by Rae Foxx
I almost gagged, my stomach twisting violently with every word. The class, however, laughed. Scarlet covered her mouth with her hand as she sighed exaggeratingly.
Saenger cleared his throat. “Well, that was graphic and specific. Thank you, Evan.”
“No problem, Teach.” He leaned back, weaving his fingers behind his head and earning himself more snickers.
“We don’t know exactly how the wolf inside Oberion killed Kalensa. But yes, I suppose that is how wolves take down prey. What can we learn from this?”
A kid with reddish hair and an ill-fitting uniform shirt spoke up, “Don’t mess with magic or witches?”
Saenger’s cheeks colored again. “I suppose that is something close to the truth. So what happened next in this saga?”
No one volunteered this time and I slunk down in my seat to make sure he didn’t call on me.
“Well, come on now.” He paced the classroom, dark beady eyes staring us down as he continually slammed his walking stick against the wood floor. “Think! If Oberion killed his wife, how did we get here?” He was met with silence again. I was starting to wish that the desk would swallow me whole.
“If none of you vagrants have the answer, then perhaps you will know this one.” His dark eyes fixed right into mine and I about fell out of my chair. “How did mating used to occur? How did our kind find their mates in the generations before?”
“That one’s easy,” Evan spoke up, throwing his feet on the desk, hands still behind his head. “On a bed, against the wall, in the back of a car, anyplace a shifter can find himself a kitty cat. If you catch my drift.” The class erupted in laughter, more than one student going as red as Saenger now was. Evan even got a high-five from his friend in the next seat, Saenger looked ready to explode.
“Perhaps I should’ve been more specific with the bundle of hormones pulsating through your mortal forms. In the beginnings of our kind, how did a wolf shifter or any shifter find their mate, their life companion, the other half to their soul? Come now! Answer!”
Evan lifted his hand again. “Your inner animal lets you know once you had scented them, there is a quickening and a connection of souls. Different animals assume that in different ways. Feline’s like me are connected through the beats of our hearts. Foxes and rabbits go all fuck happy and wolves hear each--”
“That’s quite enough.” Saenger snapped his cane again, giving Evan a warning look. The cocky kitty only winked at him, breaking everyone out into more giggles. “When we stick to facts, we understand that Oberion found his mate…” The man was fishing but it was more like pulling teeth. “Francesca through this bond. Together they had twenty-four children. Through their lineage, all animal shifters began.”
“Must’ve been like fucking a bucket of water after all those kids coming out of her,” Evan half-whispered to everyone around him, while he threw me a look at me and winked.
Ugh. He better not be trying to impress me again, because it sure wasn’t working.
The teacher, finally giving in to the immaturity in the room, sat on his desk and let his shoulder fall. “Oberion, some say, is still alive. That the bonding of his soul to the wolf turned him immortal and he still lives, mating, breeding, and spreading the seed of the first. This is why there are so many different kinds of shifters; between the depleted stability of our shifting lines and the many mutations that have been witnessed in generations passed, species intermating was forbidden. Since then those lines have been repaired and all supernatural beings have gone back to only being able to bond with their own kind and in respect for the traditions set up from the beginning.”
He sounded like he was reciting something out of a textbook, but I didn’t care. I was sitting up, staring at him. He had said it used to be possible, he said things were repaired. So, either I was a walking talking enigma, or something was wrong with me.
Either way, he had the answers I needed.
“Why is it dangerous for magics to mix?” I asked, forgetting to raise my hand.
Yes, I was thinking of the book. I managed not to blush that time, I was doubly proud of that considering I was having Evan level snickers.
Mr. Saenger shifted his weight as he sighed, the poor guy was so uncomfortable. I knew I should feel bad for him, but he had the answers I needed and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity.
His cheeks reddened and he cleared his throat before speaking. “When magics mix, our bloodlines are weakened or depleted. That is, of course, if magic could mix at all. Which it can’t. A shifter and a fae’s souls will blend about as well as oil and water.”
