your shares back and the fae dust, you thought you were brilliant to offer them up because the dust costs more than your allowance gives you.”
“It’s still fraud and I’m filing—” she started.
I laughed right in her face. “Go right ahead. March right to Geiger and tell him I committed fraud because you thought your uncle would already steal the shares back from me. Tell him I didn’t disclose I was getting other shares from other idiots like you and watch him laugh, because I don’t have to tell you things like that.”
She let her hand fly to slap me, but it was caught before she could.
By Mel.
Who was not happy some bitch had tried to slap me in a group gunning for me.
“Watch yourself,” she warned, her voice cold and lethal. “You want to bitch about getting tricked when you thought you were tricking Tamsin, fine, you can do that. But you smack her for outsmarting you, and I’m going to return the hit. With my fist and smash in your face.”
“The council won’t let this stand,” the witch snapped as she tried to yank back her hand from Mel.
Who only smirked at her and easily kept hold.
“I think they’re going to be a bit busy trying to figure out who they were willing to sell out for the seat the head of the Craftsman family was going to take,” I drawled. I wanted to roll my eyes when people gasped. Had they truly missed that part? How were these idiots elite? “And it’s done. I can’t force them to give up their shares, but they’re not majority voters anymore. I am. They’re off the boards and—”
That set people off, and several shoved against the witch and Mel to get to me.
“Enough,” Julian bellowed, using his magic to push people back away from us. “This is a college campus, not a pub you all can brawl at. Handle yourselves with some decorum.”
“Says the traitor to his family,” one warlock stupidly sneered.
Julian focused on the guy and couldn’t hide his disgust. “I am a professor here. I gave an oath to protect the students. That might mean dick to you, git, but my words means something to me. I also don’t believe in selling our people—any supe or woman—for any reason. I’m sorry you can look at them as property, but I was asked to do something despicable and I said no. I’m ashamed my family asked it of me.”
An amazing thing happened and even others in the group looked at the guy like he was trash for judging Julian. Granted, a lot of them were witches, but it was progress. They could at least see how over the line it was as women even if they hated me.
Sad, but I honestly saw that as progress.
While there was a lull in the outrage, I decided to take advantage of it. “I am sorry this will cause problems in your lives. For some of you. The dicks here who thought it was a down payment on buying me, as you planned to do just that, and mate me, take all I had—fuck off, and I hope you eat shit and die. The rest of you, fine, you weren’t great, but yeah, you’re gonna get a lot of shit. I did this for survival.
“You weren’t innocent and thought I’d get screwed in the end. But you’re gonna get heat for this, and that wasn’t my goal. I didn’t push the supe world this far where it’s like this and fucking councils believe they can just take a person over and drain her, take all she has as they want. I’m fighting for my survival. I get they’re your families or you’re protected. I am not. I’m protecting myself and others. I did what I had to.”
“It’s a great speech, as you stand on your pedestal and lecture about honor, after you screwed us all over,” someone complained.
I sighed. “Again, you all tried to screw me. There are lots of people I outrightly bought shares from. There are tons of people who simply bought fae dust from me, and I used that money to buy shares. You wanted to have your cake and eat it too, and I used that. So, don’t turn this around and play the victim. I didn’t lecture about purity wearing a pope’s hat and fuck the football team. You came to me wearing horns.”
What else was there to really say? Either they would hear me and take a