That was pretty grand. I stole more money than I could ever spend. I mostly just wanted to be bulletproof and shoot lasers out my eyes when the Irish mafia eventually caught up with me. I was pretty motivated. Sage wanted this, and I’d make it happen for her, too.
Khalid seemed interested in the entire thing from a historical perspective and Lucian looked like he might have had his entire world rocked, but was covering it up with some kind of pretentious rich person thing that he thought made him look cool, but everyone knew he was a plonker.
We had our teams, and I was guessing we went through a portal to get here when they drugged us, but I had a million questions about what kind of ritual they were doing to unlock our magic.
If it was one of those child-sacrifice things…I killed people for hurting kids.
Iwanted to do this before I knew about the trust. I never had the chance to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t allowed to have any of the phases the girls my age had. My father plotted my life in a way that would look best forhimand never cared what I wanted. He even had my future husband picked out.
There wasn’t much I could do about that until I turned eighteen, but as soon as I was, I was like, nope and got disowned. It always felt like I was supposed to be doing something and now I knew what it was.
Professor Mykene had been pretty open about everything so far. She kept my business about my father between us, whichI appreciated. There wasn’t even a second of existential crisis. I was relieved he didn’t sire me. I never planned to speak to my parents again, but I had some modicum of respect for my mother for what she did.
In any other situation, I wouldn’t, but my father was verbally and emotionally abusive to her on a good day. He’d yell at her because she didn’t serve mashed potatoes with dinner that night and then yell at her again when she made it the very next night.
I never saw him raise his hand to her, but he did to me all the time. He was completely the type to think their lack of children was her fault and he was also financially abusing her. She did what she thought she had to do because in her world, she’d be shunned for leaving the pastor.
Still, I didn’t really want my business broadcast to total strangers. I had no problem sharing it with friends I might make, but I didn’t know these people and didn’t want to deal with their bullshit.
I had my team, and they seemed cool. Lucian and Liam were both intense in completely different ways. Khalid was just so laid back; he would make a good buffer. I could see us getting through this, even though I had a feeling Liam was going to poke Lucian as much as he could.
A few people jumped and screamed when Headmaster Mykene waved her hand and a wall of swirling silver appeared. I didn’t and I should have. I wasn’t even allowed to wear black nail polish because my father thought it was too close to witchcraft. Which was stupid, but anyway. I thought it was insanely cool.
“Pay attention to what I just did because you’ll be learning how to make portals your first year. Not every supernatural can make them, but a lot can. It’s the safest way to travel and if you’re ever being attacked, you’re going to want to be able to make one because no one can follow you if you close it fast enough.”
“You can also call rabid attack birds through them,” Lucian muttered, rubbing his hand.
“You’re scared of a bird?” Liam asked. “Mate, you are going to get your arse kicked here.”
“I’m not scared of birds! And it wasn’t a regular bird. It was a god’s familiar.”
“If were-corgis aren’t real, I want my familiar to be a corgi.”
“You’d only get a corgi familiar if you were born a witch, Mr. O’Breen,” Professor Mykene said.
“Well, maybe a witch will let me play with theirs,” he shrugged.
“Anyway, if you’ll all step through the portal, we’ll be at the ritual site and I can explain everything.”
“You want us to trust you and walk through that?” someone asked.
I’d give it to Liam. He just marched straight through it with no fear and then popped his head back out.
“My cock didn’t fall off, and it’s pretty cool in here. You lot sure hold grudges. It’s like you’ve never been drugged and kidnapped before.”
“This was the first time anyone succeeded,” Lucian muttered.
Interesting.
Khalid just bowed like a gentleman.
“I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to say ‘ladies first’ here or for me to go first because I suspect my idea of cool and Liam’s are drastically different.”
I was pretty sure everyone’s idea of pretty cool was different from Liam’s, but honestly, I kind of liked that about him. The guys in my youth group saw my father mistreating me on several occasions and acted like I deserved it and should fix myself. Liam just heard he wouldn’t pay for my insulin pump and offered to stab him. That was really intense, but I could actually appreciate that.
I’d have to eventually ask him if he was the one who left me the dick, but not now.
Khalid and Lucian looked surprised when I grabbed their hands.
