“I’m naked too, if that helps.”
It really didn’t. If a cat could look smug, he did. She let out an exasperated sigh. If she wasn’t dead, this had to be some sort of fucked-up dream that she would wake up from any second now. She closed her eyes. There were too many knots in her mind, toomany strings of problems that she didn’t know where to start to untangle.
Using the shower curtain to cover herself, Avery leaned forward toward the towel rack, yanked the towel off it, wrapped it around herself, and slammed the door in the pervy cat’s face. One problem sorted. Sort of.
She dried herself off and brushed her hair in silence, reveling in the small moment of peace that life had afforded her.
A scratch sounded at the door. Then silence. Then another series of increasingly urgent scratches. Was he seriously fucking scratching at the door to get in? Avery’s mouth parted, and then clamped shut again before she stalked over to the door and opened it, expecting to find a small cat staring up at her. Instead, she found nothing. Felix licked his paws on her chest of drawers, the complete picture of nonchalance.
“Something bothering you, witch?”he said.
This was going to be a long few weeks.
Avery didn’t getmuch sleep that night, and neither did Felix, she guessed. He had stayed on the armchair in his cat form in front of the fire, readjusting every few minutes. It was a tense sort of calm, one where neither of them was comfortable in the other’s presence. They were, after all, natural enemies who had been shoved into a dorm room and forced to work together. Every so often, she would open her eyes, only to find him staring back at her.
Morning light poured through the curtains, illuminating the room. Dust motes drifted through the air, dust bunnies darting out to snatch them mid-flight. A bunny crossed over Felix’s paws, and he went to swipe at it before stopping short, letting themagical creature run away with a few of his hairs that had found their way to the ground.
“What are they?”he questioned, paw still hovering.
“You don’t have dust bunnies in…wherever you’re from?”
“No, we don’t have magical dust bunnies in London.”
The shifter was from London? She had pulled him from that far? She supposed it wasn’t the most far-fetched thing in the world, given that she had pulled a shifter into a bond. Did the bond have to choose such an asshole, though? Surely there were nicer shifters.
“Were you there when I, you know, summoned you?” she asked, playing with the threads in the duvet.
“I was having a cocktail in my courtyard before you so rudely interrupted me.”
“Sorry,” she said sincerely. It must have been a rude awakening. She imagined him sipping on a piña colada with a little umbrella. The thought shouldn’t have brought a smile to her face.
“What are you smiling at, witch?”He scowled.
And just like that, the grumpy cat put her in a sour mood again. A scowl formed in its place.
“Classes start today,” she told him.
“And?”
“And”—you sassy bitch, she didn’t add that—“I am due to present my familiar today, otherwise I’ll get expelled.”
The cat sat silently for a moment, contemplating. “Fine.”
She sucked in a breath. Thank the goddess, he hadn’t changed his mind. One day at a time.
Avery got dressed in the bathroom, this time putting a chair up against the door so he couldn’t open it with whatever shadow magic he had. It wouldn’t stop a shifter, but it made her feel better.
From what she knew, unlike witches, shifters were born with their magic; they could use it from birth, and often they were incredibly powerful. There was a caveat to that, though; they burned out quickly if not careful. It took an immense amount of control and concentration for a shifter to channel their magic without letting it flare up and become incapacitated for days. She heard that sometimes when they truly lost control of their emotions, they supposedly turned into literal monsters.Never mindthat she had heard that from the fanfiction, and that they had doneother stuff.
Felix jumped down from the armchair.“After your classes, we begin hunting for a cure to our… infection.”
Out of all the insults that have been hurled toward Avery, that one was potentially the worst so far. An infection. The way he said it made it sound like she was some sort of venereal disease.Asshole. If she were an infection, she would be far more interesting than gonorrhea.
Once she had gotten dressed and her bag packed, she opened the door to the hallway, the cool air rushing in. Other students in her year level meandered through the dorm hall, making their way to the first day of class. Felix’s ears flattened as he sniffed the air that wafted in. Slowly but surely, he took a few steps toward the open door, one paw in front of the other. When he reached the door, he stood on the threshold. Avery went to move her foot toward the back end of him, giving him a small nudge out the door.
He hissed at her.“Don’t rush me, witch.”
Avery rolled her eyes.
