I’d shivered, pushing my hands into the pockets of my black woolen overcoat that was embroidered with a pink RA crest. I’d loved the way that it’d been too long for me and smelled like Sleipnir. I’d sniffed the collar, burrowing further into its warmth.
Bask had brushed his hand across the hollow of my back. “The funding always goes to polo because it’s the Princes’ favorite class.” Bask had sighed. “Don’t you want to please the Principal and start the term as the golden boy?”
As I lay cowering from the dragon who’d attacked us Immortals, before we’d even been able to reach the stables, I’d say fat wizarding chance.
When a sizzling spray of golden fire scorched the snow above my head, I hollered, only for both Sleipnir and Bask to throw themselves over me like a shield. I stiffened in shock.
Wait, were they protecting me…?
The dragon roared and circled again. If the dragon was able to escape, then the academy had some serious breaches of risk assessments and safety precautions. I’d be writing a strong letter to the nobody cares Fox; be thankful that you weren’t thrown to the wolves.
Yeah, that ought to do it.
I peeked up into the night time sky at the sharp stars.
Then Sleipnir grunted as the back of his collar was snatched and he was hauled to his feet. He struggled, twisting around in the snow, whilst he was shaken. He stilled, however, as he looked up into the blazing eyes of a delicate fae who was more beautiful than I thought it was possible for a guy to be but who was also wearing an expression that could flay Sleipnir alive.
The fae’s eyes were emerald and bright against the alabaster of his skin. They were the same shade as his steam punk style military officer uniform. A leather whip coiled around his waist like a snake.
I shuddered at the sight of the whip but even that couldn’t stop me from gaping in fascination at the fae’s wings, which were golden like his hair and beating violently, gusting wind across my cheeks.
I’d never seen a Seelie fae before. Especially not one who was shaking with anger. I’d take a wild guess that he was the Dragon Trainer who was guilty of failing to control the dragon and setting it loose to flambé me.
Unless, he wasn’t the one who was guilty of setting free the dragon?
Yet why was a fae shivering in these cursed grounds? Dragon Wrangler at a witch led academy wasn’t top of a Seelie’s career path. The fae tribes and their Courts were fiercely independent and had so many civil wars between themselves that I didn’t know how they remembered whose wings they were meant to be kissing or hacking off.
I wrinkled my nose. How could anyone hack off something so awe-inspiring (and also so soft that I wanted to kneed it with my paws?).
“Do you see what your daft slackness has caused, boy?” The Sexy Fae (sometimes I lied to myself and sometimes I called it as I saw it), snarled with a Scottish accent that thrummed with dominance. Plus, how big were his cojones to call a god boy? “I should never have allowed your refusal to use spurs, bridles, or even a saddle. Now Marcus is free. Your ridiculous insistence on treating these dragons as if they’re—"
“Shifters, Prince Ambrose?” Sleipnir shot back with the practice of a familiar argument.
“Professor,” Ambrose hissed.
I stiffened. My pleasing Damelza before term started just went up in flames. Plus, Marcus…? Shouldn’t he have a dragony name like Smaug, Drogon, or Puff, the Magic Dragon?
“Professor,” Sleipnir drawled as insolently as if he’d just called Ambrose asshole. Ambrose’s wings stretched out in an alpha display. Sleipnir cocked his head, although the look in his eyes was dangerous. “Hmm, I wonder why I’d treat them as if they’re shifters kind of like me? Could it be because they are?”
Wait, Sleipnir was a shifter?
Was that how he could change his hair and eyes like other people changed their shoes? It’d been startling to watch in the West Wing, as his tattoos had morphed like they were connected to his emotions. I’d never met anyone who was like me before, and it made my chest ache because I didn’t think that Sleipnir was a monster.
Did that mean that I wasn’t?
If the dragons like this Marcus were shifters as well, then neither were they. They didn’t deserve to be shut away in that barred building and rode by posh boys with spiked spurs.
Whatever sabotage Sleipnir had set up tonight, he could count me in.
Ambrose glanced around like he thought he was being spied on, which for all I knew he was. Finally, his expression softened, “Aye, you’re right. Don’t you think that I understand?”
I jolted at Ambrose’s troubled intensity. He couldn’t have been more sincere if he’d scrawled the words on his own balls in blood. The princely fae hated how the dragon shifters were treated as much as Sleipnir did. So, why was he helping to enslave them? I mean, I understood being competitive, but no sports trophy could be worth trapping a supernatural to ride as if they were a horse.
There were kinky parties for that type of thing, but consent had to be given in writing first.
Sleipnir grinned; it was wickeder than anything I’d ever seen before. “Then hey, what’s your problem, professor?”
Ambrose’s wings beat furiously, as he gripped Sleipnir’s elbow and yanked him closer.
Bask and I launched ourselves up. The urge to protect Sleipnir rushed through me, even as the scent of yew trees enveloped me. I shuddered, as Rebel Ghost’s kisses nipped down my neck. Despite the danger of both the dragon and its fae trainer, I felt safe now that the final Immortal was here.
Did she feel safe now that I’d arrived in the academy?
I knew that I’d save her. I hadn’t been able to save my dad or older brother from my witch family and I hadn’t been able to save myself. The craving for pleasure…and love…that had trapped me beneath her portrait, despite the cringe factor of humping my patron’s thigh, had been the most outstanding sensation of my life. I’d die to set her free, just like Sleipnir had finally freed me. Okay, it’d been thirteen years too late. But then, how long had this ghost been waiting around for someone who’d rescue her?
Ambrose’s gaze darted to me. “A new Rebel?”
Bask’s fingers curled possessively around the back of my neck, and I leaned into his touch.
I shook my head. “I’m an inspector from the Ministry for Training and Enslavement of Shifters, and you’ve just failed. If you’d open the stables, so I can look around and take any remaining dragons into my care…”
Bask cupped his hand over his mouth to hide his grin, and Ambrose blinked at me in confusion.
“Are you mocking me?” Ambrose demanded, as pink flushed his translucent cheeks.
Shut up mouth...please…I promise, chocolate tasty treats, if you just…
“Great Pan, of course not,” saved by the power of pathological lying, “I’d never mock one of my esteemed professors.”
Ambrose growled. “Right, like you rascals weren’t sent here to drive the gold from my wings.” I grimaced. Wow, my lying had never been accused of that before. “As long as the shifters wear the House of Crows’ collars, then they’re trapped in their dragon form, and your daft arses will treat them like beasts.”