by Elena Lawson
What was he doing?
Our eyes locked for an instant, and his hands clenched, conveying a message of urgency. A moment later he turned and left. He needed to talk to me.
I whirled back around in my seat. Swallowed as I fought a blush and the racing of my pulse.
“I’d like to get to know his history, if you know what I mean,” Bianca said, waggling her eyebrows and licking her lips. I stood so quickly my chair fell over behind me, crashing against the marble tile. I rushed to right it, mouthing an apology to the librarian who was shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
“I’m—uh—going to get a coffee. You want one?”
Bianca lifted one of her perfectly manicured blond brows at me. “Yeah. Sure. Everything alright?”
I pushed my chair back in. “Just super tired. This test is going to be the death of me.”
“Tell me about it,” she laughed quietly. “Hurry back, though. We haven’t even gotten to the chapter on the dangers of mispronunciation.”
I nodded. Yay. I couldn’t wait.
Squishing down the panic before it could do more than make my skin itch and a ball form in my throat, I rushed toward the exit after Elias. Weaving through the stacks to save myself some steps. That’s where she caught me.
“Why in such a rush?” she asked from behind me and I froze, gritting my teeth as I spun on one heel. I’d admit, I fully expected some sort of retribution from the resident queen bitch, but I did not have time for this crap right now.
I turned to face her, and she flipped her yellow-blond hair away from her chest. There was one button too many undone on her blouse, revealing a lacy cream and black bra beneath. Classy.
“What do you want, Kendra?”
It was strange seeing her alone, and I immediately scanned the aisle of books, looking for her two minions.
“Me?” she asked, feigning apprehension. “Oh, nothing really,” she continued, drawing out her vowels in that way people like her did when they wanted to sound super dramatic and mysterious. She was pulling off the dramatic bit, but I wasn’t the least bit curious what she had to say.
She stepped in closer with her manicured hands clasped behind her back, her chin raised high. I glanced longingly at the exit, mere meters away from where Kendra and I now stood between two towering bookcases.
“I just had a question,” she said, batting her lashes at me innocently, her voice so sickeningly sweet it made me want to barf.
“I don’t have time for this,” I snapped at her, stepping away. “I have studying to do.”
I turned to leave.
“Is that what you were doing out in the woods the other night? Studying?”
My lips pressed together, and a clammy sweat sprang from my pores, coating my palms and the back of my neck. Shit. If I turned around and tried to make up an excuse, she’d know I was hiding something. I was a crap liar, and I knew it.
But if I didn’t say anything, she might think she was onto something.
Oh no... had she seen me coming out of the woods with Elias?
The panic was starting to mount, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. Racking my brain. Trying to come up with something to say. Grasping at slick straws.
No, she couldn’t have seen us together. It was the weekend then. She wouldn’t have been here. Almost nobody was. They’d all gone home to visit friends and family. At least that one secret was still safe.
For now.
I shuddered to think what would happen if it ever wasn’t. I didn’t want to think about the repercussions Elias could face. It made me feel selfish and cruel.
“I saw you come out of the trees looking a bit... disheveled. Meeting someone out there, were you? Not practicing magic off academy grounds, I hope,” she continued, circling me. “Oh! Or maybe you were hoping to finally bond to your familiar. Did you know that you’re the only one in the entire academy who doesn’t have one? I checked.”
Well then, she didn’t check all that well, did she? Since I did have a familiar. I had two of the damned things. And I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have one. Both Sterling and one of the other teachers’ familiars had passed on.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. What did she know, anyway? I’d give anything to go back to not having a familiar if it meant not being eaten alive by a pack of wolves.
My magic ignited within me as though she’d thrown a lit match into my gasoline filled veins. The floor beneath my feet trembled.
Stop, Harper. Reign it in.
I didn’t need to draw any more attention to myself than I already had.
My fists shook with the effort of containing it. Kendra looked to the floor and back up to me, throwing out her hands for balance. Genuine surprise flashed across her features.
Good. I wanted her to see that I was stronger than her. I’d be damned if I stood there and let a spoiled brat like Kendra Van Damme try to scare me. I had much bigger problems to deal with.
I unclenched my fists and shouldered past her. “Why don’t you come into the woods with me next time and find out,” I hissed. Hoping to throw her off by offering to freely have her join me... and maybe to scare her—but only a little. If my wolves scared the piss out of her, it wouldn’t be my fault.
I checked myself, stomping through the stacks. Not my wolves. They weren’t mine. Would never be mine.
I was still twitchy and fuming when I left the library, pushing down the swell of magic vying for release at my fingertips. I found Elias near the back exit, leaning against the stone wall with his head bent and brows furrowed.
He looked up when he saw me coming and kicked off from the wall to walk outside. I slowed, watching him descend the steps and head in the direction of his cabin. It was still daylight outside. I’d have to wait at least a few minutes before I followed him and then take a roundabout way of getting there to avoid any wandering eyes. Like the vile ones of Kendra.
Had he finally found something that could help us? With only one day left in my bargain with the Endurans, it would be a huge relief to have at least one of the problems checked off my ever-growing list. I counted to sixty in my head, bouncing from one foot to the other, before I exited the academy. I walked toward the woods, in the opposite direction of Elias’ cabin, being extra cautious to check that no one else was outside or watching from the windows.
