Page 36 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

Chapter 36

Preparation and Perspiration

LUCA

“ D oes Bevington seem smaller to you?” I ask Caileán as we walk together toward Old Chapel.

She’s carrying a small bouquet of forget-me-nots for Jane, who messaged Caileán to say she’s back on campus. We’re both bundled up in hats, coats, scarves, and mittens against Bevington’s cold, so different from Scilla’s mellow winter chill. It’s one of those crystal-clear winter days at Bevvy, with a sky so high and pale it’s almost white. The cold’s tinted the tip of Caileán’s nose pink and I want to feel the chill of it against my lips, warm it with my breath.

“I want to kiss the tip of your nose, cold girl,” I tell her.

“Nothing’s stopping you.”

“You sure?”

She nods.

I pull her into my arms and kiss her exactly as I’d imagined. Her nose is like marble against my lips but slowly warms to flesh. She smiles up at me.

“Better?” I ask.

“Better,” she confirms, pushing up for a kiss. “And yes, sometimes Bevvy seems very small to me. Since I’m probably going to get shit today about our relationship, that’s a good reminder that there’s a whole world outside these ivory towers that doesn’t care you’re my student or about the years between us.”

“There’s a whole world out there that doesn’t care that you’re a queen of Faery and I’m your adoring subject.”

“An even better reminder.” She grins. “And I’m always up for a little worship.”

“I’ve got a date after class with Rho, but I want a chance to show you some adoration before we go back to Scilla. I hate that you’re sad there now.”

There wasn’t any adoration last night. Despite our success raising a barrier against the storm surge, Caileán spent the night watching the storm through the bedroom window, withdrawn and silent. Law finally brought her to bed around two in the morning and we cuddled around her, giving her as much comfort as we could.

Her smile fades at the edges. “I’ll be okay. I wouldn’t mind staying in Bevvy until the storm passes, though.”

“Arch will lose his little mind,” I say, remembering the scene before we left this morning. The storm was still raging, but so was the Fire mage. He wanted to dive despite the storm, arguing that Rho and Gabe could tow them through the worst of the surf until they got to calmer, deeper water. Law flatly refused to consider it. If Rho hadn’t said he had to return to Bevington today for a meeting with the registrar’s office about his withdrawal, the confrontation could have gotten ugly.

“As unreasonable as Law can be,” Caileán says. “He’s right about this. None of us should be in the water until the storm passes. We have no idea what the Graeae are capable of.”

“I can hear you, you know,” my brother huffs.

He’s stopped a few feet behind us to give me a moment with our mate, but he’s never let Caileán out of his sight today. I understand what he’s feeling. I’m strongly tempted to ditch my Winter Study seminar and camp out in the back of Caileán’s classroom. I hate the idea of being away from her even for ninety minutes.

Caileán throws him a grin over her shoulder. “I know.”

“I’m carrying your hot chocolate,” Law points out, lifting one of the takeaway cups he’s carrying. “With the frothed oat milk and extra cinnamon.”

“I appreciate having my hands free,” Caileán says, holding up one mittened hand before she rubs my back with it.

“Then why is Luca getting all the kisses and I’m just getting slandered?” Law grumbles.

“It’s not slander if it’s true,” I say.

Law scowls at me.

“Once we get to my classroom and you deliver my hot chocolate, if you transform into your cat form, you can have toe bean kisses,” Caileán offers. “I don’t think I have time for anything else before my class.”

Law growls and blurs in my sight. The takeaway cups go flying. Caileán’s whisked out of my arms. When Law slows enough to come back fully into the mortal world, he’s half-way down the path to Old Chapel with Caileán slung over his shoulder. Her hair hangs nearly to the ground; a few black feathers flutter to the concrete from their brush with Faery.

Our queen’s wild laughter rings through the cold, bright air all the way to Old Chapel.

We part ways inside the building, with Law and Caileán heading to her classroom. I slouch off to mine. I dropped Kellan’s Winter Study seminar to avoid her having to give me a grade. Jane Serpa’s classes are always over-enrolled, so I couldn’t get into hers. I settled for my third choice: “Magic and the Evolving Mundane: Ethical Magic for Mortal Change” with Professor Blink.

Winter Study is always a time to try something new. A lot of students try skiing. Others try alcohol poisoning. The professors explore esoteric interests they can’t sneak into the core curriculum.

Professor Blink, who I haven’t taken a class from before, is a haruspex: one of those rare mages whose magic isn’t channeled through her Element, but rather through animal guts. Haruspex have always been in bad odor—pun intended—with Elemental mages. Add in PETA and haruspicy has disappeared everywhere but academia.

I mostly took the course because the syllabus promised weekly debates with Professor Blink and “ethical experts” including animal-rights activists. I’m less interested in learning about using magic ethically than I am in the potential fireworks. If I can’t have class with Caileán or Jane, at least I can be entertained.

