Wait, Lysander hadn't been kissing me. He'd been acting out his desire on his enemy...on Magenta. I couldn't help the twinge of regret at that.
"You wish to kiss your enemy…?" Magenta demanded.
Lysander wrenched his arm away from her, stumbling backward and landing on his ass. He reddened. "The s-spell made me d-do it. It must've gone wrong."
I couldn't help the flinch, when he wiped his hand across his mouth.
"I warned you that hexes were intimate or are you as keen as me to start the orgy?" Bacchus threw herself back down in the Willoughby chair. "Shall we see if our wicked witch loves or hates her enemy?"
I didn't miss the way that Midnight straightened and his eyes lit up. Was he hoping for a kiss from Magenta?
Unfortunately, I'd imagine that a Posion Ivy Penis hex was more likely.
"I cast the hex, and the Immortals' whipping boy suffered the consequences," Lysander pointed out. I grimaced like Lysander's gentle kiss had been a terrible trial, although my perky prick called me a liar. "Surely, the assignment is complete."
I realized that Lysander was frightened to discover the truth: whether Magenta loved or hated him.
I'd bet that it was a mixture of both.
Bacchus rapped her thyrsus against the floor. "You’re lucky that I'm so soft. Ezekiel must be rubbing off on me." Now I grimaced for real. I didn't want to hear about the kinkiness between those two in the staffroom. "He sometimes calls draws, right?"
I didn't know whether to sigh with relief or slump in defeat. We’d neither won nor lost. At least, there’d be no Punish and Reward Game.
Our next class was the Hunt, and nothing good had ever happened to a fox, during a hunt.
Bacchus' eyes glinted with malicious glee. "That means whoever wins the Hunt, wins the Rebel Cup. See how chaos brings everything down to this final crucial moment? On your final class, balances life and death.”
Chapter Fourteen
FOX
For a fox (even an Arctic one with pretty cream fur), a Hunt only ended two ways: your blood dying the snow crimson or your fluffy tail waving goodbye, as you ran and hid.
Was Saving Your Ass on the lesson plan? I should drop it into Damelza’s Suggestion Box.
My heart beat wildly, as I lowered my head in my Arctic fox form, slinking through the trees of the Dead Wood. My fur camouflaged me against the snow. My senses were enhanced, and I sniffed, overwhelmed by the scents of the yew trees and the thrumming magic.
Magenta.
Even though I'd had to leave her behind with Sleipnir on the trees' edges, I could sense her with my every breath. She was in the magic of the wood. As my paws pressed against the cold snow, I could even sense her pulsing through the earth like she was kissing me on each step.
I was safe, despite the fact that if I lost this hunt, I'd be killed.
I wasn't alone.
The woman who I loved would always be with me in the academy because she was the academy. I shivered as an icy breeze whooshed down my back.
I didn't expect Magenta to save me. I simply needed her to stay with me. Now I'd save my only furry ass.
Although, when Magenta had seen the white Omega werewolf at Juni’s side, prowling towards Lysander and me with his amber eyes glowing and his teeth bared, she'd rushed forward in protest. Juni's spell had whipped the branches of the trees around her and Sleipnir, trapping them against its trunk.
Why had Magenta paled, as her breath had become ragged? Juni had held me upside down by my ankles in her class. Yet the fact that I was rating Tree Trunk Bondage, showed that my education hadn't turned out how I'd always hoped.
Anyway, the Omega was Midnight’s friend and a prisoner as well. The witches didn’t understand that werewolves didn’t intimidate mages because we were on the same side. Except, when they were set on us during a Hunt, of course.
I sniffed, yawning as I turned in a circle. Didn't they know that I was nocturnal in this form? This was cruel and unusual punishment. I should put in a complaint to the get lost, mage, you're lucky that we didn't throw you to the wolves.
Wait, I had been thrown to the wolves...
Above my head, something golden fluttered. I growled, darting deeper into the shadows.
My only consolation was that Lysander had been thrown to the wolves as well.
I glanced up at Lysander, as he half flew and half leaped from tree to tree. Grudgingly, I admitted that it was a clever tactic. This was a fox and fae hunt. Whoever was caught by the Omega first lost the Hunt.
The stakes were only my life and Midnight's wings. Brilliant.
The skill with which Lysander swung between the branches made me wish that I'd taken my own exercise regime more seriously than shaking my feline ass to funk. Lysander would wreck me in a straight race or fight. To be fair, he'd wreck me in most warrior style things but could he recite every line from Peter Pan?
I allowed myself to preen on the thought for a single moment (I did an epic impression of Hook…okay, Aquilo had played Hook, Glow had always been cast as Peter, and I’d been…was it confusing to wank over Tinker Bell when you’d been cast as her every single time…?), then I padded forward, eying the snowbanks in case the Omega was planning to ambush me.
He was as camouflaged as me with his white coat.
Lysander flew deeper into the wood like a golden hummingbird. He was breath-taking. But I was still calling unfair advantage on the wings.
A fox, however, could be sneaky.
I dashed behind the snowbanks towards a stream. The Omega would be hunting by our scents. His was deliciously sweet vanilla, and my nose quivered to catch it on the breeze. I didn't know how I smelled in this form, but Juni had allowed the Omega to bury his nose into my fur and then uncomfortably close to Lysander's cock and balls. Lysander had yelped in outrage, reddening. The Omega’s touch, however, had made my sensitive fur stand up in pleasure.
Who said that the fox never won the hunt? Wait, everybody…?
I smirked (I'm talented enough to pull that off in any animal form, even hedgehog), as I leaped into the stream, only for my eyes to widen, as I remembered that it was frozen.
Mage's balls...
Over a decade stuck inside had sort of destroyed my natural instincts and my common sense.
I whined as I hit the ice. My little legs splayed out underneath me, until I looked like a furry clown with a ludicrously long tail. My ears flattened on my head. I slid round and round and...
Landed on my ass.
Mournfully, I struggled up.
Arooo...
My fur stood on end. The howl came from the riverbank behind me. Did I say river? It was more like a stream...okay, trickle of water. It looked large, however, when you were smaller than Hecate’s ego but bigger than Pan’s cock (which was the new scientific description of all animals, in case you didn't know).
I froze.
The Omega had caught me.
I. Was. Dead.
And not the Magenta type of dead, return as a ghost, and then be resurrected. The dead that you don't come back from.
I yelped, as fangs bit into the back of my neck and lifted me into the air. Yet they were gentle like a mummy cat snatching her naughty kitten by the scruff of the neck.