by Wood, Vivian
I turn to find Mania’s veil and headdress flung aside and Mania herself struggling to escape. Crawling to catch her leg, I snare her.
She looks back at me with a hiss.
My eyes widen.
“Dr. Napier?” I say, utterly astounded.
Her eyes narrow, looking at me with so much malice. “You stupid little girl. If you’d only stopped poking your nose where it didn’t belong, none of this would’ve ever happened. It would all stay buried.”
My eyebrows raise. The world warps for a second, reminding me that the hallucinogens are very much still in my system. “What would stay buried?”
Wolf speaks up. “She killed Asher, Emily. Isn’t that right, professor?”
Dr. Napier grimaces. “Fuck you, you dumb little twat. You wouldn’t understand what Asher and I had. It was real. He just didn’t know…”
A small pack of shrouded celebrators come around the corner, stopping dead. One of them pulls his hood off, revealing Dr. Richards, Dr. Napier’s husband.
His voice booms through the small space. “What is going on here? Brooke, you’re bleeding!”
“We need to help! She tried to kill us!” I shout, my face growing hot. “Wolf has a knife wound!”
One of the other shrouded members pushes past Dr. Richards, pushing back his hood. I recognize that man as Wolf’s father, and he looks fucking pissed.
Soon we are lost in a world of yelled instructions and ambulance workers rushing in. I stay by Wolf’s side, refusing to leave him, no matter what. He is stubborn too, not letting go of my hand the entire time.
Seeing their son’s tenacity, his parents don't even try to fight with him about it. They just watch as Wolf is lifted into one of the ambulances, promising to be on the other end. I grip Wolf’s hand as the ambulance starts swaying, so overwhelmed I don't even know what is going on half the time.
Mania was Dr. Napier.
Dr. Napier killed Asher.
How in the hell did that go down, exactly?
I don't know. For once, I’m glad not to.
50
Dr. Napier
The night Asher died
The little prick is so sure of himself.
That’s what drew me to him in the first place. Asher Radcliffe had that cocky confidence that only blooms in men in their twenties. I swore them off a long time ago.
But every couple of years, there’s one I can’t resist.
I couldn’t resist Asher Radcliffe. Third year at Campbell. He’d finally grown into his own skeleton and his muscles got firmer every week he spent at the gym. By the time I got him into my office hours he was deliciously ripped.
Now he’s fucking me over.
It was better when he just fucked me. On the desk in my office. In a storage closet beneath the library. In my car. He has all the enthusiasm of his age and none of the inhibitions that older men sometimes develop, like my dumbshit of a husband. He still thinks I’m faithful.
And I am, in a way. I haven’t been fucking any other students. Asher is the only one I’ve invested any time in this year, and now he’s repaying me with this.
He’s got one of the Thistles, a new one by the looks of her, pinned up against the tree. He’s got her robe up around her waist. He’s got his own shoved out of the way so he can fuck her. Her back has to be killing her up, against the bark, but she’s panting and mewling like she loves it.
What a little slut.
All he had to do was stay faithful. Not forever. I never ask them for forever, because I’m not that naive. But for now. For now. The end of the semester’s not far off. Summer break is when it all resets.
He couldn’t wait, and a painful envy shreds my heart like the blades of a blender.
Fuck that kid.
A red light pulses at the back of his head, beckoning. It’s probably a side effect of the drug for the Lemuria rites, but it looks real enough to me.
He finishes with a grunt, and the girl takes it. Then, with a sloppy kiss, he sets her back on her feet and she dashes away, laughing. “Text me,” he shouts after her.
The statute from the library is heavy. It’s small but dense, and somehow it’s in my hands, though I didn’t mean to take it.
Asher senses me at the last moment. His head starts to turn, a sound on his lips, and before it can emerge into the air the statue makes contact with his skull.
He drops, dead weight, to the ground. Dead. Dead dead dead.
The marker was in my pocket earlier. I draw the symbols in a satisfied, bleary haze, my stomach contracting. Some part of me knows this was wrong. Fucked up and wrong. But it feels so good. He’ll never fuck a little slut again. Never again. And the Skulls and Thorns will get blamed for this. A satanic ritual gone wrong. Foolproof.
I leave him there, out in the cold, alone.
He deserves it.
51
Wolf
They gather via video chat.
Ellis, Max, Carter. Faces pale and drawn. Max, for all we’ve fought this semester, is the first to speak.
“You doing okay, man?”
I smile to give them the impression that everything’s fine, though the knife wound still hurts like a bitch and I don’t know if my back will ever be the same. “I’ll be better once I can get out of here.”
“And you are getting out?” Carter asks, grinning. I still see the worry in his eyes.
“Yes. She didn’t get me as well as she thought she did.”
“God, man, I—” Ellis shakes his head, and looks away.
