by May Dawson
His smug smile tilted up one corner of his lips, like he didn’t believe me at all.
He must’ve seen the way I’d looked at him when he was shirtless before. Well, it didn’t matter how pretty he was.
Personality counted for something, and Jensen McCauley was one-hundred-percent asshole.
Chapter Ten
“What’re you doing?” Jensen asked.
I tucked my necklace back into my shirt. Like Piper, I wore a necklace that was part distress beacon, part magical GPS device. I’d wandered to the window, whispering the spell to myself so softly that I didn’t think Jensen would hear.
“Nothing.”
Jensen snorted. “Sure. You’re a witch too, aren’t you?”
“I am not a witch!”
“You’re doing…wait for it…” He flared his hands dramatically. “Witchcraft.”
“I can use magic for good,” I said firmly. “And I’m still a wolf.”
“The witches all said they were using magic for good too,” he said, “and then they started enslaving wolves and killing kids.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not like that.”
“Power corrupts.” He shrugged. “You and your whole pack, you’re going to go darkside one of these days. Your own are going to end up hunting you down.”
“Really?” I leveled a finger at him. “You clearly don’t need magic to be an entitled asshole.”
In a second, he crossed the room to me and grabbed my finger, folding his hand around mine. The movement was quick and aggressive, but once his hand was on mine, he didn’t seem to know what to do next.
“You don’t know anything about my life,” he said. “Not a thing. So watch yourself.”
“You don’t know anything about me, but that hasn’t stopped you, has it?”
He released my hand, taking a step back. “I can see everything I need to know about you.”
“Like I said. Entitled asshole.”
His lips parted, but whatever he was going to say next was lost as someone knocked on the door. The two of us exchanged a look. He went quickly past me to the door and cracked it open to glance through, then stepped back.
My sister was in the hall. Her chin was trembling, and Arthur, Callum and Kai all flanked her expectantly.
Piper rushed forward and wrapped me in a tight hug. “Thank goodness,” she said into my hair.
I hugged her back awkwardly, keenly aware that Jensen was watching us with that same begging-for-a-slap smirk on his nicely-shaped lips. This little public display of emotion was out of character for Piper.
“She’s okay,” Kai told her, resting his hand on her shoulder. All of the guys seemed more protective of her than usual today. Maybe now that I was leaving home, all that overprotective energy had to be diffused somewhere.
I squeezed my sister tight, wondering what was going on with her, and then released her. I gestured expansively toward the unconscious witch Jensen had insisted on depositing onto the cold hardwood floor, not his bed.
“I brought you a witch,” I exclaimed, like it was some great gift.
Callum nodded and knelt next to the witch. “Alliges duplicia,” he murmured, pushing the witch’s wrists down against the hardwood floor. The witch’s fingers stiffened and then relaxed. Callum had bound the witch’s hands to the floor, keeping him there until we were done with him.
Arthur cast a quick, hurried glance at Jensen. I didn’t like the idea of Jensen knowing any of our secrets either.
I sat down on the edge of his bed. Arthur knelt on the other side of the witch’s body as Callum began to try to wake him. I had the feeling that Arthur’s big shoulders, blocking my view of the witch and of Callum, were intended to shield Callum’s magic from Jensen’s eyes as much as possible.
The way werewolves felt about magic was stupid and superstitious, but here we were.
Jensen hesitated, his arms crossed over his chest, and then he abruptly sat beside me. I stole a glance at him. His jaw was set, a faint tic in his cheek. He looked tense. Of course he was tense. His father was the dean, he should have gone straight to him with news of the witch, and yet here he was with me.
Maybe I should limit how many times I called him an asshole.
I flashed back to all the times he’d told me I was unwanted, in the few hours we’d known each other.
Maybe not.
“Wakey, wakey,” Arthur said to the witch, slapping his cheek again. The witch groaned.
Callum began to murmur in Latin. He was speaking the words of a spell that forces someone to tell you the truth. He’d tried to teach me this spell already. I didn’t want Jensen to know anything about it. I didn’t want him using my family’s magic against them.
Impulsively, I leaned to one side, bumping my shoulder against Jensen’s. I had to distract him.
Jensen froze and then turned toward me, his eyebrows tilting over his eyes. From a distance, they seemed to gleam yellow, like a monster’s eyes watching you from the crack in your closet door. Seemed fitting enough. But up close, like this, his eyes looked golden, warm and beautiful under thick, dark lashes. Once my gaze met Jensen’s, it was hard to look away. But that was just because the color was so unusual.
The look he gave me said what the hell was that. It irritated me to think that he would imagine I liked him or wanted him, but still, I was successfully distracting him. That was my mission. We were interrogating a witch in his room—not exactly an everyday happening—and yet his focus was on me.
The thought made me smile. I leaned toward him, gesturing for him to come closer. He regarded me skeptically for a moment, as if he was afraid I’d bite his ear off—good, I liked that, be afraid of me—and then leaned in, inclining his head toward me. I breathed in his musky, pleasant scent and the minty gum on his breath. God damn him. He shouldn’t smell so good.
