Chapter 9

Walking to my hour five class wasn’t so bad with Vexer holding my hand, his warm fingers curled through my own. Having him on campus with me was like a dream come true; I didn’t ever want to let him go.

Ugh.

Did I seriously just think that?! What the hell is wrong with me? And why am I starting to daydream about having Air, Eli, and Vexer as … gulp … husbands. To be a Mrs. Brynn Rosae Rebane, what a trip.

“This guy isn’t giving you too much trouble, is he?” Vex asked, his dark brown hair falling across his brow, his feathers shimmering in the weak sunlight. I was fully ready for spring to take over, to melt the snow from the mountains and warm the grassy plains outside the city, start heating New Akyumen Lake so it was ready for summer. Swimming there without Airmienan though, that wouldn’t be any fun at all.

I had to find some way to make this spell work.

“Trubble?” I asked, glancing over at the purple-haired bum-hole with the attitude problem. “Nah, he’s alright, although he did blatantly ask me if we could fuck today.”

The look the big griffin man turned on Trubble would’ve had any sane person shaking in their academy issued boots—even if they were borrowed from Matz. He was also wearing his gold jacket, loose and sloppy, hanging off his shoulders in this slouchy, give no dung beetles sort of way. Trubble’s black slacks were undone at the button, and there was this horribly attractive bit of skin between his pants and the bottom of the jacket that I couldn’t stop staring at.

“What’s wrong with that? A spirit whisperer as powerful as Brynn of Haversey should have a nice, healthy harem with plenty of variety. All I’m asking is that she includes me in it. Or,” and here Trubble paused to hold up a single finger, “she at least considers my offer of a test run. I might’ve only spent a handful of days in this form in the past, but unlike my brother, I’m not a virgin. If I were a virgin—again, just like my brother—I’d probably be a hell of a lot nicer so people didn’t walk around wondering, ‘Gee, why is this guy still a virgin when he’s in his twenties? Is something wrong with him? Perhaps his penis is in miniature and maybe I should ask his brother about it?’”

Trubble stumbled and then let out a raucous laugh, Dyre’s ghostly slipping through his body as the prince tried to get ahold of him a second time. But, apparently, like a spirit whisperer, an actual living shadow could decide when and if they wanted to be touched by ghosts.

“Get out of here,” I hissed as we approached the classroom and I spotted Professor Tiukka standing outside the door. She liked to monitor students as they entered and then slam the door in the faces of anyone who dared to be ten seconds later.

Dyre gave his brother another shove that did absolutely nothing to keep him from laughing his bum off, and then disappeared, fading into the background of the stone buildings like any number of random ghosts. The campus was filled with them, all of them documented and monitored on a regular basis. I still had yet to speak to the queen about my new additions, but nobody else had said a word, and I did have the crown prince attached to me, so I figured everything was okay.

“This is where we part ways then,” Vex said, turning toward me as we neared the classroom. He didn’t hesitate to pull me into his arms or wrap me in his wings, brushing his fingers along my own. The sensation touched me in places low, made my belly muscles clench tight and my heart pound so loud that I failed to hear the footsteps on my right until Professor Tiukka was standing right flubbing there. “Can I help you?” Vexer growled, pulling me closer in this possessive male way that I loved. And I wasn’t generally one to enjoy that sort of thing. It just felt right when he did it, like we belonged to each other.

“May I see your visitor’s pass, please?” the professor asked, holding out her hand like she was part of the Royal Campus guard. How frustrating. We hadn’t been stopped by even one soldier on our way over here.

Vex pulled back slightly from me, keeping his right arm around my waist, and using his left to touch the gold metal nametag on his chest, pierced right through the fabric of his sleeveless black tunic.

Tiukka reached out and touched it, a little zing of magic tainting the air between the three of us before she pulled away. She was testing the authenticity of his badge, using a small spell to verify that the woman in the front office had, indeed, enchanted it and gifted it to Vex.

Of course, I was almost certain she was only picking on him because of me.

“I asked you to come to my office last week. Considering you failed to do so, I’m giving you a slash and a written decree to pay me a visit after classes let out this evening tomorrow.”

“Considering this is all on my account, I’ll be nullifying that slash,” Professor Cross said, stepping up on my right side and still glittering faintly with spook dust. I noticed he did his best to keep a safe distance from me at all times, like he had at least some idea of how flubbed-up his binding himself to me was.

