Page 5 of Blood Witch

Another annoying perk to my,er, condition was the uncanny ability to tell time down to its tiniest measurements. I’m talking milliseconds, people. It was weird too. Not like I thought I controlled time, but if I were to just zone out, say during one of Professor Axelrod’s ridiculously long lectures on archaic runes and rites during his class of the same boring title, I could actually see everything going on in the class.

And I mean everything.

Once I zoned off while looking at William Doyle, who was renowned for being the only witch on campus who seemed to be allergic to magic. Anyway, as I stared in William’s direction, the wizard sneezed. Sneezing in slow motion was perhaps the most disgusting thing I had ever witnessed.

From the first twitch of his long, crooked nose to the look of abject horror that crossed his face when realization dawned sneezing was imminent, and further still, I watched unable to look away, right up until William’s mighty spray of snot and spittle flew out of his mouth, past his thin lips, covering his desk, and most of the side of Catherine McConnell’s face.

Yeah. Some of his mucus got into her mouth and nose. I’d feel bad if it was anyone else. After all, it was just bad luck that she took the seat next to him, but Catherine was a beyotch and undeserving of my sympathy.

Now, no one looked good while sneezing. That was simply a fact. I couldn’t fault William for having bodily functions. But being cursed to see said sneeze in super slow motion was asking a lot of anyone, and let’s face it, I was not known for my patience.

“Miss Marlow? Your paper?” Professor Axelrod interrupted my train of thought and I startled, grabbing the homework I’d actually finished and handing it to the surprised wizard. “Uh, thank you, Miss Marlow.”

The rest of the class was spent with the professor collecting papers, making casual observations, and giving us our next assignment. I jotted it on the notes app of my Westwood tablet—the thing was linked to all sorts of magical apps I found truly intriguing but had little time to explore. I grabbed my bag, hefted it onto my shoulder, and left the room.

I’d taken Archaic Runes & Rites for obvious reasons. I mean, my skin glowed with the damn things whenever I was in a blood lust, and I had no idea what the fuckers meant. So far, nothing I’d studied resembled the markings on my skin, but according to Professor Axelrod, many early civilizations, human and supernatural, used some type of runic alphabet or cuneiforms to record history and communicate.

The problem was narrowing it down. We were studying Ancient Nordic Witch Runes at the moment, which were vastly different from the glyphs that marked my skin. I’d copied them down in a hidden file on my tablet. I didn’t want anyone else to see what I was searching for, just in case they got nosy and asked questions.

One thing I learned, acting the tough girl got a lot of these do-gooder witches and wizards to stay away from me. It was the others I had to worry about. The bullies and prats who wanted to try to test my resolve.

Like this asshat.

“Hey, slow down, goth girl,” Dram Pile, heir apparent, called out, jogging up to me and dropping a heavy arm on my shoulders.

I stopped walking, having no other choice since his three idiot friends appeared suddenly, blocking the way. The four wizards were everything I hated about modern supes. They were rich, entitled, and the worst kind of snobs.

My gaze flickered to the sentinel down the hall. It was Magnus, Rio’s mate, I gave a slight shake of my head. I did not want him to interfere or stick his neck out. Not for me, at any rate. Sentinels were there for the protection of the faculty and student body, not to police asshole rich boys.

“What’s in the bag?” Dram asked, sticking his fat paws into my drawstring, and rooting around.

I hoped the fucker would stick himself on something sharp, but I had nothing like that in there. I did, however, have my tablet opened to show the latest smexy paranormal romance I was reading from one of my absolute favorite authors. The publisher was Naughty Nights Press, and now I simply searched for them when I needed something new to binge on.

What could I say?

It was my one guilty pleasure. Well, apart from the other one. And that I needed so I wouldn’t blow my top and turn into a rampaging killing machine, like everyone assumed would happen if I didn’t replenish my magical stores through blood. At least, that was Arlo’s latest working theory on why I needed to supplement my diet with fresh bags of whole blood, though plasma and platelets worked okay in a pinch.

Fuck.

It occurred to me that asshole might happen upon the empty blood bag I forgot to toss out after feeding between classes the other day. I’d been so wrapped up in my drama, I didn’t even think about it until right then.

Shit.

That would be so not good for me.

“Just leave me alone, Dram,” I snapped.

Short at five and a half feet, though, to be honest, I was tall compared to my roomies except for Tana, and a buck thirty, if that, I was in no position to wrestle with Dram. He was on the chunky side, and just under six feet tall. That was fine, of course. But it would be even better if the wizard wasn’t touching me.

I mean, what the heck happened to personal space?

I attempted to pull away from the jerk, but Dram had suddenly become Mr. Grabby-Hands with more strength than I assumed the fat shit had. His friends laughed, saying vile things to me, and the bastard snickered, holding me by the neck. He gave a little shake that rattled my teeth and I slapped at his hands, but it was too late.

“What do we have here?”

“Is that blood?” one of his cronies asked, before they all broke out laughing.

“Give that back,” I said, but he was waving it around now, drawing more attention to me.

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