Jensen slammed into the floor and rolled to his feet in one quick movement. He held out a hand toward Lex. “Seriously? The girl’s not worth fighting over.”
“I’m not fighting over the girl,” Lex said. “I’m going to kick your ass because of what you’re trying to turn my academy into.”
“You going to fight the dean too?” Jensen shot back.
Lex shrugged.
For a few seconds, they stared at each other. Lex’s hands were in fists, his posture aggressive, like he wanted to fight Jensen now and he couldn’t make himself ramp back down. Jensen looked ready, but his hands dangled at his sides now. He wasn’t provoking Lex.
The doors at the back of the cafeteria opened. The dean’s secretary strode in. Lex crossed his arms over his chest, his posture stiffening.
“I’ve got an announcement to make,” the secretary said, his voice projecting clearly through the cafeteria. “As of today, shifting on school premises is forbidden outside of instructor direction.”
A low murmur swept through the room, and then immediately abated as the secretary clapped his hands and went on.
I frowned. This must be the dean trying to prevent a panic. But it didn’t change the fact that there was something to panic about. If I could just slip out of here and get to the walls, I might be able to help prevent a massacre.
I was lost in thought, and then slowly I realized that the secretary was still talking…
…and that Lex was staring at me. His eyebrows were arched like he knew I was up to something.
I flashed him a quick smile. “My hero.” I mouthed. Let him think I was a silly, airheaded girl. It was better than having him try to stop me.
“You heard me,” he whispered back. “It wasn’t about you.”
“I heard you,” I whispered. “I don’t believe you.”
He stared at me in surprise. “You cocky little—”
The secretary finished and left the room, and the room exploded into conversation.
I sat down again, reaching under the table to swipe my cloth napkin from the floor where it had fallen. I draped it in my lap and finally began to eat my lunch.
One of the guys nearby picked up his fallen tray, sighed, and carried it back toward the kitchen, stepping over the scattered remnants of his lunch. Lex didn’t bother to apologize as he took his seat across from me.
Jensen hesitated. Lex raised his hand and waved him off, a quick, dismissive gesture, and Jensen rolled his eyes but left. I watched his big shoulders in his tailored school jacket as he wound his way through the crowd, then slammed open the lunch room door and went out.
“I guess he’s going to order a pizza,” I joked.
“I guess he’s going to miss a meal,” Lex said calmly. “First-years aren’t allowed to keep food in their rooms.”
“That seems barbaric.” The thought of never having another midnight snack didn’t sit well with me. “I’m sure he’ll like me even more now. What’s his problem?”
“It’s a long list.” Lex chewed robotically. He seemed cool and calm, the complete opposite of his flare of temper a minute before, but the coolness struck me as false. On the inside, I had a feeling he was still dying for a fight.
I cocked my head to one side as I studied him. I wanted to know what would happen if I came here, what Jensen had hinted at.
Should I push Lex for answers, even though he wanted to make the academy look good?
Or should I go find my new enemy and get the low-down from him?
Either way, first I needed to make sure the academy was protected.
Lex swallowed, and then his gaze fixed on me. “What are you thinking about, Northsea?”
“Nothing.”
There was a spark in his eyes when he said, “Definitely a liar. You don’t seem like you ever have a moment when you aren’t scheming.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
Even when he was being mean, I had the strangest sense of being seen when I was with him. Not as someone’s little sister, the way I was with Piper and her pack. The dearly beloved little sister, who could do no wrong.
Here, I would be someone else, someone who would make mistakes, fight my own battles, find my own way.
“Tell me a story,” I said. “Tell me about what it’s like being here.”
“Oh, Lex has stories,” a guy said as he joined us, carrying his tray. The grin he flashed Lex was friendly. “He wasn’t always an uptight hard-ass.”
“Watch it,” Lex said, but without rancor.
“Tell her about the time you were on restriction—”
“Which time?”
As Lex and his friends bantered, Lex’s eyes sparkled. The anger he was carrying a few minutes ago seemed to slip away. I’d been so busy watching him that I missed what he said before the table erupted in laughter.
Lex was fun, when he wanted to be. The sense of warmth at the table washed over me, even if it was the warmth of friendships someplace that I didn’t belong. Yet.
Then he turned to me, leaning across the table. “How’s your lunch, Maddie Mae?”
I didn’t know why he used my middle name, but it seemed to roll off his tongue like we already knew each other.
“It’s tolerable,” I said.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “They really break out the good stuff for the prospective students. We don’t usually make it all the way to tolerable.”
His smile, his attention, felt like a warm light.
I’d never felt like that before.
6
After lunch, students headed back to class and the prospectives were supposed to meet the dean in the old church.
“Stay out of trouble,” Lex told me.
“Of course,” I said.
“Of course?” His tone was mock-shocked. “Call me a skeptic, Maddie Northsea, but I don’t think I can take it for granted that you’ll stay out of trouble.”
“And you should stay out of fights.”
