When I refused to engage with her bullshit, Demelza sneered and leaned in to pick her own breakfast option.
To my shock, she picked up a stack of bacon and added sausages and ham to her plate. What was she doing? Demelza didn’t eat meat apart from the times she sucked dick. I’d only ever seen her eat fruit for breakfast. Seeing her with a mountain of meat set alarm bells ringing. But whatever. I shrugged.
I followed her as she sashayed across the room toward her witch friends. All of them gaped in shock when she shoved a sausage into her mouth. Grease dripped down her chin, staining her white blouse as she chewed.
A rasher of bacon followed, accompanied by orgasmic moans of delight. Several witches giggled, while a few shifters seemed way too interested in hearing Demelza moan. Which was creepy.
“Goddess, what is this new fruit? It’s delicious!” The dreamy expression on Demelza’s face when she’d finally cleared everything but a few bits of gristle from her plate made me realize someone had messedwith her. The poor witch thought she’d just scoffed a plate of fruit. Oh, my stars.
Kenji laughed in my mind. I spun around to see his two tails flicking back and forth. He hopped down from his table and trotted over.
“Wait for it…” he said before Demelza froze and looked down. She spotted the gristle and greasy smears. I watched as she opened her mouth and a look of absolute horror appeared.
“Did I just eat…?”
“Meat?” A wolf shifter laughed. “Baby, you wolfed that meat down. Wanna snack on my meat next?” He grabbed his crotch and thrust toward her while his friends all cackled. One of them was definitely a hyena shifter. At least I hoped so. Nobody normal laughed that manically.
“Oh my fucking stars,” she shrieked. “Why the fuck didn’t you stop me, you fucking bitches!” Demelza’s friends all looked at each other, confused.
“We assumed you felt like eating something different for once,” a witch admitted nervously.
“I can’t…” Demelza retched loudly, her face turning pale and clammy.
“You should probably go now before everyone starts sympathetic vomiting,” Kenji told me. “I’ll hang here for a bit. I have a hairball I need to hack up.”
Deciding it was best if I left, I took his advice, making sure to carry my breakfast with me. I had no clue what had just happened, but I felt certain my kitsune was responsible. How he’d influenced Demelza to eat meat when she had a pathological hatred for the stuff was a mystery, but I added it to my list of questions for Kenji.
Maybe one day he’d actually answer some of them.
48
Raven
Two weeks had passed, and I was still no closer to finding a spell that might reveal the location of the vampire prince. Each time I went to bed alone, which wasn’t often thanks to an overprotective bear-shifter mate, I hoped I might drop in on Rasmus again. But so far, it hadn’t happened.
That worried me. What if I was too late? What if he’d passed on to the afterlife already?
The idea of his dying all alone in some underground room made me want to cry. Nobody deserved that kind of grim fate.
I sat on my bed, brooding. Although it was now evening, Maverick had a meeting with the other faculty members that he couldn’t miss. Montgomery was aware of our mate status and not at all happy about it. Like most mages, he viewed inter-species mate bonds as beyond the pale.
Maverick had almost lost his temper after the headmaster summoned us to his office for a dressing down. Only the presence of themate mark stopped Montgomery from throwing Maverick out of the school and me into permanent detention.
I wasn’t sure how he’d even found out, but I was positive Demelza had something to do with it.
The bitch witch herself had been quiet since themeat incident. While she couldn’t prove it, she knew the meat swap had something to do with me. We’d both given each other a wide berth ever since.
Alaric had also been conspicuously absent. And Zane. Oh, and Kai was definitely avoiding me.
“Do I smell?” I asked Kenji. Glynda was too nice to say something, but the kitsune had no filter.
“Yes. Why?”
I sniffed my armpits in alarm. Stars above, I shouldn’t smell! I showered daily and used antiperspirant religiously. Maybe there was something wrong with my sweat glands. Maverick had said nothing, but bears liked pungent smells. Perhaps to him I smelled good, but to all other magicals I smelled like fox poo.
“Goddess, what do I smell of?”
“Witch. It’s disgusting, frankly. I submitted a complaint to Kitsune Resources, but they hadn’t responded yet.”
