Everybody scrambled to do as she commanded. Then she whirled on us. “Let go of her, Dmitri.”
“Just what exactly happened here?” the deputy headmaster asked.
Professor McKenna stalked over and extracted me from him. I wanted to cling to her but managed to hold on to my senses. “What happened is that these two idiots woke up on the wrong side of the bed. They knocked over Sophie’s assignment.”
I felt a warm nudge at my ankle and looked down to find Charming, my salamander. My teeth grit as I picked him up. It was only then that I noticed I was still clutching onto the ambergris. Sighing, I dropped it back on the professor’s desk. Charming was shaking. Fire blazed in my chest. They’d ruined my potion. When the deputy head glared at me, I glared back for the first time ever. Maybe I was imagining it, but he frowned.
The bell rang. Students rushed to grab their belongings. “You’re dismissed, Sophie,” Professor McKenna said. I moved like an old lady as I packed up too. By the time I left, the professor and the deputy head were still having a glaring contest. I barely noticed it amidst the side glances I was getting from my classmates. Great.
Now the rumours would start. Even though I’d been nowhere near either of them, by the time lunch rolled around, they were all telling the story of how Sophie Mwansa tried to poison two of her classmates. Story of my life.
8
No matter how lonely I felt, I had promised myself in grade six that I would never eat lunch in the toilet. I was close to breaking that promise today as the staring and whispering reached fever pitch. The dining hall was a no-go zone. Thankfully, Peter and Thalia had no problems with me using their tiny kitchen next to the kitchen garden to prepare my own lunch.
“That smells amazing,” Thalia said. She glanced over my shoulder as I fished the last of the deep-fried fritter balls out of the small saucepan.
I held up the bowl for her. She plucked one of the balls and popped it into her mouth. “Wow.” She chewed thoughtfully. “If this low-witch thing doesn’t work out, at least you know you could go into catering.” She realised as soon as she said it that it was the wrong way to phrase the compliment. “Oh Sophie, I didn’t mean it that way.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not. Would you like me to say something to Jacqueline?”
I shrugged. “Not unless it gets me out of coming here. But I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
She gave me a mournful look as I packed up and took my lunch to the secluded patch of wilderness beside the kitchen garden. I sat down beneath the low branches of an oak tree. It was so peaceful here. Most of the students were in the dining hall or they preferred to spend their time in the Fae forest. This patch of meadow wasn’t as lush as those magicked woods. The grass was dry in some places. Here and there, poppies, heath and Sturt’s Desert Pea flowers grew.
I craned my head up to look at the dappled sunlight coming through the branches of the oak. It took me a while to notice that there were no birds chirping. Everything stood still as though the Earth was waiting with bated breath. Charming went cold in my lap. I hadn’t the heart to put him back into the enclosure after his shock. So he’d been tagging along with me all morning. Now he huddled against my thigh.
The hairs on my arms stood up. Boots crunched on the grass. Whoever was approaching was making no effort to mask their arrival. My back stiffened, thinking it was one of my classmates. Now they were actively seeking me out to give me grief. The same irritation that hit me in class blazed through my body. All of it dissipated as Max emerged from behind the copse of fig trees to my left. My breath stilled. I couldn’t take my eyes off his graceful stride as he ambled towards me. In his lion form, he’d been terrifying. He was no less so in his human form.
At nineteen, he was already well over six foot tall. His broad shoulders held the promise of contained violence. One day Max would be alpha of the lions. There was no doubt about it. My chest fluttered at the sight of him. I suddenly had trouble swallowing.
Thankfully, the queasiness in my stomach triggered my brain to start working. All of the training I’d gotten in the shifter compound came slamming back. It cut through whatever heated haze had gotten a hold of me. If I were a subordinate, I shouldn’t look at him directly in the face. But I wasn’t a shifter, I wasn’t his lackey, and I sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to be intimidated right now.
Instead of lowering my gaze, I tipped my chin up to meet his. Max came to a stop a few feet away from where I sat. School uniforms were a human construct that Bloodline Academy didn’t require. He wore black jeans and a blue-and-red checked shirt that clung to his biceps when he moved.
The back of my neck hurt from craning so far. For a second, our eyes locked. His light grey ones were flecked with coppery gold. As I watched, the gold turned into a thin ring that encircled his irises. I’d seen that look before. It happened to the wolves when they were about to hunt down prey.
My right eye twitched. Without saying a word, he crouched down in front of me. He slid something across the grass. I didn’t take my eyes off his face. His totally gorgeous face. I had to sit on my hand to stop from reaching
