Page 32
CHAPTER 14
Grumptraphy
BANE
The fates have, for once, smiled upon me.
Inserting myself into Eldritch University’s teaching faculty was laughably easy, a habit grown from listlessness and boredom common with long-lived supernaturals. Huff, mischievous, brilliant little puffball that he was, added me as a teaching assistant without ever having to physically touch a keyboard or mouse.
I grinned at the memory, his three tails fanned out around him and lavender magic clouding the air. Little known fact, if an electronic or digital system didn’t have any kind of protection, magic can slip right into it and essentially change the code, rewriting it for its own spell’s purposes.
Virus software doesn't stop shite.
My glamoured granite hands heated up, friction building between my palms as I rubbed them together vigorously, observing the clueless students, intense joy bubbling in my chest. I scanned the rows for her, then finally set my sights on Miko.
For a moment, I worried the emotion was seconds away from ripping my ribs apart and splattering the front row of students with frothing navy-blue blood.
The shocked horror widening her eyes made me snicker. I kept a good deal of space between Professor Torbus and I, his sauntering steps begging me to trip him with my tail. My nose wrinkled behind the glamour, the magic unfortunately doing nothing to hinder the reek of desperation mixed with severely misplaced self-importance leaking from his pores. The combination didn’t make sense and reminded me of week-old trash left rotting in the sun but oh-so-helpfully spritzed with a fake floral air freshener.
Even if I didn’t have advanced senses, the rumpled suit, one button dangling loosely, and the coffee stain on his trouser leg, paired with an arrogant smile and greasy hair rakishly falling over one eye would be enough to cement anyone’s dislike. As it was, the arsehat loved pawning off his classes on me. In fact, he’d done exactly that the two previous semesters I worked with him.
I fell into the void inside my skull, leaning against the whiteboard behind the pitiful excuse for a desk as Professor Torbus droned on, no doubt welcoming the class to a new semester and going over the syllabus, all the while raking my eyes over my honeybee.
“Axel,” Professor Torbus called. I ignored him, tapping a finger on my biceps. He cleared his throat and tried again.
Once the room grew to my desired amount of tense, awkward silence, I slowly turned my head toward him and curved both brows up, beaming smile displayed across my face. “Yes?”
“I’ve said your name at least five times,” he snapped.
I laughed. “Have you?”
“Yes.” When I didn’t say anything, his noxious odor grew, most assuredly pissed off and not believing I would belittle someone like him, a professor. “Now that I have your, attention,” he spat, “I have some business to attend to. Finish up the class for the day.”
I winked. “Sure. If you’d rather ditch early than teach, I am more than happy to take up the mantle.”
My eyes fixed to his face as it morphed into a nasty shade of puce, his eyes bulging. “I-I. How dare—”
Laughing, I swung my hand toward the exit. “See you on Thursday, Torbus.”
“That’s Professor Torbus to you, heathen,” he mumbled angrily under his breath.
“Ms. Gowdy,” I announced to the room the moment the door slammed shut, smirking as several students turned to stare at Miko, “please see me after class.” My statement was not a request, and judging by the streaks of pink rising high on her cheeks, she knew it as well as I did. “As for the rest of you lot, read the rest of the chapter Torbus was lecturing you on silently.”
I leaned my arse on the edge of the desk, crossing my ankles, and glared at the room full of students, purposefully looking everywhere but at my Honeybee. To all the humans here she would appear to be reading the prescribed chapter, but they did not have the senses I did.
A grin spread across the lower half of my face as Miko kept glancing up, then quickly back at her textbook every few minutes.They couldn't hear the gasp she released when I walked into the room, the way her pulse thumped erratically each time she met my eye, or the way she squirmed in her seat, thighs squeezing together every time she looked up and found me staring at her. I clenched my jaw as her scent filtered to me just as strong as if she were standing, or rather kneeling, before me.
Oh, the games we could play together.
Carnal desire drowned me, and I growled, not giving a shite that it caused a few students to eye me questioningly. “Get back to reading,” I admonished in a sing-song voice, loving the resulting spike of tenuous fear tickling my nostrils and distracting me from my lust.
The reprieve lasted for less than thirty seconds as I recalled the way her aroused aroma clung to my clothes like perfume after our mutual… eh, call it what it was, edging session in the library’s cozy corner. My thoughts wound through my brain, punctuating my pacing steps at the front of the class and manic energy building into a crescendo inside me.
“Class dismissed,” I announced abruptly.
A tall brunette female in the third row raised her hand, a saucy smile twisting her lips, and batted her lashes at me in a way that made me want to pluck them off one-by-one. “But, professor, we still have thirty minutes left of class.”
I pierced her with a glare and my best do-you-really-want-to-mess-with-an-unhinged-maniac-smile. “I don't give a fuck. Now, all of you. Get. Out.” Snickering joyfully, I watched as the students clambered from their seats, gathered their things, and fled the room, never losing sight of Miko from the corner of my eye. The primal, predator part of me knew she’d assume I wasn’t paying attention to her, losing her in the crowd of bodies. Unfortunately, for her, I was smarter and more skilled than I let show.
