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Jasmine offered to accompany me, but I shook my head and walked to the offices alone, a feeling of doom accompanying every step.
I was left to cool my heels in the outer office, waiting for Headmistress Blackthorn to agree to see me. While I waited, I tried to coax my leopard intocoming out of hiding, but she was even hiding from me.
By the time Mrs. Caldwell, Blackthorn’s assistant, finally indicated the Headmistress was ready for me, I was shaking with rage.
Somehow, every time I thought about Taggart and how he’d leaned into me, touched me, sniffed me,terrorizedmy leopard, I got angrier, especially since he’d been fine.
He’d stood, dusted himself off and smirked at me when Professor Blackthorn laid down the law.
To rub salt in the wound,hewas still getting to enjoy his lunch, no one takinghimto task overhisbehavior, but I was in the office, where I’d apparently have to defend mine.
The sheer unfairnessof it all made my leopard stir, and for a moment, I thought she might come out of hiding, but then she was gone again.
“All right, dear.” Mrs. Caldwell stood and walked around her desk. “She’s ready for you now. Don’t look so worried. Just explain what happened and you’ll be fine.” With a kind smile, Mrs. Caldwell led me to Blackthorn’s door.
She immediately ruined her message, though, because the moment she knocked and was bid to enter, it became clear that Mrs. Caldwell was slightly terrified of her boss.
This was evident in the way her hand shook as she opened the door and the tentative way she cleared her throat before saying my name. “Ms. Mitchell to see you, ma’am.”
“Well, send her in.”
Mrs. Caldwell gave me an encouraging nod and closed the door behind me when I stepped into Blackthorn’s office.
As it turned out, Mrs. Caldwell’s advice to just explain what had happened wasn’t helpful at all since Headmistress Blackthorn didn’t feel my explanation was adequate. She didn’t care what provocation Taggart had given me because my job was to control myself while at Blackthorn Academy.
In addition, she was of the opinion that I should have known the consequences of what she called my ‘attempted territorial grab’ since my dad was a full-blooded shifter.
Her attitude made me want to set my flames free and burn her office to asharound her.
Thesewere the impulses that had made my parents fear me. Though I never started any fires, despite the terrifying nightmares that plagued me, I think they could see the fury and the temptation to do so raging inside me.
It was this temptation to set my fires free that made it difficult to argue with Headmistress Blackthorn. Articulating my thoughts while also holding tight to my magic was difficult at best.
I did, however, manage to grit through my teeth that my leopard was basically a newborn and I had zero experience with her. “I’m a witch, Headmistress Blackthorn, not a shifter!”
Unbelievably, she told me that was no excuse. “You will learn to control your leopard here at Blackthorn Academy, Ms. Mitchell. But whether you are incontrol or not, there will be no more attacking and throwing students, and no more claiming of territory or fighting over it.Noneof this territory belongs to you or your leopard or any other student at the Academy. I’ve already made that clear to the rest of the student body. There will benoterritorial disputes at Blackthorn. Are we clear on this?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I wanted to protest that it wasn’t so much about the damn table as it was about my body, but I was so pissed, I was afraid I’d lose my grip on my fire andthatwould be a disaster.
“Excellent. Moving on, then. I have your class schedule here and it appears to be lacking a critical course. Why have you not signed up for Inner Beast Management before now? You’re in your third year at Blackthorn and you haven’ttaken this course even once. Your classmates are worlds ahead of you in their studies.”
Seriously? What did she not get about my leopard being a newborn?
“I didn’thavean inner beast when we signed up for classes,” I said with what I considered to be remarkable patience, especially since my leopard was continuously growling softly in my head, distracting me from our conversation.
“You’re the daughter of a shifter. You should have signed up for this course your first year.”
“Why would I sign up for a class about controlling my inner beast when I didn’t have one?” I demanded, distracted by the fact that my leopard was stirring and prowling closer to the surface. She growled softly in my head and sent me apicture of our lunch.
I almost toppled out of the chair because this was the first time she’d ever reached out to me to communicate. My dad had told me that leopards typically did so by sending images, but we weren’t sure my leopard would even try since she was so feral and unfriendly.
“Well, you certainly have one now,” Headmistress Blackthorn said, “which means you probably had one back then as well, so this was very short-sighted of you. If youhadsigned up, you’d be in a much better position right now, far more prepared to deal with your rather angry leopard.”
Damnit.
I hated that she had a point. But how was I to know? They didn’t tell me I had to take the class,so I didn’t.
My leopard sent another picture of our lunch, this time with a sense of urgency attached.
