by May Dawson
When there was a rustling in the woods alongside us, both of them turned. Nix grabbed the hilt of his sword that hangs between his shoulders, the movement pulling up his t-shirt to reveal a narrow band of his chiseled abs. Cade already had his hands on his gun, which he held low and ready.
“Who’s there?” Cade called, his voice low and gruff.
“It’s just me.” Tristan stepped out of the brush, his hands raised to shoulder-height.
“You idiot.” Cade tucked his gun back into his holster. “You are definitely still confined to the barracks.”
“I know,” Tristan said, but his gaze was on me, not his brother. “I’ll be on restriction again, I don’t care. Is she all right?”
“Forget restriction, I’m going to kick your ass,” Cade said impatiently.
Tristan’s eyes were steady on mine, and warmth spiked in my chest. Some of my anxiety fell away.
“I’m all right,” I said. “Thanks to Nix.”
Nix glanced at me sharply. I couldn’t read his expression.
Tristan nodded.
“Come with us,” Cade said impatiently. “We’re going to have a talk.”
Tristan’s lips twisted. “I was counting on that.”
He fell in step with us, the four of us heading across the moonlit campus. For the first time, I started to feel the aches and pains from the fight. My knuckles throbbed—I’d broken a few—and my head was still pounding from the blow I’d taken. Nix had healed me, but not entirely.
There were bruises across my abs and arms, and I found myself limping from how bad the pain was in my lower back. One of them must have punched my kidneys, but I wasn’t sure from the way it throbbed if he’d landed the hit there or just bruised the muscle. I’d barely noticed in the thick of it. All I’d felt was fear, and the need to stay alive had lessened the pain of any blow that landed.
Cade raised his cell phone to his ear as we walked. “Hey. We’re on our way, but she’s pretty banged up. We’re going to make sure she’s all right first.”
He glanced at me, but I couldn’t hear what was said on the other end of the line. “Yeah. I will.”
As he hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket, I asked, “Will what?”
Cade’s lips tightened. I frowned, exasperated by him. It had seemed caring that he’d gotten rid of the crowds waiting for Nix and I to emerge. But I couldn’t get a good reading on him.
When we walked up the steps of the academy building, it was dark and eerie inside. Our footsteps echoed in the halls as the guys led me to an empty classroom. Cade opened a desk drawer and pulled out a red medical kit.
“You teach classes too?” I asked. The question hung in the air, as if it was so odd that I was asking normal questions.
“Yeah,” Cade said, crooking a finger at me to come to him. “One of the instructors was killed a few months ago, and I took over. I teach freshmen. Just not you, because I get enough of you.”
“Probably for the best.” I got quite enough of him, too. But I still went to where he was standing behind the desk.
Without discussion, he grabbed my hips in his hands and lifted me up onto the desk. I teetered on the edge of it for a second, automatically grabbing his corded forearms to keep myself from tipping over. His hands stayed wrapped firmly around my hips until I wiggled back so I wouldn’t fall.
I looked over my shoulder at Nix, who stood in the doorway, his arms crossed and a bleak expression on his face.
As Cade began to check my injuries, his movements brisk and firm as if he felt nothing when he touched me, I asked, “Can Julia really get me kicked out?”
“Now you care?” Cade demanded.
“I’ve always cared,” I shot back.
“This bruise is going to take a while to heal.” Cade pressed his fingers into a painful spot at the side of my neck. I winced, pulling away from his hand, as he asked, “How did that even happen?”
“I don’t know.” The fight was a blur. “You aren’t going to use magic to heal me the rest of the way?”
“Probably not,” he said.
“Why?”
Nix hesitated, but Cade told me frankly, “Because you deserve the pain you chose when you walked out of the house tonight.”
“It’s the weirdest thing that I don’t trust you, right?” I muttered.
Cade took my hand in his, running his thumb gently over my knuckles, although the pressure still made me wince. “Actually, Nix, heal her knuckles. She broke the first three, and we need her to be able to fight.”
