Francesca just stood there, giving me this evil grin. “Just like old times, eh? Don’t hold back.”
That was the rub. I knew how she fought, and she knew how I fought. She’d know if I was holding back or let her win. She’d never speak to me again if I threw a fight, even if it made her life here easier. I’d get more respect from her if I knocked her out cold, if I could even manage that. I had the size advantage, but she had me beat at speed. This demonstration was probably going to go on for hours until we passed out from exhaustion.
I was still trying to figure out how to settle this the best way when Francesca just exploded at me. I brought my staff up to block her, and she dropped in an instant to sweep my feet from underneath me when I was still off-balance. Oh, it was on now. My blood was pumping, and I realized how much I missed sparring with her. It was different now that we were older. Exciting in a different way. My cock was hard this time.
I quickly rolled out the way when she went to pounce again. I grabbed her ankle and yanked. She landed on her back next to me as the wind was knocked out of her chest. We both rolled away from each other and scrambled to our feet. We were tied. She got me on my back, and I got her on hers. Now, one of us needed to land a blow.
We were both grinning like total idiots as we circled each other with our staff in the defensive position. We were waiting for the best moment to strike. Why had we stopped sparring with the staff after she chose the sword? This was amazing. I wasn’t thinking about what was going to happen if one of us lost. I was just thinking about how beautiful she looked when her green skin had a pink flush to it, and she had that look on her face like she wanted to eat me alive.
I wanted to do something evil to that professor for pairing us up, and now I definitely wanted to do it when he stopped us before we’d hardly gotten started. He stepped between us before either of us had landed a blow. What was his game? What was the point of any of this?
“That’s enough, the two of you. The staff is the first weapon a Sentinel learns before they start other weapons and pick their weapon of choice. Francesca, what is your chosen weapon?”
“A sword, sir.”
“Saffron, what is your chosen weapon?”
“A bow, sir.”
“Your cousin has given us a demonstration with the staff. Grab a bow and show us what you can do.”
I was glad he included Saffron in this. Saffron might have been young and still working on her confidence, but the one thing she would actually brag about if you could get her to was her ability with a bow. The girl could hit anything she wanted, dead on.
Saffron held her head high as she grabbed a bow. She pulled an apple from breakfast out of her pocket. She didn’t even have to tell us what she intended, and any one of us would have volunteered. Oprix stepped forward with a grin and grabbed the apple.
“Do you want it on my head or in my mouth?”
“In your mouth.”
Everyone was whispering about how Oprix must be totally insane, especially when Saffron just kept walking away from him. She was a good distance away when she turned to face Oprix. He was just standing there calmly with his hands behind his back and the apple in his mouth.
All the Munchkins had their hands over their eyes, whispering about how all the Witches of the East were evil murderers, and they couldn’t watch. Even Dorothy had her hands over her eyes.
Professor Ixius wasn’t having any of it. “Anyone who doesn’t watch the demonstration can leave this school. Being a Sentinel is not about making cute potions. You have to know how to fight, and sometimes you have to kill. You have to be able to negotiate and talk through problems. You have to trust that the other Sentinels have your back. Oprix trusts Saffron’s ability with the bow enough to stand there with his hands behind his back, so you will all stand there and watch her shoot, or you can walk out that door and never come back.”
This school seemed to be mostly Munchkins and Quadlings. Two Munchkins just walked out, and I hoped that didn’t do anything to Saffron’s confidence. I looked at her, and I didn’t think it did. She just raised her chin proudly and notched her arrow. She waited until all eyes were on her and let it fly.
Everyone gasped as the arrow released, but it did exactly what I knew it would. It struck the apple in Oprix’s mouth and didn’t do him any harm. Oprix just calmly took the apple out of his mouth and walked over to Saffron to sling his arm around her shoulder. He looked dead at the Munchkins and Dorothy.
