Furious Flames (Elemental Book 3) (8 page)

“Do you trust me?”

“Not at all.” I gathered up my stuff and started to
leave.

“I need my books back. It is your responsibility to
take care of something you borrow without permission.”

I recalled the time during the previous semester when
Darwin, Henry, and I went into the professor’s secret library and found books
on the castle and the original founders. I would have felt guilty for breaking
into the wizard’s room if it weren’t for what we found in the books, which was
evidence that Langril was much more than a professor of potions.

Although I knew instinctively that Darwin was correct
in the fact that Keigan Langril was Leara Kingling, who worked with Heinrich
Baldauf on building the castle, we had no proof. Ghost took the books, which
probably made getting proof more difficult, but I wasn’t concerned. At the
moment, I had no reason to call Langril out on his past. Langril already said
he didn’t think I was ready— for something— so I didn’t think he would tell me
about the tower just because I knew who he was.

Besides, I was pretty sure Hunt and my uncle already
knew, and there was most likely going to be a chance where I could use the
information to get them to tell me about the tower.

“Well, Ghost borrowed them from me without
permission, so I’ll have to talk to Vincent.”

“Send Darwin over. I have something that can prove
useful.”

*          *          *

My illusions class was on the top floor of the
castle, which was normally for the fae classes. No matter how physical my job
could get, walking up seven flights of stairs in ten minutes was hell on my
lungs. When I reached the top, I first noticed a commotion. To my left was a
glass door leading to the sixteen-by-sixteen-foot terrace.

Quintessence was a secluded university where keeping
the students secret from humans was paramount. Between the wizards, vampires,
shifters, and fae, drinking and drugs were not an issue because they led to
mistakes none of these students could afford. At the same time, they needed to
decompress more than humans. Thus, there was a lot more fighting. The new clubs
were helping, but “epic duels” were basically tradition.

I was about to turn and go the other way when a
familiar shout stopped me. I sighed and went outside. Darwin and a fae named
Laiden were surrounded by other students. Laiden’s fists clinched.

“I didn’t touch her!” Darwin yelled.

“She said you did and she’d never lie!” Laiden swung his
fist to strike Darwin, but I was ready for it.

I reached out with my power and flooded the man’s
mind. “Stop,” I commanded. The fae froze. “Darwin?” I asked, letting the fae
go.

“He says I groped his girlfriend! You know I couldn’t
touch…” he stopped talking when he realized he was waving his hands around.
Normally, he could use that defense, but he was wearing latex gloves. He put
his hands behind his back and blushed. “I didn’t do it.”

“Why does she think you did?”

He shrugged. “Because I was behind her. I… was the
only one behind her. I didn’t do it, though.”

Laiden scoffed. “You practically just admitted it.”

A woman pulled Laiden off to the side. Several of the
students were looking at me like I was about to go postal. I used to get that
look a lot before I learned to hide my abilities and dismiss them as intuition.

I sighed. “Don’t touch his skin. If anyone touches
his skin, you’ll have to deal with Henry and me. Other than that, Darwin, you
need to learn to talk it out.”

“But I didn’t do it and she said I did. They think
they can blame me because I’m a throwback.”

“Then either tell her louder, turn her backpack pink,
or shift and eat her. I’m going to class.” I went back inside and found the
classroom easily.

Remy was a strong woman who, except for a little
anger-management trouble, was very emotionally stable. Despite her gorgeous
appearance and the feminine clothes she wore, she was more of a tomboy growing
up. She hated being treated with gentleness or sympathy, but I had been in her
head; I knew what Rosin Flagstone meant to her.

The classroom had a skylight, yet the sun was low
enough that it wasn’t blaring down on us. Actually, all of the fae students who
entered the class went straight for the seats in the sunlight, so I figured it
had more to do with them. I sat in the back, away from the sun and Darwin sat beside
me a few minutes later.

“I figured Remington would have gone after Alpha
Flagstone,” I said quietly.