And a slash … Well, damn. A slash was a non-permanent mark on a student’s record; they accumulated during each quarter and were washed away at the end of it provided no more than six were issued. At the seventh slash, a disciplinary council was called together to assess the situation.

Getting one slash on my second week was sort of terrifying, considering how much Tiukka disliked me. I’d probably end up with a dozen of them before the month was out. But if Professor Cross really could nullify it …

The way Professor Tiukka’s mouth pinched, I was guessing he really could.

“You understand that even if Brynn of Haversey claims your innocence, I can still fire you. It doesn’t matter if you two came to an agreement on your own terms or not. I might not be able to have you exorcised, but inappropriate relations with students is grounds for dismissal regardless.”

“This was simply a business agreement between a spirit whisperer and a desperate ghost, something neither the Royal College nor the law would have any problem with.” Spicer—because I totally should be calling him that considering our new living arrangement—gives me a desperate, pleading sort of look.

If I wanted to, I could get rid of him. I could send his turquoise rimmed eyes, tattoo covered chest, and spiky black hair to the Otherside with the blessing of the Royal College Dean of Faculty.

But I wasn’t going to.

Not only did I have at least some semblance of a heart inside my chest, but Spicer was actually coming in handy. His prophecies and premonitions, his mindreading abilities, and his general knowledge of the arcane made him useful. For now, he could stay. Besides, he was willing to be a test subject when the others weren’t—like with the female guard’s body, for example.

“Just an agreement,” I said with a small nod. “Professor Cross has a lot of knowledge to share, and as a member of the Royal College, I feel like the pursuit of knowledge is too important to ignore.” I lifted my chin, but Tiukka clearly wasn’t buying it.

“Here’s your decree,” she said simply, her brown eyes flicking from Spicer, past me, and over to Vexer. She turned and went into the shadowy doorway of the classroom, the air tainted and cool from the hordes of spirits and shadows trapped inside.

“Ignore her,” Elijah said, fading into view next to us. His sapphire eyes were locked on the building, his mouth twisted into a scowl. “She’s rude to anyone with power or promise.” He paused to push up the torn sleeve of his black Royal College jacket, his ebon dark hair falling across his forehead. “Just do your best to stay out of her way.”

“There are plenty of people just like that in the Travelers’ Guild,” Vex said, his voice low and warm and affectionate. When I looked over at him, his gray eyes locked onto mine and I felt like I was being reeled in.

As I stepped forward, hopeful for another kiss, Jas darted up to us. She’d been lagging behind, having this really serious looking conversation with Matz; I hadn’t wanted to interrupt them.

“We need to get inside,” she said, face red as the warning bell rang, its hollow sound echoing across the now nearly empty campus. I had a feeling that little conversation with Matz had been … interesting. I wanted to hear all about it later.

“I have to get back into the city,” Vex said with a long sigh, adjusting his wings in a reluctant sort of way, like that was the last thing he wanted to do. “I have a traveler that needs to get to Markt in time to set up his stall in the morning, so I won’t be back until late tomorrow. Dinner?”

“Definitely,” I said, pecking him on the mouth and then finding myself held tight by his big hands, his beautiful scent overwhelming me, pebbling my nipples into fine points and leaving me with a very vivid daydream about what our second time in bed together might be like. “Stay safe, my little mate,” he whispered against my mouth.

I was too struck by his kiss and his touch and the way my heart fluttered in my chest to bother protesting that one.

Besides, so what if I wanted it to be true? There was nothing wrong with that, was there? I might not have known the man long, but he’d more than proven himself to me.

“Have fun,” he said, giving Eli, Spicer, Trubble and Jas a little nod before heading in the direction of the cityside gates.

“Fat chance of that happening,” I whispered as Jas grabbed my arm and just managed to shove me into the classroom before Professor Tiukka appeared and slammed the door on the empty courtyard.

Hours six and seven were boring, but at least they were horribly predictable. In maths and history, there wasn’t much to screw up or get in trouble for, not like in my spirits and shadows class. No, I seemed to do everything wrong in there which wasn’t much of a confidence boost. I was still fighting just to stay awake during that class, let alone practice any of the professor’s ludicrous exercises.

Today, she’d demanded we each identify a new ghost or spirit in the room, one that nobody else had yet pointed out. Of course, I went last, and I was so overwhelmed with spirits and shadows that I relied on Elijah to appear out of nowhere at the front of the class so I could point him out.

“I’m so tired,” I groaned, slumping into a big, squishy chair in my last class of the day, hour eight, whisperers: general studies. The classrooms of the Royal College were as varied as the students and their professors.

