Page 6 of Stormbringer (Tracthesian Academy #1)

Wave tapped his nose as she walked past him and behind the counter. “Pretty face won’t save everything, you know. Now, please contain your grumpiness, and I’ll get the books.”

“I’m not—”

“Can’t hear you,” Wave shouted over her shoulder. There was a pile of books on a table with Professor Kilkenny’s name on top. Sighing, she picked all of them up and walked back to the counter. “Here they are. Let me just scan them and you can be on your way, Mr. Grumpypants.”

“No one has called me Mr. Grumpypants ever,” Jarred muttered, but he didn’t seem as annoyed anymore.

“Well, first time for everything,” Wave replied cheerily and finished scanning. “Pleasure containing malicious books with you. Bye!” She pushed the books at him, and before she could do anything stupid, like drool, because the damn man was just that hot, she retreated to the safety of the backroom.

M onday rolled around with a faint drizzle and some ominous-looking clouds. Wave refused to think that the weather had anything to do with her anxiety. It could totally be some other new student who was nervous, or even just plain old Mother Nature watering the grounds.

Thanks to the endless tours around campus during orientation, she knew her way around the place pretty well. Not that she had all the shortcuts figured out, but she could find all her classes without desperately looking at the campus map. She’d call that a win.

What she didn’t know was any of the faces around her. Her classes were totally different from the first-year students from her orientation week and now Wave found herself looking at a sea of strangers as she claimed her seat at the back of the lecture hall. And they were looking right back.

According to her orientation tutor, transfers to later years were pretty rare. Not that everyone was staring, but enough people were nudging the person next to them to garner her way more attention than she’d ever wanted. Wave kept her face blank and pulled out her books and notebook.

Most of the students seemed to have laptops or tablets in front of them, but Wave’s laptop was old enough that the battery didn’t hold more than half an hour of charge at best. Pen and paper it was for her, then, since the scholarship didn’t include a personal computer.

Student libraries had communal ones she could access as needed.

Astrology and magical fluctuations was a second-year class that had been assigned to Wave’s schedule, and it was with slight trepidation that she read the professor’s name—Professor Jameson Kilkenny and his teaching assistant, Mr. Whitfurst. Wave dearly hoped that the professor had more than one assistant with that name.

Maybe Mr. Whitfurst had a brother who was also a TA?

Wave didn’t want to deal with the handsome jerk all the time if she could avoid it.

As the door opened and the professor waddled inside, she knew her luck had run out. The jerk with beautifully precise spell casting strolled in after the professor, carrying a pile of papers. Without a word, he walked to the first student and handed the pile over.

Outwardly, the class held it together marvelously, but there were enough spikes of lust and interest tickling against her skin that Wave decided to pull her third shield up again. Maybe she should make three layers her new normal around here.

She let her eyes trace over the students, trying to identify who was the most interested in Mr. Whitfurst, but the task proved impossible.

There were too many of them. She was willing to bet her left brand new sneaker that every succubae and incubi in the classroom were shielding like crazy or snacking off the energy.

Energy that she should have no idea was there.

Storm spirit. Storm spirit. Simple fucking storm spirit. Get a grip on yourself, woman.

The pep talk helped her enough to focus on Professor Kilkenny, who had taken a seat and was reading a book, ignoring the rest of the class.

Mr. Whitfurst had moved to the other end of the room, clearly waiting for the rest of the paper to be passed around.

Wave was thankful her seat was in the middle of a row.

“Now, you’ll find the syllabus and required reading material in the paper,” Professor Kilkenny began, without lifting his gaze from his book.

“You’ll hand in your papers on time, no extensions or exceptions.

My contact hours, as well as Mr. Whitfurst’s, are also listed, and we will not be at your beck and call outside of those hours. ”

Now he finally looked up. “You are lucky. We’ll have Hell Moon rising in three months.

This event occurs only every 250 years, so we will be taking a field trip to witness the event outside of the campus.

I expect all of you to be prepared appropriately.

Make sure your shields are effective in handling the power fluctuations.