Darwin nodded. “I’m surprised Alpha Flagstone hasn’t
come back. A familiar is like a limb; you can lop it off if it’s infected, but
you’re not going to do it for fun. You also don’t see arms running away.”

“I think that’s exactly why Flagstone left; it can’t
be fun being compared to a limb.”

Darwin shrugged. “He’s powerless if something happens
to Hunt. He’s being a fool.”

“Darwin, thank you for volunteering,” Remy said. We
both faced the front to see her glaring at us. Everyone else turned to stare.

“Sorry, sheila, but I wasn’t listening.”

“No shit. Daydreaming is bad enough, but if you’re
going to talk during class on the first day, I’ll flunk you here and now.”

Darwin started to stand, but I grabbed his arm, held
him down, and opened the connection between us. “
Calm down
,” I told him.
“
She’s upset, which you can understand. Use your brain. Say you’re sorry and
it won’t happen again, whether you mean it or not.
” I didn’t push
tranquility or anything else at him because I knew he was capable of calming
himself.

He withdrew himself from the connection until it
collapsed. After a moment, he settled down. “I’m sorry and it won’t happen
again.”

Shock flashed across Remy’s face for an instant
before she hid it. “See that it doesn’t.” She handed a stack of papers to Len,
who I assumed was her assistant this semester, and he tripped over his chair in
eagerness to obey her unspoken command.

“When do we get to make wands and staffs and stuff?”
a student asked.

“In your forth semester. You learned the basics in
your first and second semesters, but you need to understand the purposes of
your focal and balancing tools, like incense, colors, candles, sigils, and the
like before you can use these in creating your higher tools. Can you imagine an
eighteen-year-old C-One running around the halls with a powerful staff?”

“Is illusion a different variety of magic, like
psychic magic and elemental magic?” I asked.

“It depends. For fae, yes. For wizards, it’s more of
a middle ground. In this class, you will learn to use magic to distract others
and distort their perception. In rare cases, you may want to distort your own
perception. But first, a written pretest.”

Groans, moans, and pleas met her words. “Why?!” one
student cried dramatically.

She grinned evilly. “Because I’m the professor and I
said so.”

*          *          *

“How many of you have had your privacy invaded?”
Professor Nakari asked. “Someone read your private journal, or eavesdropped on
a private conversation, or…” she looked right at me. “… read your mind.”

Every one of my classmates raised their hands, most
looking around to make sure they weren’t the only ones. Jackson snuck a glance
at me and put his hand down.

“In this class, you will learn to protect your mind
and body from psychic attacks,” the professor said when the students put their
hands down. Several other students peeked at me. I ignored them.

*          *          *

Lana Ashwood was a thin woman with long black hair
and a sweet, older face. The
Intuition and Prophesy
classroom was dark,
since there were no windows or torches. The only light came from a built-in pit
in the center of the room filled with blue fire. Instead of desks, there were
blood-red pillows on the floor with small, low tables. I sat down on the pillow
closest to the door and Becky sat next to me.

“How was your summer?” she asked. “I heard you were
teaching Darwin.”

“You heard right.”

“I think that answers the question of how your summer
went.”

“Darwin isn’t a bother. I mean, he’s not a throwback,
either, and my kitchen could have done without a magical paint job, but he’s
not bad once you get to know him.”

“He’s nosy.”

“He is that.”

“He’s extremely rude.”

“When he’s nervous, he says intentionally rude or
weird things to divert attention.”

“He’s a pervert.”

“No, he’s frustrated. He can never touch a girl. How
would you feel?”

She frowned remorsefully. “You’re right. It would
suck if I could never touch a girl again. I bet you’ll be great at this class.”
She blushed when she said the last part.

“Welcome to
Intuition and Prophesy
,” the
professor began. “I am Professor Ashwood. Although this is an elective class,
do not take that to mean it will be easy. If any of you have a class after
this, you need to speak with Professor Watson, for that is a mistake. Your
schedules state this is a two-hour class, but that is not the case. Every day,
I will give you an assignment and you will have as long as you need to complete
the assignment. You can leave as soon as I see that you are successful, and not
a minute before. If this takes five minutes or five hours, it makes no
difference. If this is a problem, drop out now. If you miss more than three
classes for any reason, you automatically fail.”