This one just happened to sit at the side of a pond, one whole wall of windows with French doors in the middle that opened out onto the water. A tiny bird—called a humminglight—danced across the surface of the water, its tail lit with tiny glowing gold orbs that it used to collect mates. Like most Amerin women, it was a female looking for a dozen or so males to protect its nest and care for the two dozen eggs it’d lay in full spring.

I just stared at it as the class filled with students of all backgrounds, races, and magics. There were a few poison whisperers in this class, so I kept my eyes averted. Every time I saw them with their leather bandoliers strapped over their chest, I thought of Talon.

“You’re doing great,” Jas told me as Trubble lumbered in and sat down on the chair with me, basically spilling himself into my lap.

“Get out of here,” I growled at him. He was most definitely not allowed in Professor Tiukka’s class, but my professor for hour eight—a Vaennish man named Oni, which literally meant demon in their language—was so relaxed that both Trubble and I knew he’d hardly notice or care about an extra student.

I tried to scoot away, but the chair was deep and squishy and I was exhausted, so all I ended up doing was adjusting us so that I was sitting in his lap.

“Good evening, everyone,” Professor Oni said, flicking a series of five fluffy black tails as he approached the front of the room. There was a couch with a small table in front of it, but no desk. No, this professor liked to keep things casual. The entire classroom was hung with Vaennish ofuda, these rectangular strips of paper with calligraphy on them. Each one meant something different, from protection to fertility to offensive magic.

“I don’t want you here,” I whisper-growled at Trubble, but all he did was smile at me and lounge back on the seat, folding his hands together behind his head. My ghosts were welcome in this classroom and not part of the curriculum, so Elijah and Spicer were clearly visible, lounging in chairs outside and enjoying the sunset.

“So? Make a scene then,” Trubble challenged, “and I’ll be gone in an instant.”

With a sigh, I just slumped back into his hard chest and chose to ignore him.

Well, sort of. Actually, even as tired as I was, as soon as I did that, I could every hard, wonderful plane of him, from his tight chest and belly all the way down to his … yeah, uh, that was hard, too. That should’ve been my cue to stand up and walk away—or at the very least, punch him in the throat. But I didn’t.

Instead, I just sat there. In fact, I may have possibly … adjusted myself a bit.

As soon as I did that, Trubble’s relaxed posture stiffened slightly and his hands dropped to the arm of the chair. I wasn’t the only person in that classroom hanging out in someone’s lap—we were all adults, after all, and this was college not secondary school—but I felt like there was a spotlight on me, like everyone in that room was aware of what I was up to.

And what was I up to anyway?

“You want your textbook?” Jas whispered as the class mumbled lazy evening greetings to our professor. Hour eight, it seemed, was a very laidback sort of class with snacks and drinks and heavy-lidded eyes. Or maybe it was just because Professor Oni burned incense and lit candles and didn’t bother with gas lamps, even though it was verging on sunset.

Jas didn’t wait for me to answer, tossing the heavy tome into my lap and then slapping a Whisperer Card right on top of it. She didn’t want or need one—she was determined to memorize very god and every classification on her own. Me, on the other hand, I needed one of these babies in my life.

Shifting my wings out, I rested them on ether side of Trubble’s shoulders, using the chair to keep them propped up. There was no way he could see the professor smooshed back there behind them like that, but he didn’t seem to mind … especially not with I shifted and adjusted myself again.

He smells like lotus flowers and damp, sweet forest shadows.

Gritting my teeth, I flipped open to the page Professor Oni was suggesting and tried my very best to pay attention.

“What I want to do here,” he was saying, as I most definitely did not think about how good Trubble felt beneath me, “is to start with the more obscure goddesses and gods, and then work our way up to the most common. Any clue what the most common whisperer in Amerin is?”

“In Amerin, the most common profession is flora whisperer, as we produce and export the most food on the continent of Europia.” Felixa answered the professor’s question as smoothly as if the whole thing had been scripted out in a play. She flicked some blonde hair over one shoulder and turned this look on me that, interestingly enough, didn’t seem able to affect me when I was doing … semi-inappropriate things with Dyre’s twin.

He’s a fucking shadow for fuck’s sake!I thought and lost two feathers all at once.

Felixa gaped at me and then flipped me off, losing a feather herself. She probably thought I was thinking awful thoughts about her when, really, all I was doing was rubbing on some guy I didn’t know and didn’t even really like.

