Order of the Alpha #2

09

Damnit, if Athena were here right now, I could see the truth in this.

She studies me, "You look very familiar though. I can't put my finger on it. Do you have relations to royal families in the elemental realms? Perhaps another one, maybe not within this realm?" She asks me.

I shake my head, "I wouldn't know." I mutter.

She leans forward, "You have my permission to do what you need to here, so long as it doesn't endanger the students or the reputation of the school. Professor Athena has never been so protective of a student before, I wonder if there is more history there than she will care to tell me. However Athena and I—I owe her many favours over the years and this is the first time she's ever called on one. I will not lie and say I'm not intriguingly curious to know what you two are up to here, but I am not so blind as to get in her way." She murmurs, astutely moving the file back to me.

I stare at her, "I'm not here to affect anyone here, know that and what I'm doing here, to learn, and to be safer than I've ever been and I don't appreciate Professor Rowan breathing down my neck, so to speak, because who the hell knows whether vampires breathe or not." I tell her and she giggles lightly. After more small talk, she lets me leave.

The shield around the room drops and I open the door, stepping out. The lot of them were seated there, waiting. I close the door behind me, "Celeste." Creed's deep voice questions behind me.

I still and face him, he stands there in the middle as the rest of them look between us. Rowan stares at me, eyes narrowed. I stare at the lot of them, before turning back, "Wait." Creed calls out, but I continue walking and moving down the steps. Rowan appears in front of me, but I walk around him.

"Where's your office, Rowan?" I ask casually.

"Take a left, turn a one-eighty degrees and tell me what you and Professor Athena did to convince the principal to tell me to take you off the contestant list?" He asks me, roughly.

I smile, "So funny, I forgot to laugh. Don't worry, I know where it is." I wave him off, moving up a flight of stairs as they follow. Rowan's door had a PIN number on  the door.

He smiles tightly, "You will need me to get in. Now, discuss with me what just happened." He gestures to me.

I look at Creed, "I would much rather talk to the head of Legion, instead of an abusive bloodsucker." I say to Rowan, before turning to his pin code and grabbing my phone that had a pin reader through a card, I slide that in and get his code in under forty seconds after a simple data analysis.

The door opens.

I look at a stilled vampire, "You should get better security," I state, stepping into his office and switching the light on easily, "Now, where's that painting you thought you could buy off to entrap a former lover into those cold arms of yours where you think she'll forgive you for whatever you did back in the day but never will?" I wonder, stepping inside and seeing it behind the desk, it wasn't wrapped up, but looking at the thing, I place it on his messy desk.

Rowan observes me closely. I snap my eyes up to his as the others just stand there watching too.

Rowan's blank expression is a sign of emptiness, I stare at him, "Do you wish to say something or just let me continue talking because I can do this all night, Rowan? I don't care for your status, your reputation or the kind of creature you are, but I will use it to my advantage because while you think you're doing a good job here, keeping students who don't know any better supposedly safe, is actually the opposite of that." I tilt my head at him.

Before continuing, "Those games, those exercises, you told me every school does it, but not like that. Nothing like those exercises you made because they don't have the money for it. So, unless you want me to search up on you, and believe me, I'll do a much better job at it than whoever you used to get information on my file, then you'll tell me right now why the fuck you would put students through that? It's unethical, disgusting and damaging and liable for punishment, this time serviced on someone who's practiced in killing." I say slowly, Rowan's entire expression rolls on thinly veiled anger.