“You’re going to regret that,” she snarled.
“No. But you will.” Something strange was happening. I couldn’t feel my fingertips. My vision started to shift, colors leaching from the edges, blurring and changing until my entire gaze narrowed to tiny, red pinprick.
All my rage, focused on Plant’s face.
It gurgled up out of me, some kind of black bile.
Oh shit. Stop it. Don’t do whatever this is. A public fight with Plant was not the way to stay out of the spotlight. I tried to open my mouth, to somehow call the rage back, but no sound came out.
Or at least, I thought no sound came out.
Clamping her hands over her ears, she dropped to the floor, howling in pain.
No no no!
“Ash. Easy.” Nash had his hand on my back, rubbing slow circles between my shoulder blades. Whatever I’d done didn’t seem to be affecting him, or any of the other Shifters.
Only Plant.
Only where I’d focused my rage.
I had hurt her. I wanted to regret it, but I didn’t. This pain, this sound I called upon out of anger was a dangerous road, one I shouldn’t travel. But Plant was a bully and I had to speak a language she understood.
Pain was a universal communicator.
If only I understood how I’d done this. Both so I could make it stop, and so, if I needed to, I could do it again.
Sucking in a breath, I held it until Plant stopped crying.
“Just stuck here, huh?” Nash whispered in my ear.
“Yeah…” I stared, his answering chuckle reminding me of earlier conversation.
With a slight pressure on my back to guide me, he led me out of the cafeteria and down a dark hallway I hadn’t seen before. I started to think that maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, following a werewolf down a long, dark hallway after I’d made one of his own weep in agony.
But the warmth of his hand branded the small of my back, and I never once tried to turn around.
He led me down a path I recognized, one that led us into study hall.
With its arched ceiling and rows of bookshelves, all formed from the carved sandstone, it had to be one of the oldest parts of St. Damon’s. It was also the grandest. Carved gargoyles perched atop shelves and peered around corners, their tails winding up pillars and around railings leading to the second floor’s catwalk, where the senior books were shelved.
The ceiling flaunted crumbling murals, telling their own story of the rise of demons.
Every time I tried to study it, the pictures would shift, carrying out their twisted history and leaving me feeling as if I’d been trapped on a funhouse rollercoaster.
I expected to go to one of the smaller tables in the main hall. Instead, I found myself being steered between two book stacks and through a smaller carved doorway that I’d never noticed before.
“Welcome to the real study hall,” Nash whispered in my ear.
A delicious shiver snuck through me.
This secondary hallways was a lot darker than the main hall, lit only by a row of flickering candles along the wall. I blinked, waiting for my vision to adjust to the darkness.
I sucked in a breath.
This hall technically had books, tables and leather chairs. You could probably study here if you wanted. But judging from the number of couples making out on every conceivable surface, no one came here to study.
His hand slid down my arm, interlacing our fingers as we wove between couples.
No one seemed to notice us. Or, if they did, it wasn’t cause to stop.
I wasn’t a prude, but I found myself turning away from some corners, cheeks burning and body hot.
Pulling me into a quiet alcove, he pushed me up against a wall and dancing shadows fell over us, as if the candles supported our plans. It was later in the afternoon, sure, but in the main study hall daylight had still flooded through the stained glass. Not here. This hallway was dark as pitch and Nash’s eyes glittered with a predatory gleam.
Apparently, I owed Plant an apology.
Because I was the dumb bitch when it came to Nash.
He was deadly. An apex predator. I’d never asked him if he ate… things I didn’t want to know about. Things with names. Yet, even after I’d pulled that stunt with Plant and shown I was a threat to Shifters, I’d followed him blindly down this hall…
If my mother was alive, she’d kill me for being this stupid.
“I get it,” he said, voice low and with a gravely edge that did terrible, wonderful things to my insides. “You want to keep your secrets. That’s fine. Just don’t lie to me.”
“I haven’t lied,” I stammered.
A lie of omission is still a lie, my mother’s memory whispered in my ear.
Yeah, I knew. And normally she’d tell me off for it. In this case, however, I figured she’d let it slide.
Because he was a freaking werewolf.
“No? You seem to know a lot. Especially about what you did to Plant in there. It seemed…” He paused to run a finger down my cheek to my throat, and further, to where he rested his large hand above my breast, palm over my heart. “Practiced.”
I laughed. After everything, I couldn’t help it. “Practiced? No. No. I honestly don’t know what that was.”
“No? That’s too bad. Because maybe I’d want you to do it to me.”
I gaped at him. “Her ears were bleeding.”
A slow, lazy grin curled his lips. “If you can make her ears bleed, you can make other parts do other things.”
Part of me considered slapping him, but that’s not the part of me that won. I was sick and tired of feeling helpless. Of being pushed around. If I could learn how to make my music obey me, like strings under my fingers, I wouldn’t be helpless anymore. More than that, I’d have power. Real power to change my situation.
The idea of having power over Nash thrilled me, too.
Was this talent why the demons wanted me? Not only could I see truth, I could strum it from the air.
