Root Rot Academy: Term 3 Read online

  A true warrior.

  My darling shieldmaiden… bleeding out.

  My fingertips barely grazed her sleeve, which was fucking infuriating. No matter how I shoved and squished between the bars, she remained close and yet so fucking far that my snarls soon filled the dungeon. The monster demanded I rip the metal dividing us apart. Warp it. Impale those warlock shits with it.

  But the sigils gave me pause, the metal no doubt fortified to contain supernatural beings.

  So I scrounged around for a few bits of stone instead, rock that had chipped off the walls and ceiling over the centuries. With a couple in hand, I shoved against the bars dividing us again, then lobbed a pebble at her.

  It bounced off her finger.

  Nothing.

  Fuck’s sake.

  “Sorry, elskling,” I murmured, this time selecting the largest and taking aim for her forehead. I hesitated, of course, unwilling to put her through more pain, then begrudgingly took the shot. It still bounced clear off her, but the sharp edge must have stung enough to get the job done. Alecto sucked in a panicked breath, eyelashes fluttering, then moaned and rolled onto her side, back to me.

  “Alecto, elskling, here,” I beckoned, snapping my fingers repeatedly, hoping to annoy my dazed witch into rolling over and getting herself within reach. The commotion earned me another frightened gasp, and this time she tried to sit up—only to sob and fold over again, trembling hands smeared with blood as she assessed her face.

  As agony unlike any she had experienced tore through her.

  It must have been so peaceful in the black.

  I hated to bring her back before she was ready, but it was for her own good.

  “Here, elskling,” I ordered, using my no-nonsense voice to pique her interest.

  Sir. Little one. Gavriel had shared the tidbits he collected when they last crossed swords with Jack Clemonte. Clearly a little authority went a long way with a creature I already knew to be sexually submissive, albeit a touch bratty in her surrender.

  Struggling to catch her breath and propped up on her elbow, Alecto peeked at me under her arm, hair everywhere, curls matted with blood. I nodded, fangs more in the way than ever; all the frantic movement had made her wounds gush harder, so much that droplets had started to splatter the floor. Ramped my senses way up. Made my stomach roar and my mouth water.

  Focus, you ancient fuck.

  “Come here.” I pushed harder into the bars, arm outstretched, hand open and fingers crooked. “Let me tend to you.”

  The toxin in vampire saliva sealed open wounds, and while it didn’t do a damn thing for scarring, at least I could stop the bleeding for now.

  Tears mingled with blood, my elskling eventually dragged herself across the stone, collapsing into my hand so I could help her the rest of the way.

  “Good girl,” I murmured. Relief made my chest tight; after a blow like that to the head, she could have been out for good. Dazed. Concussed. At least she could move everything, even logic her way back to me through what I assumed was a wall of blinding pain. “Good, you’re so strong.” Rage tainted the relief, of course. Had I less restraint, I would have slaughtered them all. “And so brave, elksling.” These days, I saw beyond my own selfish desires, the bloodlust curdling in my belly, the monster baying in my skull. “And a little ridiculous, too, staring down the barrel of the gun like that.”

  Still. When it came to Alecto, next time I might lack self-control.

  Next time, there would be no survivors.

  She slumped into the bars with a weak chuckle. “Mmm, yeah.” Her croaky rasp made my heart ache, but I focused on clearing the blood away with my thumb, in need of a clearer road map of her injuries. To her credit, Alecto stayed in place as best she could despite wincing and squirming, eyes heavy-lidded as she released a long, wet exhale that had me concerned. “I-is Egbert okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said gruffly, focused on her breathing, listening for any internal bleeding I hadn’t considered before. “The aftermath was a bit of a blur.”

  Alecto cleared her throat, and when she spoke next, the thickness had lifted somewhat. “How long was I out for?”

  “Not long.” For once, the Root Rot security squad had been efficient and no-nonsense—like actual trained professionals. “Five, maybe six minutes.”

