“Ahem,” the provost cleared her throat and fixed him with a glare. “I don’t believe you were given permission to rise.”
“No, I wasn’t,” he said simply. “Under the accords of 1487, which are the current accords, I am not required to wait. Shifters are asked to bow or curtsey, nothing more, nothing less.”
Thin lips tightened into a cat's arse. Behind her, her familiar’s eyes glittered, but he didn’t challenge Nick.
Interesting.
Either he agreed with Nick, that she was being a bitch, or he wasn’t permitted to act in a protective manner. Nick hoped it was the former.
“I see,” she replied. “Then this is the tone that you wish to set for our relationship?”
Nick snorted. “I refuse to be treated as a lesser being, Provost. The customs you seek to evoke are not only outdated, but are not law. They were set aside over five centuries ago and I believe that trying to resurrect them will only deepen any divide between witches and familiars. Do you wish to go back to the Archenine wars? The accords were set as they are for good reason.”
“How dare you speak of things you have no understanding of, foolish boy…” she sputtered, but Nick had had enough.
“I was there, woman!” he yelled at her. “I fought in the damn war, I stood by my father’s side while he negotiated the accords and I’m the shifter witness on the fucking document. Don’t tell me what I do and do not understand.”
The provost looked at him in shock, even Mrs Hardinger looked taken aback.
Nick’s vision was sharper than usual, scents and sounds amplified, telling him that his beast was rising too close to the surface and probably showing in his appearance. Carefully he schooled his features, lest he give her any grounds to object.
“Do not lie to me,” she retorted. “You’re, what, thirty?”
Nick cut across her again. “I’m a fucking powerful shifter is what I am. If you knew half as much about your job as you ought to, you’d know that the school’s magic holds my aging process in stasis and before that I lived on the clan lands. It was our spells that the academies first duplicated to prevent the ageing of their shifters so they could find mates. Or did you forget that too?. I was three hundred when I arrived here, amongst the first batch of shifters to be brought to the academy as part of the accords.”
Although he didn’t yell this time, there was a forcefulness to his tone that brooked no argument. “I haven’t lived with my family for over five hundred years. I was here when they laid the foundation stone while we all lived in tents and learned in marquees. I’ve known every single provost to have held your post, and I have to say that so far, you’re the most disappointing one of the lot.”
“Nick,” warned Mrs Hardinger.
But the damage was already done.
“I do not know how long you have been here, but it is not nearly long enough to talk to me like that and think that you can get away with it. Obviously you are mentally unstable. I must insist that you pass the wards to me, immediately,” demanded the provost.
“With pleasure,” Nick snarled, grabbing his magic and preparing it to be transferred.
“I will summon the head teachers and we will begin,” she said, a little calmer.
“No, you said immediately. So, here are all the wards I’ve been holding. Alone. For the last ten days while the witching council took their sweet time choosing an idiot to take the place of the best provost this school has ever seen.”
“Nick!” yelled Mrs Hardinger, but he ignored her.
One by one, he laid the wards on top of the new woman, careful to not overwhelm her, but not allowing her to refuse to accept them. Provost Aer-Canticum had held them by herself without issue, which ironically had turned out to be a security risk rather than the safety net against corruption like she had hoped.
This new woman could barely withstand the weight of just a tenth of the power it took. Whatever game the High Council was playing, Nick wanted none of it.
Provost Venefica leaned heavily against her familiar by the time she was done, the man refusing to meet Nick’s eyes. He was literally acknowledging Nick as a stronger shifter, without them even challenging one another. Nick had a bad feeling about the new provost’s relationships with shifters. Between her submissive familiar and her behaviour since they’d met, she epitomised the worst in a beastmaster witch.
“You are even more unstable than I thought,” she managed to hiss. “Janet, you said the girl was strong enough?”
Mrs Hardinger looked at Nick angrily, then said through gritted teeth, “Yes, Melody is strong enough to make him shift. She forced Justin to shift earlier today.”
The provost nodded, straightening and brushing her hands across her clothing and hair to regain her composure. When he was sure that she was alright, her familiar scooted back to his position by the wall. By all rights, as the lead shifter in the academy, the man should have been introduced to Nick immediately after the provost. It was not lost on him that Mrs Hardinger hadn’t. She had likely been told what to do before he arrived.
“Very well, run along and get her. Bring her to the field out the back. The sooner this beast is bonded and controlled, the better.”
Nick’s heart pounded. Although he was desperate for Melody to bond him, he did not want it to happen like this. He would not be responsible for taking freedom from her again. Justin had already pushed that boundary and she had stood firm on the issue.
Rightly so.
For far too long, witches and shifters had been pushed into and out of their bonds.
