by L. A. Sable
When West appeared at my door one evening, I nearly slammed it back on his face. But I knew if I did that he would just proceed to hammer on the barrier like he’d been doing for the past five minutes until I opened it again.
“What the hell do you want?”
My demon — that I’d named Zuzu because why the hell not — hissed from the corner of the room and would have launched itself at West if I hadn’t shushed it. I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to do with the thing because sending it back using spells from the grimoire had been a pretty epic fail.
I really did suck at magic.
West eyed the demon that growled until he looked away. “Is that thing under control?”
“Doubtful,” I retreated to the bed, enjoying this brief moment of having the upper hand. Imps were pretty low on the demon totem pole but with razor-sharp teeth and even sharper claws, it was still best to maintain a careful distance. I needed to figure out what imps ate before Zuzu took a chunk out of someone. “Better make this fast.”
“I’m supposed to be training you today.” He looked uneasily at Zuzu. The imp now had its leg lifted over its head while it licked at what I hoped was belly and not something lower down. “We’re already running late.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. It was taking all of my patience not to throw the closest projectile at his head. I still couldn’t believe that he had tricked me into believing he was someone different, the embarrassment was enough to make me want to kill us both. “I’m supposed to be training with Bastian.”
“Not anymore. Apparently, the headmaster doesn’t want the two of you spending any more time together.”
Darius had walked in on Bastian with his hand between my thighs which had apparently struck a nerve. If I had any doubts that the two of them were involved, they had officially vanished. The thought should put me off of Bastian, but it was hard to keep anything but how his tongue felt inside my mouth at the front of my mind.
I’d only been back in the supernatural world for a few days and I was already acting like a cat in heat.
West watched me closely as if he could tell exactly what I was thinking about, which only made my face flame a brighter red. “I am so not training with you.”
“You haven’t been given a choice.” He took a step closer, but froze at a warning growl from Zuzu. “Darius was adamant that we begin now. End-of-Winter is only a week away.”
I’d forgotten for a bit why I had been brought here in the first place. Cursed books and summoned demons were nothing compared to what Valentine would do to me if he knew what Darius had planned. Part of me wondered if I would even be enough to attract his attention now. If Valentine had wanted to find me at any point up to now, he’d had ample opportunity. This entire plan would fall apart and Darius would kill me himself.
Literally, the best thing I had to look forward to at this point was a quick death.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I told West, finally. “Tell Darius to find someone else.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. You’re stuck with me.” He crossed burly arms over his chest as he leaned against the door jamb. I’d never noticed how much larger he was than me, but from my position on the bed, West towered over me. “It’ll be like old times. Maybe I can even scrounge up a motorcycle for you to ride around.”
“Fuck off.” I wasn’t even angry with myself for letting West fool me, more embarrassed that I had been so easily misled. “You betrayed me.”
His lips quirked in the ghost of a smile. “You can’t betray someone who never should have trusted you in the first place. I owed you nothing.”
The words made me see red. I had trusted him, in so far as I trusted anyone, and he had taken full advantage. “Go tell Darius that I’ve had enough of his errand boy. You’re dismissed.”
“It’s me or letting Valentine roll over you like a steamroller.”
Lying back on the bed, I glared up at the cracked ceiling. “I’ll take the steamroller, thanks.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye was my only warning before West appeared at my side and lifted me off the bed. He ignored both Zuzu’s outraged shrieks and my attempt to fight him off as he carries me out of the room. The imp chased after us, but West managed to slam the door shut with one hand just before it could sink its teeth into his leg.
“Put me down, you ass.”
I fought his hold on me, but he barely seemed to notice as he strode down the hallway and toward the narrow stairwell. For a terrifying moment, I looked down to the landing several stories below and wonder if he was planning to drop me.
But he didn’t put me down until we’d walked through the halls, attracting more than a few curious glances, and he reached the large double doors that led outside. Letting me drop a little too hard on my feet, West gripped my arm hard with one hand as he reached for a set of keys in his pocket.
“If I have to chase you, it isn’t going to end well.”
He unlocked the heavy padlock on the door and pulled me outside into the courtyard. In the distance, a nearly full moon hung in the sky like a Christmas tree ornament, casting pale light and dark shadows on the trees.
“Where are we going?” I demanded, and unsurprisingly was ignored.
Even though I dug my heels into the stone path, West pulled me easily along behind him. I’d never appreciated his strength until now and I cursed myself for the dozenth time for underestimating him. If I’d had enough mental capacity to see him for what he was in the beginning, then I might have avoided all this. It had been months of successfully running and all it had taken was trusting this asshole to land me right back in the middle of all this shit.
And I blamed West for that. Completely.
We ventured deeper in the forest surrounding the school, far enough that I could hear lapping waves from the nearby beach. As if I could forget that this place was on an island and there was no way off except an excruciatingly long swim for hundreds of miles.
I was completely trapped.
