Kane's Fate 5 Chapter 1

“Kane…” Penny sighed softly. “We should go.”

She was spread out on the bed beneath me, with a knowing smile on her heart shaped face that made her lips turn up crookedly, and her eyes danced mischievously as I let my hands drag their way up her hips.

I tightened my grip on her waist and leaned down to kiss her.

“I know we should,” I muttered as our lips brushed together. “You’re totally right, in fact. But how can I, when I’ve got you here like this?”

The dark-haired seer giggled into my hungry kiss, and she wrapped her arms around my neck so she could press her pert breasts against my chest as she wound her tongue slowly around mine.

Penny was the newest addition to my pack, and I’d finally mated with her for the first time the previous night. Her hair, which was pitch dark and somehow always in her face anyway, was especially disheveled after our almost sleepless night together. She still looked adorable with it, though, and her rounded lips were far more swollen than usual from the amount of kisses and long, desperate makeout sessions we’d shared. She also still bore my brand on her shoulder, and the red bite mark was stark against her beautiful pale skin.

My pack was growing, and it filled me with an immense sense of pride. I never in a million years would’ve thought this would be my life, but I was enjoying every second of it. Sure, the world constantly needed saving, and there was always some bad guy’s ass that needed kicking.

But that was also my day job, too, so I couldn’t complain about it too much.

My best friend, Auden, had gotten me a summer job with his dad, who we all knew was crazy rich anyway, but we’d discovered exactly why and how he made his fortune when we’d first gone to visit him. Mr. Lawson ran an underground magical fight ring in the middle of a subterranean San Francisco, and I was now his prize fighter.

I had a constant supply of money, plus an insanely cool new car, a sleek gray Ford Mustang that Dax, my charmer friend, had cast a spell on to make it go at hyper speed whenever I needed it to.

“What’s on your mind?” Penny asked, and she gently pushed my hair away from my eyes as she studied me with her own.

“How do you always know when I’m in my head?” I smiled down at her and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Call it a seer’s intuition.” She giggled. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I nodded and kissed her again until I finally, reluctantly, pulled away from her to find some clothes. “Just thinking about how great this all is.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Penny commented with a sly smile, and she remained curled up in the mess of bed sheets as she watched me with hungry eyes. “Does this mean I’m your woman now? Like Indira, Charlotte and Demi?”

“Isn’t that what you signed up for?” I shot back with a wink as I pulled my shirt over my head.

“I guess it is…” Penny muttered and fought off the grin on her face.

But she couldn’t stop the flush that suddenly stained her normally pale cheeks an adorable shade of pink.

“As much as I’d love to leave you naked in bed for me to come back to…” I sighed heavily as I let my eyes wander over her naked body for what felt like the hundredth time. “C’mon, I guess we should get going before Seth bursts a blood vessel.”

The two of us reluctantly wrestled our way into our clothing from the night before, and it took all of my self restraint not to kiss the dark-haired seer and take her on top of the messy bed sheets all over again. I forced my mind away from the image of her ass in my hands and her face in the pillows, and I yanked my pants and sneakers on instead.

I stopped for one last breathless kiss with her before we made it out of the door, and then finally the two of us headed out onto the quad and toward the teachers’ dormitories.

The Meloria Academy quad normally teemed with people, especially in the warmer weather where students chose to study outside or hang out with their friends, but it had been blissfully quiet since the school let out for the summer.

So Penny and I didn’t feel too guilty for our very public display of affection, and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other as we crossed the empty campus. We ended up making out in the elevator the whole ride up to the teachers’ dorms but our messy kisses were interrupted by the fit of giggles that spilled out of Penny’s mouth every few seconds, and when we eventually stumbled into the dean’s apartment, everyone inside shot us a knowing look as we stopped dead in our tracks in the doorway.

I glanced down at Penny, bit my lip against the next chuckle that bubbled in my throat, and forced myself to swallow my laughter.

“Good night?” Indira asked innocently.

Penny couldn’t keep her giggle inside, and she clapped a hand to her mouth.

“We’ll take that as a yes.” Charlotte smiled.

“Welcome to the pack, Penny.” Demi winked and then came to wrap her arm through Penny’s. “Has he marked you, yet?”

“Demi,” I chuckled and shook my head as I glanced at where the dean was thankfully still out of earshot.

“What?” the caramel skinned shifter pouted reproachfully and shrugged her shoulders. “It was just an innocent question.”

“Nothing about you is innocent,” Charlotte said with her eyebrows raised, though her lips were twisted upward in her adorably crooked smile.

“Yes.” Penny nodded seriously in answer to Demi’s question, and her hand hovered instinctively around her shoulder as she looked up at me with round eyes. “He did.”

