by May Dawson
“No,” I said.
“Are you, Tristan? Does Deidra need to be careful with you?”
“No, sir.” Tristan glanced at me, raising his eyebrows meaningfully even though Nix hadn’t called me out.
Was I really supposed to call Nix sir? I’d never called anyone sir in my life, and I wasn’t wild to start now. Especially not with Nix and Cade. They didn’t seem like real adults who had their lives figured out any more than I felt like one.
Everything hurt by the time we formed into rows of two for the run back through the wooded trail. Or so I thought. Instead we looped around the academy without stopping, then came back through the field…and took a trail on the other side.
“Where are we going?” I whispered to Tristan, who was beside me.
He jerked his jaw up.
Perplexed, I looked at the winding trail ahead of us through the leafy forest. We were going steadily uphill, and the forest just continued to rise ahead of us. The incline was a good mile long and steep.
“Does this count as a mountain?”
He touched his finger to his lips, looking meaningfully ahead at Cade’s back. Was Cade even breaking a sweat as his long, athletic legs ate up the hill?
Cade swiveled on his heel, but continued to run. Backwards. No, he was somehow definitely not breaking a sweat. “I know we have a new friend with us so I’ll give you a buy, once. If you guys have the breath to be chatty, we can pick up the pace. We don’t have to go so slow and easy.”
God, I hated him. Every regret about being a jerk yesterday faded away when his eyes met mine in challenge. He continued to jog backward as if he was not even human. I pressed my lips together and jerked my head in a nod. Okay. No talking. My breath was starting to sound ragged, anyway.
By the time we reached the top, I’d decided it was definitely a mountain, not a hill. My chest ached, and my legs were burning. I did my fair share of cardio as part of training in the dojo, but I’d focused on sprinting workouts. Hunters don’t usually have to run far. The things that chase us are really fast. Either you fight or you get to safety in a hurry, or you die. Long endurance runs like this one seemed like a pointless exercise.
There was a small, rocky clearing up here. It seemed like we could see the whole school spread out below, as well as the surrounding forest for miles. For a second, I gulped in the crisp morning air, grateful to be on flat ground, and took in the view as we turned back around for the run down.
At least on the way back down, my momentum carried me along, and I could relax a little bit. For the first time, I realized that I’d been thinking about something else, something besides Liam. It made me feel guilty. He’d been a living, breathing person just forty-eight hours before, the person I loved most in the world. How could I forget him even for a minute?
I would find the witch who was behind the attack and kill him. Then, maybe I’d decide to stay at the academy until I graduated, like my mom and dad.
Why hadn’t Liam told me about this place?
Was it just because he hadn’t wanted me to choose this life? Or was there another reason—a reason I should get out of here as soon as I could, instead of staying?
I breathed a sigh of relief when I glimpsed the field with the pull-up bars through the trees. We were almost back.
Behind me, there was a rustling sound. “Shit!”
The formation rippled as someone almost fell, but caught themselves. Someone stepped on the back of my shoe, and I started to trip, but someone grabbed my shoulder and steadied me. I tried to glance back to see who it was, but the pace was picking up again and their faces were a blur.
“Everyone all right?” Nix asked.
“I just stepped wrong, sir. Thought I twisted it, but I’m fine.”
“Good,” Cade said. Everyone’s gazes swiveled to him, and wondering why, I looked to his face too. He jerked his head down the trail. “Let’s do it again. You know the drill. Groan about it and we’ll do it a third time.”
No one murmured, no one groaned. When I glanced back over my shoulder, one kid was limping slightly. The guy next to him put a hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging look.
Then I faced forward, afraid I’d face-plant myself.
I couldn’t stay here, following other people’s stupid rules, not allowed to even curse if I twisted my damn ankle.
On the way up the hill again, I couldn’t keep up anymore. As my pace slowed, people started to go around me, and I slipped to the back of the crowd even though my breath was coming short and desperate as I tried to run as hard as I could.
Nix fell back with me, running beside me silently as the others got further and further ahead. His breath came easy, his muscular arms moving rhythmically as he ran. I stole a glance at his face, but his face was studiously neutral. At least he didn’t look at me like I was a failure.
Cade and the others headed back down toward us. I started to step to one side, out of their way, but Nix caught my elbow with his hand. I glanced up at him, his touch sending sparks through my skin no matter how brusque he was, and our gazes met.
Nix winked at me, a quick flicker of his dark lashes over those intensely blue eyes. Something caught in my chest, but then he was facing forward again, still drawing me with him up the mountain.
Once Cade and the others passed us, Cade turned. Cade came up alongside me on the other side, so close he almost brushed my elbow. I could hear the pounding of feet behind us, and I bit my lip as anxiety snaked through my stomach. Everyone had to do the rest of the hill again with me. I was making a great first impression.
By the time we got back to the quad, it was empty. Everyone else had been dismissed from PT already.
Cade raised his voice and said, “Good job today. Hurry up or you’ll be late for class.”
