Rosemary Johns - Rebel Academy - Curse

"By the branches of the tree, save your children, blessed be," I whispered the incantation that my father, Bryon, had said all those years before ( Hecate hear me ).

Yet why did I feel like Byron hadn't been praying to Hecate at all?

I couldn't let this happen. Not again .

Hecate, don't take a second mage…another man who I loved…from me.

The howl rose from me like a ball of grief and loss loosed in primal rage. Panic flickered across Damelza's gaze, driving away the smugness. My black mists surged forward, at the same time as Bask, Sleipnir, and Lysander prowled towards Fox. But a pink fire blazed up, blasting to the ceiling with a sizzling roar.

Through the stinging smoke, I watched in terror as Damelza swung Fox around and hurled him into the blackness.

Lightheaded, my knees buckled, and I tumbled to my floor.

Please, no...

Then the gallery sealed, walling Fox up alive.

The gallery wall closed, sealing me into the darkness behind, which pressed on me like a shroud.

Great Pan, don’t let me die like this.

Every night, after the Kitten Incident that’d shown my family in the House of Jewels I’d possessed magic, I’d feared that I’d die locked away in the attic. After my stunt at my sister’s garden birthday party, even my window had been boarded over.

Was dying within the castle walls because I was a mage any different?

Too dark, too dark, too…

I cringed back against the cold stone, struggling to drag in raspy breaths of the stale air, which stank of death.

I squeezed closed my eyes, clawing at my throat.

My lungs burned, and I choked, hyperventilating.

So much for being able to hold my breath for a really, really long time (okay, that’d been a lie; sue me).

I forced myself to count back from a hundred in my head to calm myself.

100, 99, 98…

In a pop of glitter, I transformed into a Birman cat with a crooked tail (because all the attitude was in the tail). I’d heard of being scared straight, but Damelza had scared me into a shifter.

There was a reason that Rebel Academy was considered the deadliest of the academies.

Witches were bitches.

After all, what was one more dead mage to a witch?

Yet Magenta loved me.

I meowed mournfully, curling into a fluffy ball and covering my head with my paws like if I couldn’t see the darkness, then I wouldn’t really have been walled up alive.

I could see others’ lies but I was even more skilled at lying to myself.

Then I grunted, as I was snatched by the scruff of my neck and cradled to Ezekiel’s chest. Did all angels have abs like this because okay, mine were like Zeus’…okay, Adonis’…okay some lesser demigods’, but Ezekiel’s were like sculptured stone.

I purred, snuggling closer.

The main thing that was different between the space in the walls and my attic was that this time, I wasn’t shut up alone. I should’ve felt guilty about that but knowing my slow death wouldn’t also be a lonely one pretty much meant that I didn’t .

Why had I ever told Magenta that I could survive this? Oh yeah, cockiness and male pride.

I grimaced. Brilliant.

The truth was that I didn’t truly believe that Magenta would be able to rescue me in time. You’d better sue my furry ass again.

Ezekiel slumped onto his ass, leaning against the wall. There was no one to pretend courage to anymore, only the pussy that he’d placed on his lap, and we were a dead man and his pet walking now.

That was the truth.

I trembled, and he scratched behind my ear.

All of a sudden, his wings flared with violet light; their tips pulsed.

“Better?” Ezekiel cradled one of his wings close, before scooping me onto his soft feathers. “I should’ve adapted the environment to suit your needs. Unfortunately, all the drama of our impending deaths scattered my usual strategies.”

Had he seen my file and knew about the attic? Had he looked at the baby photos with me in diapers?

Was a cat able to flush?

These were the times that I regretted how little I’d been allowed to see myself in mirrors. On the scale of our problems (from numb asses from sitting on a stone floor to being unable to breathe), it didn’t rate high.

But still… diapers .

I thwapped my tail side-to-side but couldn’t resist snuggling further into the nest of Ezekiel’s wing and sniffing its delicious tangy, citrus scent. Ezekiel sighed, resting his head against the wall and stroking his strong fingers down my back. I purred, kneading him with my paws.

Ezekiel winced, but when I glanced at the hardness tenting his pants, I realized that it hadn’t been with pain.

I did have one adorable furry ass.

Pink spread down Ezekiel’s neck and chest. “Let’s… hmm …put you somewhere less…sensitive, kitty.”

Hiding in my shifter form was just another type of lie.

In a spray of glitter, I transformed back into a man, who was now sprawled in his professor’s lap. So, a man could definitely flush.

Ezekiel caught me around the waist, before I toppled over, and for a moment, we stared intently into each other’s eyes.

Awkward.

It looked like I could embarrass myself in any social situation. It was a talent.

I attempted to wriggle off Ezekiel’s lap (I could pull off Bask’s sexy lap dismount), but Ezekiel firmly banded his arms around me, holding me in place.

I ducked my head, fiddling with the hem of Ezekiel's harem boy pants. "Well, that just happened. I mean, we just got walled up, then I panic transformed into a cat, and now I'm sitting in your lap like a..." Mouth, on Pan's golden cock, stop rambling humiliating small talk before I ban you from talking for...at least five minutes. My mouth snapped shut. I'd never been shocked into silence before, but then my threat had been harsh. Five minutes, who was I kidding that I could manage that without a gag? I prodded Ezekiel's stomach. " Ehm , sorry for getting you walled up alive."

As apologies went, that was weak .

He waved it away. "Today isn't going according to my expected schedule but then, it rarely does in this academy. I'd believed that the story of the original mage being walled up here was a myth. Yet once, I'd believed that about Magenta herself. In her lively rebellious self, she disproves that."

I bit my lip. I yearned to know about Magenta's first love who'd been a mage like me. He'd taken his last breaths here, the same as me. My skin tingled.

I could almost feel him.

"Who was he?" I asked.

"The tale goes that he was a powerful shimage like you." I jolted. My connection to the last mage to be allowed into the academy (the only other shimage who I'd directly heard of), shuddered through me. Why were we so hated? "It's the original love story. A witch and a mage fall in love. When the mother and Principal discovers them together..."

He trailed off. Yeah, I knew the rest.

For the first time, I understood that this was harder on my lovers than it was for me. I only had to suffer the punishment, but they had to witness, as I suffered it.

What if this had been done to any of them?

My eyes widened. Were my lovers still be on the other side of the wall?

I leaned over Ezekiel, and he let out an oomph, as I could've...okay, as I definitely...kneed him in the balls.