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“‘There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.’” Emma’s clear, expressive voice rippled over Griff like the wind on water. He eased from the shadow of the doorway to watch her.
She stood beside the smoking fire, her sunrise hair confined at the back of her neck, her pretty breasts buttoned behind the ugly gray dress she favored. The selkies’ enchantments did not affect her. But a week on Sanctuary had worked its magic anyway. Her face was faintly golden from science lessons disguised as long walks on the beach. The challenge of keeping a dozen restive adolescents interested and engaged had given new energy to her movements and a lilt to her voice.
Young Iestyn in particular looked at her like a milk-fed pup presented with a side of beef. Poor whelp. Griff wondered if his own face bore a similar expression.
“Iestyn, will you try the next verse?” Emma invited.
The boy bent over the tattered volume. “‘And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth,’” he read slowly.
Emma smiled. “Very good. Roth?”
Reluctantly, the stocky boy beside Iestyn took the book. “‘And in the six hu—hun—’”
“Hundredth,” prompted Emma.
“‘Hundredth year of…of…’” Roth flushed and snapped the book closed. “This is stupid.”
“You are stupid,” Iestyn said.
“Sod off. I don’t care about your dumb story anyway.”
“Noah and the ark is a beautiful story,” Emma said coolly. “And I appreciate Iestyn sharing his book with the class to read. Now—”
Griff marveled at her patience. His own was wearing thin, with her students, with her, and with himself.
“I will leave your bed,” he had told her seven days and six long nights ago. “Until you ask me to come back to it.”
Cocksure idiot.
She had not asked.
And he was aching for her.
Roth’s chair scraped back, recalling Griff’s attention. “I don’t need to learn to read.”
His defiance dropped into the classroom like a stone. Heads turned or lifted. Insubordination rippled outward.
“Sit down, please,” Emma said, low and firm.
“You cannot make me.”
Griff had heard enough. “I can.”
He strolled forward, keeping his eyes hard on the boy until the whelp dropped his gaze.
“I don’t see why I have to learn this stuff,” Roth muttered. “After I Change—”
“You learn because my lord says you will,” Griff said. “Because if you don’t, I will crack your ignorant head. The same goes for the lot of you. Sit.”
Roth sat.
Griff nodded to Emma to continue. She did so, without losing her composure or her place in the book, and he thought that was the end on it.
But when the story and the lesson were done and her charges were dismissed for the day, Emma looked at him, waiting at the back of the room as had become his custom, and raised her chin.
“In the future, I would appreciate it if you would let me handle discipline in my classroom.”
If she was in the mood for a fight, Griff was ready to oblige her. Seven days.