I whispered, “If I didn’t know better, I would think you had a crush on me.”
He snorted as he sat back. “Good thing you know better.”
Callum straightened. “He says Lex is in a supply closet off the first laundry room. He claims he used a harmless spell to put him to sleep. I’ll go.”
“I’ll take you,” Jensen said, standing without hesitation.
Arthur said, “I’ll stay here and ask the witch some questions.” His eyes met Piper’s, as if he was begging her to stay there with him. She smiled and reached out to touch his shoulder, then tousled his hair. It was a sweet moment, and I glanced away, feeling like I’d just seen something too tender, something that wasn’t for my eyes.
“I’ll go too,” I said.
“Of course,” Jensen muttered.
Callum, Jensen and I headed down the hall. Jensen glanced at Callum once we reached the empty stairwell. “What if he’s not the only one?”
“We’ll find out,” Callum promised.
“How do you know he’s not lying?” Jensen asked. He reached the laundry room door, and hesitated for just one second, as if it might be a trap. Then he went in quickly, shouldering open the door and going in fast, his fists coming up.
Jensen was an ass, but most of the time when I met a guy who was a jerk, it was because he was a weakling in some way. Jensen certainly wasn’t a coward. I wondered what was wrong with him to make him act the way he did.
“All right now.” Callum put his hand on Jensen’s shoulder and steered him out of the way, to one side. He was alpha-ing him just like he did to me, apparently. Callum’s gun was in his hand as he crossed the laundry room to a green door in the back of the room. One of the fluorescent lights overhead was flickering. Even though the white-tile room was still brightly lit as Callum headed past the rows of washing machines, the questionable light still made me tense.
Callum paused near the door, listening, and then looked to me, not Jensen. I moved past Jensen on quiet feet to take the door handle in one hand. When Callum nodded again, I yanked it open. Callum aimed toward the closet.
Nothing happened. No trap. After a heartbeat
, he holstered his gun. I stepped from behind the door to look into the closet.
Lex stared up at us from the floor, looking irritated. His hands and legs were bound, and there was duct tape over his mouth. I knelt next to him quickly and grabbed the edge of the duct tape, peeling it away as Lex winced.
“We caught the witch,” I told him as I crumpled the duct tape into a ball in my hand. I pulled Lex’s knife out and began to saw through the duct tape on his wrists. “Are you all right?”
Lex didn’t answer. When his hands were free, he propped his elbow on his knee and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He moved slowly, like his head ached.
“You okay?” Callum prompted.
“Yeah,” Lex muttered. “Just…that was weird. I saw him take on my face…”
“You let a witch get the better of you, huh?” Jensen asked. “Never thought I’d see that day.”
As my knife sliced through the last of the duct tape around Lex’s legs, Jensen offered him a hand up. Lex ignored him, and climbed to his feet, still wincing as he tried to shake out his legs like they’d fallen asleep. Jensen stuck his hands in his pockets.
“So, same witch?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Lex nodded.
“Why the hell haven’t they attacked yet?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“I would expect the witch to destroy the wards so the coven can attack while no one can shift to defend themselves,” Callum said. “But if that’s the case, why is the witch running around in the dorms?”
“Maybe the witch needs something else,” I said. “Or maybe he’s not working with the coven. Maybe he’s working against them.”
Jensen gave a short bark of a laugh. “Sympathy for the witch, huh?”
“I’m just considering all the options.”
“Given how hard he slammed your head into that brick wall, I don’t think he’s friendly,” Jensen disagreed.
Lex was still limping as the four of us headed back to Jensen’s room. Lex cast a skeptical glance at Jensen’s door as we neared it, and once we were inside and the door was closed again, he asked, “How’d the first-year get involved?”
Jensen looked at me expectantly. I rolled my eyes at that face. Then, before I could explain, Jensen said, “I saved your girl here.”
“So many problems with that sentence,” I muttered.
“What did you find out?” Callum asked Arthur.
The witch was sitting up now, cross-legged on the floor.
“He’s got a crazy story,” Arthur said. He held his gun in one hand, over his crossed arms, as he perched on the edge of Jensen’s desk.
“You let him go,” Callum said.
“I’m not here to hurt any of you,” the witch said. “And I’m not behind the attack on your shifter magic.”
Lex transferred his weight from foot to foot beside me. Wolves hated when anyone compared their shifting to anything as disgusting as magic.
“You did hurt me,” Lex said drily.
“And you smashed her head into a brick wall, not that it did much damage.” Jensen casually palmed my head, resting his hand on top of my hair. His touch sent tingles racing down my spine. Strange tingles.
Impatiently, I shoved his hand away, and he returned his hands to his pockets, smirking. He was so close that his shoulder almost brushed mine.
“What did you want with me?” I asked. “You tried to get me to go with you.”
“I need you to break the spell,” he said. “I thought I could do it on my own once I got close enough, but I can’t.”
Callum exchanged worried glances with Piper. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
The witch sighed. “Fine. I’ll start at the very beginning. There are two kinds of witches in your world. It’s getting rather ridiculous that you wolves want to kill all witches. Quite bigoted. Some of us are trying to bring peace.”
