With a kick right on that stupid-ass belt, he doubled over and hit the gangway between desks on his ass, cradling himself and whimpering.
“Glad we cleared that up,” she said, as she sat back down, and swept a glowing hand over the desk to clear away the blood from where she’d crushed his face.
Through it all, her magic from the exercise was still levitating stably.
Hot damn.
Carnis moved in and hoisted Keuric back to his feet, then led him out of class where I heard him talking about sending him to theTherapy ZoneforCoexistence Management.Again. The way it was going, he was gonna be spending more time there than in actual classes.
I saw Vax staring out at Winter with some deep worry.
And he wasn’t the only one. Professor Dryvan looked concerned, too.
“Vax…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll reframe the narrative with the professor once class lets out, lean in to Winter’s protective instincts coming to the surface in defense of Evira. Nothing more than that.”
Relief sang through me.
Of course he would.
Of course it would be okay.
It always would be now that it was the four of us.
Just… Win’s feeding changes… what I’d just seen… was that a part of the same thing?
Vax’s hand clasping mine on the desk had me pulling from my thoughts.
He was smiling out at me, so much reassurance shining through. “Your cooking theater tonight will be an excellent stress reliever. I’m looking forward to it, Zayn. Focus on that, yes?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it will be. It’ll be really good.”
“Precisely.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “Now, let’s finally get to the next exercise, shall we?”
I smiled. “Sounds good.”
I’d arrived here aheadof the others so I could set up everything perfectly.
Vaxan had an actual call scheduled with his parents to see to, not just texts this time. I was doing my best to quell my worry about what that could mean. Hadn’t the check-ins he’d already done been enough?
Win was practicing his Undead Domination magic on two vampire friends of Evira’s who loved that shit from him. It was Win doing some last-minute practice before his training with his dad began hardcore really soon.
And Evira was hanging with her friend, Octana. Usually they sparred together in Combat Conclave, but she’d said they were going out toVantiqeinstead this time so they could just talk.
So, here I was right now in my old family home. It was a narrow stone rowhouse on a quiet street.
There were no kitchens in the dorms at Loxley Academy, not even in the larger suites, so I’d needed a place that could fit the bill for this cooking extravaganza. This place had a big enough kitchen for all four of us to move around and have some cooking fun.
I was just putting the final touches on the setup when my phone buzzed in the back pocket of my glittering jeans—the awesome ones that had one leg that was a sleek black, the other an eye-catching gold.
I pulled my phone free. As soon as I took in the notification that had come in, I tugged at my distressed white tee.
It was him.
I swallowed hard, then opened the message he’d sent.
Sylas Morgrave:Three-pronged operation coming up. Want you there from prep to execution if your interest still remains.
