by J B Black
The dark-haired man scoffed, “I’m a warlock.”
“But you can study. Your alchemy labs have been better than even Grey’s,” Nicholas argued.
Dark brows furrowing, the warlock frowned up at the other man. “My labs? When did you see my labs?”
“I work with Wizard Workneh. Sometimes, that includes grading,” the older man replied with a shrug.
Staring up in confusion at the man, William stepped back, letting Nicholas’s hands fall off him. “Have you been favoring me?”
“Ha! As if Workneh would let me get away with that,” Nicholas retorted, shaking his head as he grinned. “McCoy would never let it go if I ended up grading you too kindly. I’m just as hard on you as I am on everyone else.”
“Well, it’s not like that would change the one point difference anyway,” William huffed.
Unease still shifted in his stomach at the thought of the man who flirted with him having any sort of power over his grades. Sure, McCoy might prevent Nicholas from grading a warlock too highly, but he certainly wouldn’t be quick to scold anyone who marked William’s work more harshly than his classmates. Eventually, rejection wore on people like Nicholas. Used to getting what he wanted, Nicholas likely failed to even notice William’s reluctance with each approach, and he wasn’t someone who William thought deserved a harsh rejection. He wasn’t nearly as bad as the rest of the wizards in the place, and moments like this sent home how thoroughly Nicholas could make William’s life worse.
Nicholas ran a hand through his rose gold hair. “My offer still stands. I could help you study.”
“I appreciate the offer, but -”
Coming from the kitchen, Ælfweard interrupted them. “You’re not allergic to anything, right? They had strawberries, and -” he trailed off, and his eyes narrowed as he glanced up from the plates balanced on his arms to the pair. “What are you doing here?”
Nicholas smiled indulgently. “Just keeping your new roommate company.”
“Are you stalking him?” Ælfweard hissed, shifting forward. The plates shifted, but he kept them all balanced.
Meeting William’s gaze, Nicholas exaggerated an eye roll and shook his head. “I’m running a collective project at Loch Lomond. The cooks offered to pack us all lunches, which reminds me, I have to go.” Before William could react, the older wizard took his hand and pressed a kiss to the back as he had done before. “It was lovely to see you. I can’t think of a more wonderful way to start my day.”
The rage pouring from Ælfweard only made the moment more awkward, and doing his best to ignore it, William gave Nicholas a small smile which seemed enough to encourage the other to head off. If he intended for William not to see the way he smirked when walking by Ælfweard, he had to work on his discretion.
“You should stay away from him,” Ælfweard grumbled as he stepped closer.
William rolled his eyes, tapping a finger on the bottom of each plate to mark them. “And you should keep your opinions to yourself.”
“He’s not a nice person.”
“He’s nice enough to me,” the warlock retorted, teleporting the two of them and the mounds of food to the hall outside the library.
Ælfweard huffed, following close behind as William headed to the door. “Nicholas only is nice because he wants something from you.”
“So? I recognize a quid pro quo when I see it. Right now, he isn’t pressing, so I don’t see why I should make my life more annoying while I’m here,” William retorted as the chime to sound, marking the wards unlocking.
With a flick of his wrist, the warlock opened the door as he headed to the back of the library where his preferred desk waited. Luckily, the breakfast detour hasn’t caused him to lose it. As he took a seat, Ælfweard set the plates down. Bacon, toast, eggs, and more piled high before him. These meals once seemed the only piece of his imagined wizarding university experience that matched his dreams. Sausage rolls and meat pies might’ve been his favorite part. Anything with great pastry and meat ranked high in William’s books. The salty warmth filled him, settling the hunger he had forgotten how to feel.
“There’s fruit too,” Ælfweard encouraged before continuing their conversation from the hall. “Putting up with him flirting shouldn’t be the cost of him not making your life more difficult.”
“Who said that was the quid and quo?” William retorted as he took a strawberry.
