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“Oh, totally. The safest place in the city. You don’t have anything to worry about. Your sister will be safe here.” He gave her his most sincere smile, the one he used whenever he picked up a girl from her parents’ house for a date, and the woman visibly relaxed.

“Well,” Willow sighed. “I guess I won’t be meeting with Professor Danvers after all… Did you know him? Like, personally?”

“Yeah, uh, I did. I mean, I do. I’m taking his class in Medicinal Chemistry this quarter, and I had him for History of Medical Witchcraft last year. He’s a great professor, really engaging.”

“And… is he nice?”

“Oh, totally,” Sean continued. Her sister pulled out her cell phone, frowning at something, and wandered a few steps away to take a call. It gave them a little space to chat, and Sean silently thanked the Goddess. He could talk to this girl all day. “If he’s your advisor, you’ll have no problems. The guy is a total softy. And open-minded—he sponsors all sorts of university clubs, even for the Shifters.”

“Are… are you a Shifter?” the girl asked, eyes wide.

He tried not to smile, tried to ignore the giddy feeling in his chest. Of course, she had no idea if he was a Shifter. If she was from one of the outer octants, she probably hadn’t ever met a Shifter before. Outside the Eternal City, Factions kept to themselves, and fraternization between them was rare—even rarer the further away from the city you got.

He could be the first Shifter she’d ever talked to. The thought made him smile.

“I am,” he answered, and her mouth formed a shocked circle that was just too adorable. “But don’t be scared. We’re harmless.” He dropped his voice to make sure her sister couldn’t hear him, but she seemed preoccupied with her phone, ignoring them entirely. “Me, especially. I’m not even a predator.”

“What… what are you?” Willow asked. And then, immediately, she blushed. “Goddess, is that rude to ask? Did I just, like, totally insult you?”

Sean laughed. Goddess bless him, could this girl get any cuter? “No, it’s fine. I don’t mind at all. But to answer your question, I’m a Deer Shifter.”

“Do you… do you have horns?” Willow asked, and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, almost involuntarily.

Sean’s blood heated. This gorgeous Witch sounded so intrigued, so interested… in him.

“Yeah,” he told her, his voice husky. “Yeah, I have antlers.”

“Wow,” she whispered back. “Antlers.”

“We should go,” her sister interrupted, finally coming back over. “If your advisor has gone missing, maybe we can go speak with the dean and find out who you’re supposed to meet with instead?”

“Yeah, okay,” Willow told her, and Sean felt his luck finally run out. Oh, well… he had class in a few minutes anyway, so it wasn’t like he could have stayed chatting with her all afternoon. He leaned down to start gathering his books and his notes.

“Hey, Sean?”

Sean glanced up, and the Witch was looking at him with big, inviting eyes.

“Would you mind showing us around?” Willow asked. “We don’t know the campus, and you seem just like… so smart.” She blushed and looked away. “If you’re not busy or anything, I mean?”

What the hell, he could miss one class, right?

“Uh, sure,” he said, trying not to blush as the girl beamed at him. “Why not?”

“Maybe we can stop by Professor Danvers’s office, just in case he came back? And you could tell us a little more about him and these clubs he sponsors.”

Sean smiled. “Yeah, totally. I can do that.”

Chapter 19

“You gave him your number?” Fey asked incredulously, eyebrow raised.

“What?” Willow snapped. “He was nice, Fey. And you should have seen how he blushed when I asked about his antlers.”

“It was embarrassing,” Joy admitted, but her smile was warm. “The poor guy was so smitten with her, we couldn’t have gotten him to shut up if we tried.”

Fey had to hand it to them—they’d managed to gather a rather absurd amount of information about Phillip Danvers in only one day at the university. Most of it, they already knew from Joy’s research and what Alastair had told them.

But Alastair’s sources had been wrong about one thing: Phillip Danvers was a member of Prey for the Crown—a group of Shifter extremists dedicated to overthrowing the Witch regime and installing a government representative of all Factions. Or, if not a card-carrying member, he was at least sympathetic to the cause.