I had a feeling he made that shit up, didn’t help that he was now awkwardly laughing at his own joke.
He was the only one.
“But if there are no children produced? Or no bonding? What’s the harm?”
Mr. Saenger was now turning a dangerous shade of red. “It is not possible, Ms. Potter. Your magic will blend with no one else but a shifter, well and a human, but only because you were birthed from a weak mortal. Your bloodline is already watered down beyond repair.”
I could nearly feel the students around me shift away from me. If he thought that public shaming was going to make me back down, he had another thing coming.
“Oh, please. Me and my watered-down bloodline can spread my legs as well as any other female in here. You’ve got to give me something better than the boogeyman. I’m not asking about busting out a million kids. I’m talking about sex.”
“I’ll talk about sex with you anytime,” Evan said from behind me. I didn’t turn, I did, however, flip an obscene gesture at him that got me more giggles.
“There is no sex without mating, Ms. Potter. Your wolf decides and no other. It is for that reason that this is a non-issue.”
“Spoken like a two-hundred-year-old man,” Evan piped up, cueing more laughter.
“So, my wolf will freak out if I try to have sex with anyone else but my mate?” It was similar to something Scarlet had said before. Watching Mr. Saenger nod yes, feeling my wolf purr contentedly at the thought of Finn, the vampire, the voice, and I was very aware of how fucked I was.
Literally.
“In many instances, the animal will emerge and kill the would-be defiler--” Mr. Saenger was cut off as the bell rang with a loud abrasive sound that made everyone jump. “More on Thursday. Please read your chapters and be ready for a maybe not so surprise quiz on Friday.”
I wrote down ‘QUIZ’ in big letters at the top of my notebook and stuffed it into my bag before darting out of the room.
Well, almost.
“Ivy, may I speak to you, please?”
I froze in my tracks. Saenger wasn’t even looking at me, that was a good sign.
“Sure.” Scarlet walked past me like she had glue on her shoes, eyeing me the entire way to the hall. I had a feeling she was on the other side of the doorframe, too.
He saddled up to me and if I didn’t know better was using my body as a shield so that no one could read his lips to see what he was about to say. “There are books on this subject in the library. There is no need to put on such a show.”
“Umm… okay…” he didn’t want to know what kind of books I had found in the library. But if he was going to refer me to them, I guess I better dig deeper.
The answer had to be in there somewhere.
“Now, leave.” I didn’t second guess, I high-tailed it out of there.
“What in the world was that about?” Scarlet hissed the second I exited the class. I looped my arm through hers and pulled her as far away from any immortal eyes as I could.
“I have something to tell you.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m pretty sure I’m mated to a fucking Fae.”
Chapter 15
Scarlet stopped dead in the flow of people, turning us into a dam and the recipients of a dozen shoulders and elbows slammed against us. She turned to me as though her head was on a string, her eyes wide.
“Are you okay? All I said was--” Her h
and was over my mouth before I could get another word out.
“I know what you said, I’m a fox, remember? I have excellent hearing.” Her nostrils were flaring, I wondered if heightened scent was included in her fox skills. “That said, you couldn’t have said what I thought you did.”
“I said--” She gave me another glare and I snapped my mouth shut.
“Come on, Ivy.” Her hand wrapped around my wrist as she towed me away, but not toward Mr. Caruthers class, toward our dorm.
“Scarlet, you are going the wrong way. Mr. Caruthers will have our hides if we are late.”
“If what you said is true, we have bigger problems than soothing an old man's ego.”
We had barely made it into our room, before Scarlet was pacing, staring at me wide-eyed while she chugged water from her bright red water bottle.
Poor Scarlet, I’d driven her to drink.
“I might have had too much charmed coffee this morning, but I swear you told me that you are mated to a Fae.”
“No, I said I’m pretty sure I’m mated to a fucking Fae.” I must have been too casual about the whole thing because Scarlet looked ready to spit fire or blow steam, or whatever it was fox shifters did.
