The beast opened its mouth to roar. My heart leaped at the opening. I curled the wolfsbane inside the circle I’d drawn around my hands. Bit by bit, the cells in the plant began to bubble as though they were inside a distillery. The steam and smoke caused the circle to turn opaque. When the beast lunged, I shot the fireball of wolfsbane right into its face. The lion roared as the burning concoction seared the inside of its mouth and the side of its face. My aim was useless. The wolfsbane splattered down its mane and chest.
“Holy shit!” a throaty voice said above me. I knew better than to turn my attention away from a rogue shifter. Even if said shifter was currently howling and twisting in pain. A body dropped down beside me. Before my very eyes, the lion’s red ones dimmed. They fluttered as it swatted at the irritant on its skin. Its head battered from side to side.
It hit me then that I’d attacked a fellow student. More than that, I was hurting him. For some reason, tears stung my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, moving forward. When I reached out, the lion snarled. The boy grabbed on to my top and yanked me back. Definitely too strong to be anything but a shifter. The lion in front of me convulsed. The air around him wavered as though the heat coming off his skin was changing the quality of the atmosphere. I blinked as hair and claws gave way to tanned skin. He was no less muscled as a human than in his shifted form.
My heart skipped a beat and it wasn’t because he was stark naked. Oh dear Gaia, no. He was Max Thompson. Oldest son of the lion shifter alpha. I was totally dead meat.
5
The boy beside me whistled. “He’s going to shit a brick when he wakes up.” Then he winced. “That looked like it hurt like hell.”
I finally allowed myself to glance at him. Sandy hair left a little too long for tidiness. Light eyes that could have been either blue or grey. I glanced at Max and then back again at this boy who was his miniature. The penny dropped.
“Is there any chance you’d consider not telling your brother it was me?” I gave Charles Thompson a weak smile. He returned a toothy one.
“Yeah right! He’ll remember you for sure. He went rogue, not stupid.”
Somebody cleared their throat. I looked over past Max’s slumped form and all remnants of heat left my body. The deputy headmaster stood ramrod straight with his hands behind his back. A couple of the vamps huddled around him. I recognised some of the group that I’d hidden from earlier. So they hadn’t gone very far. “Oh, I suspect we’ll all remember this,” the deputy head said.
“Oi!” Charles said. “How long have you been there? You could have helped!” He took the words right out of my mouth. A mouth I kept firmly shut. I knew what was good for me.
“I’m sorry we weren’t able to assist.” The deputy head stepped blithely over Max’s body. His dark gaze landed on me. “You just couldn’t resist, could you? First Miss Barnaby and now this. Attacking another student is grounds for expulsion.”
My eyes bugged out of their sockets. I hadn’t wanted to come here but the shame of being kicked out had my mouth snapping open. Charles beat me to it.
“Get stuffed.” He grabbed hold of my arm. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
The deputy head’s brow rose. “Those who witnessed Miss Mwansa use an unsanctioned spell on Max Thompson raise their hands.”
All of the vamps did as he asked. Charles growled beside me. His grip on me became unbearably tight. Touched as I was by his support, he was going to break my bones. I thought I heard the sound of them snapping when a voice croaked.
“Anyone touches her and I’ll tear their head off.” That was all Max could muster before he succumbed to a bout of coughing. A moment later, he was unconscious again. Charles dragged me aside as a Nephilim guard appeared. His white wings glowed like a beacon as he hovered in the air above us.
“What’s going on here?” Curtis asked. A descendant of the seraphim Uriel, he had dark hair and lovely copper eyes. They roamed over our little group and narrowed when he spotted Max. The deputy head opened his mouth, but Charles jumped right into it.
“I don’t know. I went to see my brother to borrow a book and he was all bent out of shape. Next thing you know he went rogue and started chasing me. Sophie helped stop him.”
“It’s two in the morning,” Curtis said. “Why did you want to borrow a book so late at night?”
Charles shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. Kept hearing things that weren’t there. Figured I’d get in as much reading time as I could before school starts.”
The Nephilim shook his head. He coasted to the ground and inspected Max. “He’ll have to go to the infirmary. What’s this stuff that’s still burning him?”
I cleared my throat. “Liquidised wolfsbane.”
Copper eyes narrowed. “The rest of you get back to your dorms.”
“Not you,” the deputy head said. He tried to reach for me but Curtis interjected.
“We can’t expel her for defending herself.”
If he didn’t have a superhuman jaw, I imagined the deputy head might have dislocated it by now. I wasted no time in backtracking in case he decided to come after me anyway. The last thing I saw of the scene was of Curtis touching Max’s brow as he teleported them both away.
I gulped and tore out of there in record speed. My mind didn’t work again until I was back in my room. Then it began to