No matter how hard his mind worked, Ælfweard came to the same conclusion each time. Nicholas never shied from gloating. Even what he wanted from William — or even just more than others, the older wizard would brag endlessly. His cocky smile would grow, and every inch of him would gleam with that ridiculous self-congratulatory satisfaction. A cat with the canary in the worst way, so no matter what William said, the bigger thing which Nicholas wanted remained just out of his reach. Besides the opportunity to chase it, William held no cards Nicholas gave a damn about stealing.
Knowing this didn’t make the warlock’s teasing remark any easier to hear. If William could joke about it, the blond feared the man might be ready to take that next step. Only tragedy lived in that direction. No matter how the red of the lush strawberry appeared against William’s pink lips, Ælfweard needed to push the issue.
“Because you’re cleverer than that,” the blond wizard said, and the hum of the warlock as he licked the juices from his lips and fingertips nearly undid Ælfweard’s concentration. “Given him the go ahead, and you’ll never be rid of him.”
Black brows furrowed. “Who said I wanted to be rid of him?”
“What?” Ælfweard whispered.
William hummed, reaching for another strawberry. “I’m smart enough to know what he’s after, and if I want to give it to him, that’s my business. Ever think I might’ve come all the way to the UK because I wanted my share of English affairs?”
The warlock’s smirk and the slight dance of his eyebrows in innuendo did nothing to halt the panic rising in Ælfweard’s chest. His heart raced. Every muscle in his body clenched as if rejecting the very idea that William might be interested in his cousin, but hadn’t the warlock flirted back? He had ducked away too. The push and pull served a purpose in flirting, and as much as the blond wizard hoped the warlock only strung Nicholas along to keep the older man from causing him trouble, there was no way William knew the full depths to which the Blythe family controlled certain parts of the wizarding world.
Blythes owned almost everything. They held fast to the bulk of the fortune. While most families avoided the mortal world, the Blythes positioned themselves and their allies in positions of political power. They had their own lordships and a number which they controlled through families who were barely better than puppets. Powerful and rich, their wrath stretched beyond the isles. No matter how much Ælfweard wished to deny it — even his father’s position and the constant separation which left his parents desperate for each other upon reunion owed itself to the ties the Blythe’s had in the wizarding government and the mortal one.
While Ælfweard fell further and further into a spiral of uncertainty, William ate and studied, believing the silence to be acceptance that he was his own person and that Ælfweard had no right to intercede on his affairs. Whether or not he planned to date Nicholas Blythe, Ælfweard Grey hardly weighed into the decision.
Chapter Eleven
The pair fell into an easy rhythm as the first week of their shared quarters came and went. Every morning before the library opened, William teleported them to the kitchen where Ælfweard fetched breakfast. They studied together until the morning session, and while William went to the library between sessions still, he ate dinners with Ælfweard in the library after their afternoon coursework. Being in shared quarters forced William back onto a reasonable sleep schedule, despite Ælfweard’s claims he could sleep through anything, so by the following weekend, the blond wizard found his chest puffed a bit with pride at the healthy glow which had returned to the warlock.
“Stop staring,” William
huffed, throwing an eraser at Ælfweard’s head.
The wizard laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so angry about a library being closed.”
“The whole damn system is on a timer, I don’t see why they have to shut down our library two weeks before our end of semester exams just because there’s some incident in Poole that the librarians were called to assist in,” William complained, scribbling out a line of notes in his binder.
Ælfweard smiled, leaning against the back of his chair. “It’s only for the weekend.”
“And a Friday evening! We even got out of our lab early. I could have used that time with Medrault’s Mechanics,” the warlock lamented, dragging his hands down his face and falling back onto his pillow. “Why are only third years allowed to take books from the library?”
“Because they’re the only ones doing dissertations,” Ælfweard reminded him.