If you have any doubts, contact Mr. Whitfurst. Class dismissed. ”

Then he pushed back to his feet and headed out of the room. Wave was still waiting for the pile of papers to make it to her, but the first row was already packing up their stuff and leaving.

“Is it always like this?” she asked the girl sitting next to her. She was petite, had creamy skin with red veins, and flaming red hair to go with her ruby colored irises. Wave’s best guess was a fire demon of some kind.

“What?” She turned to look at her. Wave waved her hand at the professor’s back. “Ah, this is your first class with Professor Kilkenny?”

“I just transferred this semester, so everything is new,” Wave replied. “I’m Wayla.”

“Tulias,” the girl said and held out her hand. Gingerly, Wave clasped it. “Well then, Wayla. Let me give you the lay of the land. You a second year?”

“Third, actually.”

“Ah, that makes sense. And yes, this is normal. Professor Kilkenny is way more interested in his research than teaching. He does know his subject well though.”

“Okay, that’s good to know.” The pile of papers made it to Wave, and she took hers before passing it off to Tulias.

“Now his TA is another matter entirely. As one of the Powerhouses, he knows his stuff, but his pretty face is quite distracting. He’s also a hard ass. From what I hear, I don’t recommend being late for class.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Wave said and glanced at the said hard ass. “I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with him already, so I'll take you up on that warning.”

“You have?” Tulias gasped and grabbed Wave’s arm. “Tell me everything, and I do mean, everything. I’ll be your best friend if you do.”

Wave laughed. “Nothing special. I work part-time at the faculty library, and he came up to pick some books for Professor Kilkenny. Apparently, ‘he didn’t have all day’.”

“And if you hadn’t released a malicious spell on me, I could have been out of there faster,” a smooth voice said behind Wave. Like the first time, she dropped her book. Thankfully, this time it was her plain old course book. How the hell had he moved so fast and unnoticed?

“And if you learned not to sneak up behind people, maybe you’d have fewer curses thrown at you,” she snapped and glared at the smirking man. He was holding only a few papers in his hand and, with a twirl of his finger, lifted her book from the ground.

“Life would be too boring that way,” he replied.

Wave huffed and, without really thinking about it, threw a tiny rain cloud over his head. “There. Have a nice day,” she said and inwardly cursed herself for making a scene.

Managing an elemental spell like that wasn’t outside of a storm spirit’s range.

It had been a rain cloud, not a mini tornado or thunderstorm, but still, it had been a reckless and needless display.

Not only that, but Mr. Jerk looked annoyingly hot with doused hair and a droplet of water clinging to his too-long lashes.

Wave refused to drool, so she spun on her heel and began marching toward the door. She had almost made her escape when a hand wrapped around her arm.

“Not so fast, Ms. Spinwell.”

Damn, he remembered her name. Wave stopped and tried to keep her face calm despite the heat leaking in to her core from his touch. She had long sleeves on and three layers of shields up, and still the man managed to stroke her needy siren.

“I should apologize,” she said.

“You should,” he replied. He wasn’t glaring at her, though.

“I’m not going to.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

Wave quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I was actually coming to talk to you about the field trip. You’re a new transfer, so I have no idea where your skills lie. I need to assess them, especially your shielding, before the trip.”

Wave’s new friend made her escape from the room, and her face held so many emotions that Wave didn’t have a chance to decipher any of them.

“What do you suggest?” Her eyes stayed glued somewhere around Mr. Whitfurst’s cheek. That’s it. Keep it professional and distant. No drooling. Definitely no flirting. Besides, it had to be against the rules to mingle with any part of the faculty, right?

“Private tutoring sessions once a week to make sure you are up to par by the time the Hell Moon rises.”

Wave couldn’t help but look up enough to meet his eyes. “You’d waste your precious time on that?”

Mr. Whitfurst actually looked almost embarrassed. Almost. Before he got himself under control, Wave realized her third shield was slipping. Crap, crap, crap. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed anything.

It was nice and all to be a full siren with full control of those powers. Wave, on the other hand, had inherited her mother’s strength and power, but none of her control or finesse. Hence her slight obsession over neat spell casting.

