by May Dawson
He rolled his eyes.
As we pulled away from the academy, it felt like we left the last of the formalities between us behind. We talked and laughed as he drove, taking us up narrow country roads and further into the country.
We drove down a trail through the woods, tree branches scraping the roof of the car, and he stopped when I caught a glimpse of blue beyond the trees.
“No one comes out here,” he said. “It’s quiet. You don’t have to worry about hurting anyone. But you aren’t in some weird, fake fluorescent-lit room, either.”
Right. We were here to work on controlling my magic. I held my wrists out to him, feeling like I was holding out handcuffs once again.
His fingers ran over my wrists. The car was small and it felt like we were sitting intimately close together, especially when his fingertips brushed against the inside of my wrist. A traitorous hum of desire ran through my body. I looked away, at that distant hint of blue. I didn’t need to wish that the handsome teacher would touch me more.
“How long did it take you to learn to control your powers?” I asked.
“It was different for me,” he said. “My magic started off smaller. It didn’t come on all at once like yours did.”
He tilted his head to one side, and my gaze went back to him. Sharply, I asked, “What is it?”
He shook his head. “It’s just strange. It almost seems as if someone blocked your powers. There’s a spell for that. Otherwise, you’d expect your magic to be more accessible all the time, not just when you’re in danger.”
“Could someone have done that?” A throb ran through my chest as the disloyal words formed on my lips, “Could Liam have done that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Cade and I can do some research, see what spells might have been used, what counterspells there are. It’s probably nothing.”
“Mm.” For some reason, I had faith in Nix’s intuition. I got out of the car and slammed the door shut, the sound echoing in the still forest.
He closed his own door tenderly. “My magic has flared like yours, though. You’re not the only one who’s ever lost control.”
“And you still have a home here at the academy.” Maybe I would too. I chewed my lip, looking through the trees toward the glimpse of the lake. The sun shone brightly off the blue waters, almost blinding.
“I belong there,” he said. “So do you, Deidra.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’m spending next weekend waxing more floors, so maybe I’ll pass…”
“Oh, you are definitely going to regret your life choices next weekend,” he promised me, but his voice was amused.
“What was Julia’s father talking about, with the Council? Can they kick me out of the academy?”
“Deidra.” He put his hands on my shoulders, and I looked up into his face. His ridiculously handsome face. “Malcolm clearly has some shit to work through, but he’s a good guy. He’ll fight for you. You’re not going anywhere.”
He squeezed my shoulders gently before he let go. “No matter how much you might want to.”
“Some days,” I said. But the memory of how my magic had almost exploded, how Nix had helped me contain it, was still so vivid.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get to work. Teach me something.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The week went by in a haze of training sessions with Nix, classes, and dinner with my new friends. Tristan and I were confined to the dorms after dinner, but I didn’t really mind that. My time away from the campus was spent with Nix, and my magic was beginning to become more and more controllable. Being trapped with Tristan at night? Well. I wasn’t crying about that.
But I still hoped this would be my last weekend on restriction for a while. If I could somehow keep out of trouble.
“You two, sit,” Cade said, pointing to the futon.
It was Saturday morning, post-physical-training and showers, and I wasn’t waxing floors despite my many sins. Small mercies. Instead, Tristan and I had been summoned to Cade and Nix’s room.
“I have a bad idea.” Nix turned one of the chairs around from the desk in the corner and sat in it. “I figured you two would be interested.”
“Thanks,” I said drily.
“I want you to get in trouble,” Nix said.
“Should come naturally enough,” Cade muttered.
“This is Malcolm-sanctioned,” Nix said. He flashed me an apologetic look as I pulled a face; Malcolm had been doing his best, it seemed, to stay far away from me. But he still was apparently talking about me. Nix’s eyes met mine frankly. “We’d like to use you to draw out Jonathan Truby.”
“You want to use me as bait,” I said.
“Yes.” Nix said.
“Adorable bait, though,” Tristan said, and Cade rolled his eyes.
“All right,” I said. “I’m all for it. What do you want me to do?”
“We had a spy in Truby’s coven,” Nix said.
Past-tense. I wondered what had happened.
“He had been looking for you, using a network of witches. Well, there aren’t a lot of witches that hang around this area, for some reason, except for us,” Nix said. “But we do know there’s a spy in town who passes information to the supernatural parts of the realm.”
“And he’s still alive?”
“He’s so useful, and he doesn’t even know it.” Nix flashed me the rare, devilish smile that made my heart stutter. “So you and Tristan could slip out tonight—Cade and I will back you up—and we’ll see if word gets back to Truby. Hopefully, he’ll come here.”
“Hopefully,” I said.
I thought of those monsters, and I wondered if any of them really knew what they were getting into.
But we had to do something.
I had to do something.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“You’re restricted to the dorms except for classes and meals for the rest of the week, but I’m done with you,” Cade told Tristan as he handed him the paper bag that held his dinner. “You ruined my weekend too with your bone-headed behavior, congrats.”