I leaned over, pressing my hands against my burning thighs as I breathed in deeply. The original circuit we’d done had to be a good four miles, between the academy loop and the out-and-back on the wooded trails. We’d done it twice. I didn’t know how we would have survived a third round. I slowly became aware of Cade, waiting beside me, his arms crossed.
I straightened, keenly aware of my flushed face and my damp hair sticking to my forehead. I bit back the smartass remark in my mouth and waited to see what he’d say first. No doubt he’d tell me how I’d embarrassed myself.
“Everyone else has been doing that run every day since August,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “You did good.”
“Thanks.” A warm glow spread through my chest. I hadn’t expected that.
“When it’s just the two of us, it’s fine,” he said. “But around the others, you really need to call Nix and me sir like everyone else does.”
“But saying sir makes me feel like I’m in a BDSM-y romance novel.” I crinkled my nose at him. “It’s really weird.”
Cade frowned, and a line dimpled between his gold-flecked eyes. “You’re really weird, Ainsley.”
Every muscle was sore and aching as I ran up the stairs to the dorm, desperate to make the most of my half hour to shower before breakfast. But still, just for a second, with my back to him, a smile slipped across my lips.
Chapter Eighteen
Morning classes:
Spellcraft.
Latin.
Truth of Mythology.
Biology & Chemistry Applications.
These classes were hard. It didn’t help that I was coming in late, but I didn’t understand anything they were saying. I frantically scribbled notes, adding little check-mark boxes next to terms and concepts I didn’t understand.
There were a lot of boxes.
If Liam were around, I would have texted him that I didn’t realize Hunters had to be smart.
The thought made me smile and then, as soon as I smiled, I felt a rush of guilt. He had been smart, even though he used to joke that I was the smart one. It’d been part of the banter between us, but it wasn’t funny anymore.
I bit down on my lip and tried to focu
s on the teacher at the front of the room despite my own wayward thoughts. She was clicking through a series of slides about angels. Apparently, we had to know their names.
“Now, we all know that sometimes the angels just can’t stop themselves from spilling some divinity,” the teacher said. I stared at her in confusion for a second before the tittering from my fellow students helped me connect the dots.
“What is the name for the issue of an angel and a human?” she asked, ignoring the ripple of amusement through the class.
“Nephilim.” It was Tristan’s low, sexy voice, and I glanced toward him. I might have guessed from his playful, flirtatious personality that he didn’t take anything seriously, but he seemed focused and intent in class.
“Correct. And what are the hallmarks of a Nephilim?”
“They’re fucking hard to kill,” some kid in the back called.
“Always so eloquent, Jack,” she said, pushing up her sleeves wearily. “Yes, Nephilim are indeed hard to kill. Despite their angelic parentage, they have very human personalities, which means they can be either good or bad.”
She paused, glancing at the big screen at the front of the room, which showed an artist’s depiction of an angel with a sword. “Hope you never meet a bad one. Their ability to heal themselves, their strength and speed, and their powers all make them challenging enemies.”
“We should recruit them,” Tristan said. “They’d make good Hunters.”
“Humans are difficult enough,” she said, humor in her voice. “However, you might find yourself called upon to protect a Nephilim at some point, despite all their powers. Can anyone tell me why?”
“Because when they’re children, they don’t yet have control over their powers,” Julia said. She sat in front of me, kicked back in her seat with an arm over the back of her desk like she owned the room. “And demons hunt them.”
“That’s right,” the teacher started to go on with her lecture.
Quietly, Julia turned to whisper to me, “Poor little angel babies. Better keep Hanna away from them.”
The teacher didn’t even glance at her as she said, “Julia, get out of my class.”
Julia’s feet came down on the checkered linoleum floor, surprise flashing across her face.
“The Nephilim are useful to demons as potential hosts,” the teacher went on. “Demons can only interact with the physical world when they are able to take over a human form, as I’m sure you all recall from our study of demons. But most human forms are worn thin by demon inhabitants. The Nephilim are more robust—”
Julia gathered her books and headed for the door. I was surprised; I’d thought that she would resist the teacher.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to talk in class and risk getting kicked out. No one played around here, that was for sure.
A few minutes later, class was dismissed. Julia was loitering in the hall, her arms crossed over her books. She flashed a smile at one of the guys who came out of the room ahead of us, and the two of them headed out together.
“She didn’t always have the personality of a moldy sandwich,” Tristan said. “Just so you know.”
I grinned. It was impossible not to laugh at Tristan.
“At dinner, we have to sit with our house, but for the other meals, you can eat with anyone,” Tristan told me as we walked out of the academic building.
“Okay,” I said.
“You’re not stuck with me at lunch,” Tristan said.
“Noted.”
My one-word answers made his eyebrows arch above his lush-lashed hazel eyes.
I gave in and smiled. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“No, I’m trying to invite you to lunch, if you don’t want to get rid of me.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I haven’t made any friends yet, though. So I might jettison you later.”
“Fair enough,” he said. As the two of us headed into the dining hall, he added, “What about Cade and Nix?”