Sirens could pull or sing all sentient creatures to their doom. Or anywhere else they really wanted to take them. Wave leaked that shit all over unintentionally if she wasn’t very careful. Bespelling a teaching assistant had to be against the rules, too. Right?

She really needed to read the honor code and the thick book on rules and regulations more thoroughly than she skimmed during her orientation.

“Ms. Spinwell, are you listening to me?”

“Huh?”

Now Mr. Jerk was, in fact, glaring at her. “I asked, are you free this afternoon?”

Relief swept over Wave, and she shook her head. “I’m working at the library after my classes.”

“Let me see your schedule.”

She tried to find a way to avoid it, but couldn’t come up with any reason beyond ‘you too hot-me horny’ , so she reluctantly pulled the paper out of her bag and handed it over. Mr. Jerk scanned over the schedule quickly and then nodded.

“Thursday afternoon, after you finish at the library. I’ll come pick you up at the front desk,” he said in a tone that brooked no arguments.

“Fine,” she murmured and held her hand out for the paper.

“Don’t look so excited about it,” Mr. Jerk said and smirked. “I won’t bite.”

“Yeah, right,” Wave huffed. “What’s opposite to catnip? I need some kitty-cat repellent ASAP.”

Mr. Jerk actually laughed, and the sound did mean things to her insides. “See you on Thursday, Ms. Spinwell. I’m looking forward to it.”

Tulias was waiting for her in the hallway and grabbed her arm as soon as she was through the door. “Oh, my god! What did he want? Are you in trouble?”

“He just wanted to arrange private tutoring for my shielding. Something about making sure I won’t explode all over the place during the field trip,” Wave answered and followed along as Tulias kept walking down the corridor.

“You are kidding?” She looked even more baffled now, her steps faltering a bit.

“What?”

“I—but… Private tutoring ?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re new, so I’m going to spell this out for you, girl. Mr. Whitfurst doesn’t offer private tutoring. Ever. To anyone. None of the Powerhouses do, whether they are TA-s, teaching a class, or doing anything else.”

“Really?” Wave gently tried to free her arm from Tulias’ hold, but the other girl seemed completely absorbed in the drama and didn’t notice.

“Really.” She nodded empathetically and then turned a corner, skipping up the steps. At least she was going to the same floor where Wave’s next class was.

“Then why—”

“And you threw a rain cloud at him, just like that. I would have crapped my pants just thinking about doing that,” Tulias continued, still pulling Wave after her.

“About that,” Wave muttered. “How much trouble am I in for something like that?”

Tulias stopped and gaped at her. “You don’t know?”

“Well, I am new.”

“It varies really,” Tulias said, looking thoughtful. “Tiny rain cloud, not much, especially since he didn’t seem too offended. But attacking a teacher could lead to expulsion.”

“And other students?”

Tulias narrowed her eyes and finally released Wave’s arm. “Are you planning to attack someone?”

Wave tried to look sheepish. “I might have a bit of a temper problem at times.”

To her surprise, Tulias grinned and started walking again. “Good. As long as the attack is not fatal, the school mostly doesn’t care. Too many variables to make any stringent rules about student altercations.”

“I’m not sure if I’m worried or relieved about that,” Wave replied as she followed along. The girl was a fountain of useful knowledge, too good to pass up.

“If you are on the top of the food chain, relieved, if you are on the bottom, very worried. But I have a feeling you’ll be working your way up there in no time. Especially after the rumor mill gets around about you dousing a Powerhouse.”

“What do I need to bribe you with to keep that to yourself?” Wave asked earnestly.

“Girl, we might become friends, but we are not there yet. Besides, the chance that I was the only one who saw you is pretty slim.”

“Damn.” Wave deflated. “I had kinda hoped to fly under the radar.”

“You are a new transfer and don’t look like a river ogre, so trust me, there was never a chance of you flying that low.”

“You can stop trying to cheer me up now,” Wave sighed.

“This is me,” Tulias said, pointing at the door as she stopped. “I’m so glad I sat next to you, Wayla. See you in class!” She waved and rushed to her class.

When she was gone, Wave blinked. That girl had presence. She glanced at her phone and cursed. She was going to be late for her own class if she didn’t hurry. Fuck. Where was her class-room again?