by May Dawson
“There shouldn’t be any witches at the academy to begin with,” Leo snapped. “Let alone one with a track record of death and destruction—”
Malcolm jerked his head toward the door. “Go.”
My feet stayed planted on the floor as Cade started to go around me, then stopped. I was still staring at Malcolm. Did he look at all like Liam or my own father, who I mostly remembered now from photos? Were his eyes green, like mine? In the dim light, it was hard to tell the color.
“Come on.” Cade put his hand on my shoulder, steering me out behind Nix. Reluctantly, I got my feet moving again.
“I’ll take it up with the council then, if you won’t be reasonable,” Leo said to Malcolm.
“Reasonable? You think you’re being reasonable, trying to protect your miscreant daughter at the expense of another child—”
“She’s not a child!” Leo exploded. “She’s a witch!”
In the hallway, Cade said, “Come on. Snap out of it.”
Tristan joined us, his face worried.
“He’s my grandfather?” I whispered.
Cade’s face shifted.
“Did you know?”
Cade hesitated. “He was really worried about you, that night we went out to your house.”
“Why didn’t I grow up knowing him?” I demanded.
Cade raked his hand through his hair, and I had the feeling it was frustrating for him not to have all the answers. “You’ll have to ask him.”
Malcolm should have just told me. The thought that I’d been on the same campus as my own grandfather and hadn’t known, when other people did, made me feel cheated.
Leo’s words were coming back to me now. A track record of death and destruction. Why had he said death?
“What did he mean?” I asked, before realizing I wasn’t making sense. “Leo said I had a track record of death and destruction. I thought there weren’t any people in that building.”
“He’s an asshole, just like his kid,” Nix said. “Don’t worry about him.”
“Did I hurt someone?” I asked. My voice came out cool, level. It was better than I’d hoped for. “Just tell me the truth. I can handle the truth.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Cade said. “Maybe he doesn’t know either.”
“And your powers are under control,” Nix said. “You were able to control your magic.”
“No, I wasn’t,” I said. “You were.”
I was just as much of a danger as Leo said I was. I could have killed Nix. He’d taken a wild gamble, staying with me.
Cade told Malcolm that they had let me down. I was the one letting them down. I hadn’t been easy to teach. I’d fought them even though we all wanted the same things. If I were them, I’d be sick of me.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. You’re all beat up, and it’s late.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Malcolm’s door. There were raised voices inside, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Was my grandfather trying to protect me?
Was he wrong?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Back in Cade’s and Nix’s room, Cade handed me a clean towel and jerked his head toward the shower. Despite Nix having healed the worst of my wounds, everything ached as I showered. For a few seconds when I rinsed my hair, blood pooled in the water around my feet, and then it was gone. My fingers crept through my wet hair, searching for the sore spot where Julia hit me.
I could not feel more exhausted and wrung-out. I wished I could close my eyes on this day and just start over, back on that first day at the academy.
Maybe now that I’d made a mess of everything, I wanted to stay.
When I got out of the shower, I pulled on clean clothes and headed out into the main room.
“I’m going to make those little punks wish they were dead,” Nix said. “They could’ve killed her. Fucking assholes. None of them deserve to be here.”
Cade’s gaze snapped up to me. Nix fell silent, biting off his words. Despite the protective way Nix just spoke of me, his blue eyes were icy and unfriendly, like I interrupted their conversation. Well. Quite the greeting.
“I’m going to wake you every hour,” Cade said. “You shouldn’t get into too deep a sleep with a head injury.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Luckily for us both, morning is not that far away,” he said. “And we have a regular day of classes ahead.”
I nodded.
“No smartass remarks?” he asked.
“Not at the moment,” I said. “I’ll keep you posted though.”
“Now I really am worried that your brain is bleeding,” Nix muttered.
“You can sleep in my bed,” Cade said. “I’ll take the floor.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
Cade turned to me, raking his hand through his hair in exasperation. “Even when I try to be nice, you just want to argue with me, huh?”
Before I could answer, Nix said, “Go to bed, Deidra. Get some rest.”
“What are you two doing?” I asked. “Why aren’t you going to bed?”
Nix’s handsome face tightened with frustration.
Anger flared through my belly. I wished they would trust me, talk to me. Every time I thought about how Cade had said he’d let me down, it made me feel we were all fighting each other for nothing.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m exhausted. Good night.”
“Good night,” Nix said, skepticism written across his face, like he thought this was a trick.
I hesitated with my hand on Cade’s doorknob. It made me feel better to know one of them was sleeping near me. But Cade said he would come in later. I went through and pulled the door closed behind me, shutting them out, but only for now.
When I laid my head down on the pillow, for the first time I felt just how badly it ached. Even my eyelashes felt sore when I let them flutter closed.
Nix had sounded so furious about the trap Julia and pals had laid for me. So protective.
I put my arm over my face, trying to block out every thought about that, and the weird funny thing it did in my chest.