  I seized her momentary distraction, amber gaze a million miles away and body drooped against the bars, to lick her. One long, swift sweep of my tongue up the side of her face, collecting blood and grazing her wounds. Really, though. My girl could have lost an eye if Iris had more accuracy—

  “Bjorn.” Alecto flinched and reared back, her eyes narrowed to accusatory slits. “Seriously?”

  While her exquisite taste danced on my tongue, the monster stirring and my cock thickening, I could remain clinical about this. Mostly. “My saliva.” When she blinked up at me, as if still offended that I had decided now was the time to lick her clean, I motioned to my mouth. “The toxin—to close your wounds. We need to stop the bleeding.”

  “Oh.” Her fingers ghosted across her face, eventually tracing one line from her temple all the way down to the end of her cheekbone on the opposite side. “Right. Right. Yeah.”

  Hardly a simple task to clean her through the cell bars, but we made the best of it, Alecto angling herself to give me access—and me ignoring the monster’s demands that I rip her through the bars and devour her.

  Yes, her blood was the fucking nectar of the gods, sweeter than Idunn’s apples and stronger than any mead served in Valhalla…

  But as my girl would say: fucking chill, bruh.

  For as exquisite as it was for me, Alecto whimpered and sniffled and fought back tears the entire time. Had we been anywhere else, I could have bitten her to share the ecstasy, but for now it was best to limit further blood loss.

  “What in the name of all the gods is this?”

  Fuck me.

  I’d been so fixed on my elksling, on the flutter of her pulse, that my one-track mind hadn’t even noticed the second racing heartbeat.

  We both stiffened, then slowly glared up at Benedict Hammond in unison.

  The warlock loitered on the other side of Alecto’s cell, a few feet back from the door, hands on his hips, those pretentious gold-and-black warlock robes making his svelte figure deceptively large.

  Perhaps more intimidating to those who didn’t know him.

  In hand-to-hand combat, I would eviscerate him.

  And while Alecto’s pulse quickened, her face gave nothing away.

  Nothing but hatred, anyway.

  “Disgusting,” the warlock sneered as he took in my girl’s face, the wounds closed with waxy pink flesh and her skin bloodstained.

  “You don’t get to talk about disgusting, you fucking creep,” Alecto fired back, her dexterity returning as she grabbed hold of the bars with a stronger grip. Benedict merely sniffed and peered down his nose at her.

  “That foul language won’t be tolerated when you take my name, Alecto.”

  This guy. I rolled my eyes, and Alecto flipped him off.

  “Get fucked.”

  My chuckles had the warlock’s dismissive black gaze sliding my way, almost like he’d forgotten I was here, and I made sure to slap on a big, goading grin—just to make his heart hammer harder.

  And it did.

  “In my seven centuries, I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone quite as delusional as you, Hammond,” I drawled. Nothing about my tone or expression belied the pure, unadulterated loathing I felt for this scummy specimen, this creature who didn’t warrant the title of warlock or man—more like parasite. Dung beetle.

  But that was an insult to dung beetles.

  I had behaved appallingly in my past. Cruelty, violence, mayhem, unparalleled bloodshed—I’d done it all.

  Benedict had hurt her.

  He had touched my girl. Stolen so much from her.

  With zero remorse.

  For that, he outranked me in terms of savagery—and his ti
me was coming.

  “Quiet down, leech,” the warlock snapped, “or I’ll nail another cross to your door—remind everyone what you truly are.” He smoothed his hands down his black dress shirt, then fiddled with his stupid bulbous brocade sleeves. “An abomination of nature.”

  Nail a cross to my door? What—? I chuckled again, brows knit and confusion mounting. When the hell had he ever stuck anything on the flat’s door?

  By now, I knew all the songs of Alecto’s heart, and as she scaled the bars, hers danced to rage. To the thundering pulse of fury, fire sparking in her cheeks—in her soul. She may have feared the flames all her life, and with good reason, but my initial assessment of her had been slightly off. That first day, back in the flat, I read her as an earth-bound soul. Sure, those eyes hinted toward an air affinity, but a grounded spirit tied her to the land.

  Really, she was all that and more.