Every complaint warmed Ælfweard’s heart. Only a week earlier, William would have hidden anything that hurt him — let alone a minor annoyance like the library closing a few hours early. Healthy and vocal suited the dark-haired man. This was the man he saw in the baths on that first day — the one who smirked, showing off his enthralling physique and scared away Gilroy and Timothy with a vicious smile and sharp tongue.
Half-smothering himself with what texts he did have, William groaned, “Why are you still smiling?”
“How do you know I’m smiling?” Ælfweard teased even as he grinned ear to ear. “You can’t even see me.”
Gesturing at the blond with his pen, William growled, “I can hear it.”
Ælfweard relaxed into the silence which followed, watching as the warlock rolled over to continue studying on his bed with his back facing the wizard. From the moment they met, the magnetic pull — that indescribable certainty which haunted the blond man suggested moments like this were possible. Moments enjoyed together. The ease with which the give and take between them could flow. Sharing the same space — caring for William, Ælfweard wanted nothing more. To be trusted with the warlock’s vulnerability — his obsessiveness and his stubborn refusal to back down as he chased perfection — nothing ever warmed Ælfweard’s core more.
“You’re still staring,” the warlock grumbled, glancing over his shoulder.
This time — a slight accusation and something like trepidation hung beneath the annoyed tone. If his gaze roused William’s fear — edging what grew tentatively between them in a dangerous direction, Ælfweard would redirect. As sated as the sight of the warlock content left him, the knowledge of his presence could be enough. The warmth of the weight of his existence in the room — a force of gravity.
Swiveling to face his desk once more, Ælfweard sighed. “We should take a study break to grab dinner.”
“Not hungry,” the warlock huffed.
Ælfweard’s stomach twisted in worry at that. William never hungered until food sat before him. He seemed to have entirely shut himself off to his body’s needs. Sleep came unease, but when he finally slept, he slumbered like the dead. Only the tug of an alarm set to his magic woke him, and when it did, he was up without question and aware of everything at once. A master of extremes.
Before the blond wizard had the chance to argue for dinner — or even offer to just fetch it on his own, a knock rattled their door. Both their eyes darted up, but William scoffed, returning to his work. Though nobody came to their door so far when both were there, odds favored the person being there for Ælfweard by the warlock’s reckoning, and sure enough, when Ælfweard opened the door, Gilroy stood on the other side dressed in stylish black robes.
“Of course you idiots aren’t even dressed,” the copper-haired wizard spat, setting his hands upon his narrow hips. “Well, get to it!”
Ælfweard’s brows furrowed. “Get to what?”
“Apparently get dressed,” William told him though he remained on his bed, only turning so his back wasn’t toward Gilroy. Always ready for the attack — preparing to be struck at a moment’s notice. “Have fun with that.”
Gilroy stormed into the room, standing between the two. “Up! Both of you!”
“Why?” Ælfweard pressed.
“There’s an off-campus gathering of the top three first years in every subject. Unfortunately, that means I’m stuck with you two,” Gilroy lamented.
“So go alone,” William retorted.
Glowering at the warlock, the copper-haired man huffed, “If I could, I would, but your absence will be noted.”
“And how will that affect you?” William asked even as his gaze remained on his work.
“Neither of you has connections to higher wizarding society, so you’ll be forgiven for your idiocy, but I will have been expected to herd the two of you into some semblance of decorum,” the other announced, and without any sense of privacy, he dove into Ælfweard’s wardrobe. “Tell me you have something decent!”
Jumping from his seat, Ælfweard pulled the other back. “How fancy is this thing?”
A small smile appeared upon the other’s face — a look of relief that he wouldn’t have to fight the top student in his course, but Gilroy returned his features to neutrality quickly enough that Ælfweard might have believed it a trick of the light. “Whatever black outer robes you have is fine, but,” he moved back the black robes to reveal fitted black trousers and a black high-necked shirt, “if you can blend with mortals underneath, that will be best.”
“Mortals? I thought anything non-wizard was below your upper crust tastes,” William said. His keen gray eyes watched with a sudden interest, and Gilroy smirked.