I have to take charge of this situation. “Let’s clear the air. I saw you guys that night. What the hell?”
“What do you mean, you saw them?” Max’s eyebrows knit together.
“I saw them moving Asher’s body.”
“And you never told me? You are such a fucking prick, Wolf.” Max leans back in his chair, and looks down.
“We were trying to...protect you,” admits Ellis.
It does strange things to my chest. To my heart. “Protect me? I’m the one who’s in charge of Rose House. Why didn’t you come to get me when you knew what happened?”
“Look.” Carter sets his jaw. “We all knew what it meant to you to get out of Campbell in a good spot for the future. You’re a fucking Astor, and you’ve been carrying us all with you since day one. We couldn’t let that happen. You’d be a suspect, somehow.”
“So you’re all cops now,” I say, my throat tight. “You knew that without having any idea—”
“We knew it would look bad. We knew you’d taken a long time to get out of the maze. We were drunk, and it was Lemuria, and—” Carter sighs. “And, and, and. We did it to protect you, and to protect Rose House.”
All this time, I thought I was carrying that burden alone. And all this time, my friends carried it with me. It’s so fucking sentimental I could cry, if I were the type.
“Ellis.” He looks at a spot on the screen that tells me he’s focused on my face. “What was your deal with Emily?”
“She caught me kissing Napier,” he grumbles.
“Yeah. She told me.”
“And you made me say it to you again? I hate you.”
There’s a pause.
“I don’t hate you,” he says. “I don’t hate you all the time.”
“I miss him,” adds Max. “Asher. He was an asshole, but I miss him.”
We share a long silence between us, and my heart almost explodes with the thought that all my friends could be doing this for me.
That woman was fucking insane.
“Are you coming back? When you’re out, I mean.” Ellis blinks a couple of times, too fast for me to see if there are tears in his eyes.
“I might take a little time. Figure out what I’m going to do. But I’ll be back. Do you think I’d let you graduate without me?”
“Fuck no,” says Carter. “We wouldn’t go unless you were there, too.”
“Yes, you would,” I say fiercely, the emotion welling in my throat. “No
matter what, we’re always going to keep moving forward. That’s what it means to be a Thorn. Et Charonis unum,” I say.
“Et Charonius unum,” they echo, and for the first time in a long time, it doesn’t make my blood run cold. It doesn’t make my heart stutter and freeze. I only feel the ache of missing Asher and a certain thankfulness for the brotherhood that’s carrying on without him. That’s what we have to do—carry on without him. Someday, there will only be one of us left, and generations of Thorns to carry the torch for our legacy. They won’t remember our names, but they’ll still be there. I know it.
The painkillers are making me sentimental.
“Emily’s going to miss you,” offers Max.
I look him in the eye as much as one can over video chat. “Keep an eye on her for me, will you?”
He nods, swallowing hard. “That means...” He can’t bring himself to go much further. “I will. You don’t have to worry.”
“No, I don’t think I do.” I settle back on my pillows with a sigh. Campus is safer now, with Napier gone. It’s college, like college was meant to be. Brotherhood. Sisterhood. Girlfriends. Dates. And for Emily, class after class after class. We have some things to figure out, sure, but it’s nothing we can’t face.
I don’t feel it anymore—that other shoe, about to drop. There’s nothing sinister hovering in the clear blue sky.
“What will they do next year, without all this drama to focus on?” says Carter, and they all laugh, joking while I look out at the white clouds roll past outside the window.
Spring is coming, and the world is finally waking up.
So are we.
52
Emily
When Wolf is released from the hospital and cleared to go home, he goes to his parents’ house. I understand that completely, but I don’t even want to test his parents’ patience any further. So I head back to campus, arriving a Thistle House just after the sun has gone down.
I’m surprised at how quiet the house is. The whole campus seems to be under the same spell, ever since word spread of Dr. Napier’s arrest.
One of Campbell’s brightest professors killed one of the most popular students in cold blood. I guess it’s enough to make anyone somber.
I’m not expecting much when I swing open the front door of Thistle House. It’s dark and still. As soon as I shut the door though, a light goes on.
“Emily?”
I turn to find Cass waiting on the sofa in the living room, huddled under a big fuzzy blanket. She has clearly been waiting up for me.
“Cass,” I say, tears springing to my eyes. I walk over to her, collapsing in her arms the second I can. It’s been a long and trying couple of days, and that’s not even considering Wolf’s parents.
“Awww,” she says, hugging me tightly. “It’s okay, Em. I promise.”
“Hey! No fair, I want in,” Alice says, entering the room in her pajamas. Mathilde is right behind her, coming over to join the cuddle puddle without a word.
“You guys…” I say, wiping at my eyes. “You don't even seem to realize how much this means to me.”