“Cade made it very clear he’s not going to be my friend. But I don’t think we should talk about your big brother.”
“It’s okay if you don’t like him,” he said as we headed for the lunch line. “I don’t like him either.”
The way he said that, I could tell it wasn’t true. They might fight, but they didn’t really dislike each other, either.
Breakfast and lunch were self-serve from a long stainless steel buffet, but just as bland and healthy as dinner. I helped myself to a turkey sandwich and carrot sticks—exciting stuff—and then searched for Tristan in the crowd of students taking their seats.
He raised his hand in a wave from a seat toward the center of the room—he was sitting with his house after all, even if we didn’t have to—but as I moved toward him, Julia stepped in front of me, carrying her tray.
“Hey.” She flashed me that same big smile. “I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you want to come sit with us?” She gestured toward a table nearby. A couple of cute looking boys and a girl with a thorn tattoo running up her forearm were already sitting at that table. “Get to know some more people?”
“Thanks, but I already told Tristan I’d sit with him.”
“Okay. No problem.” Her smile didn’t dim. “Hey, we’re all pretty serious about our training. We meet up at night once or twice a week to train for a while. You want to come hang?”
“Maybe.”
“Meet me in the dojo Thursday night after dinner.” She flashed me a big smile, which coupled with her wide brown eyes and round cheeks, made her look far more trustworthy than she probably was. “We try to make sure none of the cadre see us head out to the ring.”
That didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.
“Maybe,” I said.
“You’ll like it,” she promised me. “I can tell we’re kindred spirits, Deidra Ainsley.”
I had some serious doubts about that.
“What did the shrew want?” Tristan asked when I sat down.
“Shrews are small and look harmless, right? Cute little things?”
He nodded.
“I can totally see why you call her the shrew,” I said. “Anyway, she wants to be my new bestie and invited me to train with her.”
“Yeah, she thinks she’s running Fight Club. I always have to avoid her and the other weirdos when Cade and I work out. It’s so embarrassing when Cade goes Full Cadre.”
“You work out together?”
Tristan nodded. “My big brother is not about to have me shame him.”
“He seems really intense,” I said.
“That is a word for it.” Tristan raised his glass to his lips.
“He and Hanna should date,” I mused out loud.
Tristan choked on his water, but grinned as he set it down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well, technically—”
“Yeah, not allowed. Cade made that clear already.”
“Oh really?” Tristan’s lips took on a mischievous quirk. His mouth was very nicely shaped, with a narrow upper lip and a pillowy lower lip.
I tore my gaze away from his mouth and studied the limp red tomato sticking out of the edge of my sandwich. I never noticed boys this much before in my life. Had grief changed me? Or were these men that different from the boring, arrogant boys at my school?
“Interesting that he would want to establish that fact from the get-go.” Tristan’s voice was teasing.
“He seems like a pretty dedicated rule-follower.”
“Definitely.”
Tristan had thrown me off with his implications. Does he think Cade finds me attractive? I took a long sip of my water, then studied him.
“Hey man.” One of the guys I’d met at dinner last night set his tray down, nodding to Tristan. “Deidra.”
“Hi,” I said.
He grinned. He had dark red hair, cut close, and a handsome face, a lot tanner than you’d expect from a redhead. “I’m Killian. I
know you don’t remember me.”
“Don’t take it personally.”
“I won’t.”
“Come on.” Nix’s impatient, honeyed voice behind me made me jump. “You’re not actually eating that sandwich, you’re just torturing it into pieces. Instead of the usual Hand-to-Hand session in the afternoon, you’ve got a one-on-one with me.”
A one-on-one with Nix.
Was I the only one who had a million dirty thoughts flash through her brain at those words?
I stared down at the bread I had indeed been twisting into pieces. “I was trying to bond with my new friends.”
“I’m the only new friend you need,” Nix told me.
Lord help me. I couldn’t even see him, since he was standing behind me, but the low, sexy rumble of his voice felt intimate in my ear.
“Sorry,” I mouthed at Killian and Tristan.
“We’ll catch up later,” Tristan promised me.
As Nix and I headed for the doors, I told him, “You can’t be my friend. Cade told me. No fraternization.”
Things with Nix felt easy and joking, even if he was bossy as hell.
“We’re definitely going to be friends,” Nix said.
That warmed my heart. Then he followed it up with, “Otherwise, the things we are about to do would be cruel and unusual.”
“Nix. That does not make me want to go with you.”
He opened the door and stepped out into the sunshine, which haloed his dark hair for a second as he grinned.
“I know, but it doesn’t matter, kid. Still time to train.”
It was only because Liam called me kid that my heart leapt when he said it. But there was no denying the strange comfort that washed through me as I followed him into the sun.
Chapter Nineteen
“What did you do before I came here?” I asked as Nix took off my bracelets.
I rubbed my wrists, even though it wasn’t like they hurt. The bracelets just annoyed me. They told everyone who saw me that I was untrustworthy.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Cade spent all day babysitting me yesterday,” I said. “You, I assume, have other things to do besides helping me figure out my magic.”