“Please tell me you’re fucking joking. We have one big rule, Ivy. I know you know what it is because you have asked me about it at least five times… which is suddenly starting to make a lot of sense.” She went from pissed to gobsmacked as she sighed and sank onto her bed, staring into the abyss that I had opened up right before her.
I kicked off my shoes and threw myself back on my bed. If she was going to be comatose, I might as well get myself comfortable.
“Let me know when you return to civilization because I have more issues than the golden-haired Fae god I fucked.”
“You fucked him?” That pulled her out of stupor. Scarlet was up, across the room and hovering over me in no time flat.
“Yes. Well, he more like fucked me.”
“Where? When?” She had begun to pace again.
“Well aren’t you the little prude?”
“Not a prude,” she snapped, rounding on me, a fire in her eyes. “But this is a big, big problem. I’m surprised your wolf didn’t break out and kill the dude.”
“Which is exactly why I’m pretty sure I’m mated to him. Well, that and he told me. Point blank too. Not like the vampire, he was going off on blood-sucking and fucking and--”
“Vampire?” Scarlet shrieked so loud the windows rattled.
“I told you I had bigger problems than Finn.” I sunk back on the bed again. Everything from my knees to my navel pulling taut from just saying his name.
I couldn’t help it, I moaned and promptly crossed my legs, lest Scarlet and her super scent got a whiff of something.
“Wait. Finn? Finn Archer? The prince of the Fae and ultimate Fae god with his flowing golden hair and blue eyes and...” She stuttered to a stop; a fresh blossom of red painted her cheeks.
“You know him?”
“Good god, you sure can pick ‘em. Finn is like choice meat in the Fae-world. He’s a direct descendant of the first king of their kind. He’s all eternal and shit too. My first year, two Fae got expelled for trying to seduce him with a potion. And he picked you?”
“He picked me.” Why did those words feel like they came from a fifty-pound weight in the middle of my gut?
“So, he told you he’s your mate?”
“While he was fucking me against a tree.” That weight was getting heavier and heavier.
“So, how did you do that? I mean… did he ask… or was there some kind of ceremony?”
I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees. “Scarlet, are you asking how exactly I fucked a Fae? Shame on you. I mean, if you need some material for your extended bathroom time and that dildo you have hidden under the sink,” she widened her eyes. Yep, I had found that day two. “I’m sure we could find a playboy…” I wasn’t about to reveal the graphic paranormal porn collection to her quite yet. “I’m not going to give you details.”
A noise came from her throat. “No! I’m just asking if he bit you or drank your blood, or spit on you or something… I’m not sure of Fae mating ceremony entails. I mean if he fucked you…”
“Then we are mated--fully and completely.”
The pacing had officially returned. Back and forth from one wall to the other she walked methodically, looking like a fox in a trap as her sharp eyes darted around the room. Once in a while she’d stop and look at me and shake her head or snicker and then resume the pacing.
“So… when you say drinking blood…” I started, her movements starting to make me agitated.
“It’s the mating ritual of a vampire…” She waved her hand to the side before her pacing stalled as though she had run into a wall.
“That’s what the vampire wanted,” I confessed and fully expected my friend to pass out cold. A knock at our door had us both turning toward the sound and I sprang to my feet.
“I swear to God Ivy, that better not be some damned Warlock coming to claim his slice of the pussy buffet I’m sharing a dorm with.”
“Gee, thanks, Scarlet,” I mumbled, pulling myself up to answer the door, but she waved me down.
“Oh no, this one's mine. If we are fucking anything that walks, I want in.” She threw the door open, revealing not a Warlock, but a golden-haired god who peered into the room with blue eyes that immediately sucked any oxygen from the room.
“You must be Ivy’s roommate, Scarlet. I am Finn Archer,” He said in that same buttery voice he had when he was holding me against the tree. Holding his hand out to my friend whose jaw was now swinging two inches too low, like a broken hinge.
