Night Witch (Weatherstone College, #2)(77)

I smirked as her voice rose, and when Marcus fell in on her other side, all amusement dried up. Rafael had never confirmed he was the other spellcaster waiting in the wings to curse me, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Go away, Marcus,” Sara snapped, snuggling me closer to create a gap between him and us. “Before her mate rips your fucking head off and uses it as a bowling ball.”

When heat burned around Marcus, I tapped into my own magic.

I didn’t need to call a monster to scare him away.

Reapers carried all the same magical ties as a spellcaster, with the addition of a beefed-up necromancy. “You don’t speak for Paisley,” he snapped, his energy crackling, which Sara wiped away with a wash of air. She was a strong elemental, made even stronger by her attitude of giving no fucks.

“In this case, Sara absolutely speaks for me,” I told him coldly. “She’s also not kidding about Logan. He’s not particularly happy about what he heard from his father . . . you know, Rafael Kingston . . . regarding you. I’d watch my back, spellcaster.”

I’d deliberately baited him to reveal his part in all of it, and sure enough, there was a subtle flinch when I mentioned Logan’s dad. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said stiffly, looking around the hall. “Never met the guy, and I heard he was dead anyway. Blew himself up with his own curse.”

With that, he spun on the spot and hurried in the opposite direction. “Fucker,” Sara seethed. “At least we know Noah and Toby’s story is holding up.”

That was a relief. We already had enough issues, without having to defend ourselves from a murder charge too. “I can’t believe Marcus,” I said. “He established a connection and then just lay in wait in case Logan didn’t fulfill his side of it.” Hence the weird hot-and-cold act he’d been throwing my way through last year.

“Logan is going to kill him,” Sara said with a smirk. “And he deserves that and way worse.”

“I might kill him,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Logan blasting shitheads to pieces for me, but I also enjoy fighting my own battles.” Now that my magic was free for such ventures.

Sara held up her hand for a high five, and I rolled my eyes but gave her what she wanted.

“Well, that was the last class for the day,” she said, an extra pep in her step too. “Should we meet with Haley in the library and get our homework done?”

I was weirdly looking forward to our study session. “Yep, we have a couple of hours before dinner. The guys will find us, I’m sure.”

“They always do,” Sara said with a sigh, but she didn’t sound too upset. Tobias hadn’t fully won the witch over yet, but he was a Hel of a lot closer. I’d seen the two of them in many discussions lately, and there’d been hardly an insult or accidental blast of elemental magic involved.

Haley already had a large table staked out in the best section near the fireplace. Over the next hour this place would be full, so we spread out to save seats—our warlocks weren’t exactly small.

I started on history first, delving further into the conception and evolution of Weatherstone College. We were researching the time when the two original witches—Writworth and Ancot—decided they couldn’t just specialize in necromancy if they wanted to produce the strongest students and army.

“Professor Jones is being a hard-ass this year,” Sara groaned, waving her hand and letting air hold her pen for a few minutes. “Who decides to assign a five-thousand-word essay that’s due in the fourth week? That’s cruel.”

Haley snorted. “It wouldn’t be so bad if you started three weeks ago like the rest of us.” She’d had her assignment finished for days and had moved on to the next one. She was always two steps ahead, and I’d tried to stay that way as well, but this year hadn’t exactly gone to plan.

“I’m with Sara,” I said, letting my head bang on the table. “I need another thousand words, and I’m fairly sure the crux of my argument is ridiculously weak, and I fucked up some of the timeline.” It would take hours to read through and fix it once I got my word count up.

Haley’s expression was sympathetic. “Witch, you were literally dying from a curse. You have an excuse.” She leaned forward with her hand out. “Let me read through what you’ve got and I’ll see if I can help.”

I hesitated, having never needed help with schoolwork before. Sara patted my arm. “Seriously, take the assist. You deserve it after everything you’ve been through.”

“Feels like cheating,” I admitted with a huff.

Haley grumbled out a laugh. “I’m not going to finish it for you. I’ll just make notes, like an editor would.”

I couldn’t see an issue with that, so I handed the pages scrawled with my sloping handwriting to her. A few of our other professors had assignments and homework due, so I moved on to them while Haley read my history essay.

When I was halfway through research into protective spells that used angelica as the main binding agent, my magic vibrated softly, telling me Logan had entered the library. Our connection perked up, and I tried to remain focused on the spells, but it was almost impossible. As his energy closed in, I found myself staring at the exact spot I knew he was about to appear, my pulse thrumming like a trapped butterfly.