With remarkable restraint, Bacchus stroked her familiar, until he retracted his claws. “Calm your furry ass, Pet 9, and stop acting like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I paled. Perhaps, this witch was called brilliant with good reason. Yet I hated the way that she only called her familiar by a number. It was witch tradition to remove a Fallen’s name once they were caught and transformed into a familiar, but I shuddered at the thought of stealing Echo or Flair’s name.
“Why’d you force Pocus into cat form again?” Bask asked with far more steel than I’d been expecting. He knelt up on the bed, clutching the sheet to him like it was a shield. So, her familiar could be transformed back into a Fallen? Had that change occurred for all familiars in the time that I’d been trapped in my tree? “He hates it.”
Bacchus’ eyes sparked. “It wouldn’t be much of a punishment if he loved it.” Yet I didn’t miss the way that she slid her hand in comfort down her familiar’s back, or how he pressed into her touch. “With my power, Crave, I can transform him…or you…into anything I want.” She cocked her head. “You’d be a true cutie pie as a Pomeranian. The new student could carry you around in his satchel.”
Bask leaped off the bed like he’d forgotten that he was naked. He wasn’t trembling now. He stalked to the professor with such danger in each step that I was amazed she didn’t back up. Instead, she smiled almost like she was proud of him.
“What new student?” He demanded.
“You pretend to be a tame cub when honestly you’re all wild panther.” She grinned, stroking Pocus. “I’m the kind of witch who only plays with wild panthers. Well, I’ll make an exception for your new whipping boy. I imagine that he’ll be an entertaining addition to the fun and games.”
Bask’s ruby eyes blazed. “Play me with me as you wish, but I won’t hurt a whipping boy.”
Bacchus paused in her stroking of Pocus, instead leaning to cup Bask’s cheek as if she meant to pet him.
Hexes and curses, why did that make me want to transform her into something slimy? Possibly a slug with a terrible cold and an existential crisis.
Bask flinched, but held himself stiff, as his professor rubbed her thumb along his sharp cheekbone.
“Don’t displease me.” At Bacchus’ softly worded order, Bask grimaced as if even the suggestion of her displeasure had punched him in the gut. To an incubus, giving pleasure fed them but it also hurt them physically and emotionally to displease. The succubi had established as clever a mechanism to control the men within their harems as us witches ever had with our husbands. “I mean, you were sent here because you couldn’t satisfy your bonded Duchess. Do you think she abandoned you without reason?” When Bask whimpered, my magic burned, matching his distress. Just for a moment, Bacchus lifted her head like she could sense it, but then she fixed her gaze once again on Bask. She studied him like she hungered to tear him apart and see how he worked. “You’re a rare find: an incubus who’s so flawed that they demand pleasure, as well as giving it. Do you believe that you deserve love?”
Bask bit his lip, refusing to answer.
But he was loved. I shook, yearning with the desperation to show him. Did he think that he was alone? Unloved and abandoned?
My magic built, swirling around me. I could sense Bask’s need, driving me higher, until I swooped out of the portrait, howling in my joy.
I was free…
At least, I’d escaped into the Rebel Academy, and I celebrated like any lady would. I did a rude gesture at Bacchus, which Flair had taught me. He was right: flicking someone off was satisfying.
I circled Bask, wrapping my arms around him. His eyes widened, and he melted into my touch. He wouldn’t ever need to be alone again. He wasn’t unloved.
Now, Bask’s smile at Bacchus was sly and knowing. He knew that I was there. He shivered, teasing his fingers down his sides.
Bacchus dropped her hand away from his cheek, unsettled. When she stumbled into the archway, Pocus hissed. “Just go to the courtyard bailey to meet the new arrival. Wait in the shadows and watch, until the principal needs you. Don’t screw it up. Our Principal, darling Damelza, has been in a darker mood than the darkness within the Dead Wood, ever since the decision was made about the latest admission.” I was darkness…? Now that was impolite. “We don’t need the pressure this term, when we already have the Rebel Cup. The Princes and their tutor are dangerously competitive over it, especially since the prize this year is freedom for one student.”
Bask’s breath hitched. “Freedom? I don’t believe you. It’s a trick.”
Bacchus arched her brow. “I adore tricks. But I promise you, Crave, this isn’t one of mine.” Then she tossed her hair. In the instant, she became the ancient immortal that she truly was. “Here in the West Wing, you’re mine. I’ll help your asses survive, but you have as much chance of dying as being freed. Now collect this whipping boy, even though I kind of don’t think he’ll be with us long. After all, he’s a mage, and they’re hated, feared, and die young.”
At Bask’s shocked gasp, I tightened my hold around his waist. I’d follow him into the bailey to welcome the mage and protect him. His arrival was my worst nightmare because it felt like Robin’s death repeating itself.
Yet was it truly selfish of me that I tingled with joy and pleasure to be free in the academy at last, adored and strengthened by a lover, and seeing a mage once more?
My magic had cursed the academy. There must be a way for me to use it to bless it.
I felt the desperation (rooted all the way through the warded grounds and into Hecate’s Tree), not to allow another mage to suffer. But I was only a ghost. How could I save Fox or was Fate already woven that he’d die?
Chapter Four
FOX
I shivered, stumbling through the castle’s gateway into its moon shrouded courtyard bailey. My new academy looked more like a shrine to Hecate, the witches’ goddess, than a college. I huffed out a breath, and my guts churned.
For a mage, attending Rebel Academy and discovering a shrine was as bad as striding into your enemy’s camp and discovering that they were using models of your dick as target practice.
I cringed. Wait, what if the witch professors were doing that as well…?
I swung in a circle, staring up at the pink-and-black striped towers at each corner of the courtyard, until I was dizzy. At least there were no huge striped dicks (yeah, I went there…huge) with flaming arrows through them.
But Pan’s blue balls, this academy was vast.
I’d forgotten how it felt to be surrounded by so much space, since I’d been locked up for over a decade. It was overwhelming, and I was caught between the twin sensations of hurling and huddling beneath the altar beside the gatehouse.
Yeah, Fox, that’d give an outstanding first impression.
Why did the witches of the House of Crows need a castle that could withstand siege warfare? Did they expect a horde of orcs to sweep out of the frozen woods? A flock of enraged harpies? The Incredible Hulk? Or was it more about who they were imprisoning inside their walls…? This was the Rebel Academy, after all, where professors from across the magical arts reformed the most dangerous supernaturals. It was Oxford University’s secret college, founded by witches and hidden from the non-magicals’ sight on the bank of the river Thames.