Mathilde rolls her eyes. “You’re a Thistle. We all have to band together. That’s probably why Dr. Napier got so cranky. She was sad and had no one to tell her problems to.”
Alice punches her on the arm. “Don’t joke about that.”
Mathilde glares at her, rubbing the spot that Alice punched. “You really have got to ease up on those weights at the gym, Alice.”
“Enough.” Cass interrupts. “As if I don't hear enough from you two already. Emily, tell us everything. We heard that Dr. Napier was dressed up as a witch. We heard that she tried to kill you.”
I hesitate, sniffling. “Yes. She actually managed to puncture one of Wolf’s lungs. And she was dressed as a goddess, not a witch.”
“Oh my god,” Alice says. “I can’t believe that. Like… I can’t believe you actually came back to campus, either.”
“Well… I still have finals…” I say, uncertain.
“Hah! No. Finals are canceled for underclassmen like us.” Mathilde winks. “Apparently the deans don't want the students to feel too overwhelmed, considering that one of the college’s professors tried to actually murder you.”
My brows shoot up. “Really?”
“Umm, yes.” Cass pulls a face. “Not to say we aren’t sorry that it happened to you, but… thanks, I guess. I think we are all glad that you’re safe.”
“And glad that we don't have finals,” Mathilde says.
Alice punches Mathilde again, starting a power struggle between them once more. While they are kicks and slapping each other, Cass pulls me into another hug.
“I’m so glad you and Wolf both made it to the end of the year alive.”
I hug her back. “Me too.”
Cass gives me a speculative look. “Are you and Wolf still an item?”
I blush. “Yes. At least, I think so. He’s resting, but I’m going to go up to visit him tomorrow I think.”
“Good. You should let me come with you. His parents and my parents have a ton in common. Same clubs and all that stuff, Skulls aside. I will be a good icebreaker.”
“Oooh, yeah. Let us come! You can still have some alone time with Wolf.” Alice wiggles her eyebrows. “We won’t interrupt that.”
Turning ten shades of pink, I am still glad for the support of my friend, even if they’re being embarrassing right this moment. “Okay.”
“Oh! Speaking of all this… unpleasantness,” Mathilde says, waving a hand. “I told my dad all about your little investigation and he thinks you have a nose for journalism, or whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “He said if you’re interested in a summer internship at the Wall Street Journal or the New Yorker, he’s happy to oblige.”
My jaw drops. “Your dad… he works for the New Yorker?”
“Uhhh no, Emily.” She rolls her eyes again. “We’re the Davenports. We are majority shareholders in like… every single large newspaper or publication in the country. And a lot of the ones in the E.U., too. Le Monde, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Asahi Shimbun…”
She twirls her fingers. I close my eyes, my fingers finding the skeleton key that is still on it’s chain around my neck.
What. The. Hell.
Cass cuts in. “Umm, Emily is currently taking a mental break right now. She’ll get back to you on which paper she wants to work for.”
The other two girls laugh. I’m trying to keep back tears.
“I… I just…” I manage, trying not to burst into sobs.
“This is how things work in your world now,” Alice says, bumping her shoulder into mine. “You had better get used to it. We can’t have you crying at every little favor, now can we?”
That pushes me over the edge. I hiccup, my tears flowing freely.
“I like her reactions,” Mathilde says with a shrug. “They’re honest, at least. When’s the last time you heard any of our friends cry over something so little as an internship?”
Cass holds me a little tighter. “You know what we all need?”
From the doorway, Ms. Thomas clears her throat. We all look over to find her in her pink fluffy house robe, standing with a tray full of snacks.
“Please tell me that I didn’t prepare this for nothing,” she says.
My stomach rumbles. Cass grins at Ms. Thomas.
“You came at just the right time!” she crows. “We are starving. Will you join us?”
Ms. Thomas grins, bringing the tray over to us. We descend on the snacks happily, chatting and exclaiming. I can’t seem to dry my eyes, but no one seems to care.
We sit up for hours, talking and grinning and cracking up with laughter. And our differences, once so painfully apparent, fade into the background.
It turns out, I am a Thistle after all.
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About Vivian Wood
Vivian likes to write about troubled, deeply flawed alpha males and the fiery, kick-ass women who bring them to their knees.
Vivian's lasting motto in romance is a quote from a favorite song: "Soulmates never die."
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Wild Hearts
Addiction
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His Virgin
His Best Friend’s Little Sister
Claiming Her Innocence
His To Keep
Promise Me
Knocking Boots
SEAL’s Bride
SEAL’s Kiss
SEAL’s Touch
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Olivia Ryann is the dark romance pen name of Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Top 20 Bestseller Vivian Wood. She loves poetic phrases and bits of melodic memories. She adores dominant, hard men and soft, fragile women with backbones made of steel. She wants to put them together as often as possible, in unconventional ways.
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Olivia’s Works
Provoke
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