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

  Somewhere on the grounds, someone was spying for her aunt.

  36. Oz

  He knew where he was, he knew what was happening around him, but somehow, it just didn’t feel real. He felt drunk. Well, until he realised what the male witches were there for, then he just felt sickened.

  You in there, dude? Ryan asked him on their pack link.

  Yeah, just … this shit is amazing. Wait until you bond her, then you’ll understand, Oz told him.

  Way to rub it in, dick, Ryan grumbled, but there was no true anger in his tone.

  You need to get her to bond you soon, those fuckers are going to try to take her away.

  What do you mean, take her where?

  Ryan let out a little growl

  Stay focussed, Nick said over the larger link. She’s going to need us through this.

  Oz wondered what he was talking about, until the dread coming from Melody had his wolf howling. What the fuck were they making her do now?

  “Take us to the weakest ones first, the ones you said are palliative,” the councillor demanded.

  The healer frowned but led them over to another cot, where the shifter was hooked up to an IV of clear fluid. Oz didn’t know what it was, but it made his nose twitch and his wolf wince.

  Melody bent down, ignoring the blood on her and rested two fingers on the skeletal woman’s head. “Yes,” she said, quietly.

  Nick surged forward, pulling her back into his chest and turning her away. There was a surge of magic, Melody cried out, and then the woman shook and shuddered a few times before falling unnaturally still.

  It took Oz a moment to realise what was going on. They were using Melody to identify the infected shifters, then killing them. Breaking the bonds on the weakest ones was the quickest and kindest way. It also stopped the witches from draining more strength from them.

  The healer stared at them aghast and then refused to help any more.

  Irritated, the councillor merely guided Melody to the next cot, regardless of who lay in it. She touched the shifter, nodded, and then turned into Nick’s chest again, her shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

  “We didn’t have a name for that one,” the healer said. “He never woke up.”

  “Isaac Pendleson,” Melody said tearfully. “He disappeared about a decade ago. He was an alpha wolf shifter.”

  Now it was Oz’s turn to want to throw up. They did that to an alpha wolf?

  Over and over again, Melody gave a death sentence to the shifters. On occasion, the councillor would simply move on, but there was no rhyme nor reason to it that Oz could see, other than that they seemed to be some of the stronger shifters there. Was that because they were more recently infected? He didn’t really want to know.

  Eventually, he stood back, letting her do what she had to do, and sending his love to her every time her heart broke a bit more. Seriously, how much could one person be forced to endure?

  The new students, sent like stud males to a mare in heat, watched her avidly, analysing every move she made. Weighing, judging. It was like they were putting her through her paces, and it made Oz’s blood boil. Couldn’t they see how fucking amazing she was?

  His growing anger began to eat through the buzz he got from their new bond. That and her constant despair. Each fresh wound on her heart tearing a bit of his own.

  The shifter, a bear he was reasonably sure, was a different game altogether. He had to have transferred in from another academy somewhere, but given his accent, Oz was starting to suspect that he’d actually come from one of the European ones, rather than one of the other beast magic academies in the US.

  Ryan, can you get her some food? Oz, Asher, can you get some for the rest of us? Nick asked them.

  What about the bear? Oz asked, irritated.

  He doesn’t know where the dining hall is, Nick replied, matching the irritation with his own.

  Oz rolled his eyes and turned away from Melody, picking his way through the cots to the doorway. One of the healers stopped him, handing him a set of scrubs. Fuck, he was still naked. He pulled them on while responding to Nick.

  I meant, can we trust him. He’s after her, you know.

  You think he’s going to challenge her in this state? If he does, do you think I wouldn’t shift and fucking eat him on the spot? Fuck the bear, she’s running on empty. Get her some fucking food.

  He felt foolish. Of course she would be fine. Nick was his brother and a fucking dragon to boot. He’d look after their witch.

  Tone it down, you two, Dean chided. The new bond hits you hard the first few days. Everything is a threat, you want to run interference for every encounter she has. It settles, but be prepared for your beast to be antsy as fuck for a bit.

  As reluctant as he was to leave her, he also knew that she’d be safe, no matter what the provost did or said in there. As long as the councillor was present, he’d make sure that things were fair. He seemed to have a pretty decent head on his shoulders, given that he was high in witch politics.

  It was hard focussing on his task, when his emotions were focussed on her and every pang of pain that she felt as she basically assigned the shifters a death sentence. He nearly lost his shit, however, when surprise surged down the bond. He’d spun on the spot to race back, when Nick spoke to them.

  It was one of the missing students. She didn’t know him, but I did, and he’s not tainted. It was a good feeling to rescue him.

  Oz lost count of the pulses of pain he’d felt. They far outweighed the far more pleasant surprises. He didn’t think she’d be able to stomach much after all this, so although the rest of them got cold cut meats and small amounts of salad, he got her a large sealed travel mug of soup. He nearly got her tomato soup, but when he saw it, it reminded him too much of the blood that stained her from head to foot.

