Root Rot Academy: Term 2 Read online

  Root Rot Academy

  Term 2

  Rhea Watson

  Copyright 2021 Rhea Watson

  Published by Rhea Watson, Amazon Edition.

  All rights reserved.

  License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons or situations is unintentional and coincidental. References or mention of trademarks are not intended to infringe on trademark status. Any trademarks referenced or used is done so with full acknowledgement of trademarked status and their respective owners. The use of any mentioned trademarks is not sponsored or authorized by the trademark owner.

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  Paperback ISBN: PENDING

  Cover Art: Anika @ Ravenborn Covers

  Proofreader: One Love Editing

  Content Warning

  Please note that the Root Rot trilogy includes content that may not be suitable for all readers. Across all three full-length novels, you’ll find a Why Choose romance, graphic violence, coarse language, and detailed steamy, steamy steam.

  Contents

  1. Bjorn

  2. Jack

  3. Alecto

  4. Alecto

  5. Bjorn

  6. Alecto

  7. Gavriel

  8. Alecto

  9. Jack

  10. Alecto

  11. Gavriel

  12. Bjorn

  13. Alecto

  14. Jack

  15. Bjorn

  16. Alecto

  17. Jack

  18. Alecto

  19. Bjorn

  20. Alecto

  21. Gavriel

  22. Alecto

  23. Gavriel

  24. Alecto

  25. Jack

  26. Alecto

  27. Bjorn

  28. Alecto

  Coming Soon!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedicated to snowy sunsets and candlelit Yules.

  1

  Bjorn

  A lifetime ago, I was the one to wield the axe.

  The sword.

  The daggers.

  My bare fucking hands.

  As a human raider and an orphaned vampire, I had spilled oceans of blood—painted this whole island red time and time again. Every sin imaginable, I reveled in. Every. Last. One. I laughed and sang and strung men up by their bowels just to watch them squirm.

  Centuries crawled by. Humanity turned civil—and slowly, painfully, I had as well. Not quite the tamed dog everyone hoped us rogue vampires might eventually become, but I set aside my axe, my sword, my daggers, my bare hands. Embraced a more cultured way of life. Learned philosophies and psychology. Studied humanity. Studied emotion and thought and needs.

  I came around eventually.

  Dedicated my new life to helping young supernatural beings, shifters on the cusp of destruction and orphan vampires who want to burn the world. Teach them that the bloodlust, the war cries in their hearts, didn’t control them. They had power over themselves, something that had taken me ages to learn—and above all, accept.

  Yet I seldom considered those who had survived my brutality.

  Did they crawl into their beds after the assault, after the loss of their beloved, after the burning of their homes and never want to leave, too?

  Did they wallow in their own weaknesses?

  Did they mourn?

  Did they flinch at the creak of a floorboard and the squeak of a doorknob?

  Two days after Samhain, nearly halfway through our weeklong break between terms, I still couldn’t decide if I was pathetic or not. After all, I had survived the attempt on my life. Leroy and his gang had been expelled with black marks to their names. The security that had stood by as they levitated my incapacitated body through the back gate had been fired with charges pending against them from the high council of academies.

  All in all, we were on the right track.

  Alecto and Gavriel had found me—taken the time to look for me on a night meant for debauchery and celebration.

  Jack had stood up for me, taking swift and severe action against all who wronged me… hurt me.

  The rest…

  No one had come to check on me besides head healer Seamus, and the warlock had just been doing his job. No one asked after me. No one… cared.

  And that was fine.

  Just as I had curbed my savagery, I had accepted that most of the supernatural community wished vampires would one day cease to exist. My kind had legions around the world, ancient monarchs who wielded more power than anyone cared to admit. They despised us for our strengths and our failings, our effortless immortality and our inability to do something as simple as stand in the sun.

  I knew that.

  My colleagues’ disinterest had never bothered me before.

  But I had never come so close to the end before.

  Never feared I wouldn’t wake up.

  Never felt Death’s cold hand on my shoulder. Never hallucinated a reaper behind my closed lids.

  A reaper wouldn’t come for me in my final moments.

  My soul had left long ago—as soon as the vampiric disease killed me and reanimated my corpse, I was gone.

  And I had almost been gone for good that night. Crucified. Staked. They had all avoided my heart, either intentionally or because they had no fucking idea where it actually sat. Perhaps they had wanted to see the fear in my eyes at sunrise.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  While a vampire could push himself three, maybe four days without dozing off, it wasn’t ideal. We were solid matter. Flesh and bone. Thick, cold blood and a barely beating heart. The corpse needed sustenance—and it needed sleep. Just a little, here and there, to recharge the battery that fueled the superhuman body this sickness gave us.

  But I couldn’t… close my eyes.

  Not without feeling the pain of the stakes, the iron nails in my palms.

