Page 19 of The Goddess is Awakened
“It really is,” Church insisted. “I can drink blood, but I feed off emotions. Some emotions leave me feeling really unbalanced, and a lot of them are pretty common with college students. Secrets are delicious, and they don’t mess with me later. There are a lot of them around this campus, but George has the biggest one.
“I follow her to replenish my magic, but I haven’t talked to her because I don’t want her to think I have any interest in exposing whatever this secret is. It’s amassivesecret, and it’s up to her who knows it. I don’t want her to feel pressured to tell me or anyone else, but the more I follow her to feed, the harder it is not to talk to her. She’s pretty low-key for the strongest witch here.”
I felt like an idiot. It reallywasan energy vampire thing. I was used to regular vampires who were a lot more direct about their feeding. If he had pounced on her, tried to bite her, and got his ass kicked, I wouldn’t have questioned a single thing about it.
He was replenishing his magic how Nosferatu intended him to. I wasn’t a parasitic supernatural, but there were plenty of them out there, and I wasn’t judging.
“Witches don’t have supernatural hearing or sight, but she’s going to sense your aura out there and catch you,” I said. “If she’s as cool as West says, you should introduce yourself. You don’thaveto tell her that you know she has a secret. I didn’t know one of your superpowers was secrets.”
“Shemight. Her dad, like, created the universe. What if he’s friends with Nosferatu? Oh, my shit, what if Azren knows him and tells her? She tastes good, and she’s potent, but that would be mortifying.”
Church was aweirdvampire. I think every supernatural wanted to personally meet the god that created them. We all had a million questions aboutwhythey made us, why they never got involved when humans were persecuting us, or fuck, why they never answered a prayer. If Azren or George’s dad knew Nosferatu, Church didn’t want an introduction. He wanted them to keep it on the downlow he was feeding on her secrets.
“Talk to her, man,” West said, clapping Church on the back.
West was only five years older than us, but he’d probably been better with women since he was in middle school. West was lovable, even for a lion. Everyone always adored him, even when he damaged their property, or they were arresting him. He always got off easy because even though they legallyhadto punish him, no one wanted to.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“You’d better get over thatreallyfast,” Ren said. “She hasn’t used magic against Kaylee Krauss because she’s just annoying. If she catches you following her and thinks she’s in danger, it’s going to be really bad for you.”
“Iknow.West, you talk to her every day in magical combat. Youhaveto help me.”
That settled that. Church wasn’t dangerous. He was just feeding. George Bell was still an unknown. West was ready to join her coven and be handfasted for life, but he was also one of the most impulsive people I knew. All I knew was that she hadn’t shown anyone her magic, and now Church said she had a massive secret.
Ren was right. She was powerful enough to make a good coven mate when we expanded, but there were just too many secrets and drama around her to make it worth it.
azren
It was a few weeks into the semester, and I hadn’t found any of the answers I had come here for. No one had died, I didn’t have any answers for Drake about his mom, and George Bell was confusing the fuck out of me.
I’d given her enough private lessons to know she was smart as fuck, loved learning, and Reyson’s ego didn’t rub off on her at all. She also quashed any ideas in my head that the unnatural death I could tell was coming from an eighteen-year-old god’s meltdown.
I also didn’t have the first clue what her magic was supposed to be, which drove me insane. This girl defied logic, and I was utterly fascinated. Some gods shared their power with other gods from different families with a little twist. Some powers only one god got.
Her dad was the God of Chaos. Loki was a trickster. Lilith was a God of Night. Gods like Loki and Lilith existed in every culture, but not all of them left their mark on this world like those two did. George could have ended up with trickster powers or powers similar to that of a night god, but sheshould notbe able to do magic from three different gods.
She couldn’tproveit, but I believed her. I had her in my history class and private lessons twice weekly. Most gods would have lied about being more powerful than they were and said they didn’t have to prove themselves to anyone when they were asked to show receipts. George insisted she was defective because she could do it sometimes but not always.
I was pretty sure when we discovered her magic, it would be unlike anything we’d ever seen in this universe.
And I had another eighteen-year-old here I was responsible for that things were now strained. Drake had always been a mini adult who didn’t need coddling, even when he was a toddler. He liked figuring things out on his own. Drakedefinitelydidn’t want anyone’s help when he was learning to walk, and he didn’t want anyone comforting him if he fell and bumped his knee.
Drake was a lot like me. When he wanted something, he dove straight in until he figured it out. Before this academy, we helped each other with that and bounced ideas off of each other. Drake could also sulk a lot, and he was currently mad at me about something. I could ask him, but finding him when he was in a mood was always tricky, and when I did, he’d never tell me. The sulking would just last longer.
My wayward basilisk would tell me what was bothering him when it suited him and not before. Drake knew how to handle himself. Drake and George could wait until after this faculty meeting. I was starting to think Lindsay Krauss was utterly insane. I dropped Freya’s essence in a stillborn baby myself, but I was really beginning to think Minerva Krauss was a changeling and never actually grew up with the Krauss family.
School started after the full moon, but the next full moon was coming up, and this crazy woman wanted to ban the campus moon orgy. I had no intention of participating, but witches and shifters took that kind of thing seriously. The rest of the supernatural community was begging for invites. I’d give it to the witches and shifters. They knew how to party under the full moon.
No one had her back. I hadn’t even been to one in thousands of years and thought this was a gross misuse of power. Fornicating with multiple people under the full moon was a beautiful and time-honored tradition. I mostly hung out in my realm now, but I don’t think I’d ever heard of someone trying to police one before.
“I’ve been teaching here nineteen years, and my wife and her twin graduated from this school. Literally, nothing bad has happened to warrant canceling them,” Gabriel said.
The Arcane Arts professor was an ancient, portly warlock with hair coming out of his ears. I liked Professor Enzo Jinx. He sat with Gabriel and me at lunch, and he was intelligent. He might have answers for me about why I was here.
“I’ve published numerous books about the history of this university. The only person in this room that might know more than me about the Academy of the Profane is Azren. The moon orgies have never been canceled or policed in the entire history of this university.”
I didn’t make it a point to name-drop all the famous people I knew. I found it annoying when people did that. I really wanted to turn this woman’s offspring into a mango and make a smoothie out of her because she did it all the time in my history class. But I knew how this awful woman’s lizard brain worked, and it couldn’t be avoided.