  He was already getting strange looks for all the blood on his legs. They’d copped the brunt of it as he’d been sitting in it with her. Chicken noodle seemed to be a better choice. Plus, it’s what you gave someone when they were sick, right? Melody might not be ill, but her body had been through a lot of shocks that day. He was sure it would do her some good.

  Besides, she could drink it from the cup without worrying about getting blood on or in it. She wouldn’t even have to clean up. Well, okay, maybe her face, but the rest of her could just wait.

  It was one thing to get food, it was quite another to know what to do with it. It wasn’t like they could set up a dining table in the cafeteria when they were killing infected shifters in there. Where the hell were they going to eat?

  “Dude, take that into her,” Ryan suggested, unusually sombre. “We’ll eat ours out here, and you send someone out to get theirs, we can trade out like that. So, she gets a discrete feed and we can eat out of sight.”

  It was actually a good idea. “Yeah, okay, thanks.”

  He headed back inside. From the looks of things, Melody had already dealt with more than half of the injured shifters. In the corner, sat a bunch of more alert ones, watching in terror. The counsellor steered clear of them for now, focussing more on the ones in the cots.

  “You got her a coffee, while she’s killing people?” the provost asked him, not bothering to keep her voice down.

  So, Oz replied in kind. “No, I got her some chicken noodle soup because she’s going into shock again, and she’s not allowed to pass out.”

  Melody spun to face him, anger on her face and pulsing through his bond.

  Shit, she’d heard him. Fuck. he was an idiot.

  “I’m not eating while …” she gestured around her, but even Oz could see how much her arm trembled.

  “Miss Canticum,” Councillor Argrum said. “Your familiar is right, we should both pause for sustenance.”

  He took Melody’s elbow and guided her away from the row of cots. Behind them, the healers moved in, pulling up sheets on the latest batch of people to have been killed simply by having their bonds broken. There were more weakened shifters than the healers had origina
lly indicated. Or they hadn't known.

  “Melody,” one of the male witches said, stepping forward.

  She held up a hand to him and went to walk past, but he grabbed it, halting her. Immediately Nick had him by the throat, lifting him from the ground.

  “Clean her face for her,” was all the witch managed to get out.

  Under other circumstances, Oz would have laughed at the lapse in Nick’s zen-like calm. As it was, all he could do was sigh and roll his eyes as Nick lowered the foolish man to the ground.

  “You let your familiars have free run?” one of the men asked, sneering.

  Melody rounded on him. “I let my familiars protect me when they feel it’s needed, yes. He grabbed hold of me and halted me. I did not give him permission to touch me, nevermind to force his will upon me, so yes, I think Nick was justified in protecting me. If you don’t like it in your little breeding females, there’s the door. I have fought too hard for my freedom to give it up to petty little men.”

  So, she knew what they were there for too.

  “Well said, Melody,” Mrs Hardinger strode up to diffuse the situation. “It always makes me wonder why men think they’re superior, just because they carry their reproductive organs on the outside, when they’d be much safer and more sensibly kept on the inside like we do.”

  Or not.

  The witch sputtered, unfortunately looking to the provost for backup.

  He didn’t get it.

  “As you can see, gentlemen, Melody is disobedient, uncouth and a poor choice for a wife. I’m surprised that Coven Canticum agreed to keep her, after she caused the death of Augusta. Although I guess you do need to get your pound of flesh out of her. As long as she doesn’t produce abominations, rather than purebred witches.”

  If she’d thought to turn them against Melody, the provost had seriously miscalculated. Oz wanted to laugh out loud.

  “I do not see that the inner dealings of Coven Canticum are any of your concern,” Alexander said. “If we wish to woo Melody, would that not be a matter between us, rather than something open for influence by outside forces?”

  “Young man, I do not know who you think you are …” the provost started to rant, but he cut her off.

  “If you know half as much about witch politics as you ought, you would know that I’m the heir-apparent to Canticum Coven, and as such, well within rights to defend my coven when it is so egregiously insulted by the likes of yourself. I will be notifying my coven mistress of the decline in relationships between our covens. I’m sure she’ll notify your coven leader forthwith.”

  The provost paled. Oz didn’t know much about witch politics, but even he knew that Alexander held more political clout than she did right then, and all because of her attitude.

  “Alexander!” boomed Councillor Argrum. “I haven’t seen you in years, I didn’t recognise you. I do hope you will me.”

  “Of course, Councillor,” Alexander said, executing a crisp bow. “I only hope you can forgive our intrusion. We were given the impression that we would be having a private meeting with Melody to discuss our purpose here. Events, however, seem to have waylaid our plans.”

  The two men then slipped out the doors, presumably to catch up in more pleasant surroundings. Oz wondered if the Councillor realised that his pants were bloodied from the knees downwards.

  Off to the side, the male witches had surrounded Melody and Nick as she leaned against the wall, exhausted. Together the three men used their magic to clean the majority of the blood from her skin and clothes, although Oz could still scent it on her when he walked over.

  “Melody,” he coaxed, holding the travel cup out to her. “You need a little boost. We need you.”

  “What happened to all these people?” one of the men asked.