  It had all healed within the hour. Wounds closed. Flesh regenerated. Internal muscle and tissue and viscera mended. If someone didn’t know a bunch of wayward teenagers had nearly murdered a seven-hundred-year-old Viking vampire, they wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at me today.

  But I still felt it—them, every last stake, every pinprick of wood. All of it. Over and over again. Heard the laughter. Endured the agony. Tasted death.

  It was karma.

  I had centuries of it stacked on top of me, held up by a few flimsy boards and rusty screws, precarious and ready to crumble at any moment. I had done all that and worse to humans in my lifetime. To shifters. To witches and warlocks and all sorts. Anyone I could get my hands on. Anyone who caught my eye. I had played the butcher and liked it, and no matter how many new leaves I turned over, I could never fully erase that.

  The last few decades, I’d been a good boy. I taught the dregs of supernatural society, the children offloaded by their parents because their darkness ran too deep. I gave to charity. Sponsored animal rescues. Signed petitions. Protested inhumane conditions and laws. Saved some poor girl from a vampire attack in Essex a few years back on a term break just like this one. Heard her squealing. Smelled the blood. Ripped him away and tore him apart.

  Modified her memory. Got her home. Even watched her for a few days after, just to be sure she was all right.

  I had started to pay back a lifetime of carnage, one brick at a time—but it wasn’t enough.

  If the scales of the universe had anything to say about it, many m
ore encounters just like Samhain loomed on a dark horizon.

  And if I couldn’t handle this—couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t speak to those who did bother to check on me—then I was in for a rough fucking ride.

  A floorboard creaked outside my closed door.

  She did it on purpose. Alecto usually avoided the more talkative wood panels around our flat, but since Samhain, she stepped on each one, announcing her arrival before she reached my door. Exhaling sharply and shrouded in shadow, I pushed up from my slumped position on the bed, neck stiff from the odd angle it had been bent at for… well, hours.

  Pathetic or not.

  Still unsure.

  Her knuckles rapped on my door just as I drew my knees up and slung an arm around them—casual, totally normal, seated in a dark room, alone, exhausted and sulking.

  “Yes?” I croaked. As the knob squeaked, I went for the little lamp on my bedside table, bathing the space in a yellow glow that cast shadows across her face when she poked her head in.

  “Hey.”

  I offered a limp smile in return. “Hey.”

  That was permission enough: Alecto slipped into my bedroom, bringing her vanilla-infused scent with her, the kind that clung to my sheets and muddied up the walls. Even long after she left, she was still here, still hovering.

  When I came to, it was there—vanilla. That charged through the fog first. Then shimmering pools of amber. Plop. A hot, wet tear on my cheek. Her voice all high and frantic as she dragged me off Death’s door.

  She had seen to me a few times a day since then, always seeming mildly disappointed when she tiptoed in and found me awake. Sometimes she knocked. Sometimes she didn’t.

  Most of the time, however, she came to me dressed down. Loose trousers and thick sweaters. Wool and cotton and fleece, her hair in a sloppy bun on top of her head, sometimes dangling down her back.

  Things should have been different between us by now.

  I should have kissed her come midnight on Samhain, somewhere private and soft and secret.

  Today—tonight, this morning, whenever—Alecto appeared dressed up, looking lovely for someone else, not me. Gone were the ill-fitting slacks and the staticky sweatshirts. In their place, leather pants that clung to her shapely calves and thighs. Faux leather, actually, given the smell. Ankle boots with a low heel. A pine-green long-sleeved shirt that, while slouchy, somehow highlighted her physique as if it were flush to her curves. An attempt at casual and sexy. Even her curls had been tamed into a perky, bouncy ponytail, a few loose tendrils coiled around her face.

  And… makeup?

  She had somewhere else to be but first had to check on her ward.

  “I made you something.”

  Blinking hard, my gaze dropped to her hands. So focused on her outfit, I hadn’t even noticed the pint glass, the liquid inside a red ombre like some fancy cocktail.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s a sleeping aid,” she insisted, padding over to my bedside and setting it on the table. “I’m sure you can smell the lavender, but there’s a touch of valerian root and some blue skullcap, plus—”

  “I don’t have trouble sleeping.”

  Her full mouth snapped shut, then twisted into a frown at the outright lie we both saw through. Sniffling softly, Alecto fidgeted with the cuffed sleeves snug around her wrists, the fabric hugging her forearms and flaring at her elbow.

  “Right. Sure. I just—”

  Really, like I deserved her pity. “It’s a nice sentiment, but—”

  “I had a shitty thing happen to me when I was little,” the witch blurted, her cheeks suddenly flaming, her eyes everywhere but me. “And back then, I had trouble sleeping… for a long time.”

  Lost for words, I sat up straighter. “Alecto—”

  “So, I thought—”

  “This is very kind of you—”

  If we could figure out how to speak to each other again, that would be fucking swell. It was all my doing, the awkwardness between us, the tension in the air. She had found me at my most vulnerable. Rescued me. Brought me back to life and tucked me into bed. I was the wounded animal here, and I was the one who kept throwing off our rhythm.