“Saffron wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
All of the demonstrations and speeches took up the entire fight training class, so I didn’t know if we’d be expected to help teach the class like Saffron and Francesca were in the potions class. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind being asked. Going through basic staff lessons again was going to be mind-numbingly boring, and I was already having enough trouble trying not to do something that would get me kicked out of this school.
We were dismissed and told to go to this hall to eat lunch. I was starving, and honestly, I was dying to know which version of Oz history Glinda intended to teach tomorrow—the real history or the spelled one everyone believed.
Chapter 12
Frankie
I
would have preferred eating lunch back in our rooms, but they expected us to eat with the other students. Honestly, I was about to punch every single Munchkin at this academy. It wasn’t just Dorothy and her comments. The Munchkins were and had been treating my cousin like garbage. Saffron would never stand up to them, but I would. Saffron lost her mother when she needed her the most, and she’d been on her own too long. She’d been hiding from the Munchkins and didn’t know how to stand up to bullies because all she did was hide. I still wish she would have taken me up on living with me in the West. She was with me now, and that was all that mattered.
We took a table in the dining hall after we got our food. I tried to sit as far away from Dorothy Gale as possible, but she took the center table and was surrounded by adoring Munchkins. If they could be any louder, you wouldn’t be able to hear any other conversation in the dining hall. There was this little black dog with them, and it kept making strange, offensive noises. It wasn’t talking like the other dogs in Oz. It seemed to be a stupid dog and just kept yelling. Why was I not surprised Dorothy kept a dumb dog with her?
The little dog kept running around the table, making noises as everyone dropped food to it. Why was he not sitting at the table with a plate like a civilized dog? This dog had just about the same manners as Dorothy did, just running around and being rude.
I decided to just ignore Dorothy and her little dog too. The more I listened to the Munchkins kissing her ass, the angrier I got. I decided to just focus on my friends. I was shocked when the Quadling girl and her brother that I helped in potions joined us at our table like we weren’t total outcasts at this school. I was shocked when she asked me for help, but it was almost like the world was ending that she sat with us.
They both gave all of us friendly smiles. “We weren’t introduced when you were helping us. My name is Emari, and this is my twin brother, Emarus. Something is not adding up here, and we hoped to just ask you about it and be friends.”
She had been kind to me when I helped her. No one had been kind to me except the people I kept close to me since everyone forgot the Sentinels and turned on my mother. There was a part of me that thought this was a trick, but there was a huge part of me that just wanted this Quadling girl and her brother to be my friend. I had so few of those now.
“You know who our mothers are, right?” I said.
“I know who everyone says your mothers are. But if we are here to be Sentinels and there’s a training manual you already know, then I have a lot of questions about what everyone thought about your mothers. We were told the Sentinels would protect Oz. You already seem to know how. We aren’t stupid. Everyone else might be ready to throw you to the wolves and thought one of you was going to murder the Winkie boy with that arrow, but if you were going to kill us,
you would have done it already. Which begs the question of why there seems to already be Sentinel training when Sentinels don’t exist, but you know it.”
Huh. If Emari and Emarus were starting to question this, maybe everyone else here would too. I had been wondering why all my professors were asking Saffron and me to practically teach their classes for them. Was that Glinda’s intent the entire time? To use Saffron and me to get them asking questions? I didn’t mind being used if it got people to open their minds to the possibility my mother and Adora weren’t Wicked Witches.
I didn’t care if Dorothy and every Munchkin in the dining hall heard me. It was doubtful. That damned dog was still making that shrieking noise so the Munchkins would drop it food. I’d shout over that yappy little thing that preferred yelling over just asking for food to say what I’d wanted to say to someone anyone for the longest time.
“Sentinels have existed in Oz for hundreds of years. My mother and who you know as the Wicked Witch of the East were both Sentinels. Glinda is the Sentinel of the South, and Locasta is the Sentinel of the North. When the Wizard arrived in his balloon, he disposed of the ruler of Oz and summoned all four Sentinels. They could tell he wasn’t a real wizard. He had no magic, but they couldn’t figure out how he managed to get here. He wasn’t a Quadling, Winkie, Gillikin, or Munchkin. He didn’t belong in Oz, but he was now ruling Emerald city.