  “They were poisoned by her former coven in an experiment,” Nick replied, looking as grey and shaken as Melody.

  “Nick, I’ve got her, the guys have food for you outside,” Oz said, stepping forward.

  “You’re another of her familiars?” asked the grumpy one.

  “As of an hour ago, yes. You’ll have to forgive me, the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after bonding, our beasts get a little overprotective. We need nearness with our witch, crave it, even in our sleep we’ll move towards them. We’ll be jumpy and irritable until it all settles down.”

  “So what’s the dragon’s problem?” he continued.

  Oz snorted. “He bonded her yesterday.”

  The man jerked back in surprise. “How many does she have now?”

  “Five,” Oz told them proudly. “A lion, two wolves, a fox and a dragon.”

  “I’m right here,” Melody snapped. “You could just ask me.”

  “How do all these new bonds make you feel, Melody?” one of them asked her.

  “It’s hard to explain. If you’ve never held a bond, then there’s no comparison. And I’ve never held one long, so it’s still a steep learning curve for me. I can only compare the others to Dean, who was my first familiar.”

  They nodded, listening.

  “For the first couple of days, it’s like an itch that you can’t scratch. You know when your back is itchy, and you can’t reach it, but you get a stick or a ruler or a pen or something, and you scratch it, only to discover that now another part of your back is itchy? Well, it’s like that. Except your whole body.”

  The men jerked backwards. “You’re itchy?”

  “No,” Melody replied with a sigh. “With two of them, it’s more like my skin is irritated. Like sunburn.

  “So, how does Dean feel?” Oz asked, curious and worried.

  “Like he’s always been there. Like he’s an extension of me and I of him. He’s like an extra limb, but more. I guess, like a twin. I can hear his thoughts, well, his emotions that come across as knowledge I guess is the best description. I know what he’s feeling, but why he’s feeling it too, if that makes sense? It’s not always clear, but I usually get a good idea.”

  The witches weren’t the only ones intrigued.

  “So, they can influence your emotions?” asked one, eyeing Oz speculatively.

  Oz grinned at him, allowing his canines to lengthen. If the fucker thought he could use him as a method of tempering Melody or forcing her to do something, he could think again.

  “To an extent, but I could do the same to them. We have to be open to it,” Melody told him, honestly.

  “Gentlemen,” Oz interrupted, before they got too far down the rabbit hole. “I know you’re curious about Melody, even I’m enjoying learning this, but she’s tired, and she should be eating her soup.”

  He glared pointedly at her cup, her hand hovering in the air in front of her.

  The witches scowled, but stepped back, allowing her to eat. Melody shot him a look and he shrugged. He wasn’t lying, and he knew she knew it. He did enjoy it, but she really did need to eat.

  New bond.

  Protective.

  No-brainer.

  He’d look after her, whether she wanted him to or not.

  37. Melody

  The rest of the afternoon was even more horrific for Melody.

  They’d moved on from those who were too weak to survive, to those who weren’t. She was now condemning shifters who were strong enough to survive without their bonds. Only, they were at risk of losing the struggle with whatever her aunt had done to them.

  This new class of shifter had their bonds broken, but they were made to remain in their cots. She didn’t miss the fear in their eyes, or their pleading. She remembered them all. These were more recent disappearances. In the last five years. She made mention of it to the councillor, who nodded. He didn’t try to kill or apprehend them, he simply left them where they were.

  The last group of shifters were those who had either surrendered or who had sustained only minor injuries which the healers had since fixed. Several of them were students who had been missing from the academy since the last attack.

  Most of them were actuall
y free of the darkness that she had felt inside the others, and the ones who weren’t, Melody had such small amounts that she thought their healing would shed it before it took hold. She made sure to pass on that opinion as well.

  The relief on their faces sickened her, because it reminded her of the death sentence she’d given others earlier.

  Oz had been right, the soup had given her just enough vitality to keep ruining people’s lives. She didn’t know what the future held for these captured shifters, but she couldn’t imagine it would be anything good. Witching law was not gentle with shifters considered as criminals.

  Maybe it was better to let the others die than to face the kind of punishments that would drive any shifter insane. Isolation cells were a popular choice, depriving their beasts of their need for pack and family bonds. Few shifters survived that intact.

  Was it wrong that she wanted to hide? That she didn’t want to know the fate she had consigned them to?

  “They won’t torture them, Mel,” Oz told her, when she expressed her concerns quietly. “That kind of thing went out hundreds of years ago, although I suspect your aunt still did that, huh?”

  Melody nodded. She’d just assumed that it was how it was done everywhere. She’d been so naive.

  “There are prisons and rehabilitation centers and the packs usually take care of their own.”

  Something occurred to her. “I have never understood how the packs could have their own lands, when they can’t control their shifts.”

  Oz smiled at her. Most people didn’t think to question it either. “Every pack land has at least one witch who has bonded with a shifter there. Usually someone reasonably high ranking, but never the alpha, or anyone with the potential of becoming the alpha. The alpha himself is able to force the shift of most of the shifters in his pack, and the witch or witches are able to help the alpha, although they usually don’t have much trouble.”