“You really aren’t done with me, though, brother,” Tristan grinned back. “You’re stuck with me forever.”
Tristan’s smile, as he turns his back to Cade, made me smile reflexively. Tristan’s smile was the most contagious thing I’ve ever seen.
Cade’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything. He just held the second paper bag out to me.
When I took it from him, my fingers brushed his hand, and I stepped back quickly, like his touch burned me. Totally normal reaction. No one would notice that.
Tristan was watching us both curiously.
Once the two of us were back in the hallway, he leaned in toward me and whispered, “I’m not really down with the bread-and-water rations.”
It wasn’t exactly bread and water. When I pulled open the bag, it was identical to the other two meals we’ve had today: peanut-butter-and-jelly on wheat bread, an apple, a granola bar, a plastic bottle of lukewarm water.
It might as well have been bread and water. Nobody wanted to eat this.
“Well, me either.”
“Only an idiot,” he told me confidentially, his voice low and warm, “would risk restriction all over again by sneaking out to get some real food.”
A smile tugged at my lips. Tristan was playing our plan; we were supposed to sneak out tonight. It was more satisfying than I would have expected to have permission to be bad. “You’d have to be quite the idiot.”
“Indeed,” he said.
“And if you were an idiot, how might you do such a thing?”
“I might hop in the trunk of Holden’s car on his way into town,” he said lightly. “I feel like we’ve earned an evening off after today.”
“It’s a date,” I said.
An hour later, my Paper Bag of Sadness was stuffed into the trash can under my desk. I didn’t have anything to wear but my school uniform pants—which were leathe
r—which was a little ridiculous. Hanna offered me my choice of anything in her closet, and I picked through the small offering of civilian clothes for a lacy black tank top. Coupled with my school jacket, it would have to do.
Hanna eyed me. “That’s a look, for sure.”
“Are you coming?”
She shook her head. “I’m betting you’re going to get caught, and Cade is going to kill everyone involved. I don’t need any of that.”
“It’ll be an adventure. If there wasn’t a chance of getting caught, it wouldn’t be an adventure.” There was the chance of a much bigger adventure, but it was just a slim one. While Cade and Nix—and a whole team of Hunters—would be shadowing me tonight, just in case, we needed Truby’s potential spy to know I was here.
I was bait. But I was so very happy to be bait.
She sighed, toying with the end of her braid. “Okay, fine.”
“That was…easy.”
“I just didn’t know if you really wanted me to come or not,” she said it lightly, as if it didn’t bother her either way.
I sat down on the bed across from her. “People have been total dicks to you here, haven’t they?”
“Julia and her friends?” She shrugged. “Whatever. It’s not a big deal.”
It was a big deal, but I wasn’t going to push it and embarrass her. “Yes, I really want you to come. Holden’s driving, and I think the other guys Tristan hangs out with are coming. It’ll be a total hot dog fest. I need a girlfriend.”
“A hot dog fest?” She rolled her eyes. “You can tell you’ve been spending a lot of time with Tristan.”
“What?”
“He calls me Anxiety Hot Dog,” she explained. “Because he is a terrible and annoying person.”
That made me laugh.
“Don’t start,” she said.
“What does he call Cade?” I was willing to bet that Tristan has a whole lot of nicknames for Cade.
“Let’s see.” When Hanna began to tick things off on her fingers, I knew this was going to be good. “There’s The Righteous Tube Sock. Because he’s totally a tube sock… practical, boring…”
Tube socks are not sexy and Cade was, for all his faults, sexy as hell, but it still made me grin. He certainly was self-righteous.
“The Avenging Poodle,” she went on. “Ambivalent Koko.”
“Wait,” I said. “Is that another reference that I’ll feel stupid for not understanding?”
I was glad he’d explained why Julia was a shrew, because I would never have put that together on my own. Apparently the boy had watched a lot of Animal Planet.
“Koko is a gorilla that adopted a kitten,” she explained. “Cade takes care of everyone. He’s like a natural-born big brother. But he always pretends like he doesn’t give a shit.”
Well, that kind of pretending certainly sounded familiar.
“He tried to make me eat my vegetables,” I said.
Hanna laughed out loud at that. “Yeah, he would. Well, he was worried—”
She cut herself off.
“About what?”
“Nothing. I overhead him and Nix. He’d googled a bunch of stuff about shock after a loss, and he was worried that you wouldn’t eat.”
I nudged the trash can, with the three paper bags full of food, further under the desk. I hadn’t really thought about it much. The food here was terrible. But I didn’t have an appetite at all.
“That’s cute,” I said.
“Whenever we’re away from the academy, Tristan gives Cade all the shit he can to make up for the times here that he has to be like, ‘yes sir’.”
When there was a furtive tap on the window, Hanna rose from the bed. “I’m going to go sign out. This will end in calamity, guaranteed.”
“It’ll be fun,” I promised.