Finally, patience completely at an end, I mustered enough strength to rip my arm out of his grasp. “Enough. If you’re hoping to get me far enough away that you can murder me without witnesses, I think right here is good enough. I don’t need to hike first.”
Instead of getting angry or grabbing for me, West held out a placating hand. “It’s only a little further. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”
But stubbornness was pretty much my middle name. “Tell me where we’re going first.”
“Do you have to make everything more difficult than it needs to be?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“I’m taking you to the Vortex.” He held out a hand, gaze full of expectation. “It’s nothing bad. Now, let’s go.”
I had a feeling that this would not be the sort of training that Darius had in mind, but I didn’t exactly have a choice at the moment. “I hate you.”
He glanced back at me as he veered off the trail and into the dense growth of trees. “You know I was just following orders, right?”
“Funny, that’s the same thing Nazi soldiers said after the Holocaust. Doesn’t exactly make it right.” I tripped on an exposed tree root and let out a muffled curse.
West seemed to have no problem navigating the near darkness and grabbed my arm before I could bust my face wide open on the ground. The heat of his touch burned along my skin and I yanked my arm away as soon as his grip loosened. I couldn’t believe that I ever actually wanted to screw him.
“Imagine if we’d met under different circumstances,” he murmured, voice carrying on the night so it felt like it surrounded me. “If I hadn’t lied to you about who I am or tricked you into making a deal with Darius. What would you think of me, then?”
I tried to look up into his face but the darkness almost completely obscured his features so I couldn’t read his expression. There was no hint of mockery in his voice, but it was impossible to be sure.
“I thought you were s
ome low-life shifter, probably on the run because you pissed off someone more powerful.” And maybe I’d been attracted to him, but that was because he’d been my only link to the world I’d left behind. It had nothing to do with the rippling muscles in his arms and chest or the fact that he could pick me up and throw me across the room without even breaking a sweat. “And if anything, I think less of you now. Happy?”
“Not particularly.” He lifted a branch that I didn’t see until it was just about to whip across my face. “It’s just a little further. This way.”
West almost sounded hurt, which made absolutely no sense to me. I’d been minding my own business when he blew into my life and ripped it apart. He didn’t get to act like the injured party. “Where the hell are you taking me?”
“The Vortex.”
And before I could ask what the hell that was, the trees parted into a clearing filled with light. Glowing rock formations emerged from the ground in various shapes, sizes and colors, each emitting a steady glow. Electricity buzzed along my skin, not painful but I was very aware of the magic emanating from this place. “This is a crystal garden.”
“It’s a spiritual vortex.” West shifted past me to glide his hand over a dark purple crystal the size of a small boulder. “The crystals here grow above the ground and in sacred patterns. The magic contained here is older than the castle and existed long before anyone stepped foot on the island. Crystals have always acted as a focus for magic, I can’t think of a better place for us to work.”
“Aside from the hike,” I snapped at him, leaning against a nearby tree to catch my breath. “Not all of us can run back on four legs.”
“Not just four legs,” he replied with a small smile. “One of my forms has more limbs than that, would you like to see?”
“Yeah, no.” My response was sarcastic, but I was more than a little surprised by the offer even if he made it in jest. I’d asked him multiple times to tell me about his other forms and he’d always refused. Shifters were at their most vulnerable when they changed form and would only do it willingly in the company of people they trusted. The transition made them much easier to kill. “And I don’t care how powerful these crystals are, I’m never going to learn how to change forms.”
“Never say never. I’ve heard plenty of stories about witches using their powers to shape shift. Apparently Morgan le Fay became a dragon when she battled Merlin.”
I scoffed at him. “That’s a children’s story.”
“Fair enough. And witch transformations are a more advanced topic than we have time for now.” He backed up toward the center of the clearing and stripped off his uniform shirt, revealing taut muscles that glistened under the moonlight. “Bastian told me that while you seem to have little control over your powers, they’re most likely to appear when you feel threatened or aroused.”
Aroused? What the hell kind of conversation were they having about me? Ire rose in me as I glared at him. “I’m not fucking you, if that’s what you’re expecting. Whatever Bastian told, you I’m not just some whore who lays down for anybody. Not all witches are whores.”
“I never said otherwise.” He folded his shirt and draped it neatly over a nearby rock formation. When his hands went to the fly of his pants, a mocking smile twisted his lips. “We’ll table the topic of sex for later. For now, I’m more interested in your fear.”
I forced myself to look away once he was completely nude. “I thought you were supposed to be training me. What in the seven hells are you doing?”
“I’m going to shift into an animal form, wolf probably. And then I’m going to chase you through the forest. Figure out a way to keep me from tearing out your heart, or die trying.”
West was completely naked now, and I forced myself to look away from the impressively large member hanging from between his thighs. He wasn’t hard and for the sake of whatever women he played around with, I hoped he was a shower and not a grower. But the there was a dangerous light in his eyes as our gazes met.
I wasn’t afraid because I didn’t actually believe he planned to hurt me, but that could quickly change. “You can’t kill me. I’m useless to Darius if I’m dead.”
