The Devoted: A Reverse Harem Omnibus (The Devoted Season Book 1)(7)

My fingers tremble, my heart pumping twice as fast. Oh no. Not now. Not now!

I shut my eyes tighter. Why is this happening now?

A surge of power explodes through my fingertips and a scream slices through the hallway, the scream cut abruptly short.

There’s a suspicious clucking sound. Like a chicken has just entered the room. A rumbling chuckle grows behind me. I drop my hands and snap my eyes wide open.

I’ve turned a man...into a chicken.

I cover my eyes and stare through my fingers, eyes even wider. I didn’t know I could do that.

What’s worse? I don’t know how to change him back.

“What the...” the gray robed man on the right of the chicken drops into a crouch. His gemstone eyes turn a darker shade of emerald as they pass from the chicken to me.

“Change him back,” the other man demands, “Change him back!”

My heart hammers in my chest. I’m just lucky my magic didn’t rear up and steal his mana—or worse.

“Whoa!” the red-head slides back in front of me. He stretches his arms out, protecting me, “Careful who you raise your voice at. She might turn you too.”

The bald man’s nostril’s flare, “You little shit!”

The guy charges, lowering his bald pate as he does. This time, Mr. Kitty comes flying out of my messenger bag with a hiss and drops to the ground. He slithers between the red-head’s legs and launches himself—claws extended—at the charging man’s upper thigh.

He connects. I avert my eyes. Claws meet flesh and the poor guy screams.

“I’m sorry—”

“Is that a familiar?!” A foreign voice screeches.

All of our gazes snap to a form that materializes behind the absentminded chicken and the two men in the slate-gray robes. Mr. Kitty doesn’t care a bit about decorum and keeps scratching at the bald guy’s thigh.

“Whose?” pulling back her purple hood, a woman with fierce sapphire eyes drags her glare from the red-head to me, “Whose familiar?”

All eyes fall on me. My shoulders droop. The red-head brings his gaze over his shoulder slightly and I reach for Mr. Kitty, “Hold on,” he whispers. Then, turns to the sapphire-eyed faculty member, “Miss Kent, I’d like to report a hazing,” he tilts his head and flaming tendrils of featherlight hair slither over his shoulder, “Rather, an attempted hazing,”

Miss Kent stomps forward, heels clicking, “Of who?” she spits, “These three against you, Mr. Moreau? Or, was it the other way around?” she turns on her heel, “And who is the chicken?!”

“David, miss,” The bald student replies, “She turned him,” and he spears his accusatory glare at me.

Miss Kent sets her steel gaze on me, “Really? A new join?”

Mr. Kitty decides that it’s about time he flung himself at me and burrowed deep into my messenger bag. Miss Kent watches the familiar go with her dark eyebrows threatening to float off her forehead.

“You,” Miss Kent presses past the red-head and towers over me, pointer finger frigid, “you’ve only just joined, you understand? So, perhaps you do not know that this,” and she points at the pecking chicken, “is unacceptable.” She shakes her head, hissing, “Students may not use body modification magic on other students without a waiver, new join,” Miss Kent drones, reciting from a rulebook that she cannot see.

Mr. Kitty hisses in my bag and her eyes snap to the orange tail popping out. At that, her hiss devolves into a sigh, “And don’t get me started on the academy’s rules about familiars!”

She straightens herself and crosses her arms, “Let this be a lesson to all of you,” she says, projecting her voice down the new join hall, “if anyone attacks, changes, modifies, conjures, etcetera, against another student outside of the arena, or without a waiver, there will be consequences!” her gaze meets mine again. I’m already frozen, but this time frost crystallizes on the nape of my neck, freezing the fine hairs, “I hope you learn quick, new join, because—for this—you’ve forfeited your Saturday night.”





Real Work Begins





“What do they say about the civilian-soldier never taught to hold his pike?” With her full lips pursed, a woman with moth eyebrows sashays down the line of students, eyes to the sky, “Ah!” she stabs a finger toward the nearest new join, making him stumble backward, “He is dead, correct? When the force comes, he is dead!”

Yesterday’s events have left me a little strung up. I stand in my line like everyone else, chin raised, arms clasped behind my back like I’m in the city guard or something. But unlike everyone else, my mind is everywhere. I’m searching for that red-head, hoping that I can avoid him. I’m searching for my dormmates, who are probably hoping to avoid me as well. My gaze strays to the instructor one line ahead of me and I spot her between the heads of two male new joins. Her moth eyebrows shoot up, but she continues to talk. My sigh eases between my teeth, might as well accept the cards I’ve been dealt.

Her dark eyes land on mine and my stomach quivers. The slight parting of her cherry red lips makes me point my gaze at the grass beneath my academy issued boots. The telltale crackle of grass blades tells me that she’s moved on, pacing further down the line of new joins.