Aston

Chapter 4

Astor had to part ways with Amelia as soon as he parked the car. They were both nervous about their first class together, but he had made sure they were early enough to give her plenty of time to run to her dorm room and still make it to class on time.

He'd made sure she knew that he would keep his word about cutting her from the class if she was late. In the paper he read yesterday, she had apparently forgotten to set her alarm clock but accepted the responsibility. He admired her honesty, and ability to own up to her mistakes. He tried to hide a smile when she showed up 15 minutes early, and he knew she saw the corners of his mouth twitch up.

He sat reading the papers from yesterday, skimming mostly. A few of them failed to make the word count, but most of them rambled on adding useless words like 'the' and 'but' to make it. He gave those ones half marks. Not a single one impressed him.

As the class began to file in he handed them back their papers. Some scowled, some frowned, and some smiled as they saw their scores. His goal as a teacher was to improve their writing, and he knew the only way to do that would be to heavily criticize them on their wrongdoings. So as the last student joined them, the clock changed to 8:00am, he locked the door. He quickly tallied the attendance, it would be a long day for all of them.

"Today, class," he began. "I am going to teach you how to make word quotas on essays. I noticed many of you chose to add the word 'the' after almost every word. Let me tell you now that is not a good way to make the word count." A few of the scowling students tried to hide in their chair, but Amelia perked up.

He knew her major was English Literature, so he knew that what would come next would be the most important lesson of her college education.

"Now," he continued. "Just like with your bodies, the most important aspect of it is the skeleton. Without it the paper is just flimsy, useless. You can't do anything with it. Build the bones, then the muscles, and so on so forth. But it depends on what story you are writing.

If you're writing a novel, or fiction, you want to focus on dialogue. This is what keeps your story going. It is the bones, if you will. Write all the dialogue you want down, then add the specifics. Add the scenes, the actions, imagery. But in this class you will be mostly writing non fiction. And as with all non fiction stories, your bones will be an outline. You don't have to stick with it. You can make some small, some long, some bulky and some thin. But the point of the outline is to keep you on target." Aston was starting to get bored with himself. So he decided an activity would be in order.

"I want everyone to gather into pairs. Pairs means two." He added, eyeing the group of girls in the front. "I want you guys to work together to build an outline for a paper about..." he acted like he was thinking for a moment, "a major event that changed a society. It can be a tsunami, an earthquake, a shooting, even a dam breaking." His breath caught in his throat. He hadn't meant to add that, but his thoughts were still on that day. "You may use your phones, computers, and what not. It will be due tomorrow." He hurried out of the room into his office, quickly closing the door.

Aston hadn't meant to think about that, but the actions of his alpha nearly tore him in two. He put his hands on his desk, gripping it tightly. He took a breath, trying to calm down.

He hadn't forgotten about Sam and Tristan. He hadn't forgotten what they did. He knew that everyone returned to normal, but he couldn't forget the deer's warning.

It will not end here, she said. As the spirits do, so does the Baku follow.

He shuddered at the thought of meeting another one. After they left, he scoured libraries and the internet to find anything he could on the subject. The only thing he found, however, was that Baku was the capital of Azerbaijan, wherever that is, and a Japanese mythological creature.

Then he realized, the college recently got a new mythology professor, someone he knew. He cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. He grabbed the phone on his desk, dialing his number.

"Hello?" The voice picked up on the third ring.

"Hey Luke!" Aston greeted.

"Oh hey Aston! Long time no see." He said.

"Josh told me that you moved out here, can we meet soon?" Aston asked.

"Sure, I got lunch from eleven to one, we can meet then?"

"That works for me, my class doesn't get out until ten thirty." Aston replied.

"Class? Where are you teaching?" Aston rolled his eyes. Typical for Luke to be ignorant to everything except his studies.

"I'm in the same building," he laughed. "I teach the English Lit 1 class."

"Man I heard you already cut like fifteen people!" Aston could hear the laugh in his voice.

"It isn't my fault they're stupid." Aston grumbled.

"We are teachers, to us everyone is stupid. Anyway, I'll meet you in your class at about eleven. Sound good?"

"Yeah, works for me!" They said their goodbyes and Aston placed the phone back on the ringer. He shuddered as he remembered when Josh entered his office all those years ago. Never in his life had he seen the most powerful vampire in the world so afraid of anything.

He ran his hand through his hair, Astons stress levels were slowly starting to rise again. He wished for a moment of peace, but realized for someone like him peace was impossible.

For those who struggle for peace, war is inevitable, he thought to himself.