“You’re useless to him if you can’t get through me. I’m nothing compared to what is in store for you with Valentine. You’re better off with a quick death now than a slow one later.” He crouched on the ground, his back curving too sharply as bones moved under the skin. “Do you want to watch me shift, or would you prefer a head start?”
I ran.
He wouldn’t kill me. The thought was on repeat in my head even as I heard the sound of ripping flesh and bones breaking as he shifted. If he had wanted me dead, there would have been ample opportunity before now. This was just meant to scare me into proving to them that I belonged here, that I could hold my own against Valentine.
Except the girl who became Valentine’s right hand wasn’t me, I’d lost myself to be with him. I had no conception of what power was his and what was mine. Without him, I felt as incapable of defending myself as I had since I was a child without magic in a family who cared about nothing else.
But there was no hint of hesitation in the rapid footfalls coming from behind me. Branches whipped across my face, leaving stinging trails of sensation on my skin as I ran. My foot landed on a large stone and I stumbled as my ankle turned, almost collapsing to the ground. Even if I could see in the dark, I had no chance of outrunning a shifter in animal form who chased me through the forest.
Fear tightened my throat and burned in my chest as I wove through the trees. The only sound was of my own harsh breaths and the slap of my feet against the ground, but I knew he would be coming up behind me quickly. Shifters were fast in human form, but even more so when they’d taken on an animal shape. It would be impossible for me to make it back to the castle before he caught up with me.
And somehow, I’d gotten myself completely turned around in the forest. The trees were too thick and the darkness too penetrating for me to see more than a few feet in front of me. For all I knew, I was only heading deeper into the forest and in the opposite direction of safety.
A characteristic howl shattered the silence, echoing through my bones. It was a wolf. West had turned into a fucking wolf.
He really was planning to tear me apart.
I looked around me for a place to hide, but I saw only endless trees and darkness. Above me a full moon hung low in the sky, taunting me. Shifters were at their strongest when the moon was fullest and West didn’t even need that advantage over me.
True witches had the means to defend themselves. If Primrose were the one out here, she would be able to craft a circle of protection or hide herself in the darkness. As if I needed another reminder that I was woefully inadequate in every possible way.
But I had power inside me, Valentine wouldn’t have wanted me otherwise. And Bastian had commented that there was something within me that he had never felt before. But I had to figure out how to control it, how to bend it to my will so I could survive this.
Except when I reached inside myself, searching for any hint of something, I felt nothing at all. Whatever magic I had used with Bastian was completely out of my reach at the moment.
I felt a shift in the wind at my side, only moments before a heavy body crashed into me. My back hit the ground hard, knocking the breath out of me. Before I could scramble to my feet, a gigantic silver wolf loomed over me, jaws opened wide as a growl emanated from its throat.
The wolf’s head was practically the size of my torso. I stared up into large gray eyes that had no trace of humanity left in them. Sharp teeth lowered to the exposed skin of my neck, blowing hot breath against my skin.
West lunged for my neck at the same moment that I brought my hands up to his muzzle, trying to shove him away. He snapped at me, teeth closing mere centimeters from the exposed skin of my throat.
Electricity tingled along my skin as my fingers dig into the thick fur. The wolf froze above me, teeth mere centimeters above my
exposed throat. Pressure grew around us and squeezed the air from my lungs as I struggled to breathe through it.
The gray eyes widened as ripples moved along his skin. The energy built between us until it felt like electric sparks shocked my body. Magic shifted between us, from me into him.
A yowl escaped from that sharp-toothed mouth as West convulsed. I watched the bones move under his skin, breaking and reforming in a way that had to be excruciating. He screamed, and the sound was part-human and part-animal as his body contorted.
I was trapped underneath his body as the change came over him. The wolf skin ripped apart to reveal a human form underneath. It was as if the old form had to be torn apart to reveal the new one.
West collapsed on top of me, crushing me under his weight as he panted like he’d run a marathon. When he spoke, his voice was incredulous. “You forced me to shift forms.”
“I didn’t do anything but touch you.” But magic had flowed between us, even though I hadn’t consciously controlled it. All I wanted was to stop him from attacking me. “Now get off me.”
Shoving at his shoulders was like trying to move a boulder as West glared down at me.
His gaze searched for my face, looking for answers that he wasn’t going to find. “How did you do it?”
“I don’t know. Now shove off.”
But instead of rolling off me, he lowered his body so that it pressed more fully against mine. He rolled his hips when I tried to dislodge him, forcing me to confront the fact that he was very happy to see me.
When my gaze flew to his face, there was laughter in his eyes.
“It’s normal after a shift, your whole body is wired for action.” His lips quirked at whatever reaction was on my face. “Especially since I didn’t get to kill anything before returning to human form.”
I’m very aware of the fact that West is completely naked and the only thing between us was my uniform dress. The heat coming off his body burned against my thighs and I could feel the shape of his cock as it settled in the curve of my hip.