Page 96 of Love Bites

I nodded. Uh, yeah, it had been unusual in alotof ways.

“First you must have noticed the way we spoke about the library, the school and the women who study and teach here,” she said, setting a very deliberate pace for a conversation she clearly didn’t want to be having.

“We protect the library,” I said.

“Indeed,” she replied with a warm smile. “The school is home to a very special library, Miss Hawthorne. It’s not just a collection of lifeless books. We have artwork, magical artifacts, and even the texts themselves are alive with magic. Studying here is a privilege.”

I agreed. That was why I was here. Library or no, I wanted to learn to heal, to help my brother. She was looking at me like she expected something, so I nodded.

She buttoned her lip and began to pace.

“Our relationship with the library is symbiotic,” she continued. “It shares its magic with us, and in turn, we protect it from any who might breach the castle walls.”

I wondered if that was a likely threat. I didn’t remember seeing anyone around for miles on the way in.

“But who will protect the castle?” she asked out loud.

I assumed it was some kind of rhetorical question that she was about to answer herself. I had no clue who would protect the castle.

“The castle is located on this very mountaintop in a very precise spot, and for a very important reason,” Headmistress Hart went on. “A portal deep in the forest means the veil is thin here.”

“The veil?” I echoed.

“The barrier between our world and the other,” she said. “The library can thrive here, but so can other, darker things. We provide protection within the castle. The guardians provide protection from the things outside these walls.”

The other?

I blinked at her. I had seen a bit of magic - a something occupying a suit of clothing, a few vines growing fast and branches reaching out.

But what she was talking about was beyond anything my mind could grasp.

Another world? Things in the woods?

“The guardians protect the castle, but there are no females in their number,” she said crisply. “In exchange for their protection, they choose mates from among our students.”

Mates?

I blinked at her, unbelieving.

I wasn’t sure what I thought was going to happen to me, but I would have been less surprised to hear that the man in the courtyard planned to hunt me for sport.

“They have not come forth in many years to choose,” Headmistress Hart went on. “The ritual has become empty ceremony for most of us. I am sorry that this happened on your first day here. But the law is the law.”

“What law?” I asked.

We were still in Pennsylvania. There could be no actual law on the books for something like this. Although once you got about an hour outside of the city, there was no telling what you’d find.

“You will go to him tomorrow night,” Headmistress Hart went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “For three nights, you will share his bed. By day you will return to the school. After three days, you will choose.”

“Choose what?” I asked.

“Whether to stay with him, or come back to us,” she said carefully.

“So I can just come back?” I asked.

Beside me, Cori gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.

“You can,” the Headmistress said quietly. “But no one ever has.”

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