Page 4 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

Fluttering above the morning crowds in the thick of downtown, weaving between the busy district of guilds, stalkingenchanters in hopes they’d taken on a case accompanying Milo in some unknown venture. Even searching the halls of Cerberus Guild presented no new intel. I very much knew Milo wasn’t in the city. I had complete and total awareness of that fact. I knew exactly where he was located—or would be when his plane landed—but my magic hunted for him all the same, like a sad, lonely dog desperate for affection and companionship.

“Fuck.” I slammed my foot on the brakes, bracing against my steering wheel as I whipped forward from the sudden halt. It rattled my telepathy back into place but sent an ache coursing through my bones.

I blinked a few times until the last specks of the city faded from my vision, and the full depth of the academy parking lot settled in.

Chanelle stood in front of her parked SUV, wide-eyed and her long braids outstretched, appearing almost like sentient serpents. But in reality, the braids were merely caught in the sudden, heavy entanglement of channeled telekinesis. The subtle flow of her waist-length passion twists around her body cast a calming allure to the tense situation. She pressed her telekinesis against the hood of my car so precisely that it left a large handlike indent, almost as if Chanelle’s slender fingers had suddenly extended the length of my car and wrapped around it like a mere toy in her path.

I lifted my hands and tilted my head apologetically. “My bad.”

“Damn, Dorian. I know you like this parking space, but Jesus Christ, you can’t just…”

Letting out an exuberant sigh, I nodded profusely during Chanelle’s incredibly long-winded rant. I was at fault, lost in a daze of nonsense. Her thoughts helped keep my mind attentive and focused on the here and now. I supposed today’s lesson would do the same, keeping me locked on whether my studentswere ready for their first big upcoming test before the ticking clock of saying farewell to them this summer and hoping for the best.

“Today is not the day.” And with that, Chanelle lifted my car into the air, hurled it across the parking lot to the furthest space she could find, and then delicately dropped it.

Okay, not such a delicate drop, considering the way my head whipped side-to-side, braced only by the collision with the cushion of my seat headrest.

“Oh, come on,” I grumbled half aloud and half still linked to Chanelle, who really didn’t have the patience to continue or ask where my head was this morning since her thoughts were already lost on a long list of tasks she needed to complete, double check, redo since the person assigned likely fucked it up, and a thousand other things she needed done before eight o’clock.

Yeesh.I sucked my teeth, breaking the connection that tethered our minds because that much work fried my brain this early in the day.

He’d attached a close-up photo of him grinning.

He sent a second photo, and this one had him holding a notebook while telekinetically floating pens above it. I almost chuckled. Was that his idea of being productive? Writing in a random notebook that he impulsively paid way too much for at the airport.

And he’d attached a third photo, this one of his legs propped up like he was lounging at the airport, which he likely was while waiting for his flight.

No photo. Just a follow-up of three heart emojis.

Overthink today? Like how my magic decided to become erratic in your slight absence, searching for you across the city and swiftly making its way toward O’Hare? I didn’t send that. Instead, I sulked, redistributing my channeling efforts into my roots to drain my overactive telepathy.

After sending Milo the message, I headed inside the building. I shuffled between students in the hallway and had the misfortune of enduring Kenzo’s scowl as I reached my classroom and opened the door. He huffed, keeping his stare trained on me and sending his most judgmental surface thoughts for my lack of punctuality.

I glared back at him, eyeing the short tyrant. Gray static coursed across his slender body, zipping from his fists to his pale face all the way through his jet-black hair, adding a sheen, thenunderneath his academy uniform down to his shoes and back around again, ensuring his training never ceased.

He wasn’t actually as short and slender as he used to be. It’d been almost two years since he’d first stepped into my classroom. Kenzo had grown since then. Seventeen years old, like most of my homeroom students, his shoulders were broader, his biceps more muscular, and he’d even shot up a bit in height too, now standing at my height of 5’11. He merely looked deceptively small when standing beside Gael. But didn’t we all?

“Morning, Mr. Frost.” Gael smiled with his shark-like teeth, towering over Kenzo and me as he stood outside the classroom.

Thankfully, Kenzo’s chatty boyfriend always seemed to wrangle him in before the angry prick became too tiresome. Gael also served as a literal bright beacon of positivity around Kenzo; his sunshiny orange aura bled into the black and whites of Kenzo’s inner core. It didn’t change Kenzo, didn’t stay very long, but it stirred a calmness in his thoughts, allowing him to release the bitterness in his throat for the many rude things he sought to say.

Gael kept his brown eyes locked on me, smile intact, and thoughts screaming for a compliment. Even in Spanish, I caught enough to understand. Okay—that was an utter lie. I recognized at most three of the words zipping around Gael’s head, but the yearning on his face, the fluctuation in his aura, and those damn pleading eyes.

“Nice hair.” I nodded to the spiky pink hair he sported for the upcoming holiday.

“Yeah, and?” Gael stepped closer, blocking the doorway and eagerly turning side to side, showing off his large spikes.

The biggest pair sat on either of his shoulders, weighing heavy on him, but given his broad chest and very muscular physique, Gael handled the extra twenty pounds with ease. The way he flexed his forearms was intentional, and suddenly, I caught what he wanted to flaunt.

“You’ve finally figured out how to redistribute your spikes.” I nearly smiled. We’d worked on that after winter break and to see how Gael masterfully handled altering the set-in pathways of his augmentation in a few weeks for a training I anticipated would take the entire semester—if not a few years to follow. “Quite impressive.”

Gael couldn’t simply remove the flow of magic or the protrusions of spikes across his body, but from the training we’d done with Milo’s acolytes last semester, I finally gained a better understanding of Gael’s branch.

Instead of hundreds of tiny spikes lining his forearms, Gael had about a half dozen bigger spikes around his wrists. They curved slightly backward so as to not interfere with his hands, and they resembled the angry rocker bracelets I used to buy when I was Gael’s age in some desperate attempt to seem edgy.

“Come on, porcupine.” Kenzo grabbed Gael’s hand and dragged him into the classroom.

Sweet and almost endearing, except it became clear that Kenzo simply wanted to beat everyone else to class since he treated everything like a competition—including attendance. I swear, Kenzo gave me the biggest headache.

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