He looked as if he was going to say something. Then he just winked at me, as if asking him not to fight was as hopeless as asking me to stay out of trouble.
“See you this fall,” I said, waving at him over my shoulder as I turned to follow the other prospective students.
He hesitated as if he wanted to say something, but instead he waved his hand to wave goodbye.
I’d fallen behind the others and I ran across the path and up the stone steps to the church. I fell back a little bit as we went in the first set of doors, behind the other students, glancing back to find Lex still watching me from across the green lawn. His arms were folded across his chest and his curls were teased by the steady breeze over his chiseled features. Creep. Watching me like that. My lips still curled up in a ridiculous smile.
I let the door slam shut behind me. I was in the vestibule outside the sanctuary, and the last student in front of me was passing through the second set of doors. With no time to hesitate, I slipped to the right, down the narrow hallway marked with a sign that said Balcony. I’d be trapped if I went in the sanctuary with the dean.
Worst case scenario, I could hide out here for a few minutes and then slip out the front door again. If I got caught, I’d tell them I got lost and do the bubbly-blond thing. Blond hair and a bright smile cover a lot of mischief, in my experience.
Lex would know the truth, but I planned to avoid him. For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about that devilish grin or my mixed feelings when he grabbed my arm. That was probably another reason to avoid him.
Luckily, when I reached the end of the hallway, there was a set of red carpeted stairs leading up, and the door stood open to another set of narrow stairs on my left leading down. I headed downstairs, crossed the church’s musty-smelling basement, and found another set of stairs back up. Ten-year-old me had explored every foot of this place, even though I’d occasionally freaked out and run off into the sunshine, convinced a monster or ghost was on my heels. I was glad for it now.
A minute later, I emerged in
to the sunshine outside the back door of the church. The neat green lawn that surrounds the buildings lay in front of me, and on the other side was the deep, tangled woods that surround the school, pressing against it as if the forest would creep back across the grass to the buildings if it could.
I ran for the forest.
If I headed far enough in any one direction, I’d run into the warded wall that’s supposed to keep out witches and their spells. But clearly, that hasn’t worked so far today.
I just needed to avoid the few patrols that the dean has sent out, and my sister. I’d bet anything that she was out here somewhere, keeping an eye on things as she waited for her pack.
For now, I ran as fast as I could—as a human—through the forest. The silver ballet flats I’d worn to look nice with my navy dress slipped in the loose, damp leaves that covered the slick forest floor. The sun filtered in patches through the tangled branches above. It was much cooler here in the shade of the forest than it was on campus, and I shivered.
Or maybe I shivered because of the crackle of magic I could feel before I even reach the wall. Powerful magic that made the downy hairs on my arms stand up on end. I rubbed my arms with my hands as I made me way through the trees toward the long, stone wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lex demanded.
I spun to find him standing there behind me. He shoved his hands into his pockets restlessly, his jaw working as if he was furious.
“Hi,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Hi,” he ground out in response. Maybe hi hadn’t been the way to go. He raised his eyebrows, his face cool. “Well?”
“The dean is trying to hide the fact that no one can shift,” I blurted out. “I think the covens are about to attack. I was going to tamper with the wards just a little, so he’ll put the campus on full alert.”
He stared back at me, and his face shifted with different feelings. He definitely looked perplexed. And angry. And strangely enough…relieved?
He raked his hand through his hair. “So no one can shift?”
“I just said that.”
“It’s not just me,” he muttered. “I thought it was just me. That I’d lost the ability…”
That was why he’d seemed so angry. He was scared. He must have tried to shift to follow me and then freaked out. Did individual wolves sometimes lose their abilities? “Can that happen?”
“Hold on.” He held his hand out toward me. “You’re not the one asking questions here. You were going to tamper with the wards?”
“Just a little.” I held up two fingers, almost touching.
“You think the witches are attacking the school and you were going to tamper with the wards?” His voice was disbelieving. It was like we hadn’t covered this already.
“I was going to put them right back up again,” I explained. “But the dean doesn’t want to cause a panic. I think this is a reason to panic, don’t you?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “You’re convinced you’re smarter than the dean?”
He wouldn’t like my honest answer, but there was no good way to answer that. “Not in every way…”
“Holy shit,” he muttered.
“Have you ever fought one of the covens?”
He stared at me like he wasn’t going to answer that question.
“I have,” I said. “When I was a kid, I watched a coven attack my pack. They called up creatures from other worlds, monsters and demons. They used mind control to make wolves betray and kill each other. We had heavy weapons, we could shift and it was still…”
“I’ve heard about that,” Lex said. He still looked angry, but he braced his hand against a tree, as if he was willing to hear me out.
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t like me to lay everything I thought on the line; I spent most of my time either with the pack who knew me well, or with humans I couldn’t tell anything. But now I felt like I had to tell Lex more than I wanted to get him on my side. “This school exists for a reason. It’s a reason I believe in. Until there’s peace between the wolves and the covens—or until all of us are dead—we have to be ready to fight.”