“Good.” Demi grinned as she pulled Penny away from me with a chuckle. “That means it’s official.”

I followed my girls into the dean’s living space and quietly shut the heavy wooden door behind me. Canmore herself was buried in paperwork at her desk, with a pair of thin spectacles across her eyes and a frown furrowing her brow as she studied whatever it was she was reading.

Indria was sitting on the edge of one of the plush leather couches Canmore had decorated her living space with, with Mr. Weaver bundled up in a thick fur blanket beside her.

Seth Weaver was crouched down by his father’s side with a mildly concerned look on his pointed face, and he barely even glanced up at us as we approached.

“He’s asked for you, Kane,” Indira said in a soft voice, and at her words, both Weaver men eventually turned their gaze upon me.

I sat on the couch opposite the Weavers and finally made eye contact with the person we’d rescued from the Alaskan cave hideout.

Mr. Weaver was a slight man, with a wiry frame and lean shoulders sloped down at such an angle that he would have looked severely downtrodden anyway, even if it wasn’t for the fact he’d just been rescued from some magical cave hideout. His pale gray eyes looked like they didn’t really possess any color at all, and they were so watery he constantly seemed on the brink of tears. .He had pale blond, almost white hair, hardly any eyebrows at all, and thin lips that slashed across his pale face like an ugly scar, and he shifted his weight inside the thick blanket and nodded to me slightly.

“Kane Turner…” he murmured softly as I sat down opposite him, and he fixed me with a watery stare as he licked at his dried lips.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weaver,” I replied with a polite nod. “How are you feeling?”

“Like death,” Mr. Weaver immediately fired back and then sighed so heavily his shoulders literally slumped like a cartoon. “But better. I suppose I have you all to thank for that.”

His voice was soft and quiet, and for a moment I felt as though I recognized it. I couldn’t quite place it, though, and as he continued to speak, the feeling eventually melted away.

“I’m not sure how long I was held captive in that place for,” Seth’s father murmured and shook his head. “But I am incredibly grateful to you for rescuing me.”

“It was our pleasure,” I told him sincerely. “Though I’m afraid rescuing you was the only upside to the mission. Philo Geralds got away.”

“Philo Geralds…” Mr. Weaver repeated the name with a huff. “A pompous know-it-all.”

“I agree.” I smirked. “Did he reveal any information to you?”

“I’m afraid not.” Mr. Weaver sighed and shook his head again. “It was quite the opposite, in fact. He wanted information from me, and I’m ashamed to admit that I gave it to him.”

“Under those conditions, you have nothing to be ashamed of,” Charlotte said gently.

“What sort of information was he after?” Indira asked as she cocked her head curiously.

“Well…” Seth’s father shifted his weight with a grimace and leaned back into the soft leather bound cushions of the sofa. “He knew I was a celebrated historian, and he knew I had focused my studies on the old gods and old magic for the entirety of my career.”

“Couldn’t he have bought your books for that?” Seth finally piped up with a disgruntled expression.

“Son.” Mr. Weaver wore a pained expression that he failed to hide with a smile. “There is a lot more to my studies than just the books I’ve published and the odd lecture I’ve given.”

“Like what?” Demi asked.

“Well…” Mr. Weaver shifted uncomfortably on the couch and didn’t meet Demi’s eyes, he just addressed his hands where they were clasped tightly together in his lap. “The Atroba, for one example.”

“The Atroba were fashioned after the old ways,” I suddenly remembered and looked at Mr. Weaver for clarification. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.” The pale-haired man nodded slowly and fixed me with a stare before he pulled his eyes away and started to speak at his hands again. “The cult itself was actually created by the first humans to bear witness to magic. They thought it should be shared, not harbored by just those lucky enough to be born with it.”

“Hence why magical people have hidden in plain sight since,” Indira added in a grim tone. “Mr. Weaver, we’ve tried to gather as much information as possible against these people, but if you have any other information for us, it would be greatly appreciated.”

“I understand,” Mr. Weaver sighed, and his voice was heavy with exhaustion.

“My father is tired,” Seth suddenly said, and he tipped up his nose haughtily. “Can we save the inquisition for when he’s rested?”

“That’s fair,” I agreed and nodded to Mr. Weaver again. “Please get some rest, okay?”

“I will.” He nodded sagely and fixed me with another watery stare. “I plan to return home with my son as soon as your dean will allow it. Thank you again, Mr. Turner. Your efforts will not go unnoticed.”

“I appreciate that, sir.” I smiled.

Dean Canmore, who’d carried on her work in silence, lifted her head and nodded us over as Seth and his father remained on the couches.

