The professor stood up and padded over to a table against the far wall. He had a fire whisperer blessed stone circle that he could light with a single breath—like my torch—and he kept a pot of hot water on all at times.
“And how about the most obscure?” the professor continued, seeping himself a nice strong cup of tea while his black tails swished back and forth. Watching them made me think of Trubble’s tails, all nine of them, tucked up underneath us both. I wiggled again and he choked back a small groan. “Anybody?” Professor Oni asked, glancing over his shoulder with gold eyes and an easy, relaxed smile. He had two sets of ears, like all kitsune—one human-like set and a fox set. The fuzzy fox ears in his dark hair twitched slightly.
“The rarest whisperers are, of course, magick whisperers,” Jasinda said, sitting up straight and staring Felixa down from across the room. Not only was Felixa a raging psycho, but she also fancied herself the next valedictorian of the Royal College. Since Jasinda also fancied that position for herself, there was a scholarly competition raging between the two of them that I just didn’t quite understand. I didn’t plan on being the worst student in the school or anything, but if I fell to the middle of the pack, then so be it.
I had a resurrection spell to worry about.
“Any country on the continent will have the same answer,” Professor Oni said as a few more students got up and took advantage of his weird, little tea station. I thought it was pretty cool, to be honest, fostering this relaxed relationship with us all so that we’d actually listen and care when he talked. Not like Professor Tiukka, I thought sourly. But of course, Trubble chose that exact moment to put his hands on my hips, lighting this fire inside of me that I blamed Vexer for starting outside my hour five classroom. “How about the next rarest—and this is also relatively universal?”
“Shadow whisperers,” Jasinda said, before Felixa got the chance to butt in. “Followed by spirit whisperers, although New Akyumen has the highest percentage of shadow whisperers of any country in the known world thanks, in part, to the Royal College.”
“Blade whisperers … super rare,” Trubble said, but his voice didn’t sound quite so smooth and practiced now. I guess I was affecting him as much as he was affecting me. Good to know.
“Blade whisperers, good,” Professor Oni said, resuming his spot on the couch at the front of the room. “The goddess Ha isn’t stingy with her gifts, but she only gives them out to those that earn them, so, of course, there are far less blade whisperers than some of the natural born magics.”
I adjusted myself on Trubble’s lap yet again, causing his hands to tighten almost unbearably on my waist. A small sound escaped my throat and Jasinda gave me a strange look. That’s when I decided that enough was enough, but Trubble wouldn’t let me go, holding me place and keeping me from standing up.
“Just stay,” he growled out, “please.”
So I sat stone-still the rest of the class, listening to Professor Oni’s soothing voice describe the rarest of the rare, the magick whisperers. I tuned it all out; growing up in the castle with Air as a playmate and the queen a constant figure in my life, I knew as much about them as Professor Oni was going to tell us. Most likely, the Royal College knew everything they needed to know, but I highly doubted the queen would ever let that information become public.
After class ended, I stood up, but Trubble didn’t, waiting for the rest of the students to file out before he rose to his feet and made a quick exit, beating a path back to the house and then leaning his palm against the wall next to the door while he waited for Jasinda to unlock it.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked as he slid his bronze eyes over to me.
“Wrong?” he asked, giving me a curious little smile with a single sharp tooth. “Nothing’s wrong. You just … stimulated me is all, and I need a shower.”
“I … stimulated you?” I asked, cheeks flushing with heat as Jasinda paused to glance over at us. Trubble pushed up off the wall and paused to whisper in my ear before heading inside.
“I came in my pants,” he growled, and my entire body erupted in goose bumps.
I gaped at him as he slipped in the front door and headed up the stairs. I could hear his feet as he moved down the hall and left through the back, on his way down to the bathhouse no doubt.
And then I did my best not to look at Dyre and Air as they materialized inside.
What in Hellim’s Hell was I supposed to say to them after that?
Sleeping without Vexer, without a warm, living person, wasn’t easy for me, not right now. I was so scared that I was going to wake up and start exorcising spirits in my sleep that I’d been staying on the couch. Trubble slept in the nearest chair and even though he was a total bum-hole and a complete weirdo, it was comforting. I liked the sound of his breath.
Elijah tried to convince me to come upstairs, but as much as I wanted to not sleep up there with him and Air, I was too tired from class and too scared that I’d end up falling asleep afterward and hurting someone.
Instead, I laid on the small couch, drifting in and out of strange dreams until I finally pulled myself up and dragged my tired butt over to the empty area in the front of the house. Carefully, I went over my mother’s drawing of the runes, recreating the circle Jas had made the other day from scratch. The silver ash sparkled in the low light of the gas lamp on the wall, the orange and yellow flames flickering in the darkness.
“Did you want some help?” Trubble asked from my left, standing there shirtless and dressed in some of Airmienan’s silk pj pants. He was a gorgeous, gorgeous man, this shadow fox. As he watched me, his thick purple tails swayed seductively.
“After the help you gave me today? No thank you.” I went over the runes in my head, drawing and redrawing each one until I felt like they were burned into the deepest recesses of my brain. Trubble waited a few moments and then came over to sit beside me, regardless of whether I wanted him there or not.
“I didn’t do that on my own,” he purred, but I ignored him. I was not looking for yet another love interest. Prince Air was my childhood sweetheart; Vexer was the strong sturdy man I needed now; Elijah was a ghost that I desperately wanted to bring back to life. And then there was Talon, my first kiss, trapped in the belly of a wolf.
I sighed and glanced over at the shadow. He looked just like Dyre now, like any other kitsune, but when I reached out with that dark magic inside of me, I could feel it. Trubble was a force to be reckoned with and now, he was mine. He was bound to me and as such, I could control him if I absolutely had to. It’d be a struggle of wills, that was for sure, but it could be done.
“There must be something wrong with me,” I said as I stood up and started to pace the edge of the circle, looking for any imperfections. “A sex whisperer on campus that hates me or something.”
“Maybe you’ve just opened up to the idea of having a harem? Once you’re receptive to something, it can manifest itself without you even realizing it.” Trubble stood up and followed along behind me, pausing abruptly at the top of the circle, in the direction Hellim’s five-pointed star was facing.
“That’s your excuse as for why I rubbed all over some random guy’s lap?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. Trubble’s mouth quirked at the edge and slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet mine.
“I’m not some random guy,” he told me with pure confidence. He was so certain about it that I almost believed him, too. “I’m your new shadow. At least until you resurrect my big brother, right? I could be around for quite some time, according to your estimates.”