Our first session was disappointingly sedate. But it was just an introductory session where we reviewed the syllabus and picked case studies. Professor Blink offered five, pre-packaged case studies, but I wanted to design my own based on the Battle of Jedburgh Abbey, figuring I might as well get academic credit for all the research I did on the players in the conflict while Rho was recuperating. The comments I got back from Professor Blink after I submitted the case study proposal by email were beyond enthusiastic: she wanted to feature the battle in the class on the environmental impact of magic use, including a climate-change denier among the “ethical experts.” Since I have an in with Evan Lords, I offered to ask him to participate on the panel. Although her email response was school-appropriate, I could almost hear her swooning. I got Rho to ask Lords; Lords said yes. He should be here today since this is the class on magic and the environment.

I have high hopes for fireworks.

When I reach the seminar room, I see that Lords is already present, standing at the front with Rho, the two men towering over Professor Blink. Professor Blink is wearing black academic robes, trimmed with purple at her wrists and collar. Top her with a pointed hat, which might bring her up to five feet, and she’d fit the classic description of a witch, right down to the slightly hooked nose. Lords is wearing a midnight blue suit under his green cloak. Rhodes is casual in a cable-knit sweater and jeans, with his blue training mantle clasped around his muscular neck and pushed back over his shoulders. Fuck, my boyfriend is hot.

After drooling over my guy for a minute, I focus on the table behind Lords, Blink, and Rho which has been turned to face the classroom. There are three chairs behind the table, for the “panel of experts.” A red-haired man in a flannel shirt sits in one of the seats. He has his arms crossed over his chest and is scowling at the tiny Professor. Surely, he’s the animal-rights activist? Either that or Blink has a very angry ex. Beside him sits an alert, gray-haired woman in academic robes. Is she the climate-change denier? She looks like someone’s kindly grandma.

The other man standing at the front of the room as students file in and take their seats is a surprise: Rowan Wright. Either his time in Italy has given him a new lease on life or he’s spent some time at the spa. His hair’s more vibrant than the animal-rights activist’s. It’s no longer streaked with gray. He has a golden tan that he definitely didn’t get at Bevington in January. Like Professor Blink, he’s wearing black robes, the stripes at his throat and wrists shiny black. His robes are open, showing off a tailored, dove-gray suit. Didn’t he have a bit of a paunch at the exhibit opening? Maybe he’s been swimming laps across the Straits because there’s no sign of it now.

He catches my eye, says something to Professor Blink, and strides down the room’s central aisle toward me.

Rho’s dark eyes follow him. When Rho’s gaze meets mine, he lifts his eyebrows. I blow him a kiss. I’m not afraid of Wright.

Wright grabs my hand and pumps it between his before I have a chance to sidestep him. “Prince Lucas, good to see you.”

He’s big into my title, pompous ass that he is. He addressed all his emails to me that way, too, when he tried to lure me away from Kellan.

“Professor Wright,” I say coolly. “I thought you were in Scilla, leading Madavar’s team in the hunt for Ulune’s Daughter.”

“Terrible storm, just terrible,” he says, not releasing my hand. His palm is damp. “Our expedition ship was damaged, so I’ve returned to Bevvy while it’s repaired. I hear one of the other ships sunk. Terrible. I hope Professor Wyndham’s expedition hasn’t suffered any losses from the storm?”

His eyes are too eager and I hate the way he calls my alma mater “Bevvy,” like he’s one of us.

“Not that I’ve heard,” I say, which is true. No one’s mentioned any damage. My equivocation also suggests I’m not on site with Caileán’s team.

Wright’s eyes narrow. Weren’t they brown? Now they’re so light they’re the amber of a good beer. Has he been drinking from the Fountain of Youth and Better Looks or something?

“That’s ... good,” he responds, drawing out the second word so long I know he means the opposite. “Shall we sit together? I’m going to audit the class today. I’m sure what the Capricorn and Professor Blink have to say will be illuminating.”

Or inflammatory. I’m hoping for inflammatory.

“Of course,” I say, all fake academic collegiality when I really want to strangle the asshole with his own power tie for his cruelty toward my mate.

I take a seat at the edge of the aisle, forcing him to climb over me, and trade smirks with Rho who is watching while he continues his conversation with Blink and Lords. By the time Wright settles into the seat next to me with a huff, I have my attentive student face on.

Blink breaks up the huddle at the front of the room by moving toward her podium. Lords claps Rhodes on the shoulder before he swings around the table and takes the vacant seat. Rho strides up the aisle, his mantle flaring behind him. He stops beside my chair, leans over to give me a searing kiss, and smooths his big palm down my cheek.

“See you back at the den in two hours, kit,” Rhodes says before he gives me a wink and walks out.

A year ago, I’d have had to keep a straight face instead of watching my hot boyfriend walk away. But a lot has changed in a year. So I watch him, and bask in the envious gazes around me, and wear my shit-eating grin unabashedly when I turn back around to pay attention to Professor Blink.