Once I was under the cover of the trees, I changed my path and cut back to where his cabin squatted at the southeast corner of the grounds. Smoke rose from the chimney, and he’d left the door open for me to come in. I hesitated. We hadn’t had a chance to see much of each other outside of class since... since he kissed me.
My stomach did a little flip.
You’re here now, Harper. Just go inside and see what this is all about.
I rushed inside, taking care to close the door behind me. “Hey,” I said when I found him standing by his kitchen sink, his hands braced on the counter.
He didn’t turn around at first. It was almost like he was afraid to. But then he did, and I saw the crease was still in his forehead. It’d been there since the night he’d come to my aid in the woods. And it hadn’t left. I was the cause of that crease.
“They’re too quiet out there,” he fumed, his hands grasping at the air around his sides. “I went looking for them,” he added, and I was taken aback. He’d done what?
What if they’d torn him apart?
“But I couldn’t find them, or any trace of their pack. They must be from really far away.”
“Why did you go looking for them? What’s going on?” I asked, my pulse peaking and dipping with spikes of adrenaline and pounds of compounded stress.
“It’s what’s not going on, Harper,” he said with a harshness to the words I’d never heard him use before. His rubbed a rough hand over his face, and rubbed his eyes. “There’s nothing.”
“What?”
“There is no spell, sigil, or incantation to sever a witch familiar bond. I’m sorry. I tr
ied.” Defeat shone in his eyes, and made his gaze fall and his chest heave. I didn’t think he was used to being defeated.
A large part of me wanted to scream and cry and melt into a puddle of tears. I had been so hopeful that there’d be a way to do it. To have that hope crushed was devastating, but not as devastating as the look on Elias’ face. The guilt filling his jaw with tension. The shame dragging down the corners of his eyes and mouth. The fear and frustration making his hands shake.
I couldn’t stand to see him like that.
I walked over to him and laid a hand on his chest, compelling him to lift his head. “We both knew there was a slim chance of it. We told them that, too. It’ll be alright.”
He shook his head. “It won’t. Don’t you see? They’ll look for other ways to sever the bond. And if they won’t do it themselves, when their alpha finds out, he will.”
I stepped back. “Well then lets try what you suggested. Make a new spell for it.”
He scoffed, dragging himself to the sofa. “You were right, it was a foolish idea. Too dangerous. It could backfire and you could be hurt. It isn’t worth the risk.”
“More dangerous than two Enduran shifters and possibly an entire pack? More dangerous than other people finding out?”
He bend his head over his knees and pressed his forehead into his palms, groaning. “I don’t like this. It’s driving me insane thinking you’re in danger.”
My breath caught. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” I told him, walking over to stand in front of him at the side of the couch.
“I just want you to be safe.”
I smirked. “I am for tonight, at least,” I offered, doing my best to add a smile to the words. “And tomorrow if everything goes as planned, I’ll be spending the night—well, the whole weekend, really, with my roommate at her house.”
He cocked his head at me. “Bianca Matthews?”
I nodded. “Yeah, she invited me to stay over. I was hoping we’d have this figured out by tonight or early tomorrow before we left, but I guess I’ll have to tell them we’ll need more time.”
I rebelled against the thought of telling them. How would they react? They’d be pissed.
“No!” he said in a rush, jumping back to his feet. “You won’t tell them anything. I’ll do it. I’ll tell them.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Please. Let me talk to them. You go to Bianca’s where they can’t get to you. And then maybe... I don’t know, maybe I can get them to see reason. To understand.”
Yeah... right.
I needed to go to Bianca’s. I couldn’t refuse the opportunity to find out what was going on with Sterling, and my father, and the Magistrate. But I didn’t like the idea of leaving him to deal with the Endurans without me. When he told them we’d failed, they’d be angry. What if they lashed out at him?
“I’m stronger than them. More powerful. You don’t have to worry about me,” he said as if he’d read my thoughts.
I could see his mind was already made up, and I wouldn’t argue. They wouldn’t harm him without their alpha’s permission. If they did and were caught, it would be seen as an act of war and their entire pack would pay for their mistake. No, they wouldn’t hurt him. Not even the hot-headed Adrian would dare.
“Fine,” I said after a few beats of tense silence looking into his pleading eyes. “But be careful. And don’t provoke them.”
He yanked me into an embrace. “Thank you,” he said and I relaxed into him. Luxuriating in the feel of his arms around me. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs reminding of that, by the way,” he whispered against my hair. “But don’t worry, I’ll play nice.”
I laughed into the leather of his jacket. Then I pulled back to look into his eyes. My magic reached out to him, and I leaned in with it. But he pulled away, and a troubled frown stained his lips. “Good,” he said in a gruff voice. “Glad that’s settled.”
I wanted so badly to ask him why he still fought it, but I didn’t want to push him and risk him using the momentum to keep moving further away from me. But I had to wonder if he thought what he did in the woods was a mistake? I didn’t want to believe that, or that the connection between us was somehow wrong.
