Sentinels of Oz: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance (Emerald City Academy Book 1)

by JB Trepagnier

  Chapter 24

  Oprix

  W

  e made our way down to the palace kitchens when Saffron left for her lesson with Frabess. The cooks weren’t happy to see us. They were a mix of people from all of Oz, and it wasn’t that they didn’t want us in their kitchen because of who Frankie and Saffron’s mothers were. They thought we were going to make a mess and burn the entire palace down.

  Since the forgetting spell didn’t affect my family because we were with Azami when it was being cast, it was always so strange to us people found Azami so Wicked. She always threw these elaborate dinner parties. She was a gracious host and an excellent chef. Frankie learned right alongside her in the kitchen, and it was always a treat when she offered to cook for my family. Frankie bonded with my mother, teaching her many of her family’s recipes.

  When the chefs finally left us alone in the kitchen, it was just like old times—before that horrible forgetting spell when I had good memories of hanging out in Azami’s kitchen while she and Frankie cooked. Frankie tied a green apron round her waist and kissed my nose as she placed a green chef’s hat on top of my head.

  She gave Idris a quick kiss too. “I take it you are back on spoon licking duties?”

  Idris just grabbed her and pulled her into a passionate kiss. “I can help with the lemons too.”

  Emari and Emarus just disappeared. “We’ll take this station over here, so we don’t mix up ingredients,” they called.

  Lemons were used in a lot of dishes in the West. Everything was yellow in the West, so everyone had at least three lemon trees in their yard. We used lemons to flavor meat, vegetables, and the famous lemon cakes of the West we were making tonight. Azami’s recipe always seemed to be tarter than anyone else’s, and they were amazing. Frankie made these for my family all the time after she moved in because they weren’t just Saffron’s favorite—my little sister adored them too.

  I took my usual position when I helped her make lemon cakes. I always handled the lemons. I cut them into thin slices so they could be boiled in sugar water to top the cakes and handed them to Frankie. I set about zesting, chopping, and juicing lemons while Frankie did my favorite part about cooking with her.

  Azami did this too. They both sang in the kitchen when they cooked. They were both excellent singers, but they always considered themselves Sentinels first. The only time they would let themselves relax, and sing was in the kitchen. I knew when Frankie was singing, she was happy and thinking about good things. I knew right now; she was remembering all the happy times we had in the kitchen with Azami and how much Saffron was going to enjoy these cakes.

  She playfully bumped me with her hip as she sifted the flour. “How about you sing harmony on The Winkie and his Bride?”

  Frankie loved music. She asked me to sing to her all the time. Some of the nights she woke up screaming, I’d sing to her until she fell back asleep. I never sang with her before. Mostly because when she was singing, I didn’t want to interrupt her, and I just wanted to listen. The Winkie and his Bride was a duet, and she’d never sung it in the kitchen before. I was honored she asked me to sing it with her.

  I bumped her back with my hip. “I’ll sing it with you if you promise to sing more often.”

  Frankie wiped a finger full of flour down my nose. “Sing with me, and if I like it, we’ll sing together again. I love it when you sing to me, but we’ve never sung together before.”

  “You’re lucky I’m dealing with lemons, or you’d be wearing some food right now too.”

  “And have that Quadling chef come back and murder us for getting the kitchen dirty? We’d best stick to singing and lemon cakes.”

  Idris decided to just be Idris. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the look on her face if she did come back to a massive food fight.”

  “And waste good food?” she teased, swatting his behind with the spoon. “If you don’t watch it, I’m not going to let you lick the bowl.”

  Idris just fell on his knees right there in the middle of the kitchen and buried his face in her stomach. “Oh, benevolent Sentinel, please don’t take away my bowl licking privileges. I promise, I’ll behave!” he begged.

  “Oh, get up,” she laughed. “Like I’d ever refuse you the bowl. Oprix does the chopping, and you lick the bowls. It’s how we’ve always done things. Now, I believe Oprix promised to sing with me.”

  I’d barely learned any magic here at Emerald City Academy. I could levitate something and make it invisible with a potion. I didn’t know half the magic Frankie and Saffron did. But it felt like Frankie, and I were making our own magic as we sang together and finished up the lemon cakes. We didn’t stop with The Winkie and his Bride. We sang the entire time we cooked.

  By the time the cakes had cooled enough to bundle them up and bring them upstairs, Emari and Emarus were done with their strawberry torte. Maybe it was just me, but the lemon cakes tasted extra special this time.

  Maybe Frankie and I created our own magic singing together when we made them.

  Chapter 25

  Frankie

  S

  affron was right. There was no reason a Sentinel couldn’t enjoy life while still doing their duties. There was no reason I couldn’t cook for my cousin and sing duets with my boyfriend while still completing my training. There was no reason I couldn’t enjoy Daxar’s little games while he taught me. Who decided Sentinels were all about work anyway?

  I loved my mother. I loved her dearly, and I never doubted her love for me. We always had friends like Oprix and his family, but when my mother threw dinner parties, it was never just for fun. There was always business to discuss, allies to be made, or peace to be brokered.

