Page 17 of Stormbringer (Tracthesian Academy #1)

M aybe we can negotiate something… Wave couldn’t shake the words as she tossed and turned in her bed after Marc had dropped her off.

She had tried taking a warm shower, then a cold one.

The stiff drink Ginny had made her without question hadn’t helped either.

Nor the lengthy session with her vibrator.

She had officially lost her fucking mind. That was the only explanation. Mad, certifiably insane. Why else would she entertain fake dating a guy to piss off his family? She understood the need to stir things up; she did so every time she was dragged to a family dinner, but still.

His comment about dating for real doused some of her interest, but then again, he hadn’t actually gone there. And having ‘real’ sex with him was an offer Wave didn’t think she could turn down. At least not for long.

He had to work for it just a bit more though. Carrying her around the campus under all the gossipy eyes had already earned him a blowjob. Not that he needed to know that.

F riday rolled around, and Wave dragged herself up way too early in the morning. She needed to go for a run. Her whole body felt stuffy and clogged up.

What she really needed was a good, long swim, but that wasn’t safe or feasible. She needed salt water or a large enough lake to get lost in. Both would require her to book a flight. So, a run it was.

As always, Chrissy was already up, doing yoga in the living room when Wave slipped out of her room.

“Going for a run?” She asked while holding a pose that Wave could never bend into.

“Yeah, I need to stretch my legs,” Wave replied. She liked her roommates. They hadn’t spent that much time together, since they had specialized schedules and she had a general one. Still, they had made a point of including Wave when their schedules aligned.

“There’s going to be a party on the floor above us. We usually lock the door during those, but what do you want to do?”

“Oh, locking the doors sounds like a splendid idea to me.”

Chrissy grinned and flowed into a tree-like position. “Good. I’ll let the others know. Ginny will spell the door, so it won’t let anyone but us in. So, no sneaking in some hot company.”

“As if I…” Wave trailed off. Okay, so she had made out with some hot company, most recently last night when Marc dropped her off. “Anyways, I’m working,” she added.

“You work on Friday evenings?”

Wave nodded. “The library is quieter then and, well, as you can imagine, no one else is that keen to grab that shift. Mrs. Riverson actually promised me some overtime pay if I take it.”

“Please tell me you’re off on Saturdays though?” Now Chrissy looked worried.

“I am. Why?”

“Winnies are having a party at the sorority house next week Saturday.”

“Uh…”

Chrissy’s eyes widened, and she actually stopped her routine to glare at Wave. “How can you be so socially unaware and still make out with three Powerhouses in one week?”

“I would like to know about that too,” Diana’s yawning voice said from her door.

“Well, I…” Wave hesitated. “Classes, work, scholarship,” she listed things off. “And I have the personality of a mountain troll?” She added sheepishly at the end. Trolls were notoriously antisocial and only came together to mate.

Diana snorted. “That explains a lot of things. But we were hoping you’d come with us to the party.”

“Um…” She was stuttering an awful lot this morning.

“Don’t worry about any clothes, I’ll pick something for you from my closet,” Chrissy said and glanced at her sneakers. “And another pair of shoes. Please tell me you wear heels?”

“I don’t have an invitation,” Wave tried to evade.

Chrissy’s eyes widened comically, and Diana burst out laughing. “Heavens and hells,” she gasped, trying to inhale. “You really are out of the loop.”

“We are both Winnies,” Chrissy said primly. “So, you’ll have your invitation printed out on gold paper if that’ll get your ass moving.”

“What about the dark goddess?”

“She’s Zirkon, but we don’t hold that against her…

much,” Diana said, finally getting her cackle under control.

Wave sighed internally. None of them were Grif’s thank the spirits, malevolent and benevolent alike.

According to chats she had during orientation, Grif’s were the hardest to get into, and Wave had decided to use them as an excuse not to join in any sorority.

“Why aren’t you living in the sorority houses?”

“Because we were friends before coming to Tracthesian Academy and we wanted to stay together, despite Ginny’s questionable life choices.”

Chrissy’s eyes narrowed on Wave. “Are you coming?”

“What are my chances of getting out of this?”

“Zero,” Chrissy and Diana replied at once.

“Then I guess I’m coming,” Wave couldn’t help but snort when her mind slipped into the gutter. “But no heels.” She looked pleadingly at Chrissy. “I’ll be good and stay at least an hour if you give me ballerinas.”

“Two hours,” she immediately countered.

“Deal.” Wave considered asking for more concessions, but really, the shoes Chrissy had given her were now her prized possession and the most comfortable thing she had ever worn, so she nodded. “I gotta run. See you later!”

T he library was quieting down. Mrs. Riverson just needed someone to man the front desk until closing time, while she worked on shelving the difficult books. Wave still wasn’t allowed to tangle with them, so she used the time to do her coursework.

Once she was done with that, Wave was tempted to look for anything that she could find about her father but wasn’t sure where to start. She had been thinking more and more about him. He had been a guest lecturer at the Tracthesian Academy.

One more tiny reason for her coming here. She wanted to see if she felt any connection to him, not that she expected to, but still. Wave sighed. Really, her plan to find anything was on truly thin ice to begin with. Nothing tied her father to the faculty library, guest lecturer or no.

Tears prickled at the corner of her eyes, and Wave dashed them away, furious with herself.

She felt like a failure, like she was letting him down, because no matter what the reports said, it hadn’t been an accident.

Someone had killed him. Father knew how to protect himself against lightning surges.

Wave wondered if Tracthesian Academy kept archives of reports, like human libraries did with newspaper clippings. Probably not. Why would they have access to CF’s reports? Still, she typed the request into the search bar. First hit was an intranet article.