  My girl was fire in her marrow.

  She ought to embrace it, not run from it.

  “You pathetic little man—”

  “You’ll change your tune,” Benedict said dryly, gaze creeping over her figure once she was upright. I towered over her in my cell but held back and bit my tongue, sensing this was a moment for them—for her to show her fire. After all, the warlock appeared to have forgotten me again, his attention stuck on her eyes, so intense and focused that the monster in me demanded we flay him alive, right here, right now. As Benedict Hammond took a presumptuous step toward Alecto’s cell, he had no idea the danger he was in. “I can spare you this, Alecto… Your punishment, I mean.”

  She mirrored his step, drifting toward the front of her cell. “All from the goodness of your heart, eh?”

  “For a price, of course.”

  While it made me see red to watch them get closer and closer, I stayed put, feet planted and jaw set, gaze murderous if the fucker bothered to glance my way.

  Benedict tsked as Alecto settled in front of him, gripping the bars in her fists, her eyes down, head dipped in—submission?

  “Look what she did to your beauty,” Benedict muttered as he appraised the damage inflicted by his mistress. He then ducked down and reached through, taking her by the chin and tilting her face to catch the torchlight. “Agree to my terms and I’ll see that a healer is—”

  Fire. My elskling didn’t let him finish his half-assed proposal: she lunged, both hands twisting into the pretentious brocade, and yanked him forward. His forehead clanged thunderously off the bars, and he folded over with a groan.

  And a curse.

  “Fuck.”

  I snorted. Bloody hypocrite. Couldn’t handle his woman swearing, but he could spew all the filth he wanted? Twat. Pathetic, measly, insignificant little cockroach.

  Meanwhile, my girl was a vision lording over his crumpled figure. Shieldmaiden. Goddess. Fury.

  Alecto.

  “I am so in love with you.”

  Wait.

  Wait.

  What the fuck had just come out of my mouth?

  Wait.

  No. Not here. Not in front of him.

  Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.

  The whole world ceased to spin. My lovesick expression flatlined to shock and disbelief.

  Alecto slowly turned on the spot, and Benedict lifted his head to glower at me. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, lost for words, that bomb still exploding all around us, my heart on the outside and beating for all to see.

  “Well,” I added, throat like sandpaper as I motioned toward Benedict, “obviously not you…”

  And here I thought I knew every tune in her heart’s repertoire. As she gawked up at me, this one was different, all light and feathery, reminiscent of her affectionate pitter-patter yet somehow distinct in its own right.

  Love.

  My gut said it was love, but from her unreadable expression, the rest of me was less certain.

  Until she smiled and the world lit on fire.

  Gaze golden, warm and soft and deliciously rich, she returned to me at the dividing wall between our cells and climbed one of the horizontal bars, then another, so that eventually we were on even footing for once. Like Benedict, she grabbed at me with both hands through the bars but then met me in the middle with a kiss to last forever.

  Bit awkward, snogging through the bars of a prison cell, but we made it work, and when she pulled away, my elskling didn’t go far, her forehead resting on the silver. Eyes bright as the sun—and wet, too, with tears unshed. Even the overwhelming bloodstain across her face couldn’t detract from her smile, which I stroked with my thumb, grazing her lower lip through her breathy giggles.

  “I had a sneaking suspicion,” Alecto whispered conspiratorially, Benedict forgotten, our current setting just background noise.

  “Ah, yes.” I nodded sagely, calm on the outside, a riot on the inside. While still shocked that I’d blurted that here and now, suddenly I was floating on air—and nothing, no one, could take that from me. “Was I so obvious?”

  “Kind of,” she said with an impish shrug. “What about me?”

  “Oh my gods,” Benedict grumbled, punctuated by a gagging sound that only made us smile.

  “No, elskling, you played it perfectly.”

  Alecto slowly climbed down, bringing the substantial height disparity back into play, then mouthed a very clear, very readable I love you.

  “Lots,” she added out loud, her arms threaded through the bars, her hands splayed over my chest. “Like, from day one, I think.”

