No, Zephyrus was a closed book.
And I didn’t try to pry him open.
Instead, I spent most of my time reading alone in my new room. When my stomach complained, either I joined him for meals in the living area or we walked to the cafeteria. At some point he’d gone shopping, or perhaps had food delivered, some of which were items I recognized. However, most were human meals.
Ugh.
My insides still crawled from the breakfast he’d forced upon me. Eggs with cheese and onions. An omelet, he’d called it.
Gross.
I preferred to label it as torture, but I ate the monstrosity because he refused to make anything else, and my wand didn’t want to cooperate. Turns out, his whole lecture about magic requiring energy was right. The less I ate, the worse I performed.
While part of me preferred not to be able to access the dark powers, the other part of me recognized that I needed the magic to survive in this world.
Because yeah, Midnight Fae Academy was proving to have a dangerous campus. Not only were those snakelike vines watching my every move, but I also had all types of wildlife eyeing me with curiosity. And I learned pretty fast that none of the plants or animals in this realm were kind.
My shoulder winced with the reminder of the fire gnat I met last night.
Not a pretty lightning bug, but a beast with sharp teeth and a fiery after-bite.
Zephyrus had watched the entire thing with a bored expression, not once helping me. When I demanded to know why, he merely shrugged and said, “It won’t kill you.”
Just thinking about it brought a scowl to my face. Again.
Headmaster Zephyrus served as proof that beauty on the outside did not equate to beauty on the inside. Because his exterior sure was gorgeous, but inside him lived a dark, unhelpful jackass of a man who considered me more of a burden than a project.
Well, fine. He could take his uncooperative behavior and shove it up his muscular butt. Not that I’d spent a lot of time admiring said butt. Or thinking about how many hours he had to clock at the gym to maintain such a fit physique.
Right, so that was a lie. But not many Elemental Fae were warriors, so Zephyrus’s fighter build intrigued me a little. Strong didn’t seem like an adequate enough adjective for him. He practically oozed power from his pores without even trying. Kind of like Kolstov, but in a different way.
With a shake of my head, I pushed away thoughts of the two males and focused on the textbook in my lap. It explained Midnight Fae hierarchy and all the bloodlines. Zephyrus had told me there were only five, but according to my book, there were actually six types of Midnight Fae.
I spent yesterday reading up on the Elite Bloods and Kolstov’s family legacy as the oldest royals of that line. As primary conduits for the dark-magic source, Elite Bloods were considered the most powerful of Midnight Fae kind, hence their leadership over all the others.
The Warrior Bloods were particularly gifted in physical strength and agility, allowing them to serve as Guardians of the Elite Bloods. Ergo, Zephyrus’s role. What I still didn’t understand was why he’d been relegated to the Academy when his family had a long-standing history of protecting the Nachts. From what I’d read, him being here was a demotion of epic proportions. If he wasn’t such a jerk, I’d ask him.
Opening my book, I started reading up on the next bloodline.
The Death Bloods.
Shadow’s family served as the monarchs, with Aswad as the current king. Their powers were linked to necromancy and the harsher sides of dark magic. It seemed they also maintained access to the source, but in a much different way, through the art of—
A crash inside the suite jolted me upright and off the bed.
The sound of feminine laughter followed.
I frowned. Zephyrus had mentioned that students would be moving back in today. Something about a bonfire kickoff later tonight. Apparently, it was the thing to do. I’d considered using the massive distraction on campus as a potential time to escape, but I had nowhere to go.
The fact that Claire hadn’t reached out to me yet confirmed the Elemental Fae Council’s fear in having me return. Given what recently happened in that realm, I understood. The last notion they would want to entertain at the moment was a potential hybrid Elemental-Midnight Fae.
Except I didn’t feel any different.
Other than the fact that I couldn’t access my earth.
I really hoped Sol and Claire were holding the source together in my absence. They were the only others in existence who could access earth magic in a similar way to me. Their connections weren’t as strong as mine but should be enough to help the Earth Fae maintain their powers.
Blowing out a breath, I started reading again, when male voices trickled down the hallway.