“I think you are all deserved of some rest,” the dean said as she looked up at the five of us, and she peered through her wire framed spectacles and clasped her hands together across the sprawling paperwork in front of her. “This is an order, and I’m aiming it mostly at you, Kane. Take a day.”

“But, Dean Canmore--” I started to protest, but she held up a hand, so I fell silent.

“You’re going to be no use to anyone if you’re constantly running yourselves ragged,” the dean said and ran a hand through her sandy colored hair with a huff. “That’s an order, Kane. Rest. Relax for twenty fours, okay?”

“We can save the world tomorrow.” Indira smiled up at me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

I bit my lip against the obvious protests but eventually succumbed to the dean’s suggestion and nodded.

“Why don’t we go and hang out on the quad?” Demi offered. “Auden’s probably out there on his sun lounger.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I told my shifter girlfriend and wrapped an arm around her shoulder as I sighed in defeat. “We can take a day, I guess.”

“Please do,” the dean said with a smile of approval, but then she suddenly turned her attention to Indira. “But, ahh, Ms. Winters, could you please stay behind?”

“Sure.” My snowy owl shifter girlfriend smiled widely. “For the… School related work you assigned me last week?”

“Yes.” Dean Canmore grinned for the first time in a while, and the genuine smile looked almost foreign on her tired face. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“It’d be my pleasure,” Indira said with a smirk of her own, and then she turned to the rest of us. “I’ll catch up with you guys tomorrow, okay?”

“What’ve you got cooking up?” I asked curiously as I wound an arm around her slim waist so I could give her a hug goodbye.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Indira teased and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“No promises.” I smirked as I squeezed her waist. “But I’ll make it up to you.”

“I bet you will,” Indira giggled.

“That’s enough hormones in my study for one day,” Dean Canmore sighed with a shake of the head, though her eyes still held the humor from her last smile. “Go and enjoy a little time off, Kane. You’ve earned it.”

I bid my farewells to both Indira and the dean, and then I gave the Weaver men an understanding nod as I departed the apartment with my other girlfriends.

It felt like Indira and the dean had some secret pact they needed to discuss, but I knew better than to get in the way of women who knew what they wanted, so I reluctantly left my first girlfriend to her scholarly duties and went to find Auden with the rest of my lovers.

It was a perfect early summer’s day, and the sun shone high in the sky as we made our way out of the teacher’s dormitories and onto the quad. I could hear the incessant drilling of bugs in the air, the scent of wildflowers filled my nose as we crossed the lush green lawn, and when I looked up, I could see the sky was an ocean of blue, with not one single cloud marking its emptiness.

“Oh, perfect timing!” Auden shouted when he spotted us walking across the quad toward him, and he eagerly waved us over.

My heavily pierced best friend was once again sunbathing in the middle of campus, though he’d outdone himself since we’d last seen him. He’d wedged a huge yellow and orange striped parasol into the ground so his sunspot had a good section of shade, and he’d stored a massive cooler beneath it that was bursting with beers, wine coolers, and a whole crate of White Claws.

But Auden was right because it was perfect timing, and as we made our way over to him, I noticed that he somehow had a blender held in one hand and a huge margarita glass in the other.

“I’ve just blitzed another round!” Auden grinned smugly as we sat around his sunbathing spot. “Who wants a marg?”

“Me please,” Penny said as she leaned forward eagerly. “And make it salty.”

“You’re a salt girl?” Auden asked with mock surprise. “Though that figures, you’re sweet enough as you are.”

“Careful,” I chuckled as my best friend lobbed me a bottle of beer from his cooler before he set to salting the rim of the margarita glass. “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking to.”

“Oh, really?” Auden smirked as he handed Penny a frozen cocktail and began to pour one out for himself. “Made it official, have you?”

“Last night,” Demi commented slyly as she cracked her raspberry White Claw and nudged Auden with her shoulder. “Penny’s dorm room quite hilariously doesn’t have a soundproofing charm on it.”

“Oh!” Penny gasped into her frozen cocktail and choked on the first sip of her frozen margarita.

“She’s just playing with you,” I assured Penny with a laugh before I playfully glared at Demi. “I know you didn’t hear us, the shifter dorms are too far away.”

“Still, probably a good thing everyone’s home for summer vacation,” Penny muttered, and she swirled her margarita around as a rosy pink flush started to stain her cheeks.

“That means it was really good.” Charlotte grinned as she grabbed a wine cooler from Auden.

“I literally do not wanna know.” My best friend laughed and shook his head. “Honestly, if you’d have told me the guy I met on my first day at Meloria would end up with four bombshell girlfriends, I’d have laughed in his damn face.”