  I decided when I completed my training, I was going to be a different kind of Sentinel. I was going to love who I wanted, entertain for the fuck of it, and if it were actually possible, I’d take a day off every now and then. This made me happy. Happier than I’d been in a very long time.

  It was worth it just to see Saffron’s face light up when she bit into the cakes. Emari and Emarus made enough of their strawberry torte for all of us. It was very red, like everything else Quadling, but it was actually delicious. It was nice sharing food and culture with my new Quadling friends.

  Oprix and I were talking about all the ways we flavored our food in the West with lemon, butter, and turmeric, and Emari and Emarus told us about the red peppers they used. They had a wide variety of red peppers. Some were sweet and could be stuffed with meat, and the others were small and made the food spicy.

  Before they left for the night, we made a pact. When this was over, we would all visit them in the South, and they would come to the East and West. I knew I liked Emarus when he offered to stay in the East with Saffron to protect her from the Munchkins. Maybe the two of us would get happy endings after all.

  Saffron was all hugs and smiles as she floated off to bed. As for me, it felt like my feelings for Oprix, and Idris had gotten deeper in that kitchen. We didn’t do anything we didn’t always do in the kitchen except Oprix singing with me instead of listening. Idris seemed to think the batter tasted better when he was licking the spoon and bowl, and Saffron said that batch was even better than my mother’s.

  I pulled Oprix and Idris to my bedroom. I loved where things were headed with them. I loved them more and more every day. What happened in the kitchen, I couldn’t explain it, but it felt like magic. I couldn’t keep secrets from them. They needed to know what I was doing with Daxar. If it went any further, I couldn’t just drop Daxar in their lap and expect them to accept it when I’d been keeping it from them.

  I paced the room. They accepted each other, but we all grew up together. How would they feel about what I was doing with Daxar? Would they think it made me weak because of what I let him do to me?

  Oprix frowned. “Are you about to tell us what you’ve been hiding since yesterday?”

  Oprix always could read me like an open book. I could never lie to him. He’d never ask me what secret I was keepin
g from him. He’d wait for me to come out and tell him. I always told him when I was ready. I loved that about Oprix. He would know I was keeping something from him, but he never forced me to try to tell him. He let me tell him on my own time.

  “I kind of have a thing with Headmaster Daxar,” I blurted out.

  Idris bolted to a sitting position. “What kind of thing, Francesca?”

  “I don’t know! It’s all so new. I don’t know if this is all some game to him, or he actually has feelings for me.”

  “You’re not talking about those Quadling games Emari talked about, are you, Frankie?” Oprix asked.

  I bowed my head, so my braids hung in my face. They were judging me. Were they going to make me choose?

  “He kept teasing me with those games. I tried it, and I liked it. I don’t know why I liked it, but I do. We did that, and then he sent me off to the gardens to train with my sword. It seemed to help center me.”

  Idris was clenching his fists, and his face was red. He was furious with me. “Did you have sex with him, Francesca?”

  “What? No! He didn’t ask, and if he had, I would have said no. All he did was spank me, then we just talked. When I do end up having sex for the first time, it’s going to be when I’m ready and not with Daxar. I hardly know him.”

  “But you let him play kinky Quadling games with you,” Idris snapped.

  “Idris, shut up a minute,” Oprix snapped. “You’ve been making a lot of changes recently, Frankie. Things you kept saying you’d never do. Is this just one of those things? I felt like something magical happened in the kitchen, and you telling us you wanted us to be your boyfriends was one of the best days of my life. Is it you making these decisions, or have you been hexed?”

  I just laughed bitterly. “No. I just decided I didn’t want to do everything like my mother did. I want love. I want to have fun. I’m twenty-one-years old, and I was the one that found my mother’s body when I was sixteen. Saffron was right. We’ve both had hard lives. Why shouldn’t we explore what makes us happy outside of being a Sentinel?”

  Oprix and Idris were both looking at me like I was totally insane.

  “Getting spanked by a Quadling makes you happy, Francesca?” Idris asked.

  I just shrugged. “I can’t tell you why I like it other than being a Sentinel means I control the entire West and any region I’m asked to help out in. With Daxar, I don’t have to be in control unless I need him to stop. It’s nice, and I need that sometimes.”

  “The Francesca I know would never let a man hurt her. Do I need to kill him?” Idris growled.

  I walked over to Idris and sat on his lap. “That’s just it, Idris. I allow it, and he has to stop when I tell him to. He has to slow down if I ask. The Quadling game has rules, and we’ve already set a lot of them.”

  Idris just huffed. “So, you’re just experimenting, and you like this right now?”

  I stroked his cheek. “I’m going to be doing a lot of experimenting, Idris. My feelings for you and Oprix aren’t going to change. They will only get deeper. I don’t know what this is with Daxar. It only just started. It might just be a game for him.”

  That was when Oprix finally spoke. “I know this is something you’ve just found that you like, and I don’t think Idris and I would want to give that to you. What if it no longer becomes a game to you, and you want something deeper, and it was a game to him all along? You’ll get your heart broken, Frankie. You might say he won’t hurt you in the Quadling game because you can always tell him to stop, but what if he hurts you in other ways?”