“Like I said.” Arthur shook his head disbelievingly, but the witch couldn’t lie. Could he? “Crazy story.”
“We’re all for peace,” Piper said. “But you admit yourself there are witches right outside those gates trying to murder everyone at the academy…”
“Some of my people are holding them off. The coven thought they had a plan to take down the wards but…” He shrugged innocently. “It’s not quite working for them. Damndest thing.”
“Your people? You look like you’re fifteen.” Lex said.
“I’m a little older than that.” The witch’s gaze met mine, for some reason. “And you’d be foolish to think this is the only academy for supernatural types.”
“Oh? I’d like to meet whoever is in charge of your academy,” Piper said.
“He doesn’t want to meet you, though,” the witch said. “If you shifters knew about us, you’d be likely to try to kill us just like you’re trying to destroy the covens. We’re choosing to take a more subtle approach.”
“And yet here you are, telling us everything,” Callum said drily. “Why’s that?”
The witch shrugged.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
His gaze met mine evenly. “My name’s Silas Adelphus. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maddie.”
The way he looked at me sent a chill racing down my spine. “How the hell do you know my name?”
“I’ve met your father once or twice.” He smiled at me, a disarming, bright smile like he was perfectly comfortable on the floor of this room surrounded by people who might like to kill him.
My father? I’d never met my father. I spent a week every summer with my birth mother, Joan. She said he’d left looking for me after I was stolen by the coven as a child. Eventually, he had stopped checking in. She still didn’t know if he was dead or not.
“Wait.” My voice came out soft. This was the wrong time to talk about this, in front of all these people, but if there was a chance to learn anything about my father, I had to take it.
He checked his watch as if he hadn’t heard my whisper. Maybe he hadn’t.
“I’d like to end this,” he said. “The coven is going to break through those wards in about eighteen minutes. There’s a limit to how long we can delay them without them realizing there are magical forces at play.”
“Why don’t they recognize they’re being controlled by magic?” Kai demanded. “You’d think one witch would recognize another.”
“We have very different magic,” Silas said. “We don’t live here in your world, not full-time, at least.”
He stood to his feet, dusting his hands off on his jeans.
“Are you sure that spell worked?” Arthur asked Callum skeptically.
“Yes,” Callum said. “He’s telling the truth, or thinks he is, at least.”
Silas sighed as Callum’s fingers waved, and then Callum said, “He doesn’t seem to be compelled by anyone but me.”
“This is so tiresome,” Silas muttered. “Believe me, if I had my way, we’d just lay it all on the line and be honest with you wolves and that way, we could avoid these long, repetitive conversations when we need to work together.”
“Repetitive?” I asked softly. As in, the witches and wolves had conversations like this before?
Silas winked at me, a quick flicker of dark lashes.
“We need to get out into the woods,” he said. “I need to borrow some of Maddie’s magic to break the spell. And then I think that coven out there is going to realize that today is not their day.”
“Maddie’s magic?” Jensen asked skeptically. He flashed a look sideways toward me.
“She’s an exceptionally powerful witch as well as a werewolf,” Silas said blithely, divulging the secret that no one was supposed to know. He flashed Jensen a smile. “I’d stay on the girl’s good side, if I were you. She could end you like this.” He snapped his fingers.
Maybe not quite that easily, but it still warmed my chest to have someone say that. Even if it was a witch I didn’t trust.
“I don’t need magic to do that,” I murmured.
“O
h, I think you would,” Jensen disagreed.
“Why the woods?” Arthur demanded.
“Because we don’t want to blow the roof off the building,” Callum said. He nodded to Silas, and Silas nodded back. At least someone understood what the witch was talking about.
As we headed down the hall, trying to look like we belonged there, I slipped next to Lex.
“Are you really all right?” I asked.
“Are you?” He rested his hand on top of my head, like Jensen had, only his touch was comforting. He smiled down at me, although his eyes were troubled. “He came after you. I don’t like that.”
“You wouldn’t want anything impacting the school’s reputation,” I said lightly, filling in his why.
“I wouldn’t want you getting hurt,” he said. “And this whole thing gives me a bad feeling.”
His hand slipped to my shoulder and then fell away entirely, but his words stayed with me anyway.
Both because of the way he seemed to care, and because of his sense of foreboding.
Chapter Eleven
I kept pace with Silas as we headed across the lawn. Dusk was settling above the pines.
“What do you mean, you know my father?” I demanded in a whisper. I pretended I didn’t care about the man, and I didn’t want Lex or Jensen especially to overhear this weakness of mine. “I thought he was dead.”
“Definitely not dead,” Silas said.
“So where do I find him?” And how come he had never found me?
My voice came out hard-edged when I asked where to find him. Good. Anger was better than sounding pathetic, which was how I felt.
Silas glanced at me. “You don’t want to meet him. He’s not a very nice person.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
Silas sighed as if he wished he could avoid my questions entirely. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not saying anything,” I shot back.
“After we lift the spell,” he said, “I’ll sit down with you and tell you everything. All right? I know Piper wants to talk about who we are too. And I’ll tell you what I know about your father.”