She introduces the “esteemed panel.” I was right about both the animal-rights activist, whose name is “Ed, just Ed,” and the climate-change denier who is Professor Lessarn from Madavar. Professor Wright’s presence makes more sense if he’s here to support his colleague.

That doesn’t stop him from whispering to me as Professor Lessarn starts talking about the natural cycles of heating and cooling, solar activity and variations in Earth’s orbit accounting for the current warming trend, and the importance of magi not interfering in geological processes mortals don’t fully understand.

“Prince Lucas, I won’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed by your refusal to join my team in translating the Sulis Minerva inscriptions, but I appreciate your loyalty to Professor Wyndham. Loyalty in any form is—” He sniffs. “Admirable. But now that Professor Wyndham is withdrawing from the Bevington faculty, I hope you’ll reconsider your position. You’ll need an advisor for your final semester and I?—”

My classmates roar with laughter at something Professor Blink has said, and I glare at Wright to shut him up.

His mouth works but he stops talking long enough for me to hear Professor Lessarn say, “What we’re seeing now is nothing more than natural warming.”

“The entrails don’t lie,” Professor Blink rejoins to more laughter. “But I don’t need divination to see a future plagued by scorching heat, terrible storms, and rising seas. This is the consequence of human activity and mages have an ethical obligation to help counter our species’ impact on our world.”

“It’s more than an obligation,” Lords says. “It’s a duty. Magi have stayed out of human conflicts for over a century, but this isn’t a war of men against men. It’s a war against the planet. A planet that we share. The humans won’t just destroy themselves; they’ll destroy the Unseen World, too.”

“But, Evan, we must respect the autonomy of the non-magical communities,” Professor Blink interjects. “It’s through education and guidance that?—”

“Garbage!” Ed, just Ed, reaches his boiling point and explodes. “You don’t believe in education and guidance. You just want to sacrifice innocent animals to your dark gods. Murderer!”

The two professors and Lords look at Ed like he’s the one spilling blood across the table.

Professor Blink tries to recover. “Er, as I was saying, we can’t presume that the ability to wield magic gives us the right to usurp human decision-making?—”

“What decisions did you allow the animals you slaughtered?” Ed, just Ed yells. “The koalas? The otters? The baby pandas?”

“I’ve never even seen a live koala,” Professor Blink says wearily.

“I have,” Professor Lessarn says. “They have koalas at the San Diego Zoo. They smell like chest rub.”

Ed, just Ed’s right eye begins twitching. “Za-za-za-zoooo?”

Lords slides a pen that’s within Ed’s reach to the other side of the table.

“Getting off the subject of koalas,” Professor Blink says, her robe sleeves fluttering as she rubs her hands up and down the edges of the lectern. “I appreciate that we could substantially influence the advance of global warming with magic, but?—”

“That would be unforgivable interference based on our incomplete understanding of a tremendously complex system,” Professor Lessarn interjects. Professor Blink snaps her mouth shut. “Models on both sides of the Veil fail to predict weather patterns with any accuracy. That shows our imperfect understanding of these systems. We risk meddling in things we don’t understand.”

“Which magi do all the time,” Lords drawls.

“With defenseless animals!” Ed, just Ed interposes.

“Koalas,” a classmate in the seat in front of me mutters.

“And otters and baby pandas,” I whisper back.

“If anything, magi are more able to adapt to the current cycle of global changes,” Professor Lessarn says. “So we should be slower to act and risk unbalancing the Earth’s natural cycle.”

“Leaving non-magical communities to do what, fend for themselves in the face of floods swallowing coastal communities and droughts devastating farmland?” Professor Blink asks. “That’s surely a complete abrogation of our duty as citizens of the world. We can educate?—”

“You only care about farmers so they can raise more animals for you to slaughter,” Ed, just Ed spits. He’s never going to let the haruspex get a complete sentence in. “Murderer! Murderer!”

Lords flicks spittle off his sleeve. “You’ve had your shots, right? Look, this is more than natural changes. There are larger forces who feed off human misery. That’s what we discovered, and defeated, at Jedburgh Abbey. If we leave them to control our world, we’ll descend into another Dark Age. I, for one, have no interest in returning to the Burning Times.”

Lessarn clears her throat with a hard click. “Jedburgh Abbey was an outrageous display of magickal might that risked exposure of the Unseen World. To say nothing about potentially triggering the next ice age.”

The Capricorn raises his eyebrows at the California professor. “You’re lucky you weren’t among those that Bromios and his allies targeted. You might not think my magickal might so outrageous in the face of him burning your heart out inside your chest.”

Lessarn humphs.

“Yes, well,” Professor Blink says. “We’re all very grateful for what Mr. Lords and his allies did at Jedburgh Abbey and very sorry for those who lost their lives in that valiant defense of our world. Let’s open the floor to questions, shall we? Um, Sondra, do you have a question?”

My classmate, a Fire Mage with a mop of brown curls, flashes a wicked grin. “Yes, Professor. My question is for Ed. Ed, what about those koalas?”

My classmates’ laughter almost drowns out Ed’s roar.