Council Force. Established by the High Council after the second Grim War, the highest interspecies…

Wave scrolled forward. Several articles about the CF’s history, their election rosters, and former and current members. She doubted the names would say anything to her, so she kept scrolling.

Nothing.

Wave returned to the search bar and typed ‘Council Force reporting’. This time, there were a few extranet links to police reports, but nothing that seemed a legitimate source. Intranet articles were guidelines on what and how to report a thing to the CF.

Dismissing that avenue of search, Wave opened the program for the library’s internal search. According to Mrs. Riverson, it held only a small part of the Tracthesian Academy’s collection. Digitalizing all the books that didn’t want to be digitalized had been too big of an undertaking.

It was one thing to go over every book, type in the info, and load it up. It was quite another if the book in question took offence and fried the system. According to Mrs. Riverson, the culprits were often surprising.

Everyone would expect a spell book to have opinions and take precautions.

A book about weather patterns a couple of thousand years ago, on the other hand…

Fifty years ago, an unsuspecting assistant had tried to log in the information, and the book had crashed Tracthesian Academy’s whole electrical infrastructure.

Wave pulled up all the listings that were tagged with Council Force. There were a lot, but none of them were recent. From a glance, most seemed to be stuff that had actually been transcribed to the university server.

Another dead end.

“What is a lovely thing like you doing here all by your lonesome and looking so morose?” A voice distracted her from her musings, and Wave looked up quickly. On the other side of the desk stood a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties.

He was smiling at her, but Wave got the distinct feeling that he was sizing her up.

Both her power and bra size. He had almost fully white eyes, with only a hint of gray in them.

No clear pupil or iris, and pale gray lashes.

Tall, blond, handsome, asshole . That was Wave’s conclusion, but she pulled up a professional smile.

“How can I help you? This library is for faculty only.”

“Oh, I am part of the faculty, morsel,” the man replied, with what was probably supposed to be a seductive smile, but came off as creepy and leery to Wave. He was so sure she would melt at the sight of him that it made her hackles rise.

“May I see your identification, sir?”

“No need for formalities,” he said.

Wave held firm and let her smile drop. “No ID, no entry.”

“Wow, Mrs. Riverson has found herself a guard dog with a bite. What’s your name, morsel?”

“Pain in your ass,” Wave replied. “If you are not going to present a valid ID, I, very unfortunately , have to ask you to leave.”

The smirk wavered, and for a split second, Wave glimpsed rage. The man pulled himself up to his full height. “Listen, you little bitch. You don’t know who you are dealing with. I’m going to make your life hell, morsel.”

“You’re going to eat me up and spit me out and yada, yada, yada,” Wave spoke over him, faking a yawn. “Show me some ID or get lost.”

“Prince Irishen Sleethill,” a voice gasped behind Wave. The man’s smile turned evil as he looked at Wave. It seemed to say, ‘you are in trouble, morsel’. Mrs. Riverson hurried over to stand next to Wave and bowed.

Sighing deeply, Wave rolled her eyes and then gave a perfectly adequate seated bow to the asshole. While she was well trained in these games, she detested them to her core. Unless they benefited her.

“You need to train your guard dog a bit better, Mrs. Riverson,” Prince Iris-whatever said smugly.

“No ID, no entry,” Wave deadpanned, before glancing at Mrs. Riverson. “Unless you would like to vouch for his faculty status, Mrs. Riverson?”

The woman managed to keep her face admirably calm, even when her fingertips trembled. Whoever this jerk was, he had some weight, and for a moment, Wave regretted her attitude. She didn’t want to get Mrs. Riverson in trouble or lose this job.

Mrs. Riverson collected herself quickly and faced the prince. “I am afraid my assistant is right. You’ve been away for a while, and I haven’t been informed that you have access to faculty resources. If you could produce a faculty ID…” Mrs. Riverson trailed off as the prince’s face contorted.

“You have to be kidding me,” he roared. Icy air hit both women with his rage.

“I’m afraid not—”

“I’ll remember this,” the prince spat as he spun on his heel and stomped out. Wave held in her laughter until the door closed.

“Like a kid with a temper tantrum.”

“Wayla,” Mrs. Riverson hesitated. “Prince Irishen is a formidable foe. He’s the heir apparent to the Ice clans.”

“So, like a kid with too much sugar in his system, then.”

Mrs. Riverson gave Wave a weird look before shaking herself. Tiny ice shards rained down from her clothes, and her skin looked reddened. Wave jumped to her feet.

“The bastard hit you?” She reached out to wipe more ice from Mrs. Riveson’s shoulders. Mrs. Riverson stopped her shaking to look Wave over.

“Wayla,” she said hesitantly. “He blasted both of us.”

Wave looked down on herself, but there was not a speck of ice in her clothes, and she didn’t feel any different. She blinked and checked her shields. All three of them were intact. Sheepishly, she shrugged.

“I didn’t feel a thing,” she confessed. It was too late to fake the effects now.

“What? How?”

“Shield.”

Mrs. Riverson shook her head. “I’m wearing a shield. That’s why my skin is red, not raw.”

Wave bit her lip and looked around the place.

“Okay. Three shields. I’m getting lessons from the Powerhouses.

Please, don’t tell anyone?” Wave pleaded.

Three shields were only part of the reason though.

Stormbringers could bring ice storms, too.

Ice was another form of water. Prince whatever would have had to really target her for her to have any effects, but three shields was the safer answer by far.

Still, it was a bit unsettling that she hadn’t felt a thing.

Mrs. Riverson sighed. “Good for you. Of course, I won’t say anything. We mid-tiers have to have our tricks against top tiers. No matter how noble they claim to be.”