“He wanted the Sentinels to do things they didn’t agree with. The Sentinels have always just balanced the four points and stepped in if magic was being used or Oz was in real danger. The Wizard had all these rules he wanted the Sentinels to enforce, and that was not their job.
“I was just a child then, but I know the Sentinels were making some sort of plan to overthrow the Wizard and get him out of Oz. They could feel strong magic being cast over all of Oz. My mother was in the West, and Adora was in the East. It was the kind of magic that the four Sentinels couldn’t fight separately. They were only strong enough to counter it together.
“By the time my mother got to Adora in the East, all of Oz had turned on them. Whatever the spell was, it had turned my mother and my aunt from Sentinels of the West and East to the Wicked Witches. They thought it was the same in the North and South, but Locasta and Glinda had been dubbed Good Witches. The four Sentinels no longer trusted each other to work together. Someone powerful had cast that spell, and two of the Sentinels got cushy positions and loved by their people.”
Emari just nodded like she was taking this all in. “Is that why you wear black instead of white like the rest of the witches? You wear black, and Saffron likes a lot of colors. All of the other sorcerers I know wear white. Everyone knows this.”
“That was a rule he imposed, so everyone knew who had magic and who didn’t. Glinda and Locasta fell in line and wore white like the Wizard wanted, but my mother and Adora never did. It’s demeaning, being told you have to wear a certain color to announce what you can do because a man feels threatened by you. I don’t do it. White makes my ass look big.”
Idris squeezed my hand. I hadn’t forgotten how exciting sparring with him was. We were going to have to do that again.
“I happen to like your ass.”
Emari looked totally confused Idris was hitting on me. I didn’t blame her. She was looking at a seven-foot-tall winged monkey.
“Can you keep a secret?” I asked, leaning in.
“Bigger than what you just told me?”
“My mother was trying to break the curse on the Flying Monkeys, so they aren’t slaves to that cap anymore. She was trying something different on the cap one night. It didn’t break the curse, but now all of the Flying Monkeys can shift into men if they like. We’re keeping that a secret while they are still slaves. Glinda still has the cap, even though she promised to give it to Idris’ father. I’m trying to get it back so I can continue my mother’s work.”
Emarus hadn’t spoken much. He was pretty quiet when I helped them with their potion. “Glinda has always been good and fair to the Quadlings and the South. She helped our mother when she was sick, with no questions asked. She doesn’t strike me as someone who would cast that kind of spell and work with the Wizard, but if she’s a Sentinel, why would she make this school to replace herself? If it was magic that caused all this trouble, why did she let those Munchkin troublemakers in to learn magic?”
Saffron finally spoke, and I was shocked. She never spoke to strangers anymore. Saffron trusted people even less than I did. The Winkies in the West left me alone after my mother died. They told me they would only hunt me down and kill me if I proved to be just as wicked as my mother. The Munchkins didn’t give Saffron that option. They stormed her house right after Locasta sent Dorothy down the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wizard intent on murdering Saffron.
Saffron had just been a kid. She hadn’t even heard about her mom yet. She basically heard her mother was dead right when a mob of Munchkins showed up to kill her. My mother hadn’t heard about it either or she would have come to get Saffron. Saffron ran and went into hiding. My mother was still trying to find her when she was murdered.
“Glinda is up to something, but we don’t know whose side she is on. Locasta is the weakest Sentinel. She’s not strong enough to cast that kind of spell on her own. Locasta was the one who sent Dorothy to the Wizard and told her to take my mother’s shoes off her corpse. I don’t trust Locasta or Glinda. Locasta is being kept in the dark about this school. Haven’t you noticed there are no Gillikin students here? Glinda got me a Gillikin tutor, and I intend to find out a little more about what’s going on.”