And if I was part and parcel of my father’s deal…
I’d always heard the road to hell was paved with good intentions. That evil wasn’t overt—of course, considering the existence of Churchfield, I knew that was a damn lie—but I understood what they meant: real evil was often casual.
I could be trotting down the primrose path to damnation this very moment.
Or I could be on my way to kicking all the demon ass.
I decided it was worth the risk.
“So what you’re saying,” I whispered, my voice strangely throaty. “Is that I can practice on you?”
“Yeah, you can practice on me.” He leaned into me. “We can practice together.”
It was a stupid line.
If I’d had any actual sense, I would’ve booked it out of there so fast. Except I liked this feeling, this closeness to him, this sense of having power over him. I didn’t want it to stop.
For the first time in all of the stinking shitpile of the last two years, I felt something good. And I could have it—with him.
Forget sense.
I grabbed the lapel of Nash’s shirt and pulled him to me, arching my body to meet his and failing to smother a gasp as we collided.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I whispered.
A slight twinge of guilt stabbed at me as Lucas’s face flashed in my mind.
Of course, it would. Of course, my stupid brain would find every reason in the world not to kiss Nash. Apparently, a guy I’d met through the fence once and dreamed about once was a good enough reason for my idiot brain. What was I, obsessed with this guy I didn’t even know?
That made kissing Nash an even better idea.
I couldn’t be thinking about an almost-dream-kiss with Lucas if I was actually, real-life kissing Nash, right?
Right.
More importantly, this would be my first real kiss.
A game of Spin the Bottle with Tommy Barfoot in Andrea Fickenaur’s
basement at her fourteenth birthday party didn’t actually count. He’d tasted of grapefruit juice and my lips had been numb from ice cream and we’d both ended up giggling in the closet.
Somehow I didn’t think Nash was going to giggle.
He seemed more of a pull your hair and bite your neck sort of guy. And I had to say, I’d try almost anything once.
Nash’s lips were firm on mine, almost gentle, but as I softened into him, he became more demanding, pressing me hard against the wall. Suddenly, my feet left the ground. I gasped, realizing he’d picked me up and locked my legs around his waist.
“Whoa, this is moving a little too fast for me,” I whispered raggedly.
He pulled back, eyes glowing bright yellow.
I should’ve been afraid, any sensible person would’ve been, but if I was being honest, that glowing kind of turned me on. Heat, which burned like the ember in his eyes suffused my limbs, making me dizzy and languid, pliable.
What was hell wrong with me?
One week and I’d already been too long in Paradise.
“I thought we were practicing?” He nipped at my neck.
I nearly lost my desire to cool off, but somehow I managed to nudge him back. I kissed his chin. “We’re starting at level one, cowboy. You don’t get to the boss battle on the first day of play.”
His eyes slowly dimmed back to a facsimile of human. “Video game references. I like it.” Instead of letting me go, he pressed his face into my neck again and I shivered. “You know what else I like?”
“Hmm?”
“You were fearless today. She could’ve ripped you apart, and you knew it, yet you stood your ground and you made her pay for challenging your position.”
That wasn’t what I’d done at all.
Was it?
All I’d done was ensure the rivalry I’d only wanted to play with had become an all-out war. She was going to hate me forever for what happened in that cafeteria. Just what I needed. Another enemy in an ever-growing sea.
I had to figure out if I could trust Nash, if he was an ally.
Seemed like finding out would be enjoyable.
When he released me, he smiled, but it wasn’t gentle or kind. It was all primal predator and teeth. “We should probably get back. Wouldn’t want you missing that final bus. That could get… ugly.”
I nodded. As I followed him away from the secret hallway, it seemed to disappear behind us, blending into the book stacks.
He kissed my cheek and growled into my ear. “Say you’re mine.”
I knew the power of words. And since coming to Vegas, I’d learned knew the power contracts, even verbal. “Not yet.”
“You will.” His growl was almost a purr.
I could see it all play out before me, like watching a film on an old reel. I say I’m his and I belong to him. I would lose myself in this new world of darkness, only the good darkness, where Nash would take me away from the demon, away from Jim, away from the fear.
After all, he’d protect what’s his.
He would shelter me. Be my strength. And if I learned to wield my music, I wouldn’t use it for anything more than singing our children to sleep. It had appeal, this idea of two-point-five kids, a night-blooming garden, and the black wrought iron fence… A goth girl’s American Dream.
It was safe. A version of the normal I’d been taught to want.
Except, I wasn’t a goth girl, and I’d never wanted a fence.
I especially never wanted a collar.
I was a rock star. I lived metal, breathed rock, embraced punk and damn the establishment, damn the man, and, in this case, damn the wolf and the patriarchy that went with it.
But I didn’t tell Nash that. Because I wanted more visits to that hallway.
I just smiled. “Someday, maybe I will.”
“Soon,” he said. “Soon.”
I couldn’t help but think that sounded more like a threat than a promise. Still, when it came to Shifters, maybe those things were one and the same.
When we headed back to class, Thacker looked at us strangely, as did a few others. But it was Churchfield that concerned me. She watched us with black, hungry eyes, and I’d swear she licked her lips. I shuddered.
