Page 36 of Messenger of Death (Ouroboros Academy #2)

S age was everything, but I didn’t need to be joined at the hip with her.

I trusted Khalid to take care of her. They were going to dig through the library on snake gods.

Snakes rather freaked me out. It wasn’t the whole venomous, constricting thing.

It was just that spines should not do that.

I felt that way about any animal with really long spines that wriggled like that.

It was fucking weird.

Reading people’s messages seemed like a much grander time, even if I had to spend time with Lucian.

“Get your feet off my sofa. That’s nasty,” Lucian barked.

“My feet are pristine,” I said, kicking my shoes off and putting my feet back on his sofa.

“Okay, that’s worse. You’ve been sweating in your shoes all day. We had magical combat today.”

“I sweat angel farts, Pookie. Hey, do you think angels are real? Are they like, celestial chickens or the biblically accurate ones with ten eyes and a bunch of creepy wings?”

“You can’t be in here and help me if you’re going to be annoying and get revolting feet sweat on my stuff.”

I was an arse, but I could tell it really bothered him, even if I didn’t think it was a big deal. And I did want to help, so I moved my feet. And apologized.

“Thank you. I’ll have to add a program to your phone and show you how to use it so you can help me look through messages.

Please don’t abuse this. We don’t want anyone to know we’re looking.

Blaize thinks his roommate got into his laptop when he left it unlocked, got his password from his saved passwords, and has been making the posts about the goats.

We don’t need anyone else’s account having the appearance of being hacked. ”

I handed him my phone. Yeah, I guess I trusted him to put shite on my phone and not abuse it. He didn’t strike me as the type to go creeping through anyone’s phone unless they gave him a reason. I’d better stop giving him reasons, but it was just so much fun.

Lucian hooked my phone up to some device and then handed it back to me.

“Who do you want to start with?” I asked.

“Sage said to look at Lola first. Think that was because Lola was the first victim or Sage is feeling something? I hate saying this because of how badly she was beaten, but she’s really not very nice.”

“Yeah, mate, she’s got some consent issues, too.

I keep asking her not to touch me like that and she won’t stop.

She’s brushed my dick a few times. I don’t want to make a scene in class, but I also kind of do.

It’s not copacetic to Sage or Mazen. I don’t want Sage to think I’m into it.

Sage said Mazen just needs a push to turn evil and I really don’t want that to be me because his girlfriend won’t stop touching me. ”

“Have you thought you’re putting off some kind of weird fertility god pheromones?” Lucian asked.

“Fuck no. In my fairy class, I accidentally stepped on this Unseelie’s foot. She called me a prick and punched me right in the stomach. If I was putting out weird pheromones, shouldn’t she have gotten weird and thanked me?”

Lucian shrugged.

“It’s the only reason I can think of that a woman would willingly touch you like that.”

“Hey! I’m a very pretty man. I’m charming, I’ll avenge my woman if someone looks at her wrong, and my dick is pierced. I have everything going for me.”

“If I were a woman, and you were interested in me, I’d get a restraining order.”

“That’s not nice, mate. Eventually, Sage is going is going to get sick of our shite. We’ll probably always poke each other because frankly, it’s fun. I’m actually starting to like and admire you.”

“Honestly? I’m kind of starting to like you, too, and I like verbally sparring with you.”

I beamed at Lucian.

“Excellent. Let’s catch us some Forsaken Ones. Maybe Sage will reward us by showing us some side boob.”

“Lola’s phone was out of commission until yesterday when her new one must have come in. She was in Peru when she was kidnapped and she didn’t send many texts after she was kidnapped.”

“Listen, we’re dealing with two ancient evil beings who have been reincarnated in the modern world.

I doubt they were born into a whole criminal empire like me, but there are enough books and movies on the subject.

You always talk about criminal shit from burner phones.

Like, a flip phone with no internet connection that just calls and does texts. ”

“I can’t hack those unless I can get my hands on them. I need an internet connection. When would they have had time to get burner phones? As far as we know, you were the only criminal who got kidnapped.”

“Hey, I’m an honorable criminal. I only kill bad guys.

Besides, Mazen is a criminal, too, and he’s not a bad guy, either.

We did the best with the lives we were thrust into.

I’ve been pretty open about it. Khalid kind of outed Mazen because of his tattoos, but he admitted it when Khalid made a scene.

“You have to start thinking like a criminal, Lucian. No one in the places I’ve lived since I ran away from home knew.

I chose to let people know here because I didn’t want anyone fucking with me.

I’m pretty sure Mazen didn’t want anyone to know what his tattoos meant, but Khalid was kind of a dick about it.

You keep that shit locked down unless you want people to fear you.

“These Forsaken Ones didn’t hop in that pool and just decide to start killing people. They were probably shite humans before they found out they were magical. We should split up. You look at messages. I’ll look into what people were doing before they got snatched.”

“Good call. I guess being stuck with a criminal isn’t such a bad thing.”

I stuck my tongue out at Lucian and flipped him off with both hands. Was that a small smile I saw? Yeah, pretty soon, he was going to love me. #bestiesforlife.

“Hey, what do you think Sage is doing right now?” I asked.

“Probably digging into snake gods like she’s supposed to.”

“Nah, I’ve read all kinds of shifter books. Khalid’s jackal wants to mark her. He’s already had a taste.”

“Khalid isn’t like that.”

“We briefly met the primal, animal side of Khalid in Sage’s bathroom.”

“My animal side keeps taking over when I’m sleeping. I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, but I’m guessing he takes you to Sage. You have to like that, right?”

I wasn’t as mad he was sneaking cuddles with Sage because she didn’t seem angry about it. If she wanted to stop it, she’d tell him and shut the window. I actually felt sorry for him. I loved hugs. If someone was giving out free hugs, I wanted one.

“I actually do and I hated shit like that before.”

“Sage has that effect on people.”

“I know. We need to get through everyone’s cell because Headmaster Mykene thinks she might be able to identify the Forsaken Ones, too. If they’ve framed Alexios because they can’t kill him because of his sun magic, Sage doesn’t have that. We have to protect her.”

Shite. I would raze this entire country to the ground if anything happened to Sage.