“You lost the right to ask that when you broke into the queen’s personal residence,” Brynn said, backing up and holding out an arm toward the still open front door. “Now get the flub out and forget about marrying Air. He does not want you.”
“Whether he wants me or not is irrelevant,” Felixa said, face flushed as she conceded and kicked one of Elijah’s spirit mice on her way toward the front door. “The queen doesn’t want a man on the throne, and Amerin law requires a demigoddess or demigod to take the reins. She’ll make her son take a harem—including a demigoddess to rule—and she’ll damn well make sure all the matches are good ones. A clumsy spirit whisperer whose only talent is collecting ghosts doesn’t exactly rank very high on her list.”
Felixa stormed toward the door, grabbed her handler’s arm, and yanked him along behind her.
“Go to flubbing hell, you bleeding blatherer, spirit shouting, son of a blitz!” Brynn screamed, kicking the front door closed and then plopping down on the sofa. I refilled the lemonade from the ice box supply and took it over to her. “Thanks,” she grumbled, sitting between Air and Elijah. But her eyes were all for the prince. “You keep telling me everything’s going to be okay, and I keep hearing things like that, Air.”
“If that’s my mother’s plan, I haven’t heard it. Why do you think I would lie to you, Brynn?” He gazed at her with so much compassion in his face that I almost choked. I bet it was him that requested all that lemonade. As soon as Brynn started sipping on it, her cheeks went pink and her shoulders relaxed a little.
“Ugh, so much feeling in this room I might choke,” I said, cocking my head to the side and letting my tails sway enticingly. Brynn liked them; I could tell. “Shall we get your griffin fiancé out of here before that girl goes and tattles on us?”
“He’s not my fiancé,” Brynn mumbled, rubbing at the ring on her finger but not bothering to take it off either. She rose to her feet, lemonade in hand, and sucked the rest of it down. “Nobody is, not yet anyway.” She slipped the royal ring back into her pocket, tried to hand the empty glass back to me and ended up fumbling it until it fell to the floor and shattered. With a sigh, she crunched over the shards in her boots and grabbed a heavy wool coat from the hooks near the door. “And yes, let’s. The last thing I need is to give Everess another reason to dislike me. This,” she gestured over at me, “is going to be hard enough to explain.”
I grinned at her and flicked my tails enticingly in her direction, just enough to get her to tug on one in irritation.
The look Dyre was throwing most definitely promised that he was going to try and kick my ass later.
Unfortunately for him, he’d never been all that good at it.
Felixa followed me for days after that. I mean, she quite literally trailed me around campus, even going so far as to track me into the campus bookstore and park herself in one of the reading chairs while Jasinda and I finished picking out the rest of our books.
No gems were ever exchanged on campus—it was a currency-free zone—but most of the books required for class were rare, magical tombs and there were only so many of them. We had to ‘check them out’, as if this were a library or something. So we ended up standing in a ridiculously long line with two wicker baskets full of supplies and two stacks of books on the floor at our feet. As the line moved forward, we kicked our piles along with booted feet. I’d have given them to one of my ghostly horde to hold, but I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that four of the ten ghosts in the building were mine.
“This is so boring,” Trubble complained, lying on his back next to the snaking curve of the line and staring up at the ceiling. Everyone else was staring at him, and no less than twelve girls and six boys had paused to ask if he was single and looking. I kid you not. “Aren’t there servants who can do these sorts of tasks for you?”
“Servants aren’t allowed on campus,” I told him, poking him in the side with my foot. I was still royally pissed off that he’d attached himself to me without consent. It was a sort of … gods, I didn’t want to say magical rape, it wasn’t that bad, but it was rude and thoughtless and annoying as flub. “Not even royalty brings servants with them.”
“What about scribe boy?” Trubble asked, rolling onto his side and propping his head up with one hand. I kept seeing professors and Royal College guards glancing oddly in his direction, but we had Professor Cross with us and nobody seemed willing to come and talk to Trubble when there was already another teacher close by.
“He’s not a servant,” Jasinda said, glancing back and catching Matz’ eye as he shelved a book and then looked quickly down at his supply list. “He’s a scribe and a scholar and a fifth-year. He’s just around to help with you-know-what, not with schoolwork.”
“And help with bedroom time, too, huh?” Trubble said, grinning and swishing his tails around. He had two fuzzy ears atop his head as well, just like Dyre, little furry triangle just begging for a pinch. I wondered if he could turn into a mask in this form as well? Might not be as cute, seeing a tall dude crawling over somebody’s head. “Because, clearly, he wants to fuck you.”
I turned toward Trubble in shock and smacked another student in the face with my wing, knocking her back into the boys behind her and spilling her books all over the floor. Oops. When I tried to go over to help her, I hit yet another student in the back of the neck and knocked him forward into a tangle of sixth-years.
Gods.
At that point, I just tucked my wings in close and mumbled a few apologies. It didn’t much look like any of them wanted my help anyway.
“What are you getting so worked up for? It’s just sex. Obviously, you’ve had it before.” Trubble picked at the buttons on his borrowed tunic and then sat up with a sigh. Personally, even though, he was a beautiful, beautiful man, I was already scheming ways to turn him back into a fox. I was curious, too, about those white wings. I preferred the ebony feathers I was born with, but it was an interesting idea to think I might be able to switch the color with magic if I wanted.
“I’m not getting worked up,” I said with an eyeroll, noticing one of Eli’s little ghost mice cowering near my feet. The man himself sauntered up in a lazy, boneless sort of way and gave my slightly-smaller-than-Jas’ stack of books a close look.
Ah, flub.
“A book on razor wolves?” he asked, absently stroking the ears of the ugly little spirit mutt he’d picked up in the city. “I don’t remember that being on the required reading list for first-years.”
“Maybe I have different classes than you did?” I said, folding my arms under my breasts as Eli quirked a brow at me.
“We’re both spirit whisperers, Brynn.” He leaned down and carefully sifted through the stack of books, pulling out the one in question as that little bee inside my belly started buzzing again. But this time, it wasn’t from jealousy, it was from nerves.
Of course I’d snuck a book on razor wolves into my stack when Jasinda was busy loading up on extra study guides and optional textbooks that neither of us really needed. I had to save Talon. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I couldn’t leave him like that.
Several nearby students gaped at the floating book—they couldn’t see Eli—and gave me and Jassy an even wider berth than before. So I was clumsy and surrounded by ghosts. At least I had plenty of them to act as friends because I wasn’t making any around here just yet. And these were people who were around spirt whisperers on a regular basis. Hellim’s balls, there were spirit whisperers in the line with us and they looked at me like I was crazy. Because none of them had a little ghost harem following them around, now did they?
“What are you planning on doing with this?” he asked, using every trick in the book to appear both solid and hold the tome in his hand at the same time. It didn’t last long, and he ended up tossing it back onto the stack before crossing his arms over his chest.