“Ah, yes.” He pulled a form from his desk drawer and rolled it up. Then, chanting a few words under his breath, he turned his wrist over sharply and the paper disappeared with a small snap. “It’s all taken care of now.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, there’s one more thing,” he said, pulling a book from the shelf near his desk and holding it out to me. It looked ancient and stained at the edges, but I took it from him anyway. “That has all the cleaning spells previous workers have used to make their jobs here easier.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I wasn’t very excited about a book of cleaning spells, to be perfectly honest, but it would help. “I’ll give it a once over.”
Coach Flannery nodded. “Now, I’m just an old werewolf, but I’ve been around a while. This book might not seem like much, but all magic is pliable. Maybe instead of endless study, you can put what you’ve learned to practical use and make these better. Consider it a challenge of sorts.” He gave me a soft smile. “Practice is important, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, faking a smile. The last thing I wanted to do was work on perfecting the art of cleaning magic. But then again, what other choice did I have? The work had to get done, and I didn’t want to wasteallof my time cleaning. So maybe he had a point. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 3
Silver
Oh my gods… thatfuckingwhistle.
Coach Flannery was standing on the sidelines looking less than impressed with our performance as a team. Then again, I’d seen almost everyone at the stoplight party the night before, and considering how much we’d all been drinking, it was a wonder we were upright at all.
The painful throbbing in my head matched perfectly with every piercing blast of that damned whistle. Coach was doing it on purpose, I was sure of it. He’d been around long enough to know exactly what happened the first night back, but that didn’t stop him from scheduling morning practice, anyway.
“Jackson, you’re dragging ass out there!” he barked at the werewolf behind me. “And the rest of you aren’t much better! My dead grandmother could run these drills faster than you sorry lot!”
I winced as I jogged back into position, grateful the coach’s wrath wasn’t directed at me for once. My mouth felt like I’d been chewing on cotton balls all night, and my stomach churned with every sudden movement. But I powered through it. I always did.
“Yo, Silver,” Karrick panted beside me, his fur matted with sweat. “That guy you hooked up with last night? That dryad freshman with green skin? He was fucking hot, man.”
I grinned despite my hangover. “Yeah, he was. Those quiet ones are always the wildest.”
“Details, bro. I need details,” Karrick insisted as we lined up for another drill.
“Don’t you get enough dick from your mate?” I laughed. “Why do you need to know about my sex life?”
Karrick blushed a bit, even under all that fur. “I… well, Phoenix likes to hear the stories, and it gets us really… you know…”
“You’re sick, Karrick.” I gave him a wink. “I like it though. Well, let’s just say that dryad could?—”
Coach’s whistle cut me off, and we sprinted forward again.
“—bend his legs back over his head and still suck his own dick at the same time,” I finished once we were jogging back to position. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Holy shit.” Karrick’s eyes widened with a mixture of shock and admiration. “That’s some serious flexibility.”
“Tell Phoenix I said he’s welcome for that mental image,” I smirked, wiping sweat from my brow. “The dryad said it was because his body is partially made of wood, so he can sort of... reshape himself. Pretty fucking hot watching him do it.”
“SILVER!” Coach Flannery’s voice boomed across the field. “If you’ve got energy to gossip, you’ve got energy to run point on this next drill!”
Shit. My stomach lurched in protest as I raised my hand in acknowledgment. I’d been hoping to coast through today’s practice, but it seemed Coach had other plans.
“Yes, sir!” I called back, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt.
The rest of practice was brutal. Coach worked us like he was trying to sweat the alcohol out of our systems—which, knowing him, was probably exactly what he was doing. By the time we finished the final drill, even Karrick was looking worse for wear, and he could usually outrun most of the team without breaking a sweat.
“Hit the showers, you degenerates!” Coach finally called out. “And remember, team meeting tomorrow morning. Eight sharp!”
A collective groan rose from the team as we trudged toward the locker rooms. My legs felt like jelly, and the pounding in my head had only intensified. But I’d made it through, and that was something.
“Silver! Hold up a minute.”