*          *          *

At dinner, Astrid got a tray with us instead of a cup
of blood. After considering her hamburger, Darwin asked if refusing blood made
her a vegetarian. “No, I’ll just have to have Stephen send packages of real
blood. Since I’m not actually a student, it shouldn’t be a problem. Unless
Devon wanted to volunteer…”

“I will shoot you,” I said. When she smirked at me, I
saw the other side of her face. “What the hell happened?” I asked. A patch of
skin from her left ear to her left eye and all the way down to her chin was
burned. It was only as bad as a sunburn, but no vampire should have a sunburn
at all.

She shrugged. “No idea. I woke up with this. I must
have dreamed of sunlight in my sleep.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

Addison sat next to Henry without a word and ate her
burger. “How come shifters don’t eat raw meat?” Astrid asked her, obviously
trying to get the attention off herself.

“We do in our shifted forms. In our person forms, our
stomachs are designed for cooked food just like a human’s. Physically, we are
very similar to humans in this form. We’re usually more athletic, but that’s
because of our shifting abilities. Otherwise, cold-blooded creatures like the
snake shifters would be S.O.L. In fact, I knew a throwback once whose father
was a python shifter, but his mother was a wolf shifter. He couldn’t shift, but
he had a lot of problems, as he was basically a cold-blooded human.”

“I met one of those this summer,” Darwin said.

“Mr. Oakland was a lawyer, not cold-blooded,” I argued.

A loud explosion had me ducking and reaching for my
gun instinctively. Fortunately, I didn’t have my gun, but I was confused as
green confetti showered from the ceiling and a dozen or so cat shifters of
various species shifted right there in the dining room. Addison gasped. Henry’s
pupils dilated and his hand clamped down on Addie’s. His fingertips morphed
into black claws that dug into Addie’s skin.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, wiping the
small, dried, green leaves off the table.

Henry shuddered. “Catnip.”

“That works on shifters?!” Darwin screeched.

I eyed Li Na, who was rolling around in the catnip
and licking it off her fur. Most of the shifted cats were doing the same, but
one leopard attacked another and chased him out of the room.

Henry’s expression was almost longing, almost sick.
He obviously wanted to shift as well. Addie cuddled against his chest, purred,
and rubbed her face on his arm. “Those of us who have the gene in cat form and
have a feline sense of smell in our person form can be affected by catnip. It’s
not very strong in this form, but it’s enough to make us want to shift.”

“Someone is playing pranks,” Astrid said. “I was told
there were snakes in the women’s showers this morning.”

Henry got up and left, followed by Addison.

After eating, we headed to my room, where Henry and
Addison were studying. “Time to go sit in the forest for hours with nothing to
show for it,” Henry said. Darwin shot him a glare. Henry was definitely acting
odd. Then again, so was everyone else.

“What are you trying to do?” Astrid asked.

“Darwin is trying to learn magic using the amulet.”

“They think I’m not a throwback,” Darwin explained.

Astrid unexpectedly backed him against the door, not
touching him, and they locked eyes. After about a minute, just long enough for
it to become very weird, she stepped back and broke whatever was between them.
“You’re not a throwback. You have conflicting natures, but you are capable of
both shifting and using magic. The only thing stopping you is you.”

 “You’re wrong.”

“I’m a woman; I’m never wrong.” With that, she left.

My roommates and I spent four hours outside, watching
Darwin
not
shift.

*          *          *

After the unsuccessful practice, Darwin and Henry
went to the library, but I opted out. Ghost was sitting on my desk when I
returned to my room, his tail flickering slowly and his eyes narrowed with
annoyance. “What’s your problem?” I asked.

Darkness spread from the far corner. My first thought
was to run over and pull the thick window curtains open, but my instincts
didn’t fire up to warn me of danger. The cat didn’t even stop glaring at me. A
few seconds later, the darkness receded and left my uncle standing there. Ghost
vanished.