Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Well done, human.” Sabrina stuck her head out of my collar. She had no problem looking at the expression on Tristan’s face. “Finally, you begin to see sense.”
“I—”
“Oooh, what’s this?”
Oh no.
“Trouble in paradise?” Ronin loped over to us, grinning away. All traces of the embarrassed demon mourning the violation of his anus was gone. “Why are you and your mutt sitting apart? You didn’t get into a fight, did you?”
I clenched my jaw tight, nostrils flaring. Just like a little devil to see a weakness and pounce.
“Ahh,” Ronin mourned, putting on a pout. “And here I was all amused over my pet finding a pet of his own, and now you’ve gone and broken up.” He tsked. “Pity.”
Pushing down my irritation, I forced a smile on my lips. “Tristan and I aren’t in a fight, why would we be? I only moved to make space for you.” I patted the seat. “It’s all warm and it’s all yours, Mr. Belphe.”
If anything, he smirked wider. “How suspiciously obedient of you, but I do remember telling you I sit in the back.”
“Oh, gosh, of course, sir.” I quickly gathered my things and popped up, secretly glad to get away from Tristan and the stare boring a hole in the side of my head.
“Charlie, wait—” Tristan called.
But I didn’t bother to look back.
Ronin followed me up the stairs, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew he was grinning away.
Unease popped goose bumps on my neck and arms. Slowly, I turned and peeked at him over my shoulder... and locked right on to those ruby eyes.
In that second, I knew that Ronin hadn’t avoided me for the last day and a half because he was embarrassed. He did it because he needed just that much time to plan his revenge. And now—
—he was ready.
I swallowed through needles, vividly recalling the gory scene of blood and guts that Ronin caused in that mess hall that day with only a snap of his fingers. “E-everything’s okay between us? Right? Mr. Belphe?”
“Of course, it is, Charlie.” My name on his lips loosened my bowels. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
My lips parted—to say what I didn’t know. But I did know I had to do something to dispel that look in his eyes. “Mr.—”
“Whoa, whoa. Where do you think you’re going?” Over Ronin’s shoulder, Professor Somnus peeled himself up off the desk. His elbow knocked into the liquor bottle and it smashed on the floor. “What a waste,” he muttered.
Bending over behind the desk, he riffled around in the drawer, pulled out another bottle, and popped the cork with his sharp, little panda teeth. “Sit down, sit down,” he slurred at me and Ronin. “It’s time for class.”
Stumbling over to the chalkboard, he wiped Haven’t Fucking Decided Yet off and replaced it with—
“Magic class?” I read.
“Magic class!” he burst out, making me jump. “With the second attack by this mysterious, skulking witch, and the body count now up to ten, it was suggested to me”—he bowed in the general direction of the left side of the room—“that this period would best be spent teaching you how to defend against witch magic.
“Something you’ve never had to learn, because there’s never been a living witch in hell.”
Once again, I watched my classmates do something they hated doing more than anything—shutting up, sitting up, and paying attention.
Somnus sucked down five big, gulping gulps of whiskey. “The first thing to know— The first thing— The first—” He staggered back, head lolling, and then snapped to us glaring like he didn’t know what the hell we were doing there or why we were staring at him. “Oh, yeah. The first thing to know is that witch magic is fundamentally different than other types of magic.
“Demonic magic is dark magic,” Somnus got out. “And dark magic is so named because it demands a price. A price that must be paid by you, a sacrifice, or your victim. Vampires and werewolves—”
I was mildly surprised and relieved that he called them by their specie name and not by a slur.
“—have no magic in the traditional sense,” he continued. “They were merely humans suffering under a curse that has spread either by birth or bite. Then, there are the fae, who bound themselves to the service of nature, and therefore received her blessings. Being that there is very little nature in hell, they rely on their wings as their source of power—for a fae’s wings are in and of itself a gift from the wind.”
Quietly, I found my seat and flipped open my notebook. My pencil was flying across the page in seconds, writing down his every word.
“But what is a witch?” Somnus paused to let out an ear-splitting belch. “She is a mortal woman who has been blessed with power granted to her by a goddess. Now this magic,” he said, climbing onto his desk and stretching out with his feet up, “does not come at a cost in the same way dark magic does.