He exhaled against my ear. “Good girl.”
My whole body melted. Heat flooded my veins as my magic burned bright. The tug in my chest yanked so hard I almost screamed. Alaric shoved me forward, causing me to stumble to my knees in shock. When I whirled around to cuss him out, he’d gone.
I was still muttering obscenities when the storm raging over the campus finally abated. With it being a full moon, the shifters had planned a party in the woods, but they canceled it when some poor, unfortunate wolf got struck by lightning as he shifted.
He’d live, but I heard the scar on his butt was pretty impressive.
Now that the rain had finally slowed down, I planned to sneak out and search for the orange trumpet flowers I needed to make a potion guaranteed to keep Alar-dick chained to his toilet for a week.
Honestly, the mage deserved something a lot worse, but I wasn’t willing to risk a life sentence in a magical penitentiary. Murder in the first degree meant being thrown into solitary with no access to one’s magic or any chance of parole.
Some campaigners argued this was inhumane and worse than a death sentence because blocking a magical’s power indefinitely usually caused the person to go insane.
The lights were off in the common room when I crept downstairs. Anyone in the mood to party had gone to the shifter dorm, where a rager was in full swing. Glynda had invited me to a movie marathon in her room, but I’d said no. I wasn’t in the mood for socializing. Because she was a nice witch, she hadn’t pressed me for a reason, which I was grateful for.
I jogged over the lawn, sticking to the shadows around the gymnasium. Hopefully, this little expedition wouldn’t take too long. My bear would be angry if he thought I’d ventured into the forest alone. I had debated asking him to come with me, but it seemed unfair to expect him to act as my personal bodyguard at this late hour.
Magic wards protected the boundary of the forest surrounding the academy. Humans couldn’t cross them, and as far as I knew, there wereno dangerous creatures roaming around. Not unless you included drunk shifters.
But with the storm only just dying away, I didn’t expect to meet any of those. They were all too busy drinking and having sex back in their dorms. At least I assumed so. I’d seen Demelza and her friends heading that way earlier, all of them wearing dresses so scant they may as well not have bothered.
Given she viewed other species as inferior, it made me wonder why she was so willing to party with the shifters. But I guessed getting dicked down while having access to unlimited quantities of shifter moonshine helped.
The ground squelched under my feet when I finally reached the trees. Water dripped down my neck, and I shivered in the chill night air. I tucked the small canvas herb bag I’d borrowed from the garden store and trudged on, letting the light from the full moon high above the trees guide me.
A wolf howling in the distance sent a shudder down my spine. Crossing paths with a wild wolf was not on my bingo card, and I prayed if there was a pack living in this forest, they didn’t come near the campus.
I carried on walking, following the paths as they snaked around trees. Orange trumpet flowers typically grew in rotten wood, so I kept my eyes peeled for a fallen tree trunk. It took an hour, but eventually I came across a small clump of flowers, their petals open skyward.
Just as I’d finished plucking enough leaves to brew several potions, the sound of excited wolves howling and yipping in the distance made me jump.Ugh. The shifters must have left the dorm to run under a full moon. I prayed we wouldn’t cross paths. The full moon made shifters overly aggressive and horny, a terrible combination, and given the unpredictable nature of my magic, I might end up in trouble.
Maybe Ishouldhave asked Maverick to come with me. Oh well, it was too late now.
I carefully hooked my bag over my chest and set off back toward campus. The howls grew closer, and from the crashing sounds, they were chasing each other or some poor, unfortunate prey animal.
Stars above, I hoped they hadn’t caught my scent. The thought of being hunted put some extra pep in my step. I sped up into a slow jog, eager to get out of the forest but aware that running in such wet conditions would end up with me face-planting a bog.
Lights in the distance told me the campus wasn’t too far away, and I exhaled in relief before a sudden volley of howls and barks to my left made me jump in shock. I tripped over a fallen branch as a small white fox shot out of a bush, yipping in panic.
It leaped into my arms, trembling in terror, just as three enormous wolves crashed through the trees and skidded to a halt.
22
Raven
The fox and I tumbled to the ground. Plants tore at my legs, but I kept hold of the trembling creature. He licked my face and snuggled closer, rubbing his furry head against my chin. I wasn’t surewhyI knew it was a male fox, but my gut told me he was.
The biggest wolf shifted back into a naked male, and I grimaced while trying not to stare at his dick. Wow…it was…ugly. Rather like him. Sure, he had muscles, but sadly, the face didn’t match the fur coat.
“Let the fox go; it’s ours, witch.” The smoky yellow aura around him curdled into an unpleasant orange color. His eyes glowed pure gold, gleaming at me in the darkness.
I smiled brightly to defuse the tension. “And if I say no?”
The two wolves standing behind the male growled threateningly while the naked male smirked.
“Then we’ll have no choice but to attack you as well.”
“You can’t do that. It’s against the rules,” I pointed out, cursing inwardly at the slight tremor in my voice when I realized how muchshit I was in. Maverick might not be around to save me this time. Stars above, I wasn’t even sure where his cabin was from here. Following the forest trails in the dark had disoriented me.
