Cast in Faefire: An Urban Fantasy Romance (The Mage Craft Series Book 3) by S.M. Reine Page A

enough fields for all of the school’s shifters to run free on the moons.
    “We have over fourteen hundred students in residence. We’re building another wing so we can accommodate more.” Rylie stepped back as the gate swung open. “You can see Golden Lake over there.”
    The summer camps where Rylie and Seth met had been called Golden Lake and Silver Brook. “Isn’t that an ominous name?”
    “It’s acknowledging history,” Rylie said. “I had to keep a piece of that around when everything else was gone. Come on, the witches are in the south wing.”
    Even though the Academy was younger than Genesis, and hardly an antique, it had been designed to look almost like an old ski lodge. It was open, warm, comfortable. Lots of low chairs and big windows. Seth took a deep breath when they entered the atrium, and the musky scent of werewolves almost overwhelmed him with nostalgia.
    He also smelled something like burning oak and lavender. That smell didn’t belong with the others.
    “Most kids are outside for lunch right now,” Rylie explained as she waved and smiled at students. They were scattered around the atrium, reading on tablet devices, lying underneath potted trees, playing hacky-sack. None of them looked particularly awed to see the Alpha in their midst. Apparently she wasn’t an unusual visitor.
    The smell of burning oak only grew stronger as they headed toward the south wing.
    “Is Nash home?” Seth asked. Nashriel was Rylie’s son-in-law, an angel who had married her oldest daughter.
    “He hasn’t been for a while,” Rylie said. “Why do you ask?”
    Smoky, woody smells almost always meant angels. If Seth could detect it with his non-werewolf nose, then it must have been recent. “No reason,” he started to say.
    Then they passed the administrative offices and the door opened. Seth and Rylie almost tripped over the woman who emerged.
    She must not have expected to see anyone in the hallway. She looked guilty. “Hello again, Rylie.” And then her eyes moved to him, and her jaw dropped. “Seth.”
    “Marion,” he said. “Hi.”

8
    M arion’s time recovering in bed from anemia had been long and tedious. Boredom was a challenging thing for a half-angel. She’d occupied herself with books on witchcraft and one timeless day with Konig, but it was poor replacement for the kind of adventuresome lifestyle to which she was accustomed.
    Worse than bored, she’d been lonely.
    Seth had vanished after the incident in Sheol and hadn’t visited while she was healing. Not once.
    Now here he was, walking around the werewolf sanctuary with the Alpha herself—the woman who pretended to be like Marion’s mother, even while telling the OPA that they needed ways to kill her.
    Even so, Marion forgot to hold a grudge. She was too relieved to see Seth whole and alive and passably mortal.
    “Thank the gods!” She flung her arms around his neck in a tight embrace. He staggered as if surprised. It took him a moment to pat her on the back, but his weak laugh was almost as relieved as how she felt.
    He still smelled like leather and gunpowder.
    “Gentle,” Seth warned, though he squeezed her tightly. “I’m not back to normal yet. Whatever normal is.”
    She stepped back but didn’t release him. If Marion had her way, she’d be hanging on to his arms until he swore up and down to never go missing ever again. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine for now.” He patted his chest. “I’m not healing, though.”
    Marion didn’t need to see under the shirt to know that he was touching wounds inflicted by the same Hounds that had nearly killed her. They would have eaten him if she hadn’t intervened.
    “What were you doing in there?” Rylie’s voice was an unpleasant reminder that she still existed.
    Marion looped her arm through Seth’s and held him firmly, staring right into Rylie’s eyes. Among werewolves, that kind of eye contact was considered a play for dominance. “It’s unimportant. I was just on