Emari shrugged. “We are in Glinda’s history class tomorrow. We can ask questions the other students won’t ask. It’ll sound better to them coming from us than it will from you because of that spell. Let Glinda teach whatever version of history she wants. Emarus and I will ask her some questions that should have even those Munchkins asking questions.”
Huh. I had allies now. I thought it would be Saffron, Oprix, Idris, and I against the entire school. It had always been that way with us, whether we were in the West or the East. It was nice. Maybe eventually, I could call them friends too. I was in short supply of those.
“I have a tutoring session after dinner, but I don’t suppose the two of you want to come to our rooms and hang out afterwards, do you?” I asked.
Emari just smiled at me. “We’d love it.”
Saffron hid her face with her hair, but I saw her smiling. I was going to get my cousin out of her shell if it killed me. Even if it took decades to fix Oz, I was fixing what Dorothy and those Munchkins had done to my cousin.
Chapter 13
Daxar
I
t was so irresponsible. Glinda had always trusted me. My family used to govern the South before the Wizard crowned himself the supreme ruler of Oz and made my family step down. We used to make decisions with Glinda’s advice. After that big spell, Glinda told me the truth about the Sentinels, and I believed her because I knew her to be good. She made me her advisor, even though my family wasn’t in power anymore, and we made the South a good place.
She trusted me to run this school just like I helped her with the South, but all I could think about was the beautiful girl with green skin and purple hair that was coming in for private lessons. She defied me. She challenged me. She couldn’t be tamed. I still wanted to take her over my knee and try. I wanted my palm to sting as it made contact with that curvy little backside of hers.
And I knew it was totally wrong. The girl had been through a lot, and she had a job to do. All I could actually remember was that the future of Oz could lie on her shoulders and that she needed to complete her training. She’d mastered most of it. She’d missed the hard lesson that came at seventeen, and it showed. It was why she intrigued me so.
She had a big lesson left to master, and what she’d been through was going to make it hard on her. Especially since I had to tackle her to stop her from cursing Dorothy Gale. Dorothy Gale and her little Munchkin herd should h
ave been in my office getting a lecture about bullying Francesca and Saffron. Saffron looked like she couldn’t even handle a stern look, much less what I thought they intended to throw at her.
I’d flat out been told Dorothy Gale was off-limits. I didn’t agree with it, and I normally agreed with everything Glinda did. I secretly thought Glinda wanted Dorothy bullying Francesca and Saffron because the lesson I was to be teaching Francesca was mastering her emotions so she could be calm in any and every situation.
I thought Glinda wanted Dorothy poking and prodding Francesca so she would learn this faster. Glinda seemed to be forgetting what Dorothy had done to Francesca’s mother. Dorothy couldn’t help her house falling on Adora if she came here in a storm, but she could tell her Munchkin friends to leave Saffron alone.
It wasn’t how I wanted to run this school, allowing two girls to be picked on. I couldn’t stop Dorothy and her Munchkin friends from picking on Francesca and Saffron. I could hardly help Saffron at all. I could help how Francesca reacted to it and complete her Sentinel training. I had to forget my desire towards this girl and train her.
I was sitting behind my desk, waiting for her. I heard her knock. She didn’t have a shy knock. She rapped on my door like she was demanding an audience and didn’t care if I had someone with me. My cock stirred as the desire to take her over my knee came back. I never let anyone knock on my doors like that. Except her. She would always be allowed because it was just who she was.
“You may enter,” I called.
It didn’t use to be this way, but I was so used to seeing Glinda and everyone else who did magic in the South wearing white, it was strange to see Francesca in all black. She didn’t wear dresses either. Glinda wore beautiful gowns all the time, but Francesca wore tight black trousers and a tiny black top. I knew the Sentinels were trained fighters, but Glinda never looked capable of wielding a weapon in the gowns she liked to wear. Francesca dressed like she’d punch you in the face and wrestle in the mud with you. I thought about what it would be like to roll around in the dirt with her, all rough and passionate, and got distracted again.
Sentinels of Oz: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance (Emerald City Academy Book 1) Page 5