“I’ll walk you back to the academy,” he said, moving toward the door, and it was like someone dumped ice-water into my blood.
And people said women were the ones who didn’t know what they wanted. Ha! What a joke.
I stepped past him. “I’ll walk myself.”
He didn’t try to stop me, but I never heard his front door close.
16
“I completely bombed that test,” I whined to Bianca when we came out of incantations that afternoon.
I tried to focus on studying when I finally got back to the library, but my mind was elsewhere—like on the way Elias’ hair shone with bits of copper in the firelight of his hearth. How he always rubbed his jaw when he was flustered, as though exhausted by whatever plagued his mind. And then of course, there were the other things. The less pleasant thoughts. About sharp-toothed wolves and snake-like men.
It didn’t help that in history class right before incantations, Elias had all but completely ignored me, even though I raised my hand twice to answer his questions. He’d chosen others. Was I being stupid?
Yeah, I’m probably being stupid.
But I couldn’t help it.
“Well, maybe if getting coffee hadn’t taken you nearly an hour then you’d have had more time to study,” Bianca said in a told-you-so tone. “What’d you do, get lost?”
I lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Sort of.” I sighed, hefting my books higher in my arms, my stomach in knots at the thought of eating lunch. “When are we leaving?” I asked, changing the subject to something more promising.
Bianca flashed me her winning smile, and I could tell she was immeasurably excited to have someone to bring home with her. I didn’t think she had many friends at the academy, either. “Right after class if we can swing it!”
When I thought about it, I hadn’t seen her do more than wave to a few other students or say hi. And she mostly only did that when the ‘student’ in question was a beautiful African American guy named Marcus. He had come-hither eyes, lips that looked pillow-soft, and some of the best cheekbones I’d ever seen on a man. If I hadn’t noticed Bianca’s interest in him, I’d have been drooling over him, too.
We passed him in the hall and Bianca lengthened her strides, and her hips swayed a little more than they did normally. She had it bad. “Are you ever going to actually talk to him, or are you just going to stare at him forever?”
She gasped, jumping as though stung. “Shut up,” she squeaked, adding, “He could’ve heard you,” when we were further away, glancing back to watch him as he rounded the corner back toward the male dorms. Funny, I never took her as being shy.
“I’ll talk to him,” she said. “When the time is right.”
“And by that you mean when you manage to grow a pair of lady balls?”
Two other girls walking near us swiveled their heads, shooting us looks that managed to be shocked and disgusted all at once, before they migrated further away.
“Harper!” Bianca scolded, herding me into the cafeteria as if I was an ox in need of prodding. “Don’t you have even the smallest filter?”
I pouted. Shook my head. “Mmmmm, no, don’t think so.”
She rolled her eyes, dragging me behind her to the serving line, muttering. “Of all the roommates...”
In Bianca’s borrowed jeans that were a size too big for my non-existent booty, and three inches less of height, as well as a borrowed soft black turtleneck, we rushed through the hallways toward the staff wing.
It felt weird wearing her clothes, but when I told her all I had were the ratty old jean shorts and tank top she first saw me in, she had insisted, saying I couldn’t wear my uniform off academy grounds because that’s just sad.
I was inclined to agree. I couldn’t wait to get o
ut of the damn thing. The blouses were particularly uncomfortable, always coming back from the laundry too stiff and starched.
“It really is too bad your feet are so big,” Bianca said to me with a smirk. “I’d have leant you some leather boots that would’ve looked killer with that sweater.”
Heeled boots, I was sure. “Yeah, too bad,” I said sarcastically. Anything more than a two-inch heel and it would be downright dangerous for anything in my immediate surroundings. Even two inches might’ve been pushing it. “Think I’ll stick to my flip flops.”
She snickered at me and urged me to hurry up with jerk of her head. “Come on, Uncle Sterling doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” She sped up, struggling with the awkward weight of Blanche in her arms. The rabbit watched me with her unnerving red eyes, looking painfully bored with the whole situation.
“What? I thought we were portaling out ourselves?”
“Nah. He insisted on escorting us. I’m sure we have your criminal record to thank for that.”
Ugh.
“At least we don’t have to wait in line to use the portaling room. It takes over an hour sometimes if you don’t get there straight after class. My uncle’s office is the only other place in the building you can portal into and out of unless you go beyond the wards.”
I bit my cheek and rubbed the bit of sweat on my palms off on my borrowed jeans. “Will he be home this weekend?” I asked, my voice coming out higher pitched than I’d intended.
She tucked her wavy blond hair behind her ears. “Probably not. He usually has council stuff to attend to on the weekends. He only really comes home to sleep, if he does at all. It’ll just be us and my brothers—oh, and Pierre, but he’s like a ghost. You won’t even notice him.”
“Pierre?”
“Security,” she explained. “And there are a few servants, and the boys’ nanny. But they all keep to themselves. None of them have ever ratted me out for anything.”
I wondered what they would’ve ratted her out for? Aside from the flask she kept in her vanity, and the odd curse word when we were alone, Bianca seemed pretty tame. But then again, I was sure I seemed pretty tame, too, until I was ready to tackle a guy for trying to steal a few pieces of jewelry.