“It’s just until we do the ritual,” Kat says, putting a tentative hand on his arm.
He eyes her.“We don’t even know what the ritual entails,” he grumbles.
They both look to me questioningly.
“Blood magic,” I tell them.
“I was expecting something more complicated,” Kat muses.
“And sex magic,” I add, eyeing them both.“Involving all three parties.”I flash Brom a quick smile.“That’s why I needed you to remember me in order to participate.Otherwise you would have been…harder to convince.”
I would have had fun trying though.
I study them both.Neither looks very surprised at what the ritual entails, but I can tell Brom is hesitant.I don’t think that man wants to share Kat.Perhaps he doesn’t want to share me.I feel a flutter in my chest at the thought of him actually being possessive over me, but I’m not sure that’s the case.I feel like we’re not only back to square one, we’re in the negatives.
“And the restraints are only at night,” I try to assure Brom.“According to what I’ve read, the horseman can only take possession after nightfall.”
And just because it gets me hard seeing him all bound in leather like this doesn’t mean I’m not doing it for a good reason.But I keep that thought to myself.
We walk down the path to the faculty dorms, the statues seeming to follow us with their eyes as we go past.I’ve always felt them to be unsettling, but tonight they seem real somehow.I think about the strange school, the coven, and all the magic that lives here.I wonder if the horseman is the same as the ghostly teacher in the hallway, if there’s something here, perhaps the collective magic, that’s bringing things through the veil.
Suddenly an image flashes into my head.Of me walking down a winding stone staircase, descending to the darkness at the bottom.I remember the smell of damp earth and sulfur and dead flowers.A locked metal door.Leona Van Tassel standing behindme and smiling with sharp teeth, talking in a language I don’t understand.
Then the image fades and I’m left with a sickly feeling that I brush away.There’s no time to dwell on it now, not when I have a possessed man in my hands.
We’re almost at the building.Kat is on one side of me, my coat on her shoulders, and I can’t help but delight in the sight of her wearing my clothes again.On the other side of me is Brom, leather around his neck, hating every moment of this but submitting to me anyway.
The building is dark and quiet as we go up the central staircase to my floor, the air cool.It’s dark but Kat gets flames to appear on her fingertips, lighting the way with a shyly confident smile.Both Brom and I seem to share the same awe at her power.
I go to the door next to my room where I hope to keep Kat and of course it’s locked.There are a lot of rooms to choose from since only Daniels and the custodian are up here now that Desi has vanished, but the closer she is to me the better.
“Anyone know a spell for unlocking a door?”I whisper.
“I do,” Kat says, and she reaches up into her messy hair and pulls out a hairpin.She jams it in the keyhole, twisting it around until the door unlocks with a loud click.“Ta-da.Every woman should know how to pick a lock.”
She beams at me and I’ve never been so torn before.With her sweet proud face and then Brom’s captive scowl, I want both of them at once.For a moment I want to attempt the ritual tonight, just get the books and have a go, but I have to take Kat into consideration.She needs time and sleep before we go into anything that could put her in harm’s way again, and I need time to makesure I understand it properly, so that no one gets hurt in the process.
And frankly Brom deserves a little more punishment than just a gunshot wound.
The door to the room opens and it’s just as barren inside as I thought, with only a single bed, a desk with an unlit candle, and an empty wardrobe.Luckily it’s warm enough.
“Stay here,” I tell her, leaving her in the room, with Brom following me to mine.I unlock my door and light a couple of candles at the window before I grab my pillow and an extra blanket from the foot of the bed and bring them back to Kat, Brom grumbling the whole way like an ornery dog.
“You’ll be safe here,” I tell her, placing the items in her arms while taking the rest of the leather straps from her.“I promise you, myvlinder.”
I put my arm around her and bring her forward and kiss her on the top of her head.When she pulls away she looks up at me with longing in her eyes, fear, and my attention goes to the dried blood and the bruise forming on the corner of her forehead.I swallow down fire.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I tell her thickly, waiting for Brom to either do something or say something.But his demeanor is no longer defensive and dark.Instead I see shame and guilt on his brow, his posture hesitant.
“Good night,” she says quietly, and I notice she avoids looking at Brom.
We leave the room and go back into mine.Once inside I let go of the reins and turn my back to Brom, closing the door behindme.I take a moment, breathing in deep through my nose, resting my forehead against the door.
I’m not a man with a temper.I do fairly well keeping calm.My mind might be chaos at times—I believe the teacher at school said I had “hypermetamorphosis”—but I’ve gone my whole life learning to control my unstable nervous system, been able to find ways to mask my eccentric ways by burying it under academics.A lot can be excused when you’re a professor.
But the rage I have building inside me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
It’s all directed at Brom, unfairly or not.
