Page 29 of The Headmistress

“You mean…” Sam couldn’t even bring herself to voice what she thought Magdalene meant.

“I mean that you could rather truthfully accuse me of sexual harassment or favoritism based on our previous history, and short of outright lying, I’d have very few ways to deny it.”

Shaken, Sam turned around to face Magdalene fully, and when the Headmistress didn’t immediately turn to look at her, Sam grabbed her by the fragile shoulders she’d admired just a moment ago and forced her to meet her eyes.

“What happened in New York had nothing to do with sexual harassment. How can you think so after everything?” Words were failing her now when she felt it was essential for her to get her point across. “Is this why you’ve been so cryptic and cautious around me? Avoiding even the mention of us having been together months ago? I can’t even begin to gather my thoughts to address this, but surely you’re aware that I’m in the closet at school, and let’s set aside my ethics and decency, I wouldn’t be able to submit a complaint against you without outing myself in the process!”

“So what would you have me do? Every single person at Dragons hates me and wants me gone. Even you. To trust that you wouldn’t use what you could against me? How could I have done that when you yourself confessed to Timothy that you’d use every single advantage?” Magdalene all but vibrated with repressed anger under Sam’s touch.

“And you do now? Trust me?”

“Well, if you had wanted me gone, or at least my reputation seriously damaged, out or not, you’d have already used this particular trump card against me.” Her face was impassive, but the eyes were wounded and haunted, and Sam desperately wanted to erase that look from the face that was so beautiful when lit up by a smile.

“Don’t use that word. I think it has been forever sullied for me by that twice- impeached man who shall not be named.” As expected, a corner of the sensuous mouth twitched and the eyes lost that pained sheen.

“As much as it hurts me to admit that you might be right, he did ruin the word forever. Shame, I rather liked what it meant once upon a time, Sam.”

But Sam was done talking about assholes, presidential or otherwise, because she heard something that she had been desperate to hear from those lips since the first time their eyes met in the dim lighting of the Manhattan bar.

“Say it again.”

Magdalene gave her a puzzled look, and then her whole face transformed and the look of sheer desire that Sam had seen earlier—before the ugly interruption—crossed those striking features again.

“Sam… Sam…” The fingers that had played with her hair before, rose again, but then, halfway up to Sam’s face, they stopped and Magdalene took a step back, the graceful hand falling limp to her side.

“I can’t, Sam. And I won’t apologize for why.”

“Magdalene…” Sam wanted to howl at the moon that was currently obscured by the storm clouds, but the woman in front of her just shook her head, refusing to acknowledge the longing in Sam’s voice.

“You might’ve forgotten, in the hormone overload that just took place here, but while we’ve established my nascent trust of you, you still neither trust me nor like me and my decisions. In your mind, we are still very much on opposite sides of enemy lines. And above all that, I have a job to do, a job which I will not risk nor jeopardize in any way.”

“I didn’t draw those lines!” Sam took a step forward, but Magdalene simply sidestepped her and moved away.

“You may not have drawn them, but you follow them by virtue of your loyalty and your staunch belief that I’m here to destroy everything you hold dear.”

“Aren’t you?” With anger and lust clouding her mind, Sam belatedly realized what she’d said.

“I believe this conversation is over, Professor Threadneedle.” The eyes that had looked at her with such heat and passion just moments ago were flat and unreadable in their cold austerity.

Sam thought to argue, to apologize for her outburst, and to plead her case, except she didn’t have much of one. She knew Magdalene was right, and that she herself did not fully trust her. Nor did she approve of the abrupt measures to cull the school of all that had been enacted in the previous years—not all of which was bad or unnecessary in Sam’s eyes. But a heart wants what a heart wants, and Sam’s heart—and some other very vocal parts of her—wanted Magdalene. Wanted this maddening, infuriating, and strikingly beautiful woman to keep looking at her with heat and desire and to cross some of those lines.

* * *

She walked in the rain, taking the circuitous route despite the frigid wind chilling her to the bone. Sam thought that getting drenched in a storm wasn’t a pastime she usually indulged in, but it seemed fitting somehow after the conversation she’d just had. She had no idea why, but Magdalene had pushed absolutely all her buttons and seemed to know exactly which ones hurt most. Moreover, she awoke feelings and cravings in Sam that she’d never even considered before. Magdalene made her dream, asleep and awake, about things that Sam had never considered possible for herself. She wanted, and that want, ebbing and flowing, was always there in the background, guiding her thoughts. The eerie sensation she’d been experiencing since they'd met that auspicious night in Manhattan had never truly gone away. The familiarity, the knowledge of one another that went deeper than physical.

She stopped on what she’d now thought was their Dragon Cliff, despite it being hers and hers alone for years. When had she started thinking of it in those terms? Thunder rumbled in the distance over the vast and tumultuous expanse of the ocean, and it resonated in her own heart, now split in two between her loyalty to the one and only home she’d ever known—along with all the quirks and people it held—and the one woman who was encroaching closer to taking possession of it. Sam pondered—flicking back the wet tendrils of her hair from her face—that she'd never known love before. Not that she fancied herself in love now. Absolutely not and under no circumstances. It would be utterly foolish to fall for someone who might be responsible for the destruction of Dragons. And yet, when she was with Magdalene, she had a certain sense that was similar to standing on the Amber Dragon, a sense of belonging. Could a person—not a place—be a home after all?

She had no answers, and for once, her— their—Dragon did not soothe her. With lightning splitting the sky behind her, she headed back, stopping before the wet stoop of the faculty dormitory’s back entrance, when she noticed that Lily’s window was dark. Too early for that troublemaker to be asleep. She must have gone to hang out with the rest of the scholarship crowd who were spending their summer at Dragons. Troublemaker indeed. Sam knew at least two of the girls had mile-wide crushes on Lily, despite her having a girlfriend. Deep in her thoughts she lost her footing and stumbled into a rather large puddle, getting her shoes and jeans thoroughly drenched.

Cursing her own distractedness, Sam quickly marched into her apartment and subsequently her bathroom, taking her clothes off as she went. A hot shower restored her spirits somewhat.

She’d settled down with a book, keeping an ear out for Lily’s imminent return, when the lights flickered and died, leaving her in complete darkness. A noise as if something had fallen, and what she thought was the sound of her name being called from the back porch, had her scrambling out of bed in seconds, hastily foregoing her still wet shoes and stepping into her rubber boots.

Clinging to walls and railings in the dark, Sam found herself on the porch, utterly alone, except for the howling wind tearing through the long-suffering pines surrounding the campus. She grabbed ahold of the railing, squinting to see better and cursing herself for forgetting her flashlight when she felt something under her fingertips that had no business being on the cold metal of the steel banister. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness and with bolts of lightning occasionally illuminating the sky, Sam finally saw a thin stretch of plastic cable had wrapped itself along the wet rail. Straightening to see where the cable led, Sam was suddenly aware that it was sparking slightly in several places, perilously close to her hand. She jerked back just as another bolt of lightning struck nearby and, seeking purchase, her hands instinctively grabbed the nearest thing, her fingers clutching what turned out to be a live wire, while standing in a mass of rainwater in the middle of a thunderstorm.

“Hey, teach!”

With her breath stuck in her throat, Sam could barely get a hoarse shout out of her mouth.

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