Nix nodded and crossed the distance between us. He slid onto the desk beside me, so close that his big shoulder brushed mine, and I breathed in his scent of wood smoke and cinnamon. He took my hand in his, and when his thumb rubbed across my knuckles, it wasn’t gentle. His lips moved as he whispered a spell silently, and I gasped as my knuckles burned in response.
“Breathe through it.” Tristan rested his hand on my shoulder, leaning across the desk. His hand was a warm, comforting weight, and I tried to smile at him. I was pretty sure it was more like my lips peeling back from my teeth in a grimace. “It hurts, I know, but it only lasts a minute this way. It’ll be better in the long run.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Cade said, taking my chin in his fingers so he could tilt my head up to the light and examining me with a critical eye, “Julia won’t be healed either. None of them will. Choices have consequences.”
“It doesn’t make me feel better,” I said, but I thought of Julia’s broken nose and I did, honestly.
Cade stared into my eyes, a frown dimpling the space between his gold-flecked hazel eyes. I wanted to look away, but he was still holding my chin, forcing my gaze to his. It felt too intimate.
“Her pupils look fine,” Cade said to Nix.
“I’m not sure taking a blow to the head is that serious for her,” Nix said.
The impulse to stick my tongue out at Nix was probably neither mature nor wise.
“You did get hit in the head, didn’t you?” Cade asked.
“With a stick,” I said, and there was heat threaded through my voice that surprised me.
I could’ve died out there in the woods for no damn reason.
I hated Julia, but I hated myself for going out there, too.
Cade’s lips tightened with anger, and his gaze flickered to Nix. Nix shifted impatiently, as if he was angry. Something passed between them.
Nix said, “She should sleep in our room tonight just in case she has a concussion. I should have healed it when I healed her nose, but the mind is a strange thing. Especially hers.”
Cade looked uncomfortable, but he nodded. Was he still obsessing over the fact he’d kissed me? Did it make him uncomfortable to have me so close, even though he pretended he didn’t care?
When I turned my head, conscious of Tristan’s constant comforting grip on my shoulder, I caught his smile out of the corner of my vision. Cade’s gaze flickered to Tristan behind me, and his eyes narrowed. Tristan squeezed my shoulder before releasing me.
“Where does it hurt?” Cade asked me.
“Everywhere.” I leaned forward, probing my lower left back with my fingers, and winced at even the gentle touch. “I know, I know, you’re happy to hear it.”
“Take your shirt off,” Cade said, his expression far more dour than I’d expect from a man when he said that.
Still, I wasn’t pushing my luck. I had phenomenally fucked up tonight. Maybe it was time to stop wisecracking. I pulled my shirt over my head, folding it in my lap.
I did my best to crane my head over my shoulder to see the spot where I’d taken the hit in the side. It was hard to see from this angle, but I caught a glimpse of black and purple bruises.
“Were you clinched up or did someone hit you from behind?” Cade asked, his fingers brushing over my skin.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. The fight had become a blur of adrenaline, of nothing but trying to fight my way through long enough to get away.
&n
bsp; “Usually this is the kind of thing you remember,” Cade said, and his fingers probed the bruises until I bit down on my lip. “How bad is the pain now?”
“It’s pretty bad,” I said flatly.
“You were scared,” Nix said. “Both times you accessed your magic. You were fighting for your life.”
Cade’s lips tightened.
I didn’t like anyone saying I was scared. Scared didn’t sound like someone who could bring down the witch who has killed seventeen Hunters, including my uncle.
Nix was still right next to me, close enough for his shoulder to almost brush mine.
“She could have internal damage,” Cade said.
Nix nodded and slid off the desk. I tried to avoid his gaze as he circled me, and his fingers brushed over the bruises, which made me stiffen.
He rested his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently, then took my hand and guided it to his corded forearm that was braced against my shoulder. “Hang on. This is going to hurt for a minute.”