“Finn?” I asked, finally recovering enough breath to get my ass off the bed. Although that may be more from the liquid gold line that was pulling me toward him. “What are you doing here?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close, plastering me against him. Leaning in, his warm breath fanned over my neck as his lips grazed my skin, trailing his lips over my jaw... my mouth...
It was a good thing he was holding me against him, because my knees shook, ready to give out.
Well, they were until Scarlet cleared her throat. Oh, she was still here.
“Finn, Scarlet. Scarlet, Finn.” I mumbled, needing something to say although I was well aware he had already introduced himself.
My Fae mate did some kind of twisted bow thing and Scarlet finally fixed the hinge in her jaw, blushing until she was almost the same color as her hair.
Finn could charm every soul in existence.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again, content that Scarlet was breathing.
“You thought of me, honeybee, and I came to you. I followed my name on your lips, so that I may kiss it off them.”
Which he did. We would have gone right back into a near bump-n-grind scenario if Scarlet hadn’t coughed. She had recovered enough to give us some gnarly side-eye.
“While watching the tongue gymnastics is, like, super sweet and all. I think we have a bigger problem. A Fae and Shifter can’t mate, so maybe you should confess that you won a bet to do the new girl or something,” Scarlet’s sass cut right through me, but I didn’t blame her. She was groomed to believe that Finn and I being mates was beyond the possibilities--and almost against nature.
“There was no bet of this, I can promise you,” Finn began, his hand winding around my back and twisting its way into my shirt. “I didn't even know she was a shifter until I saw her great wolf, but many Fae can also shift into the form of an animal, so I am not sure if Ivy is just a shifter as you say. I can tell you that we are, in fact, mated, that her magic has tangled with mine. It was how I heard her call. How I came here now.”
“Magic?” Scarlet was squealing like a baby kitten now. “Shit. I need a drink.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I mumbled, hearing him say I had magic wasn’t about to get any easier. Especially now that I was starting to th
ink I could feel it.
“Sit down, fairy boy, because Ivy here was about tell me about the Vampire that wants to suck her blood.” Finn stiffened, his hand tightening around my waist. “I have a feeling you don’t know that half of what your mate has been up to.” Scarlet spat, sinking into her bed.
“Not a fairy. Fae. Big difference.” Finn said, his smile faltering as he sank onto my bed, taking me right down with him. “What is going on, honeybee?”
“Yesterday while Howl was getting his dick sucked in the stacks in exchange for favors,” I had no idea why I chose to include that piece of information, it kind of slipped out. Both of them looked like they were about to pass out. Although Finn’s expression might have been more from trying to hide a grin.
“Excuse me,” Scarlet choked out, leaning forward like I was about to dish the juiciest gossip. As if being mated to a Fae wasn’t big enough.
I rolled my eyes. “Nothing. It’s unimportant. Anyway, while I was in the stacks a vampire appeared out of nowhere and decided to get all handsy and say he was going to claim me and shit. Didn’t help that the wolf in my head was all growly and territorial…”
“Are you fucking with me?” Scarlet interrupted, jumping to her feet. “You have this guy as a mate and Selene certainly thinks you’re after Howl and now you're doing a vamp in the stacks?”
“I’m not doing a vamp in the stacks,” I interrupted trying to jump off Finn’s lap, the guy wouldn’t let me move. “Besides, I’m already mated to Finn, how could I be ‘doing’ anyone else?”
“Fae are loyal to their mates,” Finn said, his fingers tip-toeing over the lines of my spine. “With such a long life many other lovers may spend their entire lives with one or both parties. You are welcome to be loved by more than just me, honeybee. As long as you’re mine, you don’t have to be only mine.”
“God above,” Scarlet continued, ignoring my momentary panic. “I can’t even get a date and you’ve got every guy flocking to you like...like...”
“You better not say a wanton lady.”
“Ivy you’re doing a Fae, making plans for a vamp to feed on you and both your Fae mate and your wolf could care less.” Scarlet threw her hands in the air and plopped back down on her bed.