I went to the window and opened it. Tristan slid in quickly. His shirt rode up from his jeans as he slid in, exposing the faintest glimpse of a dark blond happy trail against his taut lower abs. I glanced away, feeling a sudden, unexpected thrum through my body, as he stood and twitched his shirt back down. The gray t-shirt and low-slung dark jeans he wore fit him very well, clinging to the width of his shoulders and biceps.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hi. Hanna said this would end in calamity,” I whispered back.
“Calamity, huh.” He slung his arm over my shoulders, and I breathed in the scent of his aftershave. “I could call you—”
“Do not give me any more nicknames,” I warned him. “Anxiety Hot Dog told me all about you.”
He grinned. “But I call Hanna that because I love her. She’s like a sister to me.”
I didn’t want to be like Tristan’s sister, and as I gave him a long look, his grin stretched wider, as if he understood.
Wait, how had he made it in here? I leaned out the window, wondering if I missed some convenient fire escape system or broad, comfortable roof. My window faced out into the forest behind the academy—and up that damn mountain—but when I looked to the left, there was nothing but rough stone walls, flat and indented with windows.
“How did you…?”
“I’m pretty good at climbing,” he said. “Have you ever been rock climbing?”
When I shook my head, he said, “I can take you. If you want.”
“I’d like that.”
“It’s a date, then.”
I grinned at his teasing. He didn’t have to trick me into going on a date with him. I found him intriguing.
I should kiss him more to test my magic. But I wanted to kiss him for reasons that had nothing to do with that. “Why are you scaling the walls instead of walking down the hall like a normal person?”
“I wanted to show off.” He didn’t even look ashamed. “And I wanted to see if I could.”
“You just wanted to see if you could sneak into my room?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds nefarious.”
It sounded like something different from nefarious to me—it sounded like a way to spend more time together.
Someone banged the door, their knock firm and determined. “Deidra.”
Tristan rolled his eyes at the same time as a faint edge of panic came over his face. “Cade,” he mouthed.
“Get in the closet,” I mouthed back. Then I called, “Coming!”
Tristan stepped into the small closet, and I checked that the door was closed, hiding him, before I opened the door.
Cade stood in the hallway, his arms crossed.
“Checking up on me?” I asked.
“Should I be?” he asked, glancing past me into my room.
My heart was racing, and I resisted the temptation to follow his gaze into my room. Instead, I stared him down.
“No,” I said. “I haven’t even been here two weeks. I’m just trying to fit in and figure out the rules.”
His lips pursed. The movement made his lower lip look pouty, and it drew my gaze helplessly to his mouth.
Then he raised his hands, as if he was conceding the point. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right.”
“I’m fine.”
Hazel eyes met mine frankly. “No, you’re not. I wasn’t either, after my parents passed.”
Well, that confession made it hard to stay angry at him. I wondered what it was like for him. Was he here at the academy when they died? Had he put up a hard shell and pretended like he was fine?
Had he thrown himself into following the rules and become the strict, condescending prick I knew now?
“I know it sucks here sometimes,” he said. “But so does grieving. If you stay busy, if your days are structured and disciplined…it’ll be easier.”
He really believed that. He thought he was helping.
“So you’re just here to make me feel better.” My lips twisted in amusement.
He looked at me as if he was perplexed. “I’m here to help you. Obviously. With your magic… with everything.”
As if I was going to get help from someone wh
o said things like find first years to be your friends. I’m not going to be one of them.
Maybe he did genuinely want to help, but he had no idea what I needed right now.
His height placed his lips at my eye level, and that was incredibly unhelpful. I forced my gaze up to his eyes.
“I think I’ll get the most help from my friends,” I said. “Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to make some one of these days even though you like to put me on restriction.”
I started to close the door, but he moved to shoulder it aside, which brought him dangerously close to me. “Sure, Deidra. It’s my fault you’re on restriction. Nothing to do with your brilliant life choices.”
“Maybe I’m not at my best right now,” I said glibly, even though we both knew it was the truth.
He raked his hand through his hair, ruffling his sandy curls. “Well. I’m down the hall if you need anything. To talk.”
“Even though you’re not my friend.” I nodded, my hand still on the doorknob, eager to close him out of my room. It wasn’t just because I wanted to make sure he didn’t discover Tristan. The tenderness beneath his words left me weak.
I wanted something to make me feel better.
Something, or someone.
“It’s not a friend you need most right now,” he said. He let go of the door and took a step back, as if he was daring me to leave the door open. “It’s someone who’s already been through what you’re experiencing. Someone who can teach you so life isn’t as hard for you as it was for us.”
Like Nix, with his powers. Like both Cade and Nix, who carried their own ghosts.
“Maybe,” I said.
It was the closest I could come to agreeing with him before I closed the door.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
With Holden, Axel, Killian, Eli and Hanna crammed into the five seats in Holden’s SUV, Tristan and I hid in the trunk under a blanket for the lurching, bumpy trip from the gravel student parking lot across academy ground. It was actually the perfect social situation for me, because I felt included but I didn’t have to talk to anyone.