“I’d expected that magic would be a little less—” I broke off, swallowing a ragged breath as pain arched through my side. Now I remembered getting hit, the way my heart had skipped a beat at the pain that lanced through my body.
“It only lasts a minute,” Cade said.
He hesitated, watching me as I bit down on my lip so hard that I thought I might draw blood. Sweat began to bead along my hairline. The pain was intense, but I couldn’t curl up into a ball. I felt my fingers curl painfully deep into Nix’s forearm, squeezing him tightly. My other hand clutched the edge of the desk so hard that my knuckles were turning white.
“You’re okay,” Tristan promised, patting my bare shoulder.
When his palm touched my skin, the pain disappeared.
Just for a second.
He started to lift his hand away, and I pushed his hand back onto my shoulder, holding it there. The heat and pain that flowed through my body from Nix’s healing touch faded away when Tristan touched me. Languid relaxation spread through my limbs, and the agonizing pulse of pain in my lower back faded. I sighed in relief.
Tristan hesitated, then moved to sit on the desk in one smooth motion. I leaned back into him as he wrapped his arm around my waist. I still felt Nix’s burning-hot magic flowing into my body, but now the pain was gone.
Cade’s gaze flickered between Tristan and me. “What?”
“Done.” Nix was frowning too as he stepped back.
“Sorry,” I said. “It just hurt so much…”
“And then it changed? When Tristan…” Cade stared at the two of us, frowning deeply.
“It didn’t hurt anymore.” I felt self-conscious now for the way I’d pulled Tristan into my body. I’d been so desperate for the comfort and relief I gained when he touched me. “Is that some kind of magic too?”
“What did you feel?” Cade asked Tristan.
He hesitated.
Cade’s phone buzzed in his pocket with an incoming text, and he pulled it out impatiently. When he glanced at it, he said, “Malcolm would like to know where the hell we are. If Deidra is in that bad of shape.”
“Let’s go,” Nix said. His gaze flickered to my shirt.
Right. It would probably help if I wasn’t topless appearing in front of the dean. I pulled it on over my head.
Nix went on, “He’ll want to know she’s fine. Despite the best efforts of those...”
The way he trailed off, his jaw tightening, made me suddenly thankful not to be one of the five who had laid a trap for me. Nix and Cade were furious at me, but I was not the one they were most angry at. I felt a wave of relief that they understood what had happened. Julia had probably tried to spin it from the second she came down the trail. But they believed me.
“We’ll figure out whatever is happening here later,” Cade said, glancing from Tristan to me.
When Cade turned away from me, his broad shoulders large in my vision for a second before he headed for the door, I felt the strangest pang of regret. It almost felt as if I’d hurt him somehow.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“You stay out here for now,” Cade told Tristan, before he knocked on the dean’s door.
“Come in,” the dean called.
Tristan winked at me, and it dulled some of the anxious ache in my chest.
The dean’s office was dimly lit, just the lamp on his desk and the orange glow in his fireplace. He waved us in impatiently, and we filed in front of his desk.
“Deidra, you’re certainly making quite the impression on the academy,” Malcolm said mildly. His quiet tone did nothing to make me feel more at ease. His gaze flickered to Cade and Nix in turn. “I asked you two to make sure she adjusted to life here and to keep her powers in check.”
A muscle ticked in Cade’s cheek. I expected him to say something about what an incredible pain in the ass I’d been, but he said, “We’ve let her down. I know. But we’ll keep trying.”
Funny how that made me feel a hundred times worse.
“I know you will,” Malcolm told Cade. Then his gaze went to me. “I’ve heard Julia’s side already…at length…”
I was pretty sure Julia’s side was all lies.
Malcolm went on, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
When Cade and Nix looked at me, I could feel the tension in their bodies. Cade’s face begged me to just tell Malcolm the truth.