“You did laugh in my face,” I reminded him as I sprawled myself out on the grass directly in the light of the sun. “You poked fun at me for having a crush on Indira, remember?”

“That’s right,” Auden sighed nostalgically. “I did. Happy times.”

We spent the rest of the early summer’s afternoon laughing, joking around on the quad, drinking more of Auden’s cocktails, and generally just enjoying the weather and the company.

As much as it frustrated me to think that Philo Geralds was probably plotting everyone’s demise right this very moment, it was admittedly quite refreshing to just… be for a moment. I’d spent so long with my foot on the gas that it was a welcome reprieve to park and kill the engine for a little while.

We spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the warmth of the sun and chatting about everything from new music to viral TikTok videos to how we’d route our trip to Europe, and we very purposefully avoided any discussion on the Atroba or Philo Geralds.

I ached to return to the fray, but that could happen tomorrow. I wanted to actually spend my twenty four hours off from being the savior of the magical world by relaxing, and after sinking several bottles of beer and maybe one or two frozen cocktails courtesy of Auden’s insistence, I had the perfect idea in my head of how to properly enjoy my time off.

The sun eventually began to set on Meloria Academy, and once there was more shade on the grass of the quad than actual sunlight we’d totally emptied Auden’s booze cooler and decided it was probably time to head in for the night.

Auden himself used his pusher telekinesis to hoist the colorful parasol out of the ground, and I laughed as it bobbed behind him like an eager puppy while he made his way back to his own dorms.

I watched my best friend go and then sighed as I looked around at my three waiting girlfriends.

Demi, with her twisted cornrows and caramel colored skin, just had a knowing half-smirk on her face as she noticed my expression. Charlotte, who was wearing an adorable pale green sundress that accentuated both the red tones in her hair as well as the gentle swell of her cleavage, noticed Demi’s look and giggled into the last few sips of her wine cooler.

And Penny, with her tousled dark hair and sparkling eyes, just looked up at me past hooded lids as her finger swirled the rim of her almost empty cocktail glass.

“Shall we go hang out in the dorms?” Demi asked as she nonchalantly climbed to her feet, and she looped her arm through Penny’s.

“Oh,” Penny giggled, and she subconsciously leaned into Demi and licked the salt from her fingertip. “Yeah, I guess we probably should, it’s getting kinda dark out already.”

“Let’s go, then.” I grinned widely and then helped Charlotte to her feet.

The redhead brushed the skirt of her dress down and smiled sweetly up at me as she leaned against my arm.

“Yes,” my telekinetic girlfriend purred. “Let’s go.”

My girlfriends and I left the quad and headed back toward the shifter dorms, though our giggling and joking was suddenly stifled by the unwelcome presence of Seth Weaver in the common room.

“Oh, god…” he groaned when he spotted the four of us stumbling through the doorway. “Just what I need… Like a hole in the head…”

He’d been curled up in the corner of one of the couches with his head buried in a book, and he looked at us all with comically raised eyebrows and his usual air of disdain.

“Seth!” Charlotte gasped as she tried to stop the giggle that had already made its way past her plump lips.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked with a lopsided grin.

“Last I checked, this is still my dorm, too,” my shifter classmate said pointedly, and his eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline as he looked us over. “Had a good day off from saving the world, have you?”

“It was deserved,” Demi pouted and stuck her tongue out at him, but then she sighed knowingly. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s okay,” Seth huffed. “Despite you guys grilling him.”

“Just doing our job,” I replied with a casual shrug. “We did save him from probably certain death, after all.”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” Seth muttered as he gently closed the book he’d been reading.

The gorilla shifter stared at it in his hands for a moment before he suddenly heaved himself to his feet and headed toward the corridor of bedrooms.

“For the love of all that is holy, do not keep me awake!” he called out over his shoulder.

“There’s a soundproof charm, apparently!” Penny called back helpfully and then fell into a fit of tipsy giggles as Seth just shook his head without even looking back.

“Okay, I’m making us coffee.” I laughed. “Our super healing should also help with the hangover.”

“Ohhh…” Charlotte muttered as she followed me into the kitchen area. “I can think of a pretty good way to sober us all up…”

“Oh, is that right?” I smirked down at my pusher girlfriend as I switched the coffee pot on and leaned against the kitchen counter. “What’d you have in mind?”

Charlotte pressed herself against me and lightly kissed my neck, and as her lips gently moved across my skin, I glanced across at the couches where Demi and Penny watched us with hungry eyes.

“I feel like it involves far less clothing than we have on right now,” Charlotte said innocently as she pulled away from me, and she twirled a strand of her red hair around her pinky finger and fixed me with a knowing grin.