An hour later, I was confused when Cade shook me awake. I blinked up at him, perplexed.
“Hey.” He was sitting on the bed next to me, silhouetted in the dim light that trickled through the window. There was tension in his face that relaxed as my gaze met his. “All right, good. You can go back to sleep.”
I started to nod, but my head throbbed. Cade’s fingers left my shoulder as he rose from the bed. He crawled back into the sleeping bag on the floor.
But I couldn’t fall back asleep. I kept thinking of how awkward Cade had been with me lately, how uncomfortable, since that kiss. He was still bossy and protective, but he was trying to hold himself away from me.
And yet, when I needed him, here he was, three feet away in the darkness.
“I’m pretty sure I have a concussion,” I said.
“Yeah?” He wrapped his arm around his pillow. I wondered if he always slept like that.
“Because things don’t really make sense,” I said. “For instance, you seem scared of me again.”
“I am not scared of you,” he said impatiently. “I guess you really did get whacked in the head pretty hard.”
“I don’t mean like before,” I said. While Nix tried to calm me down and absorb my magic, Cade had come back down the trail, clearing all the students away who had gathered to watch the inferno blow. “Did Julia tell everyone I was…”
“She was causing her usual trouble,” he said. “Malcolm has a soft spot for her since she’s his grand-niece.”
“Wait.”
“Yeah, I guess you two are cousins,” he filled in. “Family. So maybe you can stop trying to kill each other now.”
“I didn’t try to kill her,” I said sharply.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m feeling a little picky about the difference right now,” I said.
“You haven’t hur
t anyone,” he said. “I’m not scared of you, Deidra. I left you and Nix in that clearing because those stupid kids were trying to come up to watch. I knew you and Nix could figure it out. You deserved your privacy.”
“Not like that,” I said. Maybe Cade should be scared of my powers, but he doesn’t seem to be that worried anymore, at least not with Nix around. “I mean, you seem scared of me since you kissed me.”
Cade sighed in the darkness. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“I probably won’t remember it in the morning,” I said.
“Look.” He sat up, propping his elbow on his knee. In the dim light, I couldn’t see his face very well, just the silhouette of his body, his powerful shoulders and the lean taper of his waist. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
His words were a quick staccato, unforgiving of himself, as if he had been waiting to say these words. He continued, “But can we just put it behind us and focus on your training?”
“Have you been scared I’ll tell someone?” Julia used Cade to threaten me. If he heard about Julia’s rumors, would he think I’d told on him, to hurt him? The thought made my heart race.
He hesitated. “If you tell Malcolm, he’ll find someone else to work with you. Nix is essential—I can’t do what Nix does—and the two of us work well together. But if you’d be more comfortable with someone else…”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?” he asked impatiently. “Yeah, I’d rather you didn’t talk about it, especially if you just want to get back at me. The academy means everything to me, it’s the only home, the only family I have now. But I have no right to ask you to keep a secret about my fuck-up. So…”
He started off strong, but he trailed off.
“Do what you want, Deidra,” he said finally. He raked his hand through his hair, rifling his short blond hair.
He sounded so genuinely abashed and miserable. There was an answering throb of misery through my own body. I owed him the truth.
“You didn’t make me kiss you,” I said flatly. “I kissed you back. I wanted you to kiss me.”
Every single word hurt. It felt like a big confession. But he needed to hear it.
His lips parted, but he didn’t say anything.
“So no, I’m not going to use it against you. Do you really think I’d just try to hurt you?” My voice came out heated, angrier than I’d expected, and for no reason. Cade and I barely knew each other.
“No,” Cade said softly.
“I’m not a complete asshole,” I said, yanking the blankets over my shoulders even though I felt hot.
“I know that,” he said. He blew out a long, slow breath. “Maybe we can start over. We’ve both said things that were…”
“Assole-ish?”
“I was going to say regrettable, but yeah.”
“I like the idea,” I said. “But I didn’t have much of a filter before Liam died. And I’m a little ragged around the edges these days. So I’m probably going to keep saying shitty things.”
I hesitated as the words I’d just spoken hung in the room. “Also, I definitely have a malfunctioning brain right now. I can’t believe I just said that.”
“A little too unfiltered?” Cade said.
There was amusement in his voice, but for once, this time, it made me smile slightly. I looked away from him at the dark ceiling ahead as he laid back down.
“If I remember any of this conversation in the morning, I’ll pretend that I don’t,” I told him.
“Same.”
“Then can I ask you something?”
He sighed. “You should go to sleep. We both should.”
“I know.”
“Fine. Ask away. But I may not answer.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t remember.”
‘“Mm-hmm.”
“Do you really feel like this place is your home? Your family?” I remembered Nix telling me that the two of them had nowhere else to go.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, it’s not the same as having your own family who loves you. A normal family with a mother and a father and maybe siblings you grew up with and have so much in common. It’s a different thing. But it’s still good.”