  I just shrugged. That was the one thing I didn’t know how to protect myself from. It wasn’t something I could stop with my sword or magic. Was that what happened with my mother?

  “Oprix, if I closed my heart off because I was worried about it getting broken, I wouldn’t be with the two of you right now. The two of you could break my heart just as easily as Daxar could. You could fall in love with someone else and decide you don’t want to be with me anymore. I get the feeling none of the Sentinels have husbands anymore because all they do is work, and heartbreak is not something we can fight. I don’t want to do that. If my heart gets broken, then I’ll just have to deal with it.”

  I think that pissed Oprix and Idris off more than my confession about what I was doing with Daxar.

  “How can you say that, Frankie? I’ve loved you since we were five,” Oprix argued. “I’ll never love another woman.”

  “Honestly, Francesca, do you really think that of me? Tell me right now because if you think that, then you don’t know me at all.”

  Me and my stupid mouth. I knew both of these men like I knew my reflection. Just the suggestion they’d ever hurt me was going to offend both of them.

  “Please, I’m not saying that would ever happen. I love both of you, and I’d trust you with my life. I’m just saying, in the future, if you meet someone you love more than me, I expect you to break my heart and be happy instead of being miserable and staying with me. This whole conversation is going badly. My mother taught me politics, magic, and fighting, but she didn’t teach me about relationships at all. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was trying to tell you something is happening with Daxar, and I don’t know what it is yet. I was trying to be honest with you!”

  I was still sitting in Idris’ lap, and he was sitting there like stone. He finally wrapped his arms around me and hugged me like the Idris I knew and loved.

  “Daxar can give you something we can’t or won’t. I get it. I’ll accept it. I won’t accept Daxar as one of us until I’ve spoken to him. He owes me anyway.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Idris?” I demanded.

  As far as I knew, I had been the only person in my group that had met with Daxar. Were Daxar and Idris keeping secrets from me? I told them about Daxar, but I still hadn’t told them about Galen. Why did I feel like I couldn’t tell them about Galen? I was keeping secrets too.

  “Glinda still has the cap. She’s asked me for a favor. The only reason I’m doing it is that she could keep passing the cap to the entire staff and forcing my people to do things until all the wishes are used up, then she could start using students. I figure if I show her I’m willing to cooperate with her, we’ll get the cap back faster.”

  “And what exactly did Glinda ask you to do, Idris? Were you planning on telling me about it?”

  “She just wants me to find someone and bring them to her. Please, Francesca. Complete your training for now, and let me worry about getting the cap back.”

  I jumped off Idris’ lap. Since when did we not do this kind of shit together?

  “Who does she want you to find, Idris?”

  “Just some boy she wants to talk to. Nothing to worry about. She doesn’t want me to kill him or hurt him. She just wants to talk to him. Maybe he knows where the missing heir is.”

  I could tell Idris was telling me a half-truth. There was something for me to worry about. I had a feeling the boy Glinda wanted Idris to find was Galen. I could have told Idris about Galen and warned him not to bring Galen to Glinda. There was just something about this situation that told me Galen wouldn’t be safe at Emerald City Academy. I didn’t think there was anywhere in Oz that would be safe for Galen.

  Instead, I just pretended like I wanted to go to sleep. Idris was keeping something from me, and I was keeping a big something from him. I should have been helping Idris so he could get the cap back faster.

  I could do this. I could keep Galen safe and get that cap back without Idris having to do favors for Glinda.

  Chapter 26

  Idris

  F

  rancesca decided she wanted love and to experiment. I wasn’t going to tell her no. I wasn’t stupid enough to try to tell a woman like Francesca what she could and couldn’t do. Having multiple husbands used to be done by the Sentinels, and it was a part of my culture as a Flying Monkey. However, with the Flying Monkeys, a new husband wasn’t brought in unless everyone agreed on it.
>
  If she loved Daxar and ultimately decided she wanted to bring him into our group, I would be okay with that, but not until I had a little chat with him. I had to know he wasn’t going to hurt her, both physically and emotionally. I trusted him about as far as I could throw him. He was blackmailing me with that cap right alongside Glinda. He could pull my people into this with a simple wish.

  I didn’t bother with the stairs. I flew up to his window and banged on it until he opened it. He looked pretty shocked to see me.

  “Did you find the boy?” he asked.

  “I’m here about Francesca. Did you know she was my girlfriend when you brought her into your little Quadling games? If you hurt her, I will kill you.”

  “Please, sit down. Would you like a brandy? We are going to need a drink if we are discussing Francesca.”

  He seemed to be taking his time pouring drinks. I just slammed mine back and made as much noise as possible when I was putting the glass back on his desk. If I had done it any harder, the glass would have shattered.

  “I knew you and the Winkie boy were in love with her. I also saw in her that she would benefit from the Quadling games and enjoy them. Francesca has a lot on her shoulders. She’s probably one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. She’s going to have a lot coming at her soon. Things none of us can help her with. She won’t even ask because she thinks she has to do it all herself because of who she is. Francesca needs to learn to give control to another person and ask for what she needs. The Quadling game can help her with that, and it will help her in her training. There is an intense state of relaxation afterwards that she will need for what I am training her to do.”