“You okay?” Nash asked me, his hand hot on the small of my back.
I remembered what those hands had been doing just a moment ago and I shivered again, but this time, it wasn’t from the chill of evil. It was because I wanted to keep his hands on me and I imagined them doing all sorts of things I’d only read about.
This time, Churchfield actually licked her lips and winked.
“What the fuck,” I whispered, practically against my will. I mean, I saw a hundred thousand what-the-fuck moments every day. I really needed to get better at keeping that to myself.
“Oh. That.” Nash leaned closer to my ear. “There’s a tradeoff for the Hallway. They don’t just let us indulge our desires on school time for nothing.”
“Thacker wanted to eat me.”
Nash laughed and arched a brow. “Don’t we all?”
I snorted and elbowed him.
“But really… sexual energy is very powerful. It fuels the warding spells on the school and other things.”
I suddenly thought of Oscar and I looked up at Nash, ready to say so, but he held out his hand to stop me.
“Don’t even. It’s not the same thing at all.”
But wasn’t it?
The screwed-up part was that I knew even that wouldn’t keep me from going back with Nash.
Chapter Nineteen
I’d had to run for that last bus from Saint Damon’s, but I’d caught it.
And after enduring most of the soul-destroying ride to The Milton, Oscar, Nabila and I had hopped off at the previous enclave, one a few short blocks away. It wasn’t much, but we wanted to carve out a little time to discuss our newly created strategy as we walked the rest of the way.
Our detour offered some glorious privacy, and had the added benefit of delaying my arrival back home.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what would be harder—facing Jim or finding another note.
Or dealing with the Bulldog.
I hadn’t seen her since I’d made her scream. I wondered if that was on purpose? If she was just saving up some kind of awful revenge. Ugh. The thought of it set me on edge—which was likely all part of her fun.
“This. Week. Sucked,” I groaned.
“They always suck,” Nabila muttered.
I studied our surroundings as we walked. I half-expected to see Lucas, with his dark hair hanging over his forehead. Or maybe that was just my insane obsession, rearing its ugly head.
Time to put Lucas out of my head. Nash, too.
“How’d research go?” I asked my friends.
“I’ve got loads of notes on square-toed leather shoes, the number of flies present around Mrs. Thacker at any given time of the day, and how Churchfield stressed the word hierarchy fifty-two times today.” Nabila sighed and hunched her shoulders against the dust-filled breeze. “This doesn’t give us anything useful!”
I shrugged and pulled up my hood. “Aside from Sunglasses making an unwanted return to my life, no one did anything particularly weird today. Unless you count my cafeteria performance.”
“Sunglasses?” Oscar asked. He was walking slightly behind us, with his usual stoop bending his head toward the ground. It was hard to hear him over traffic and the persistent desert wind.
I paused, uncertain whether I should tell them what happened in Portland.
But I really wanted to talk to someone about it, and I knew these two would believe me. “Yeah. Calls himself Claude Bournival. The one who’s new Cultural Arts instructor.” I motioned them to lean in and gave them a quick rundown on my previous encounter with Sunglasses.
Nabila whistled approvingly through her teeth. “You kicked his ass! How’d you get away? When they decide to puppet you, there’s usually no out…”
She fixed me with an expectant gaze.
“I didn’t exactly kick his ass,” I pointed out. “I ran away and got lucky with a bus.”
My heart pounded just thinking about it.
“But you got away. How?” Nabila nudged me with her shoulder. A pin appeared and was waved in the air as a maestro might his conductor’s baton.
“I dunno.” I ducked into my hoodie.
I hadn’t thought this through. What the hell was I going to say? No one was supposed to know about my odd vision and truth-sniffing talent. But I really didn’t want to lie to Nabila and Oscar.
Shrugging, I said, “I just sorta told the truth and then asked to use the washroom.”
“Told the truth?” The pinpointed at me, its shiny tip demanding an explanation.
“I… uh…” I coughed. “It just seemed that every time I lied, it got harder to do what I wanted. But if I told the truth—even what my mom would have called highly selective truth—it got easier. So I kept telling the truth until he let me use the washroom. Then I jumped through the window.”
“That’s it!” Nabila ground to a halt so fast that Oscar ran into her from behind.
They both toppled to the pavement in a tangle of limbs, pins and school supplies.
“Oscar!” She yelped at the same time he whimpered and leaped back, clutching his right arm where a silver pin protruded from it.
“Let me see.” I took a step towards Oscar.
He hugged his arm and twisted out of reach.
“Seriously. Stop moving so I can deal with this,” I ordered him.
He froze. The vein was pulsing fast in his thin neck and he had a pleading look in his eyes that could have rivaled a Labrador begging for scraps.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I informed him in my best, No-Nonsense Nurse voice. Taking firm hold of his arm I examined the pin protruding from his right bicep. It had sunk in about halfway. Given how skinny his arms were, I was a tiny bit concerned it had struck bone.
“Hey!” Nabila’s outraged cry sounded behind me.
I ignored her and contemplated whether yanking the thing out of Oscar’s arm was the right choice… probably.
“My knee is bleeding and you're worried about a little pin?” Nabila griped.
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