Draken’s hands also remained up, aimed at the same mage. His lion primal growled and paced angrily at his feet as his magical aura sparked with silver and gold.
“Come at me, then, you cowardly peacock fuck,” Draken snapped at the shorter mage. “Are you so eager to defend a rapist, you’re willing to end up in hospital for it?”
I lowered my own hand, but kept my shield up.
When neither of the two mages lowered theirs, I laid a hand on Draken’s arm, the one he wasn’t holding as high. I felt the hum of magical charge vibrate under my fingers.
“Draken, it’s okay,” I said quietly.
“It’s not okay. This whole damned campus has lost its mind, defending that piece of shit.” Draken’s eyes never left the mage in front of him, but he made his voice significantly louder, aiming it at more than just the Skyhunt fan with the peacock primal.
“Is Skyhunt so important to all of you that you’d let a violent predator roam free at the school?” Draken spat. “What in the darkestunderworldsis the matter with you? Just how many witches should he have been able to assault before you’d stop defending him?”
I heard outraged mutters break out in the wider corridor as witches and mages reacted to Draken’s words. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t helping me, that he was probably making this worse, and escalating the likelihood one or both of us would get ambushed, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Draken was right. It was absolutely unbelievable how little anyone cared what Strangemore had done.
That, or they just didn’t care who he’d done it to.
It definitely mattered more that he was the best player on the Skulls, at least to the majority of the students at the school.
Almost like they’d heard me, another voice rang out, female that time.
“He wouldn’t have done it to a real witch,” she said.
I glanced in that direction, and saw another face I didn’t know.
I returned her smirk with a flat stare of my own.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I retorted, fighting my own flush of anger. “Maybe he’d just find a different excuse to do it to you.”
“We only have your word he did anything at all,” a blond mage retorted.
A redheaded witch standing next to him nodded vehemently, her eyes full of murder as she glared at me.
Maybe the growing crowd should have made me nervous, but I only got angrier as I glanced around, noting the sheer number of eyes on us. Half the students had stopped now, whether because they hoped to see a fight or wanted to help start one. Draken and I had been passing through one of the large arteries that led from the east wing of Malcroix Mansion into the main hall, where the coffee kiosk and bookshop lived.
We’d just left Theurgy 2.0, and, as it was only a minute after the bell rang, the corridor was jammed with students heading in both directions.
I could hear the mutters and curses behind hands as others realized who and what the fight was about and stopped to listen. I wondered how much it would take for the mage with the peacock primal to convince others to help him incinerate me where I stood.
The glares had mostly left Draken by now, and focused solely on me. The few I saw aimed at my friend seemed to hold pity more than anger, like they believed he’d been trapped under a chimaeric illusion and hadn’t yet realized it.
I’d just tugged on Draken’s sleeve, hoping to get him to continue with me towards the coffee shop before things escalated more, when another voice rang out.
I turned my head as soon as he spoke, mostly in disbelief.
There was no mistaking who it was.
“Personally, I’m quite content with the new arrangement,” he said loudly, drawing every eye to him. “For once, our randy little mongrel did us all an extreme favor.” He smirked, winking at me. “If I’d known she could pull it off so neatly, I would’ve paid the cunt to rid us of that obnoxious little showboat a long time ago.”
Bones jumped gracefully down from where he’d been perched, on one of the window sills between two enormous stone columns. He landed lightly on his feet.
“I confess to being quite tired of having to listen to him go on and on about his idiotic parties in Ibiza and the Maldives in the locker room every morning at practice. Good bloody riddance, I say. Maybe now I can get some fucking peace.”
I met Bones’s gaze, and found his eyes back on me already.
He gave me a faintly warning look, there and gone, before his stare flickered to Draken. His expression visibly darkened as he took a step closer, planted his feet, and held up a hand casually, palm towards the corridor’s ceiling. The magic crackling around his fingers and palm was unmistakeable, and caused a number of students to step back, giving him space.
His reputation as a magical fighter definitely preceded him.