The covens would never stop attacking until we ended the last of them. If I hadn’t known that before today, I knew it now, when I couldn’t even shift. “Right now? It’s one of those times. We have to be ready.”
“If the dean knows the coven’s put some kind of spell on the school, why hasn’t he called out the patrols?” he asked.
“My sister asked him to,” I said. “But he thinks there could be other reasons why no one can shift. He doesn’t want a panic over nothing.”
“He doesn’t want to lose any more students,” Lex muttered. “Not everyone is happy to send their kids to fight in this war.”
“So he’s hoping it’s not a direct attack,” I filled in.
“I don’t know for sure,” Lex said. “It’s just a thought. Maybe he knows something neither of us does.” The look he flashed me was pointed.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I was in the room when he refused to call out the academy in patrols. It didn’t seem like he knew anything more than anyone else in the room.”
Lex’s lips parted in a disbelieving smile at my frank assessment of the dean. “You’re going to have a tough time here.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to get that feeling,” I said. The strict hierarchy might be the end of me. “Also, I’m starting to get a feeling you all need me.”
His smile widened at that. “Your arrogance is strangely adorable. But I think you’re going to find this school very humbling if you come, Northsea.”
Funny how right then, despite everything—Jensen, the dean, Lex—I couldn’t imagine not coming. It felt like I belonged here, even if no one else believed that.
I shrugged. “Are you going to help me or get out of my way?”
“Once you bring the wards down, you won’t be able to raise them again,” he said, snapping out of the brief flirtation between us. “So no. I can’t let you open a hole in the school walls when you know we’re in danger. That is idiotic.”
“I’m going to put them right back up again,” I said. “It’ll trigger the alarm back at the school, and—”
“You don’t know how to do that,” he said.
“Watch me.” I was unusually magical for a werewolf. It’s the kind of thing that Callum wanted me to keep under wraps, but when someone told me I can’t do something, I longed to teach them how wrong they were. Lex’s words prickled at my skin.
Just then, a strange, keening sound filled the air. Lex grimaced as we both turned toward the wall, where the noise came from. He took a step forward, putting himself between me and the wall.
It was a nice gesture, but I’d had people protect me like that all my life. I didn’t think it’s cute anymore. It was certainly not necessary.
The wall began to pulse.
Lex whirled to face me. “Stop it!”
“I’m not doing it,” I said.
I sure as hell hoped this was triggering the alarm like it was supposed to. When that wall came down, we were in trouble.
My shoulder brushed Lex’s arm as I took my place beside him, instead of behind him.
The patrols should be coming out, but right now, we were the first line of defense.
The two of us.
I wonder how many witches are on the other side of that wall.
7
As the wall crumpled inward, Lex dared to look away to pick up a stick from the ground. Then he glanced at me. “Run.”
“Run?” I asked. “You run. You’re going to hit witches with a stick?”
“One mind, any weapon,” he said. “You don’t even have a stick.”
“Don’t need one.” I flashed a smile his way, holding my hands out toward the wall. “But this is our little secret, okay?”
As I called on my magic, my palms heated painfully hot, and then silver lightning crackled across my skin.
“Holy shit,” Lex said for the
second time.
Wolves were supposed to avoid magic, except for defensive counter-spells. My pack’s never taken those rules very seriously.
And that was a good thing, because it turned out that I had a lot of magic.
The wall exploded open. As bits of rock hurtled toward us, I threw an arm up, ducking to protect my face, and Lex did the same. The two of us turned into each other, and he threw his arm around me as if he was going to shield me.
Was he just a really gallant kind of guy? Even as shards of rock pelted against my arms and neck, stinging painfully, I wondered why he’d had that impulse. But there was no time to brood over my crush.
I straightened, flinging my hands toward the wall as the witch burst through. Silver threads exploded out of my hands. He threw his arm toward me, and his dark red magic arced against mine as he raced to the side, trying to skirt around us. He seemed desperately intent on getting past us to campus.
He ran, and Lex juked to one side after him to cut him off.
The witch’s dark cloak and clothes were suddenly empty. They hung there in the air for a second, and Lex snatched his cloak out of the air before it wilted in his hand. The rest of his clothes dropped, a pool of black fabric.
Lex looked at the cloak in confusion for a second and then flung it away from him as if it might be cursed.
“What the hell?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.” A cold chill ran down my spine, like ice water dripping down the inside of my shirt. I’d never seen a witch so powerful he could disappear, or break a wall—and the wards.
I raised my hands toward the wall as I turned to face it. Our first priority had to be getting those wards back up before more witches came through. Cold rushed through my body, making me shiver.
The wall was intact. It was like nothing had ever happened. There wasn’t even a crack.
I blinked, then widened my eyes, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
“You saw that too, right?” Lex asked. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and winced as he found a bloody gash on his cheek. He pulled his hand away and looked at the blood smeared across it, frowning.
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