Just like every time that I was forced to enter Professor Bacchus’ classroom.
My hair bristled to red, and the tattooed wolves on my arms growled warnings, as I steeled myself for a new term of lessons in SHP. As the son of Loki, Bacchus had hunted me, but she’d no idea what she’d caught. It sucked that she didn’t care.
At least she hadn’t arrived yet.
You weren’t late for Bacchus’ class unless you wished to be transformed into a chair that was pillowed with pink blossoms for her to sit on. Trust me, I still had the sensation of her ass on my lap.
Bor’s beard, that’d been enough to scare me into behaving for life.
Bacchus’ magic prickled across my skin; my own magic feathered in fear inside me. I willed it to still, as I glanced around the room that was set out like a lab, if science took place inside a tree. Roots burst out of the floor, curling up and around the walls that were thick with moss. It was kind of like Hecate was possessively cradling Bacchus, and it gave me a sick feeling that the goddess was as close to Bacchus as she was to my Magenta.
I wrinkled my nose at the earthy scent, tightening my hold on Magenta’s waist. I adored that our ritual had freed her, but not that she was now trapped as an Immortal. Weirdly, Magenta didn’t appear concerned. I imagined that it was because she both had some sort of plan and had awesome power herself. After all, she’d kicked my ass in the Warrior Dueling.
Valhalla! It’d been hot to go hand-to-hand with someone who wasn’t my family, and see such strength, as well as love reflected back in her eyes. Honestly, I’d had to fight the urge to tear off her clothes and thrust my achingly hard dick into her, until she’d screamed out her surrender because that’d would’ve been both a creative way to win and what she’d desired just as much as me. The way that she’d caressed my dick, every time that Ezekiel had turned his back, meant that she’d been the reason for my blue ball predicament now.
I stealthily adjusted myself in my pants.
Then I steered Magenta to the lab table next to the window, which looked out over the bailey. The bronze Hecate statues were dancing to themselves in the snow like they were at a rave.
Huh, that was freaky even for them.
Magenta dropped gracefully onto her stool. “My gracious, I love what Bacchus has done with the place.”
I chuckled. “Hey, she’s just living the American dream. Woodland retreat, university career, and even a cat…”
I pointed at Pocus, who was curled up in the far corner in the shadows. Of course, he’d transformed back into a Halfling because his punishment must’ve been completed, which is why Magenta gasped.
“Unless animals have changed since I died, I’m pretty certain that is not a cat.” She pointed at Pocus who raised his head to glare at us.
I closed my hand over Magenta’s because pissing off Pocus was more dangerous than magically rewriting the school motto to glow:
Rebel Academy — Screwing the Innocent Since 1870
Yeah, that’d been me.
Interesting that it’d taken the professors over a week to notice that it’d been changed.
“Pocus is Professor Bacchus’ familiar,” I explained.
Magenta cocked her head, studying the lithe Korean vampire who was naked apart from a pentacle collar. He had striking black eyes but soft features that made him look like he’d burst into a K-pop dance routine at any moment. I winced at the memory of pointing that out to him, and the way that his fangs had latched onto my ass.
“Don’t lie to me.” Magenta’s magic sparked across my skin, but it drew me closer, rather than repelling me like Bacchus’ did. “I spent over a lifetime in dreadfully close quarters with twin familiars. That creature has the ears and tail of a cat, but retains the cock, balls, and fangs of a Fallen.”
By the Norns, I’d forgotten just how strange it’d been to see Pocus for the first time with his cute black ears poking out of his mop of black hair and his swishing tail. Familiars in the Victorian age hadn’t been freed into this form. How hard was it for Magenta to wake into such a changed age?
“He’s different,” I said, gently, “because someone brave broke the rules and freed the familiars from total enslavement. He’s a Halfling now — half vampire and half familiar. Adorable, right?”
Pocus preened.
Magenta nodded. “Who’s the equally naked gentleman that he’s trying to hide?”
I stiffened, and Pocus hissed, winding closer around the vampire who was kneeling in the corner.
“The Princes’ whipping boy,” I muttered. “If they’d got here yet, then I’d tell Willoughby and Lysander just what I thought about making him kneel like that. Here’s hoping that they’re late, and we get to watch Bacchus transform them into a couch.” I arched my brow at Pocus. “We get that you’re a fierce warrior and bow down before you in fear.” Pocus smiled with a hint of fang, satisfied. “You don’t have to guard your friend from Magenta.”
I stared at the pale beauty of Midnight’s back. Midnight’s dark hair fell to his waist in waves. His ash wings were neatly folded. He held his hands behind his head and didn’t move, as if he was a statue.
He waited as he always did, like he was a not yet in use Bunsen burner, for his masters to need him.
I scowled. Had I promised to wreck the Princes? I was wrong: I’d doubly wreck them.
I glanced up as my own whipping boy bounced into the classroom in a ball of hyperactivity that was the opposite of Midnight. Did Fox have any idea how lucky he was not to have been assigned to the Princes? The first time that he’d been told to kneel still in a corner, he’d have been punished within five minutes…wait, two minutes…more like ten seconds…
Huh, at least Fox appeared to be distracting Bask from the no touching rule that I could already see was sending tremors through Bask. Since Bask had been sent…abandoned…here last term, I’d constantly had an incubus plushie swinging from my neck, grinding on my lap, or spooning me in bed. Now it felt like I’d lost a limb.
Dwarf’s breath, what did it feel like to him?
Now, Fox was trying to make Bask laugh with a scarily accurate impression of Damelza, at the same time as herding him (without touching him), to the table at the front. As they settled onto stools, Fox turned to wink at Magenta.
“What’s this I hear about you becoming our Prefect? I mean, of course I was Head Boy at Mage College and…” I watched, amused, as Fox lost himself in the lie. Yet there was a flicker of sadness in his eyes, which made me wonder if like me, he’d never actually been to College. Was he excited because this was his first taste of education and freedom? “…you know, a good boy.”
“And if you were a bad boy, I’m certain that you took your thrashings with great courage,” Magenta smiled, encouragingly.
Fox blushed and made a choking sound. Bask patted him on the back.
I glanced between them. “I take it you’re aware that Magenta becoming a Prefect to rival Lysander makes us all a target?”
Fox paled. “Still… #TeamImmortal!”
Magenta blinked. “What is this hashtag? My Greek is not what it should be.”
Bask snickered. “It means love.”
“Ah,” Magenta smiled, and her icy eyes warmed, “then let me say what has been in my heart but unable to be on my lips: I most deeply and madly hashtag you, my Rebels.”