Surviving Plagues (Artemis University Book 3) Read online

  That wasn’t shocking, not even how good it was. What did shock me was that he had something for me.

  “We had a meeting with Juan’s family and to see some of their dragons’ investments and businesses,” he muttered, handing me the bag. “I thought of you.”

  I bit back a goofy grin as I pulled out what was inside. I held it up and saw it was a cheongsam, a popular type of Chinese dress.

  “I love it,” I admitted, impressed he even got the size right from what I could tell.

  “Good. I thought maybe you could wear it when we were ready for dinner dates or the next school event.”

  Which was this week. It wasn’t like the beginning of school ball, more a cocktail party thrown by the master’s students to show off their magic and what they’d learned so far. Big-name supe businesses were attending to scout the best and brightest.

  No, I had no idea what that meant and what “supe businesses” would be besides charms and that think tank Craftsman spoke of. Izzy had said it was basically a networking event with more flair than a normal job fair and the lowerclassmen went to show their support.

  Which I also learned wasn’t just freshmen and sophomores. No, at a six-year college with a master’s degree at the end of it, the lowerclassmen were freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

  That meant the upperclassmen were seniors and master’s students. Good to know I was just getting some of this the second quarter. But that meant Natalie was involved in this and I was all about supporting her.

  “I’ll wear it Friday,” I promised, his eyes filling with heat before giving me another kiss. “Are you planning to take it off of me? That’s a different thing you have to ask.”

  “Yes, I will be,” he chuckled, kissing my cheek as he headed for the door.

  “Pushy dragon,” I grumbled after him, making him even more amused from the chuckling that echoed in the deserted building.

  Still I went to bed with a smile on my face, my body enjoying this new more rigorous sex life. I’d gotten loving from Craftsman that morning and now Hudson before bed.

  A girl could get used to fun like that.

  The next morning I rolled my eyes as Mason was there in bear form for my run. I hadn’t texted him back so clearly he wasn’t upset at me. Fine, I wasn’t going to get all bitchy about the tone of texts when we were just friends but I did remind him of that.

  I walked into Intro to Supernaturals and handed Professor White a basket of marbles, her eyes going wide as she took them.

  “Wherever did you get these?” she whispered in awe.

  “My house,” I chuckled, shrugging when she shot me a confused look. “The estate I inherited—that distant cousin was mated to a fairy. I guess they went back for the war and my cousin died so, yeah, I have a grove of fae fruit trees and more on the back of the property I didn’t even know about until break.”

  “What’s the ‘more’?” she asked.

  “Fae dogs.”

  “You have fae dogs?” someone in the class demanded. “They’re yours, like they listen to you?”

  I snorted. “No, they only listen to fairies, according to Craftsman. They lived there and I’m not giving them an eviction notice. I’m certainly not the boss of them. We feed them and they don’t eat us.”

  “Still, it’s amazing they stay or interact with you at all,” Professor White muttered.

  “I think it’s the telepathy.” I shrugged. “I can hear them. They smell I’m related to the cousin they knew. But yeah, we feed them now and they’re fine staying and being awesome guards when we’re not there.”

  “A whole pack?” she checked. “What have you learned?”

  “Not to name them,” I drawled. “I tried to name one and I swear it sniffed at me like I was being silly and they walked off. Oh, and they poop in the corner of the garage. We feed them and they’ll leave dog shit in a corner which is fae dust, so there’s that.”

  “You look like you’re having trouble wrapping your mind around it,” she chuckled.

  I nodded. “I didn’t even know they were doing it, just one of the guys from the crew we hired to do some updating was freaking there was a huge pile of fae dust. I about fell over when I got filled in that it’s fae dog shit and worth a fortune. So yeah, we’ll feed the scary ass dogs. They even clean up the dropped fruit but now we’re getting them live animals.”

  “So you had an interesting break.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I drawled. “I did learn a lot too so yeah, I figured I’d share the gobs of fruit we picked and won’t be able to eat.”

  “Well, thank you for thinking of me. This is a wonderful treat.”

  “You’re welcome.” I went to take my seat, letting out a slow breath and hoping I played the part well.

  We had decided to get out in front of this just like the other potentially problematic stuff surrounding me. People spreading that story instead of one catching me with a marble and telling everyone I was a fairy was much safer.

  So as much as I hated sharing my personal stuff, I would do whatever it took if it meant we were safer.

  Darby, Craftsman, and even the guards who visited were all telling the same story and sharing fruit. They weren’t telling anyone the address though because I wanted to stay undeclared and someone would undoubtedly show up to try and steal fruit while I was at school.

  I planned to joke it was one less time to feed the fae dogs as they would absolutely eat people, but it explained what we didn’t want to say.

  And also Craftsman was free of any ties that might show up and demand answers of him. They still probably would, but now he could legally tell them to piss off with the council on his side.

  But I was glad that I’d talked to Mel about checking our vehicles for trackers before we headed to the house. It didn’t seem all that crazy after what happened with Izzy’s family among what others had said and done.

  Coach Khan must have heard about me giving out fruit because he had an expectant look on his face when I came out of the locker room. Yeah, right, the only thing I’d give that sexist dick was a swift kick to the family jewels.

