When they got to the door, it was still locked, so they stood quietly together in the hallway. Trent leaned forward and looked at her closely. “You have a bit of egg near your mouth, may I?” he asked her, and she nodded. However, he was as sly as his beast. Rather than brushing it away with his thumb, or wiping it with a cloth, he leaned in and licked it from the corner of her mouth, before running his tongue lightly across her lips.
“Mm, delicious,” was all he had time to say before her bonded shifters lifted him bodily away, slamming him into the wall opposite her. His amber eyes never left hers as Dean and Asher told him off for taking liberties. The twinkle in his gaze told her that he didn’t regret it one bit, and that he would do the same again given the opportunity.
Melody couldn’t help it, she laughed at the cheeky fox, Dean and Asher whirling to look at her in consternation.
“Leave him alone. You’re only angry because you didn’t think of it first. He’s a fox, get used to him outwitting you,” she teased.
Trent smirked at her, obviously pleased with the compliment. Dean and Asher scowled, but did as she asked. For the rest of the day, however, there was always one of them between her and Trent, who constantly had a secretive smile on his face. Melody suspected she did too. It was the highlight of her day.
9. Melody
If Melody thought that the first term workload was heavy, it was nothing compared to the second. She was finally caught up in the classes that she’d missed, and up to date in her second year history class, but studying plants was making her brain shut down. She just didn’t get it, couldn’t remember all the names of the different plants, their common and uncommon usages and even the anatomical names of their parts. Petal, sepal, stem, root, they were the simple terms, but stamen, filament, anther, pistil—gah, she just couldn’t nail it down, no matter what memory method she used.
“No!” Ryan stopped her again, and Melody nearly screamed in frustration.
“The pistil is in the female flower, you won’t find it with an anther, that goes with the filament,” he corrected. Again.
“Enough!” Melody bellowed, and books and paper went flying as her magic surged forth. It wasn’t like her, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “I need a break, I cannot focus when I’m this frustrated, and repeating this over and over is the definition of insanity.” She stormed out the front door and onto the porch, hurtling down the front steps and walking around the cottage toward the forest at the border of the grounds.
Why wasn’t this coming to her as easily as history did? Okay, she had never been strong in potions, but the anatomy of a human or shifter had never frustrated her like the anatomy of plants was. It was like her brain was refusing to compute the information. No matter what mnemonics they used, what charts, diagrams, rhymes and riddles, nothing stayed in her head. It was like it had been coated with teflon or something. It almost resembled a block.
That thought stopped her in her tracks, and she stood leaning against the nearest tree. One of the others would be there in a moment in his beast form, so she might as well wait for him before she went and did something really stupid. Melody would need to get Nick or Justin to check on her when she got back. It was entirely possible that she had been hexed so that she couldn’t retain the information. She wouldn’t put it past Shawna and her gang. Hell, given how unpopular she was now, she wouldn’t put it past half of the witches in her year.
It was only because she was so still that she heard the noise. Twigs snapped nearby, indicating someone approaching, she thought it was one of her shifters, but then she heard voices. A male and a female were talking as they drew closer. It was somebody else.
“Justin, you know what my terms are, just give it to me, and I’ll give you everything you want,” purred a sultry voice, and Melody froze.
Justin? As in her Justin? No, it couldn’t be. Although she didn’t remember another Justin being at the school, it wasn’t impossible that there was one. It wasn’t like she actually had friends or anything, so half the witches and shifters there were just faces rather than names to her.
“Jaynie,” the male’s voice protested, and with a sickening feeling, she knew it was him. Justin. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Come here and kiss me, Justin. I promise, I’ll make all the pain go away, baby.”
Melody could just make them out through the trees, Justin stood in front of Jaynie, who took his hand and put it on her breast. As quickly as she did though, Justin pulled away.
“Jaynie, this isn’t what we agreed to,” he said, warningly.
Jaynie pouted at him and swayed slightly. Was she drunk? What on earth was Justin doing with a drunk Jaynie?
“Aw baby, I know you’re hurting. You’re so tense. I know what you want, what you need. But you gotta give a girl something back. I’ve gotta be in the mood to do this, and it’s up to you to convince me.”
She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in closer. Justin resisted, but not hard enough in Melody’s books.
Bile rose in the back of her throat and her heart broke a bit. Justin, her Justin, was in the clutches of Shawna’s right hand girl, Jaynie. A bitch just as calculating and grasping as Shawna was herself.
Goddess, she begged, please make them stop, not here. Not where she had to