Something about his low voice in the darkness, when I can’t see his face, was comforting, and I feel my eyelids growing heavy.
“I know Nix and I have each other’s backs,” he said. “Tristan annoys me like it’s his job, but he is my younger brother so…fair enough. At least he gets to grow up somewhere safe while he learns how to Hunt. I don’t know if I could do a good enough job protecting him if we were on our own.”
“I think you would,” I disagreed, stifling a yawn. “You seem pretty expert at protective-and-bossy.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being insulting or not,” he said.
I yawned again, turning over on the pillow.
“I don’t know either.” To the wall in front of me, I said, “But I kind of like it.”
There was quiet in the room. I would’ve regretted those words, but sleep was falling over me like a thick blanket.
“Night, Deidra,” Cade said quietly. “See you in an hour.”
With Cade watching over me, I fell into sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The next morning, I woke up late. Sunlight was streaming through the window, and I frowned at the sight.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Nix said, leaning in the doorway. His dark hair was damp with sweat, his cheeks ruddy. I’d missed physical training.
“You let me sleep?”
“I don’t want you any more brain damaged than you already are. A long run’s a bad idea.”
“Probably should skip tomorrow’s too, just to be on the safe side.” I eased myself up to sit, then pressed the heels of my hands over my aching temples. “Where’s Cade?”
“Meeting with Malcolm.”
I sat up quickly. “I want to meet with Malcolm.”
Nix raised his eyebrows, but resisted the temptation to point out how much no one here cared what I wanted. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed and held out a white coffee cup and a paper bag. “Here.”
“Sugar and milk?” I asked, taking the coffee. The cafeteria coffee was bad, but at least it was something.
He snorted.
Right. He didn’t care what I wanted. But when I took a sip of the coffee, it was rich and delicious. I lifted the cup, shooting him a questioning look.
“Cade picked you up breakfast in town,” he said. “He worries about you eating enough.”
“I know.”
“Personally, I don’t think a bagel and a latte’s going to cure your problems.”
“A bagel?” It had been too long at the academy since I saw a simple carb. The paper bag rustled as I dove into it, pulling out a bagel sandwich. I bit into it and sighed happily.
Despite what he said, Nix’s eyes watched me with strange satisfaction as I ate. If I didn’t know better, I would think he cared too.
“I want to talk to Malcolm,” I said again. “He’s my grandfather. He owes me that.”
Nix nodded. “I agree. But I can’t make the dean do anything, Deidra.”
I chewed my lip, debating what I could do next.
“But I can ask his secretary about his schedule and see when he should be walking across campus.”
His words surprised me into smiling. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d want to know if I had family too,” he said. “I’d want for them to be worth having.”
“Do you think Malcolm is worth having as family?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the weird thing. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why he wasn’t in your life before or why he didn’t even tell you…it doesn’t seem like him.”
“People can surprise you,” I said. “In all kinds of terrible ways.”
“In all kinds of good ways too,” he said.
He rose sud
denly. “Come on. You’re too beat up for physical training, but maybe we can work on your magic today.”
“You’re taking a day off from teaching?” I asked, since he and Cade had classes.
“That’s definitely not what I said.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go. Maybe a change of scenery will help you focus for once.”
“Get out of here, I’ve got to get dressed.” I ran my fingers through my hair, wondering suddenly how bad my bedhead was and if I had bagel crumbs on my shirt.
“Five,” he told me, before he left and closed the door.
I rolled my eyes, but it was out of habit. I still felt strange butterflies for Nix.
A few minutes later, when I walked into the living room, I resumed our argument without missing a beat. “My problem is not a lack of focus.”
He held the door open for me. He was so polite when he wasn’t trying to physically hurt me as part of my education.
“As someone who has seen you hit the mat a lot,” he said, “I have to disagree.”
The two of us were arguing as we headed down the stairs and across the lawn. I hadn’t been to the student parking lot before, which was a gravel lot parked far enough away from the academic buildings to be its very own hike.
“Nothing is easy here, huh?” I asked, turning back to look down the road we’d come down when we finally reached the parked cars. We had to be half a mile from the academy. Why?
“Should it be?” He tossed his keys in his hand absently. “That one’s mine.”
I followed his gaze to an old fashioned looking Pontiac muscle car. “What’s that?”
“1977 Pontiac Trans-Am,” he said. “It was my dad’s since he was my age. It’s all I’ve got left of him.”
He said it matter-of-factly as he swung open the passenger side door for me. I wanted to tell him I was sorry he lived with that kind of grief too, but I knew better.
“So I probably shouldn’t ask to drive, huh?” I slipped into the smooth leather seat.
“Not on your life, Ainsley. This car is my baby.” He shut the door and went around to his own side.
The car started up right away, sounding nice and smooth, and he patted the dash.
“So you don’t need a girlfriend, huh?” I asked, given the way he loved that car.