  “It’s a blood base,” Alecto told me after a reset pause, fidgeting with her fingers—oh. Look. She had done her nails at some point, the tips even and glossy, not a speck of soil to be found. Rare, given her daily routine. “Type O. It’s all they had in the kitchen. I know regular food…” She trailed off, mouth snapped shut again, and then cleared her throat. “Er, I mean, human food—”

  “It’s fine.” I dismissed her embarrassment with a wave, the flush in her cheeks lovely but unnecessary. She fiddled distractedly with the loose wispy curls around her face, alternating between tucking them behind her ears and dragging them back out.

  “Anyway, I know it can make you a little nauseous, so I kept the herb dosage low.” As if to still her fidgety fingers, she finally folded her arms, then offered a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Not because she couldn’t smile at me—but like she wasn’t sure how to anymore. Alecto seemed to struggle between playing caretaker and friend, overly nurturing one moment and sarcastically blasé the next. She couldn’t figure out how to take care of me—a creature far older and far, far stronger—but I still appreciated her efforts.

  If anything, they made me want her more.

  Which was a problem. Samhain had ruined everything, the buildup broken, the bond between us splintering apart and weaving back together different.

  “Plus, you know,” she rambled on, “a little magic to help with sleep… People always say my potions are smooth. I’ve never made one specifically for a vampire before, so I’m sorry if—”

  “Thank you, Alecto.” Taking the glass from the table, mindful not to slosh any of her hard work over the rim, I tried to inject my grin into my words, desperate for our easy conversations again. Desperate for us again. “This is too kind of you.”

  Frustration knit her brow. “It’s not… It’s… Too kind isn’t…” Huffing softly, she backpedaled, her smile strained and stretched too wide. “You’re welcome. When and if you want to talk, I’m here.”

  Right. Pathetic it was, then. Any other vampire would have bounced back after this within the night, but here I was, moping, still wounded days later.

  Traumatized.

  Definitely pathetic—and in front of the woman I wanted to impress. I had taught Alecto to waltz. Soothed her concerns about Samhain. Shouldered the burdens, the bulk of the work, because it seemed to make her less stressed. Made her laugh night after night on the couch out there. Picked up toothpaste for both of us in the village when she was running low. Let her paint my toenails—once—because it made her giggle-squeal and snort, which then made her blush the loveliest crimson hue.

  And now…

  Now the dynamic was off.

  Because of me.

  Silence dragged on again, the pint glass clutched in both hands and sitting on my lap, and I finally managed a nod. “I know.”

  She would listen to me. Share words of wisdom—apparently she had trauma of her own.

  And I’d hate every second of it, becoming less and less of a man in her eyes the more I shared. No. Never. These anxieties, this trauma, stayed with me.

  After a brief hesitation, Alecto drifted to my bed, knees nudging the wooden frame, then leaned over and kissed my temple. Braced on my shoulder for balance, her hand was an inferno compared to my icy flesh, and without meaning to, my eyes fluttered shut, all of me enveloped in vanilla and her.

  Our first kiss.

  If only I had the stones to turn my head and claim her mouth, transform this chaste peck into something more.

  But I was broken. Pathetic. Lost.

  No sense infecting her as well.

  In my mind, it lasted forever. In reality, the kiss went on maybe five whole seconds before she withdrew, smoothing a hand down her flirty sweater thing before flashing a farewell grin and heading for my
bedroom door.

  “Where are you headed dressed like that?” It took effort, but the question almost sounded like the me of three days ago—before it all went to shit.

  “Oh.” Alecto turned back, still ambling for the door, and motioned to her outfit with a shrug. “I have an appointment with Jack. Figured I shouldn’t go in my pajamas.”

  Curious. Jack was currently drowning in the aftermath of Samhain, much of his security decimated, Iris Prewett on her yearly retreat with the entire admin team, the high council no doubt breathing down his neck after a professor was nearly murdered on his watch. Strange that he would make time for anything but damage control. “About what?”

  Another hapless shrug—as if that would deafen the sudden thunder in her chest. “No idea. He scheduled it.”

  For the first time in days, genuine amusement fluttered through me. It died fast, but at least it was there… At least I could feel something beyond this tedious, unwelcome tangle of emotions.

  Smirking, I watched her go, head bobbing at her little wave, then waited until she almost had the door shut to add, “Liar.”

  Her breath hitched, the door a hair off from closed, and she then dragged it the rest of the way a beat later. Not quite a slam, but firm enough to make a point: mind your own business, Bjorn.

  So be it. Chuckling, I brought her potion up for a sniff, the blood strong, the lavender stronger, teeny bits of greenery floating on top.

  Right.

  I plugged my nose and gulped the entire thing down in a single go—for her. For her efforts.