Not the way I love him.
I let Marcus guide me down the stairs and into his usual armchair. He makes me a cup of tea, moving around our little cottage in his sock feet, and it feels too good. Too right. He fixes up the couch for me as I blow on my tea, thinking about how he offered to kill Andrew Radcliffe without a second’s hesitation. How he would throw his life away for me. For my peace, my happiness.
He thinks I don’t need him, my immune honor guard, but I do.
I need his rumbly voice as he reads to me out of a well-worn paperback, the way his voice softens as I finally settle. I need his scent in my nose, winter wind and ancient pines, lulling me to sleep.
I need him pressing an insulated mug of sweet, milky coffee into my hands, a crooked, teasing smile on his face, as I race out the door so I won’t be late to my classes. I need the easy way he falls into step beside me as I rush across the quad, his quiet presence at my side.
I shouldn’t feel how I do, but I don’t know what I’d do without him.
And that’s a terrifying prospect.
* * *
I duckinto Intermediate Casting a few minutes before the bell rings, wish Professor Cadigan a good morning and then shuffle to the column of worktables reserved for omega students. Alyssa ducks into class just as the bell rings, looking adorably flushed, as though a certain spiced-tea-and-candied-orange-peel scented alpha escorted her here and kissed her senseless just outside the classroom door.
Professor Cadigan clears his throat, and the class falls silent as he paces in front of the blackboard. He’s an older alpha, but no less formidable for his age. He has a full head of graying hair and a steely glint in his eyes as he looks around the classroom.
His scrutinizing gaze lingers on me, and I drop my eyes in deference.
I don’t know if it’s me Cadigan despises or the relationship he suspects I have with Ian, but I’m determined to show him I’m a good student.
“Your academic career at Fairhaven Academy hinges on your success in my class,” he begins, his voice firm. “This is the hardest class you will take during your four years at this illustrious institution?—”
A beta girl in the front row of the class lets out a squeak. “Harder than Introduction to Casting?”
“By a multitude, Miss Burke,” he says, his eyes snapping with annoyance at being interrupted. “And harder than Advanced Casting. In Introduction to Casting, you were given the building blocks of spell casting. In my class, you will build the foundations of all future magic you perform. If your foundations are weak, you will fail my class, fail at Fairhaven, and you will not succeed as a mage in our magical society. Is that understood?”
The class murmurs their understanding and I slide lower in my seat.
Cassian said Professor Cadigan was tough, not verging on impossible.
“Very well. Let’s begin. Read the first five chapters of your textbook by Wednesday and come prepared to work.”
Alyssa flips through her textbook and lets out a soft gasp. “That’s a hundred pages!” she whispers.
“Is that going to be a problem, Miss O’Neill?” Cadigan asks.
“No, sir,” she squeaks, ducking her head and baring her neck to him. “Sorry, sir. I won’t disrupt the class again.”
“I should hope not,” he says, before launching into a lecture that has me jotting down notes as fast as I can.
I thank the saints I had nothing better to do over the summer than get ahead in my reading, because in Cadigan’s class, I’m going to need whatever edge I have.
By the time class ends, I’m anxious and exhausted, and I pack up my things with wooden motions, one of the last students to leave. It’s as I’m swinging my bag over my shoulder that I catch the faintest murmur from Professor Cadigan. No, not a murmur. Athought.
Wretched witch.
He catches my eye as I make for the door and smiles, but it’s a dark, twisted thing.
An unmistakable warning.
* * *
“You’re goingto have to get my sorry ass through Cadigan’s class,” Alyssa mutters as we make our way through the lunch line. “Darika worked her ass off for a C+ and she’s no slouch at Casting.”
I’m not even sure I’m going to get myself through Cadigan’s class, but at least I’ve already done the readings. Not that I won’t do them twice more before Wednesday, just to be prepared.
