34. Hunter

34

HUNTER

V engeance thrummed under my skin as I kicked the door to Ironwood’s office open. There was nothing I hated more than a professor, or anyone with power, really, taking advantage of those underneath them.

Irritation flared through me at the sight I was greeted with. Birthday cake and banana soaked the air in a sickly sweet way that made my stomach churn. Dreadful bounced up and down in Ironwood’s lap with her skirt hiked up her waist. Her blonde bob was slicked back as she held onto his shoulder with the one hand she had left.

His brown eyes were half-lidded as he stared past her at me. It took him a few moments to realize I was here, and each second that passed for him to get a grip on reality pissed me off more.

“Stop fucking your student, Ironwood.” Vengeance whipped around me, knocking off a few of his books from his shelves.

“What the fuck, Darkmore?” he snarled, grabbing Dreadful by the waist and literally tossing her off him and onto the stone floor.

She hit the stone with a rough smack and hissed. “Why the fuck do I keep getting interrupted during my feedings?”

“What do you mean? We haven’t been interrupted before. Who else are you fucking?” Ironwood’s jaw tightened as he buckled his pants and stood up.

She glared at him from the floor and struggled to get back to her feet. “Why does it matter? I’m a succubus.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve to act like you care.” My voice boomed as my vengeance magic struck his desk, knocking everything off it. “I mean, you were fucking a student’s mother while fucking her, too.”

Dreadful gasped. “Fuck you, Ironwood!”

“You already did.” He ran a hand through his curly auburn hair. “And you can forget about that grade. You didn’t complete your assignment after all.”

That was fucked up.

Her face turned red, and her blue eyes filled with tears before she turned and stomped out, slamming the door behind her.

Ironwood exhaled and sat back in his seat with a bored expression. “What could be so important that you had to interrupt me?”

My lips parted in surprise. Seriously?

“You are completely unprofessional!” Vengeance burned through me, desperately wanting to tear into him on behalf of Dreadful . She was as bad as he was, but the way he took advantage of a student for her grade was utterly sickening. “Fucking a student is one thing, but fucking them for their grade? What the fuck, Ironwood?”

“They’re just reform students.” Ironwood chuckled, resting his elbow on his desk and propping his head up by his chin. “Aren’t you fucking one, too?”

Blind rage funneled through me at his mention of Pandora, and my magic exploded. My magic struck him down, making him convulse before falling to the ground where he’d tossed Dreadful.

He gasped out a breath.

My magic split open his veins, and blood sputtered from his lips.

“Don’t ever refer to my mate as something so casual ,” I spat, fury spiraling through me. “She’s my fated mate, and unfortunately, she’s Bram Hemlock’s fated mate, too. So, when you fuck with him, you’re messing with her state of mind. Do I have to show you what I’ll do to you if this happens again?”

He shook his head, rolling to the side as he shook with my magic. Blood poured from his lips as he groaned in pain.

“Good.” I turned to leave, my vengeance magic settling only slightly. “Oh, and don’t let Hemlock know we had this talk. This wasn’t for his sake, really, it was for hers. But I do hate professors taking advantage of students. I know you’ve taken advantage of two now. Keep it up, and you won’t be here much longer.”

He let out ragged, greedy breaths, but he didn’t reply.

I tossed a hand up in a mocking goodbye as I left him in his office and headed to my own.

Once the caramel and sweet chocolate scent greeted me, I shut the door with a soft click and inhaled it. Our combined scent calmed my magic without fail.

I reached out through my bond with Pandora to make sure she was okay. It hummed with happiness, and I smiled.

I always wanted her to be happy.

Striding to my desk, I grabbed a paper and scratched out getting vengeance on Ironwood. I read over what was left:

Protect Pandora at all costs.

Find Cass Nyx.

Get in contact with Joel.

Find out who killed Jenni’s dad.

Get more info on Dark Veil.

Find out who the mole is.

My tablet buzzed on my desk, and I answered it when I saw it was Dad. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hunt, is everything okay? I tried calling a few times,” he told me. Concern laced his tone.

“Yeah,” I assured him, getting up and going to my cabinet to pull out another bottle of fae wine. “I just had to take care of a little vengeance for my mate’s mate.” I poured it into my coffee cup and put it back. “What’s going on?”

He let out a ragged, heavy breath. “It’s a bad one, Hunt. I need your help on this case.”