I blew out a slow breath and then launched into the story, determined to tell the truth even though it was not a good look.
“Julia challenged me to a fight,” I said. “Out in the woods, late at night so no one would stop us.”
Malcolm nodded without comment.
“But it wasn’t just Julia out there,” I said, and Malcolm’s brows rose as if she’d left this part of the story out. “I walked through the woods to get there, and she and four of her best friends were waiting for me. They planned to teach me a lesson. I was the only one who went out there for a fair fight.”
“What happened?” Malcolm asked when I hesitated.
I couldn’t explain what was going through my head when I decided to fight them all anyway. Better not to even try. “Julia went out into the clearing to wait for me. The other four split up. They were going to jump me when I fought Julia. Since there were only two of them left on my side of the woods, I kicked their asses and then went after Julia.”
Malcolm studied my face. Maybe there was a politer way to phrase kicked their asses in front of the dean. I’d never worried too much about my language before, but something about the way he looked at me made me self-conscious.
“You thought you would just fight the five of them,” Malcolm said flatly. “Did they see you?”
They hadn’t. I could have just walked back through the woods and gone to bed, like a sane person. “No.”
“So you had a choice.”
I nodded.
Cade pinched the bridge of his nose again. Apparently the tale of my stupidity was painful to listen to.
“What happened with your magic?” Malcolm asked.
“It turned out that fighting five of my fellow Hunters was a mistake,” I said blandly.
“No kidding,” Malcolm said.
“You need to know that they went after her to hurt her,” Nix said, his voice cold. “Badly.”
“You certainly seem to have enemies after just one week.” Malcolm tilted his head, regarding me curiously.
I’ve just got one of those faces people hate. The words were on my lips, but I pressed them together. Hunters didn’t like witches, and I was a witch. Nix belonged here, but would I ever?
Malcolm leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, still studying me. He shook his head slowly. “Five Hunters, and you liked your odds. You do remind me of your father.”
His words sent a throb through my chest. I didn’t expect that.
“But the fight itself isn’t important,” he said. Nix leaned forward, tension in his frame, as if he didn’t agree with tha
t. Malcolm went on. “It’s what came after.”
“She released her magic without hurting anyone,” Nix said.
“Indeed,” Malcolm began.
Someone knocked on the door, quick and aggressive, and almost crossed the line into pounding. Malcolm’s eyes narrowed in irritation.
“Come in,” Malcolm said, after a second.
Julia walked in with her head held proudly for someone who had white athletic tape across their nose. Behind her came a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair. There was a clear family resemblance in their equally haughty, punchable faces. He wore jeans and a sword in a harness, just like so many Hunters.
“You made record time, Leo,” Malcolm said, rising to his feet and extended his hand to the man. The two of them shook. “But I suppose that’s no surprise when daddy’s little girl gets hurt.”
Julia pressed her lips together into a tight line. She didn’t like that very much.
“I did want to check on her,” Leo said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “But most of all, I was worried about the safety of our students.”
“Everything is under control,” Malcolm said.
Leo’s gaze shifted to me and then back to Malcolm. “Could we speak alone?”
Malcolm drummed his fingertips against the desktop as he studied Leo, then Julia in turn. “I’m concerned that perhaps Julia didn’t tell you the full story.”
“Whether she did or not,” Leo said, “that girl is a danger.”
“She’s my business, not yours.”
“Is that your business as the dean or your business as her grandfather?” Leo demanded. “Because I’m not sure you’re thinking clearly.”
I stared at Leo, whose lips were still moving. The word grandfather echoed in my head. Had I misheard him, somehow?
Malcolm was my grandfather?
Liam had told me my grandfather had walked out on him and my father when they were just kids.
You remind me of your father, Malcolm had said, and his voice had sounded wistful.
“Enough!” Malcolm cut Leo off. I’d missed whatever they had said as my mind raced. “She’s a student here. There’s no place safer for her to be with her powers.”