That set people off, and several shoved against the witch and Mel to get to me.
“Enough,” Julian bellowed, using his magic to push people back away from us. “This is a college campus, not a pub you all can brawl at. Handle yourselves with some decorum.”
“Says the traitor to his family,” one warlock stupidly sneered.
Julian focused on the guy and couldn’t hide his disgust. “I am a professor here. I gave an oath to protect the students. That might mean dick to you, git, but my words means something to me. I also don’t believe in selling our people—any supe or woman—for any reason. I’m sorry you can look at them as property, but I was asked to do something despicable and I said no. I’m ashamed my family asked it of me.”
An amazing thing happened and even others in the group looked at the guy like he was trash for judging Julian. Granted, a lot of them were witches, but it was progress. They could at least see how over the line it was as women even if they hated me.
Sad, but I honestly saw that as progress.
While there was a lull in the outrage, I decided to take advantage of it. “I am sorry this will cause problems in your lives. For some of you. The dicks here who thought it was a down payment on buying me, as you planned to do just that, and mate me, take all I had—fuck off, and I hope you eat shit and die. The rest of you, fine, you weren’t great, but yeah, you’re gonna get a lot of shit. I did this for survival.
“You weren’t innocent and thought I’d get screwed in the end. But you’re gonna get heat for this, and that wasn’t my goal. I didn’t push the supe world this far where it’s like this and fucking councils believe they can just take a person over and drain her, take all she has as they want. I’m fighting for my survival. I get they’re your families or you’re protected. I am not. I’m protecting myself and others. I did what I had to.”
“It’s a great speech, as you stand on your pedestal and lecture about honor, after you screwed us all over,” someone complained.
I sighed. “Again, you all tried to screw me. There are lots of people I outrightly bought shares from. There are tons of people who simply bought fae dust from me, and I used that money to buy shares. You wanted to have your cake and eat it too, and I used that. So, don’t turn this around and play the victim. I didn’t lecture about purity wearing a pope’s hat and fuck the football team. You came to me wearing horns.”
What else was there to really say? Either they would hear me and take a hard look in the mirror or not.
My guess was not, but I was not a glass half full kind of woman.
Real life wasn’t all that bright and shiny.
“You know the way out,” Julian ordered others, security already making it clear to hit the road. Others were hanging back, but ready to react should they need to.
And I was never more grateful for them being around moments later.
A temp portal didn’t just open, but burst into being there, and Mr. Craftsman appeared from it… And he was pissed off.
He didn’t care who was around, locking gazes with me and launching an attack the moment he wrote the rune.
Julian was suddenly there and pushing me out of the way, swiping the magic away with his own. He handled it, but I could tell it hurt the selfless idiot.
Selfless to help me.
Idiot because I had my barrier up, and it would have handled the attack without hurting him.
“Stay out of this, Julian,” Mr. Craftsman warned.
“No, you’re done, old man,” he sneered.
Mr. Craftsman snorted as he wrote runes on his arm. “Hardly. You think one little girl buying up shares will take me down? Please. It will all be mine, her whole estate and all she has, when I hand her over to the council to be named a witch, and they take her as theirs. Plus, the seat. All she did was make the score bigger.”
“The dragons will stop you,” Julian threw back.
“And yet they haven’t even made a move,” he mocked. “They were never going to protect her. They have too many problems of their own. They simply gave their warning to hold off those weaklings it would scare.” He focused on me then. “Come quietly and I won’t have to hurt him.”
I smiled at him, knowing it was an evil one and included Julian in my barrier. “Fuck. You.”
Steam practically came out of his ears as he launched whatever attack he’d been getting ready. I wasn’t worried, but Julian braced for impact, prepared to try and deflect it.
But someone else stepped in.
Dean White.
She walked right into the path, not even having to use her magic to smack it away like Julian had. Her magic was woven into what I would think of as her aura almost, sort of what I called a barrier, but we could see it. It was sick and almost like the stuff of comic books.
Mr. Craftsman couldn’t even hide his shock. “That’s not possible. You’re just a witch.”
“Yes, well, if you weren’t such a sexist idiot and so soft in the head to believe warlocks were the only ones with real magic,