“The event will be at a pub in the local village — just up the road, and that happens to be a mortal development — unfortunately,” he added the last word with a glance at Ælfweard as if apologizing for the inconvenience of mortals existing.
Though a night with those in other subjects would be a wonderful opportunity to network, Ælfweard hesitated. William distrusted everyone. Those few wizards he saw outside their course either ignored him — or if one of the other alchemy students was already speaking ill of him, joined in. He had no reason to believe this would be any different, and Ælfweard read such as clear as day upon his face.
“We don’t have to go,” Ælfweard offered.
William scoffed, pushing off the bed and shoving past Gilroy. “You mean I don’t have to go. We aren’t attached at the hip, Ælfweard.”
“Well, I don’t really think I should -”
A glare from both the warlock and Gilroy silenced him. Pulling open his wardrobe, William spun, and his clothes instantly changed. No matter how many times the warlock did such, Ælfweard never managed to get used to it. William used high level magic with such ease. Worse than the tingle of admiration which pulsed through the blond at the other’s show of power, the tight leather pants, loose white tunic shirt which hung off his shoulders, and the multiple silver and black necklaces twined around his throat and decorating what showed of his chest left Ælfweard breathless, and from the flush on Gilroy’s face, he didn’t feel all that differently.
William turned, holding out his hands as he turned this way and that. “Will this work?”
“Yes,” Gilroy said after taking a moment to wipe the gobsmacked look from his pale features. “But you’ll need a robe over it.”
Grey eyes narrowed, and the warlock set his hands on his hips. “Why? If we’re going to a mortal pub, I’m just going to have to take it off.”
“Tradition,” Gilroy insisted.
Closing his own wardrobe, William rolled his eyes. “Fine.” The warlock marched across the room to Ælfweard’s wardrobe, tearing it open to grab two black robes. He tossed one onto the bed, and to both wizards’ shock, William pulled the other on, quickly doing a spell to adjust it to his own side temporarily. “Better?”
Nothing traditionally dictated specifics about the sharing of robes, but the sight of William in his clothes — albeit altered to better suit the warlock’s height — sent Ælfweard’s
systems into disarray. He wanted to touch. To run his hands over the robes and then under, feeling the smooth skin of the other man’s bare chest. His mouth watered, aching to nibble at the flash of collarbone and sink his teeth into the delicate line of his neck. Pale skinned and dark-haired, the red of Ælfweard’s marks would stand in highlighted contrast, drawing the eye and underlining a claim which threatened to send all his blood south.
“Yes, that will do.” Gilroy’s sharp clipped voice broke Ælfweard from his fantasy, leaving the wizard flushed when the copper-haired man returned his glare to the blond. “Well? Get dressed, and let’s get going! They’re teleporting off, and I doubt they’d mind leaving without us.”
As Ælfweard rushed to change, urging down his arousal as he switched first his shirt, William huffed, “Aren’t the alchemy students the top brass here? Ruins the reputation if no one else cares about us.”
“We’re normally top brass, but we happen to have an Irish bumpkin and a nobody warlock as two of our top students this year,” Gilroy retorted darkly. “You have no idea how much this ruins the reputation of everyone else in the course.”
Despite having his back to them, Ælfweard could feel William rolling his eyes as he said, “Then maybe they should study harder.”
“You know, Belmont, you forget that not everyone has the luxury of ignoring their peers. While your time here can be spent starving yourself to death and going mad from lack of sleep, the rest of us need to network — create business partnerships that will form the basis for our survival for the rest of our lives,” Gilroy informed the warlock. “Both Natasha and Cassandra have to contend with rivalry courtships, and if they directly snub either suitor too soon, it could affect their family’s standing. Elizabeth was betrothed, so she doesn’t have that excuse; however, her betrothed’s parents set conception as the key term of their marriage. Until she’s with child, their union remains precarious, so the two of them spend much of their free time copulating.”