Held In Contempt (Of Magic and Contempt Book 2) Read online

  “Mrs Hardinger, I’m coming to you now as a student needing help,” she clarified, when it looked like the older woman would protest. “I think we need to check for hexes again. I’m so tired, I’m wondering if I’ve been hit by another lethargy one.”

  “Oh, well, yes, we can do that first if you like?”

  Melody nodded. “Just lethargy, anything else can wait until we’ve sorted the other thing out.”

  The counsellor walked over to her and rested her fingers lightly on Melody’s temple. “No,” she said after a moment. “Not lethargy, but there are a couple there. We’ll deal with them later, and check the cabin again, okay?”

  “Alright,” she said, standing. “Let’s do this.”

  Together, they walked out the door, the shifters following in silence until Asher piped up.

  “Where are we going?” he demanded. “What’s so important that only she can do it?”

  There was an answering rumble from Dean, but Melody thought it was more in agreement than anything else.

  “He’s in the forest near the swimming hole,” Mrs Hardinger replied, saying nothing more.

  “Oh, fuck,” Nick said aloud. “Hey guys, we need to stay back here. Otherwise we’ll just set him off again.”

  “Set who off?” snapped Dean, clearly agitated.

  Enough was enough. Melody stopped and turned on them.

  “Justin is stuck in his dragon form. I’m going to force his shift. He’s not going to want to see me as it is. Nick’s right. Arriving with you all in tow is only going to make matters worse. Please stay here.”

  “Like fuck we will,” growled Trent, surprising her. “I’m not allowing you within a kilometer of a pissed off dragon. If he’s stuck, then he’s fucking stuck.”

  Melody gaped. Who was this man? Trent had never spoken to her like that before. Of them all, he was the most submissive. What on earth was going on?

  “Oh, shit,” Ryan said, and she turned to look at him. “Hey, has anyone told Melody, Dean and Asher yet?”

  She looked between the three of them, and then at Mrs Hardinger who sighed.

  “Nick, if you wouldn’t mind?” Mrs Hardinger asked the dragon.

  “Done,” he said, tersely.

  Melody felt wards spring up around the room. She assumed it was to ensure privacy. What would they need such strong protection for?

  “Melody,” Mrs Hardinger said. “You were in shock the other day, so you weren’t a part of this conversation, but basically Trent has undergone a transformation since bonding you. He has two beasts inside him. His fox, who you’ve met, and a dormant beast, who you haven’t. I’m gathering it’s the dormant animal talking now.”

  Trent bared his teeth at Mrs Hardinger, his canines lengthening. In response, Toby moved to stand in front of her protectively.

  “I am no beast, witch,” Trent said gruffly. “You would do well to remember that.”

  Mrs Hardinger stepped around Toby. “And I’m no juvenile fucking pushover witch, beast. You would do well to remember that!” she snapped.

  Melody looked from one to the other and back again. “Then who are you?” she asked.

  Immediately Trent shifted, but it wasn’t to the fox that she was familiar with. This was a larger beast again, dark in colour and with three tails.

  “A kitsune!” she whispered. “But, that’s impossible, two beasts inside one man.”

  Trent stood in front of her again, his eyes amber with slitted pupils staring hungrily at her. “Yet, here I stand.” He raised a hand and touched her face gently, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “And you are my mate.”

  A lot of things began to make sense. The way he spoke to her that morning he woke in her bed, some of the expressions she’d caught on his face, even the wariness the others had displayed in his presence.

  “You knew,” she whispered, looking at them.

  “Yes,” Nick replied. “All of us bar you and your other bonded familiars and Justin were part of the conversation. We need to bring you into the geas now, to prevent you from telling others.”

  “No!” shouted Melody, taking a step back and bringing up a ward around herself. “You will not take my will from me again.”

  Dean and Asher stepped in front of her, growling ferociously. To her surprise, Trent did too.

  “If she says no, then I will not force her, no matter the danger. She has faced enough already, I will not add to it,” Trent said.

  This time, however, his voice was different. When he turned to look back at her, his eyes were golden, although the pupils were still slitted. It was his fox talking.

  “Can we just help Justin, and then we can talk this out. I can’t deal with everything at once. It’s too much,” Melody said quietly, but she knew all the males heard her.

  “Of course, Melody,” Mrs Hardinger said, proving that she had heard too. The older woman turned around and started off again, not waiting for Melody to join her.

  It took them another five minutes to navigate the forest, but before long they came out at a large pond with a small jetty on one side and a dubious looking pontoon in the middle.

  In the shadows on the other side, the black dragon lay watching them warily. It was what was at his side that made her stop in her tracks. Well, not what, rather who.

  Draped over him and around him, a bevvy of witches purred at him, their hands running over his scales as they tried to convince him to challenge them. Shawna was at his head, whispering in his ear, stroking his face as she snuggled up to his jaw. The look she threw over her shoulder at Melody was poisonous.

  “What’s she doing here?” Shawna snarled.

  Mrs Hardinger ignored her, guiding Melody around the side of the water.

  “How close do you have to be, Melody?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Melody replied. “It wasn’t something we ever experimented with. I usually did it at arm’s length.”

  “Alright, then that’s what we’ll do,” she said, continuing to lead them around.

  Justin’s eyes followed her every move. Well, at least the one of them that she could see did. Shawna increased her posturing even more, dropping kisses on his scales and cooing nonsense at him, but for all Melody could tell, he ignored the bitchy witch.