  We did absolutely nothing but sparring, which was fine if we were working through what we’d been taught, but he didn’t teach anything. Only Mel did and people were advancing because of that. I was really going to hurt Khan if he took credit for it.

  Or better yet… Mel would.

  Natalie and her friends found me the moment I walked into the cafeteria with excited and hopeful looks on their faces. “We talked with our advisor and after what you suggested to Calloway, we want to form a business.”

  “Yay?” I muttered, glancing among them and clearly missing something.

  Ayesha moved her hand to Natalie’s arm before making a backup motion with her hands. “You know about the get-together Friday, yes?”

  “Yeah, the fancy job fair for upperclassmen.”

  “Right, we want to change what we were planning to do and do your idea with a company that reinvents wardrobes. Calloway was interested and said if we could impress her, she’d sponsor us to be contractors she recommended.”

  I practically felt the lightbulb go off overhead. “And you need more dresses.”

  “We were hoping maybe you wouldn’t mind? We’ll tailor them all to you when we’re done but yeah, we want to do sort of a runway show mix where all the servers are wearing the new gowns and at our booth show what they were before. We want to get a lock on the idea and Calloway before others already graduated do. We just need to get the legal stuff or whatever but Natalie thinks her family can help.”

  I opened my mouth to agree but realized there were a few problems with that. I held up my finger to hold them off and went to find Mel and Craftsman. Mel was walking in and I waved her to follow me and we found Craftsman, pulling him away from a table of teachers.

  I wrote the rune on my hand for show and put up a barrier around the three of us. “So Natalie and everyone want to run with my idea about redoing wardrobes
to seasonal styles. They asked if I have more dresses they could use.”

  Mel caught on first. “Which you undoubtedly do but all the houses are being watched for the trap.” She sighed when I touched my nose. “And it’s Friday.” She snapped her fingers. “But we have human friends that could absolutely find what they would need, even model and take the professional before pictures. If you foot the bill and time to find it, they can overnight dresses and shoes.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Why am I involved?” Craftsman chuckled, waving at our little powwow group.

  “Because I wasn’t sure how to fix this and I figured you were involved since you were the original group advisor and idea,” I admitted. “Plus, it involves me.”

  “That’s true and I always want to be involved with your schemes, but no, I’m not their group advisor. I’m working with some master’s students who focus on combining runes and want to do research on spell compression.”

  “Well then you’re the competition,” I growled, pulling back my rune so the barrier fell. I pushed him back towards the table. “You heard nothing and won’t tell on their booth.”

  “How do you always seem to be the boss of me?” he drawled, taking his seat again.

  “How did a freshman make a barrier that sturdy after being in this world only a few months?” another teacher demanded.

  “We worked on them,” I told him, gesturing to Craftsman. “Everyone’s always up in my everything so I wanted to focus on that.”

  “Not a bad move for the Power Playoffs,” the guy muttered, looking annoyed I’d nailed it. Right, they all had their people too.

  Mel and I went back to Natalie and the senior scholarship students and told them our idea as we went for food.

  “Where are they going to find dresses? I thought you had more?” Natalie asked, giving me a worried glance she was pushing too hard.

  “I do, but I also have a huge book of instructions to the wishes of my inheritance. I haven’t even been to the other properties yet. I’m sorry, it’s just not feasible before Friday.”

  She winced. “Right, sorry.”

  “No, I get it, and I want to help—I will, but I can’t like that.”

  “And Goodwill,” Mel interjected. “You’d be shocked what you can find there or even vintage secondhand shops. You could have customers beyond the elite then. I would do that, go get a designer dress for nothing and come to you for a revamp. You could do wedding dresses and whole bridal parties that way. Not everyone spending money is rich.”

  “That’s a really good point,” Ayesha agreed. “You don’t mind helping us?”

  “Nope, I’m free until Wednesday after classes,” Mel answered. “I’ll handle it and the modeling with the friends we know. Just owe Tams in services because she will undoubtedly need some wardrobe updating as well.”

  “Deal,” they all agreed. Cool.

  We dug into lunch and about halfway through, two of the hobgoblins came over with pies and set them out for us. I wasn’t the only one confused, but I wasn’t going to say no to pie.

  “We made dozens and dozens with the fae fruit you let Irma bring back,” one explained. “We’re going to make more if we can harvest another round before the snow comes. Melody purchased all the ingredients to make the crusts and whatnot so it’s not the university’s stuff and we’ll have lots through the winter.”

  “We picked the trees and plants pretty clean,” I warned her. “I don’t know how much would be left.”

  She snorted, waving off the concern. “You’re used to human foods, child. Fae magic is bountiful. There will be enough to load up a van by the weekend from the gobs of trees Irma said you have.” She gave me a hopeful look and I found myself nodding.

  “Sure, Mel and I can take a ride and load up. Do you guys mind making more food?”

  “Of course not.”

  “For the record, I asked you out before I knew of your grove,” Darby muttered before groaning at the bite he’d taken. “This is just grand, it’s so damn grand. Are they going to load up your freezers at the house with pies too?”

