucy watched him with stars in her eyes, clapping and swooning as soon as he stole the black-and-white checkered ball and punted it halfway across the field to another player. I lingered behind his team’s goalposts, waiting, staring at her intently until she eventually felt that little prickle on the back of her neck.

  The witch glanced my way after about a minute, her cheeks, pink from the cold, suddenly turning a rich maroon under my attention.

  She might have been infatuated with Leroy—despite his very publicly taken status with her group’s queen bee—but she blushed whenever we spoke in the shadows. The seduction had begun; it had barely taken any effort to get her to admit to casting the Mabon serpents, and I swore to keep her secret for as long as I lived. And she believed me. Just like that.

  For now, I’d dangle her on the end of my string, fattening up her confidence, her self-esteem, until she was ready to hear that after Root Rot—or whichever institution she was sent to when her sentence here expired—the only suitable postsecondary school for her impressive skills was Darkwell Academy.

  Lucifer’s academy.

  She had the raw talent and was relatively pliant now. Once she blossomed into a swan and grew a backbone, Lucy Eastwick would be just the type of young super the fallen angel desired to join his dark ranks on Earth.

  And then I was one step closer to all I had ever desired in my own life.

  Power, prestige, and a fucking position in the Ash Court.

  I’d tried going about it honorably in an age gone by. Paid my dues. Shed my blood for king and court.

  Pointless.

  Dumping the charred remnants of my pipe onto the grass, I left Lucy to her desperate attempts to fit in with the popular crowd and carried on around the field to Bjorn’s bleachers. From the colors of the waving flags, the poster boards with ridiculous slogans on them eyed by disapproving den mothers, Bjorn’s side favored the team in the gold jerseys.

  I didn’t give a shit about, either, honestly, but, a little tipsy, the sedative effects of my pipe finally kicking in, sitting out here in a crowd felt better than slumming it alone in my office for the evening.

  Again.

  Slapping at the vampire’s bicep, hard as marble and no doubt perfectly chiseled under all that tweed, I waited until he shuffled over, then took a seat at the bench’s edge.

  “How are we doing?” I asked, tucking my pipe into my black coat’s pocket. Bjorn snorted, elbows on his generously spread knees, hands loosely threaded together as his keen gaze tracked the ball.

  “A thrilling zero to zero.”

  Typical. “Five quid on blue.”

  The vampire glanced my way, his icy blues shimmering with the enchanted spotlights floating around the field.

  “I’ll take that action,” he rumbled a beat later. We shook on it, his skin frosty and his grip firm, then resumed watching the match in an amicable silence. Unlike many of the other Root Rot staff, neither of us felt the need to fill quiet with pointless chatter. Besides, there was enough of a racket going on already: screaming students and admonishing den mothers and the odd professor who looked rosy in the face from tonight’s wine selection. Needing to keep my fingers busy, I pulled out my pipe again just to fiddle with, caressing the onyx, tracing the intricate fire pattern stamped into the round bowl.

  Across the field, I spotted her: the only witch at Root Rot Academy who had ever given me blue balls. Women in the past had eventually gotten wise to my game of fuck ’em and then leave ’em, but if I bothered to come back for more, they gave in. Always. Alecto had gotten me all worked up, filled my mind with wicked wants, then left me high and dry with a warning.

  At some point, I would have to return the favor. My eyes narrowed as I drank her in through the blue and gold blurs on the field. Seated in the middle of the stands, surrounded by students, she leaned over to speak to the new girl—the useless one who couldn’t cast. Couldn’t access her magic at all. Quite the travesty life had dealt little Alice Jameson, another awkward teen who had gone from burgeoning socialite to undesirable outcast because she couldn’t do the one thing she had been born to do.

  Pity.

  Shouts and cries erupted from the stands, and I abandoned Alecto for the chaos on the field—Leroy and the other team captain were suddenly beating the absolute shit out of each other. Lovely.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Bjorn grumbled, shooting up and blitzing toward the scuffle. I tailed after him—more for something to do than a desire to separate the two warring shifters, pups who wanted to be alpha but were so far from the title it was laughable.

  Really though, Root Rot ought to invest in vampire security for the night shift; while the warlocks who patrolled the grounds could end a squabble or catch a wayward student with magic, Bjorn and I were just innately faster.

  And physically stronger.

  Although I kept my wings hidden in this realm, tucked away comfortably inside until I called on them, I still possessed their speed. Bjorn was the only one here who could keep pace with me, and we were on the pair in a flash.

  While Bjorn went for Leroy, wrenching him back just as he dragged th
e gold team’s captain into a headlock, I grabbed the bloodied young bear shifter by his jersey’s stretchy sleeve, then shoved him in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, their sparring had encouraged the rest of the lot to throw down: pairs and groups tussled all around us, teeth bared and magic crackling. Security charged the pitch, and I called it a day.

  I mean, I’d done my part—broken up the instigators. Distantly, Jack’s booming voice called for order, but it was the sneer whispered far closer that caught my attention.

  “Get your filthy hands off me, leech.”

  I whirled around just in time to catch Leroy spit at Bjorn’s feet, features twisted into such hate, such disgust, that it almost impressed me.

  But fuck him. Bjorn was worth ten of this little wolf shit.

  Before the vampire could say a word, we three surrounded by rage and fists and furious bursts of magic, the stands slowly draining so it didn’t become an academy-wide brawl, I cuffed Leroy by the back of the neck.

  Hard.

  Nails and all.

  “Mind your tongue, dog,” I raged in his ear, wrenching him away from Bjorn and manhandling him like all his shifter strength meant nothing. “You rank slightly above the dirt on my boots in the grand scheme of things.”

  Blazing yellow eyes snapped up at me, Leroy’s inner wolf charging to the surface and ready to rip me apart—or try to, anyway. With a smirk, I shoved him toward a pair of nearby security officers. Bjorn and I were hardly the best of friends, but I liked him—liked the fact that he seemed to like me for me and not my forced charm—and had never understood all the vampire hate in this realm’s supernatural community.

  And, frankly, that fourth-year pup was getting just a little too big for his britches lately.