My brows shot up, and I went over to grab the red marker and headed to the map. “Location?”

“Cursina. Specifically, Stormsong Manor,” he answered bitterly.

I marked over the manor with a bigger red X, knowing this was going to be rough. Dad never sounded this concerned about a case.

The Stormsong’s were the most reputable siren clan in Cursina. If they needed vengeance, it was going to be brutal. They were more than capable of taking it themselves, so if they were reaching out to us?

“Who’s our client?” I came back and sat down before switching the screen from the call to my vengeance folder.

“Melody Stormsong,” Dad spat.

The hair stood on the back of my neck at the raw disgust in his voice.

My magic buzzed over my skin, waiting to hear what vengeance we were seeking for her.

I created a new folder with it labeled: Melody Stormsong - Vengeance Case. Then, I created a document to write down the notes. “Okay, tell me more.”

“Her entire family has forsaken her. She’s treated awful. She’s basically a maid of the family. Delmar Stormsong, her father, is also the headmaster at Cursina Academy of the Enchanted Arts. He’s known as ruthless, but what he’s done to his own daughter makes me physically ill. I’d like to kill him, but Melody doesn’t want him dead…and our business is about the client’s wishes for vengeance. Not our own.”

My heart plummeted to my stomach. “What the Fates did he do to her?”

“For some fucking reason, he’s actually not one of our targets, but he has…arranged a mating to another reputable siren in Cursina. The guy is the son of the Saltblooms.” He took a shaky breath, but I didn’t recognize the man’s last name. “Melody evidently was accepting of the arrangement, at first…but she hasn’t been able to accept the mate mark from him. Her body rejects it.”

My muscles tensed. “That means she has a fated mate, right?”

“Yes, but she says she hasn’t met her fated yet. Her father arranged for the mating five more times. Six excruciating siren mating ceremonies—all of them failures.”

“ Six ?” My eyes widened. “Why didn’t they just give up after the first? If a mate mark won’t take, no amount of times performing it will change it. You’d think the headmaster of a fucking magic academy would know that.”

Fury spewed through me. How could anyone treat their daughter like that?

“Do you know how sirens mate?” Dad’s voice grew colder.

“They use their sharp teeth to bite the throat of their mates during sex to be vulnerable for the bond to snap in place,” I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut as my blood turned cold. “ Fuck .”

“Her dad practically sold her to this family, but it won’t be official until she wears his mark. Melody’s the youngest. Siren tradition states that it’s usually the oldest married off first, and she has an older sister. Evidently, the sister was behind the idea of her taking her place. Hunt, the last mating wasn’t consensual, and it was done in front of his parents, her father, and her sister.”

“He… raped her and forcibly marked her in front of all of them, and they did nothing to stop it?” My chest constricted as anger funneled my vision.

I didn’t even bother typing notes on this. It wasn’t something I could forget.

This case would fucking haunt me, and we hadn’t even worked it yet.

“She told them she didn’t want to try again because it hurt and it wasn’t working, so they held her down, and her sister injected her with a paralytic.” His breath hitched, and I knew he was on the verge of tears just like myself. “Melody was conscious the entire time. She told me she’d rather die than have it happen to her again. The next ceremony is planned for a couple weeks from now. Hunt, she’s only twenty.”

“Another fucking ceremony?” I croaked, reaching out and drinking a few gulps of fae wine. Fuck. “What’s the plan? Who are our targets?”

“We go up to Cursina into their family home on the date and time she tells us for the ceremony. Our vengeance magic together should be enough, but our targets are the man marking her, Marlin Saltbloom, and her sister, Seraphina Stormsong. Melody’s idea of vengeance is to place a kind of lover’s bond between Seraphina and Marlin,” he told me. “But you know vengeance magic, sometimes, it isn’t exact.”

“She doesn’t want us to do anything to her father?”

“No,” he grumbled. “She seems to think hurting Seraphina will hurt him since she’s his favorite. Plus, she still has to deal with the backlash.”

“Why aren’t we removing her from the family entirely?” I raked a hand through my hair. Why would anyone want to stay with a family like that?

“She didn’t say, but it seems like she has her reasons. Her main goal is to be free to mate who the Fates decide instead of being forcibly mated.”

“I’ll go with you,” I promised, grabbing my pen and adding to my todo list:

Get vengeance for Melody Stormsong.