I’ll be damned if there wasn’t a sex whisperer around her somewhere, casting strange spells on me.

“Generally,” Professor Oni continued, oblivious to basically everything that was happening inside his classroom—I wouldn’t be surprised if he were high on rose dust, a legal, relaxing substance that was generally rolled in paper and smoked, “each region or country will have a different whisperer population that far exceeds the others. This can be because of industry, like here in Amerin, or because a certain deity has taken a liking to a particular race, culture, or country. In Vaenn, for example, the kitsune are beloved by the fox god Inari, so there’s an above average number of flesh whisperers.”

The professor stood up and padded over to a table against the far wall. He had a fire whisperer blessed stone circle that he could light with a single breath—like my torch—and he kept a pot of hot water on all at times.

“And how about the most obscure?” the professor continued, seeping himself a nice strong cup of tea while his black tails swished back and forth. Watching them made me think of Trubble’s tails, all nine of them, tucked up underneath us both. I wiggled again and he choked back a small groan. “Anybody?” Professor Oni asked, glancing over his shoulder with gold eyes and an easy, relaxed smile. He had two sets of ears, like all kitsune—one human-like set and a fox set. The fuzzy fox ears in his dark hair twitched slightly.

“The rarest whisperers are, of course, magick whisperers,” Jasinda said, sitting up straight and staring Felixa down from across the room. Not only was Felixa a raging psycho, but she also fancied herself the next valedictorian of the Royal College. Since Jasinda also fancied that position for herself, there was a scholarly competition raging between the two of them that I just didn’t quite understand. I didn’t plan on being the worst student in the school or anything, but if I fell to the middle of the pack, then so be it.

I had a resurrection spell to worry about.

“Any country on the continent will have the same answer,” Professor Oni said as a few more students got up and took advantage of his weird, little tea station. I thought it was pretty cool, to be honest, fostering this relaxed relationship with us all so that we’d actually listen and care when he talked. Not like Professor Tiukka, I thought sourly. But of course, Trubble chose that exact moment to put his hands on my hips, lighting this fire inside of me that I blamed Vexer for starting outside my hour five classroom. “How about the next rarest—and this is also relatively universal?”

“Shadow whisperers,” Jasinda said, before Felixa got the chance to butt in. “Followed by spirit whisperers, although New Akyumen has the highest percentage of shadow whisperers of any country in the known world thanks, in part, to the Royal College.”

“Blade whisperers … super rare,” Trubble said, but his voice didn’t sound quite so smooth and practiced now. I guess I was affecting him as much as he was affecting me. Good to know.

“Blade whisperers, good,” Professor Oni said, resuming his spot on the couch at the front of the room. “The goddess Ha isn’t stingy with her gifts, but she only gives them out to those that earn them, so, of course, there are far less blade whisperers than some of the natural born magics.”

I adjusted myself on Trubble’s lap yet again, causing his hands to tighten almost unbearably on my waist. A small sound escaped my throat and Jasinda gave me a strange look. That’s when I decided that enough was enough, but Trubble wouldn’t let me go, holding me place and keeping me from standing up.

“Just stay,” he growled out, “please.”

So I sat stone-still the rest of the class, listening to Professor Oni’s soothing voice describe the rarest of the rare, the magick whisperers. I tuned it all out; growing up in the castle with Air as a playmate and the queen a constant figure in my life, I knew as much about them as Professor Oni was going to tell us. Most likely, the Royal College knew everything they needed to know, but I highly doubted the queen would ever let that information become public.

After class ended, I stood up, but Trubble didn’t, waiting for the rest of the students to file out before he rose to his feet and made a quick exit, beating a path back to the house and then leaning his palm against the wall next to the door while he waited for Jasinda to unlock it.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked as he slid his bronze eyes over to me.

“Wrong?” he asked, giving me a curious little smile with a single sharp tooth. “Nothing’s wrong. You just … stimulated me is all, and I need a shower.”

“I … stimulated you?” I asked, cheeks flushing with heat as Jasinda paused to glance over at us. Trubble pushed up off the wall and paused to whisper in my ear before heading inside.

“I came in my pants,” he growled, and my entire body erupted in goose bumps.

I gaped at him as he slipped in the front door and headed up the stairs. I could hear his feet as he moved down the hall and left through the back, on his way down to the bathhouse no doubt.

And then I did my best not to look at Dyre and Air as they materialized inside.

What in Hellim’s Hell was I supposed to say to them after that?