Page 128 of Class Studies

“For Yasmine, you fricking freakers,” Mercedes screamed, regrouping the students.

Tederwinkle laughed. The sound bounced off the walls and dragged my attention away from the chaos of battle.

“Your efforts are futile.” He held out his palm, and curled his fingers into a fist. A mad grin spread over his face. “I’ve infused my very essense with your scales. With the rest of them, I will be a god!”

Lightning streaked out of my scale in his palm. The students with a Bead of Will still stuck in the back of their necks twitched and rose like zombies. My gaze flickered from Roisin’s unconscious form to Saffron, crawling toward the professor's smoking body.

My heart throbbed. Tederwinkle came here for me, and now people were hurt. The people I loved. As shitty as it was, the Institute was my home, and I loved it.

It was that simple.

A scream ripped out of my throat. The skin on my back tingled and tightened. Two massive crystal dragon wings sprang to life out of the back of the Golem, bathing the battle fiend in sparkling rainbows.

Gripping the Golem’s controls, I rotated both its palms until they came together in front of me. A beam of prismatic light shot out of the Golem’s hands and hit my dragon scale between Tederwinkle’s fingers. I screamed again, and the beam shot to three other spots on his body. The outline of my scales showed white where he’d grafted them into his very bone structure.

No wonder he could fucking fly.

Rage boiled my blood. I clicked the Golem’s wrists together harder. “That magic.” My heart raced. “Belongs.” I pushed the Golem’s wrist forward. “To me!”

Instead of pushing, I pulled. I pulled with every ounce of my will.

My magic. My life. My guys and my friends. “My god damned Institute,” I screamed.

Rainbows burst through the arena as my power coursed through Saffron’s Golem and into me. The air pressure dropped, and the lights flickered.

The world spun as my body pressed into my seat.

Tederwinkle dropped from the sky, his eyes rolling up in his head. He twitched, and blood ran from his eyes, nose, and ears.

But I didn’t stop pulling.

The lights flickered before popping, showering the room in sparks.

Before total darkness enveloped us, two of Tanwyn’s summons burst from his back. The matching peacock creatures spread their tails and radiated brilliant white light. Under one of them, Mercedes and a handful of students, including Yasmine and Derek, cornered the remaining MA agents.

Beryl had Nitis pinned to a wall, his fists flying.

Ashe stood over Director Flemmings, one of my dragon scales disintegrating in his hand as I called it back to my body.

My world spun faster. My jaw dropped, too heavy to hold up. Brilliant rainbows burst from my skin as lust and pain overloaded my senses. I tried to keep pulling, but I couldn’t feel my hands. I couldn’t feel my body. I couldn’t feel anything.

I dropped my gaze to the professor. Saffron knelt at his side, beating on his lover's still chest before blowing into his slack mouth.

A tear slipped down my cheek as the world faded to black.

Chapter 23

I spent three days asleep.

Upon waking, I was unbelievably grateful to have slept through the chaos our battle caused. The hours right after the fight had been a mess of confusion and misinformation. Abe, of all people, took the reins, locking down the Institute until someone with more authority presented themselves.

It took twenty-four hours for Officer Keres to come out of his zombie-like state. And forty-eight for Director Flemmings to wake up from hers. Unlike the students, Tederwinkle had shoved dragon scales into the fully trained mages. I had no idea how he manipulated them, but I needed to find out so I could stop it from ever happening again.

What would’ve killed me was watching my guys recover.

Ashe restarted Keith’s heart in the fight's aftermath. He’d been legally dead. Only Saffron’s CPR efforts kept his blood flowing enough for Ashe to bring him back.

It took four mages to pull Beryl off Nitis’ dead body.

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