  “The day you first fucked Gavriel, you mean?”

  Her jaw dropped, and as she shoved at me playfully, Benedict Hammond stormed off, seething under his breath, and made sure to slam the door up there extra hard.

  My girl didn’t even flinch.

  “Yeah,” she said, full of giggles and wonder instead, still pushing me like a kitten pawing at a tiger, “when you told me I smelled like sex—that was when I knew…”

  I peered wistfully into the ether, Shakespearian-caliber dramatic as I crooned, “You knew that I was your forever.”

  Alecto dropped her head with a snort, exhaling a few of its friends into her chest as I watched her, deeply, hopelessly, utterly lovesick.

  And in no need of a cure.

  Ever.

  When she eventually beamed up at me, quiet descending all around us, I could have sworn she agreed—that we were both infected with this disease I went seven long centuries without.

  What a waste of immortality.

  “Kind of a shitty place to say it in for the first time,” she mused suddenly, scanning our surroundings, wariness and uncertainty sinking into her features. I mean, yes, there were a million better times and places to tell her she was the center of my world.

  That I would die for her ten times over.

  “My apologies—”

  “No, no,” Alecto said hurriedly, up on her toes again and hands curving over my shoulders. “It’s not that, just, uh…”

  She gestured to her bloody face, her wounds sealed but prominent. Hard to miss, those six garish slashes, especially when she must have felt them with every word, every twitch, every expression. Honestly, I’d almost forgotten about them, so infatuated with her smile, with the life and light in her eyes.

  “Quite the mess we’re in,” I agreed, nudging her up against the bars with an arm around her waist.

  “Yeah, that.”

  “I know.” I tipped her chin up with my knuckle. “Worth it.”

  My elskling softened. “Definitely.”

  Despite being well and truly fucked, locked in a dungeon with an uncertain future, I kissed her again. Cautious of her injuries but deep as the bars would allow. I held her. Tasted her. Savored her. Loved her.

  Wished this moment could last forever.

  But the bubble would pop soon, and when that time came, we had to be ready.

  This wouldn’t be my first prison break, but it was certainly the most important.

  And I was determined to get her out
of here alive…

  One way or another.

  19

  Alecto

  I jolted awake to searing pain in my hip and shoulder from sleeping yet another night on this fucking stone floor—and a boom that sounded like the castle was caving in. Heart in my throat and adrenaline skyrocketing, I flailed with a haggard cry, then rolled onto my belly and covered my head as dust sprinkled from the ceiling. The floor shuddered and the walls quaked, and I curled into a ball, waiting for it to be over.

  When it finally tapered off, I cracked one eye to peek through my curls. Day three in the dungeon and now this?

  Awesome.

  Dirty, hungry, exhausted, I so wasn’t in the mood for extra bullshit down here. No one had come round to formally feed us, but a prep cook snuck leftovers in every so often, along with the odd cup of blood for Bjorn.

  I’d also been forced to use a bucket in lieu of a toilet for the last few days, which was a marvelous humiliation to endure in front of the vampire I had just declared my love for. Bjorn didn’t seem to care; he was the one who demanded I be taken for bathroom breaks, only for security to stroll in with a bucket and call it a day.

  “What was that?” I croaked. Groaning, I pushed up and shook the dust out of my hair. Three levels underground, we couldn’t hear the grandfather clock chimes gonging every fifteen minutes anymore, so whatever just rocked the castle had some serious force behind it.

  Was Iris firing delinquents out of a godsdamn cannon now?

  “I don’t know,” Bjorn muttered. I found him where I always did when I came to from a fitful sleep: right beside me on the floor, both of us squished against the dividing bars between our cells so that we were always touching at least a little.

  It helped me sleep to feel him close by.

  It helped me heal, my face no longer a giant ball of hot, fiery agony. The lashes remained, closed thanks to the toxin in Bjorn’s saliva and slowly healing with rest. Had I been human, a blow like that might have done more damage. Serious brain injury. Lost eye—blindness. Cracked cheekbone. Fractured… whatever. Fortunately, Iris had only broken skin.