  Shawna flicked an auburn lock over her shoulders, ignoring Melody in turn and trying even harder to get a reaction from the dragon. She tried everything, shy of sticking a finger in his eye. It was a wise call on Shawna’s part, Justin was already pissed off. Melody didn’t realise the vapid witch had the restraint to resist.

  It was what she saw when they rounded the side and began to approach him that made Melody stop again, her heart clenching in pain. Resolutely, she continued, refusing to let the equally shocked Carla bother her. If this was where Carla wanted to put her time and energy, trying to seduce a dragon when she already had a wolf shifter, then so be it. Melody knew that neither woman would be enough to tame him and certainly not when Carla already had one beast to monitor.

  Melody knew her jealousy was completely uncalled for, and seriously irrational. She couldn’t take on another shifter right then. Already the bonds with the three she had were pulling at her. She might be experienced in bonding shifters, but she’d never had one longer than an hour.

  There was one other factor to consider. For the first time ever Melody had a choice over whom to bond and when. So, either Justin could wait until she was ready, or he could find someone else to bond with. There was no way she was going to cave and march to someone else’s tune again. This was her life. Hers. Nobody was going to take it from her again.

  “Get back from him, you bitch,” snarled Shawna. “Coven Bestia isn’t welcome at this academy.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell them if I see any,” Melody replied, centering herself for what was about to happen. There would be no way she could force his dragon to stand down if she was upset herself. He needed her to be strong and determined.

  “Shawna, girls, you will ste
p back from Justin now. It’s time for him to shift,” Mrs Hardinger told them.

  Shawna sputtered. “You’re not going to let the traitor bond him are you? Are you insane? She's not good enough for him.”

  That drew a reaction from the dragon. He lifted his head, knocking it into Shawna and sending her flying into the pool.

  At any other time, Melody would have laughed, but the baleful silver eyes in front of her killed any mirth. A rumble sounded deep in his chest and Melody half wished that she had Nick with her to translate.

  Still, if she couldn’t hear him out, then he would have to hear her.

  “It wasn’t fair of you,” she said, not naming it for everyone who was desperately listening for details to gossip about later. “You know what I’ve been through, what I was forced to do. Now, for the first time I get to choose. I have space, I have freedoms that I never had before. I don’t have to spend ten minutes brushing my teeth. I don’t have to go around the cabin and kill every spider. I don’t have to cook all the meals and clean up after them, or make sure that I serve my aunt first and give her the prime parts. I can live, Justin, do you understand that?”

  The beast in front of her rumbled mournfully, she could see the ire start to drain from him.

  “You stupid fucking bitch!” screamed Shawna stomping out of the water, understanding despite Melody’s attempt at subtlety. “He challenged you and you turned him down? How could you? He’s been stuck here for hundreds of years and all you had to do was give him a fucking bond, and you’re whining about your rights? You’re twenty-five, you’ve been without your precious fucking freedoms for a fraction of the time that he’s been without his, and you’re asking him if he understands.”

  Her wet hand rested on his jaw, and there seemed to be a curious thrumming to it, but Melody couldn’t feel any actual magic. Was Shawna doing something to him?

  Whatever was going on, Justin was no longer relaxed, the venomous glare he sent her way telling her all she needed to know. There would be no reasoning with him tonight.

  Fine.

  Melody gathered her magic and shoved everything at him. “Shift,” she yelled at him, and he did.

  Around them, everyone gaped, Justin included, but Melody had had enough. She turned her back on him and walked away.

  26. Nick

  He’d expected it much sooner, but it was over a week after the battle that Nick was summoned to the admin office.

  “Ah, Nick,” Mrs Hardinger turned to him with a fixed smile. “I’d like to introduce our new provost to you. Provost Venefica, this is Nick, a member of the Apex and the strongest shifter at the academy.”

  The woman in front of them looked stern and imposing, steel grey hair bound up tightly in a bun while icy blue eyes swept over them all. She waited expectantly, her arm held in front of her, and Nick’s spirits sank. This woman would not be as laid-back and respectful of shifters as Provost Aer-Canticum. She was waiting for him to kiss her ring.

  Following protocol, Nick stepped forward and bent low at the waist, and she thrust her hand right in front of him. He did not, however, kiss it.

  She could suck his balls, he was only required to bow deeply to her, not touch her, no matter what custom had turned this formality into. If she wanted to make things old school, then he would make them ancient school.

  He also wasn’t required to wait for her dismissal or permission to rise. Something that had also changed with time. Again, defying the tone she was trying to set, he rose swiftly and stepped back, meeting her eye.

  “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 w
as 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. It was time to call in a favour.

  Nick turned to leave, ignoring the strident voice behind him.

  “You! Shifter! You have not been dismissed. Come back here now.”

  Shifter? She really went there?

  His blood boiled. He was not less. Hell, even Shawna had more decorum than the raving lunatic behind him.

  Inside, his dragon was frantic, and it was all Nick could do to prevent himself from shifting on the spot. Doing so would only lend credence to the provost’s wild claims. Scales the colour of dried blood covered his arms and he imagined his face. Especially after several witch students took one look at him and ran in the other direction.

  “Sir!” a voice called behind him. “Please, Sir. Wait.”

  He didn’t wait, time was of the essence, but he did slow his pace. The scent of canine wafted toward him, yet it wasn't a dog. It wasn't a cat either, but it was a large carnivore. Not bear, nor wolf. Nothing he was familiar with.

  The provost’s familiar drew alongside him.