  “I’m almost offended you want winter break with pies more than staying with me,” I drawled, shrugging to answer his question.

  “I’m stealing a slice when I helped harvest them,” Craftsman announced as he cut into one of the pies.

  “Oi, that’s not a slice but a friggin’ quarter of it,” Mel objected.

  “I was going to share,” he grumbled.

  “We already shared with the teachers,” I reminded him. “And we’ve got more we’re handing out. Let our friends have the pies they brought me.”

  “You are so the boss of me,” he sighed as he cut the slice in half and put the rest back. He still walked off happily with his piece and I didn’t blame him as it was heaven. It was like apple pie on crack.

  “You can share half of one,” I told Hudson, Juan, Lucca, and Mason, who were already circling. They shared food and stuff with me so they could have some. They gratefully took it while the rest of us finished the other pie and a half.

  Well, minus Craftsman’s piece.

  After lunch I swung by the dorm to grab what I had for Professor Campbell, setting it on her desk when I arrived in class.

  Her eyes went wide as she picked up the jar of fae dust. “Professor White didn’t get this. She told me about the marbles though and I was hoping I got them too.”

  I frowned. “Right, but Craftsman said witches use it in spells and you would want it for teaching too.”

  Her eyes flashed understanding of what I was missing. “Professor White is a witch too.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that. I’ll get her some too next time I go home.” I shrugged. “I’m sure there will be a new pile of dog shit when I do.”

  “It tickles you that dog crap is magical in our world, doesn’t it?”

  “It really, really does,” I admitted before heading for my seat.

  Yeah, it really did. It seemed so out there and crazy like I couldn’t not laugh when I saw glittery fae dust and knew it came out the ass of scary fucking fae dogs that most called hellhounds.

  I mean, come on, I couldn’t be that mature to not laugh.

  The next day I started off the quarter right by teasing Craftsman in his class with bright pink panties, but then I got lost in the lecture and the new runes we were learning. Magic was so fascinating to me that I couldn’t even get over how I wanted to absorb it all and learn when I’d always hated school before.

  It sort of proved that adage that there weren’t bad students, just students who hadn’t found the right subjects for them. Same with readers; everyone just needed to find the right books for them to enjoy it like those of us who loved reading did.

  Professor Nelson and Instructor Tate were grateful for their fae fruit.

  I even gave some to Richardson. He may never be my favorite, but he’d covered for me a few times after figuring out I hadn’t finished high school. I did have him for the rest of the year so it would be nice if he wasn’t always a dick to me or a standoff.

  He thanked me but then cleared his throat. “I know you gave the fae dust to the witches, warlock, and Craftsman to the botany department, but I was hoping you might have some extra. My mate would be thrilled to her toes if I was to bring some home for her gardens.”

  “Sure, I’ll get her a jar when I go home next. I’m letting people have some if they help feed the dogs so if she’s got any extra organic veggies that would be great. They get all the fae fruit dropped from the trees, I guess, so we’re just focusing on meat, but the book I read said they like veggies too.”

  He just blinked at me. “You’re sitting on a fortune with them and you only want help feeding them? I don’t understand that.”

  “I already inherited a fortune, Professor Richardson,” I explained. “I don’t need another one or to be greedy. What I’ve had is a lot of darkness and people are so happy to get the fae fruit or dust. We all need that more than to grow my bank acco
unt. I wouldn’t even have known what it was if people weren’t kind enough to explain it and teach me. How can I be selfish with it then?”

  “I’m sorry that’s been your life, but sometimes I wonder if maybe we don’t need more unknowns to show us another side of the world besides just our own we get too locked in,” he muttered, shaking his head. “And congratulations on your midterm. I’m glad I was wrong about you.”

  “Thanks.” I wasn’t sure what else to say but I saw in his eyes that it wasn’t so much what I was or that I’d been an unknown, but he’d pegged me for a lazy human type of student.

  I could see it given how much friction there was when I started there between being armed and the bike. I probably screamed human stereotypical delinquent and troublemaker.

  And by human standards, I was, but the rules weren’t always that logical or reasonable and I was both.

  After geometry I sucked it up and went to deliver the last present, which would also come with an awkward conversation. Awkward might have been an understatement but I couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “He’s been expecting you,” the headmaster’s assistant told me when I arrived, giving me an amused look. Sort of a sinister amused one that didn’t make me want to visit him unarmed.

  I was armed so I sucked it up and knocked on the door. I waited until he called out to come in and closed the door behind me. I really wasn’t sure what to do so when he glanced up from what he was doing, I set the basket on his desk and flopped on his chair.

  “So your dad is a grade A nutfuck, huh?”

  “My grandfather as well, yes,” he drawled. “I’m well aware.”

  I bit the bullet and asked what I really wanted to know. “Do you hate me?”

  “Not in the slightest,” he promised, sighing when I gave him a disbelieving look. “You didn’t do it to hurt me and you needed to protect yourself. You were already on their radar and it wasn’t going to end well. I thought I had been making progress to detangle myself and others from him and his insanity, but you would have made him come out from being dormant.