by Tracy Wolff
“So who did he pick?” Jaxon asks, and he sounds as grim as I feel.
“Cole was the first to agree,” he answers, “and he’s out for blood…of course.”
My stomach drops. Why is it always Cole? I’ve never done anything to that jerk, at least not intentionally, and he’s been gunning for me from the moment I got here. I’ve never really wished ill on anyone before—except Lia when she was trying to murder me—but I am really sad I stopped Jaxon from finishing Cole off when he had the chance.
Jaxon shakes his head and looks disgusted, and I’m about 99 percent positive he’s having the exact same thoughts I am.
But all he asks is, “Who else?”
“He’s picked Marc and Quinn as his additional wolves. And—”
“That’s three wolves,” Mekhi interrupts. “Why does he get three of them on the team?”
Xavier looks at him like he’s not paying attention. “Do you know any vamps in the school who think it’s a good idea to be on a team whose sole purpose is to let the king take Grace back to his dungeon, thereby separating Jaxon Vega and his mate?”
“Fair point,” Mekhi agrees.
“What about the witches?” Macy asks, fingers nervously twisting the bottom of her sweater.
“From what I hear, it’s going to be Simone and Cam, for sure. No one knows if it’s going to be the witches or the dragons who have a third player, too, so the rumors are flying.”
“I knew it!” Macy throws out a hand, and an entire row of books falls off the nearest bookshelf. “The traitor! When I get through with him, he’s going to have lice and acne and a serious case of the bubonic plague! He’s such a douche. I knew he was pissed when we broke up, but this is seriously gross behavior.”
“The dragons are just as bad,” Xavier continues. “The two definites are Joaquin and Delphina.”
“Delphina, really?” Flint looks a little sick at the thought, which makes my already shaky stomach just flat-out revolt. If it does one more somersault, I swear I’m going to throw up, right here in the middle of our meeting. I don’t know who Delphina is, but if she can make Flint look like that, I’m perfectly happy never meeting her.
“And the hits just keep on coming,” Eden growls. “Can we get back to the more pressing issue at hand, though? How on earth are we going to get out of Katmere if they have all the exits blocked?”
“There has to be a way out they don’t have covered,” I say. “There has to be.”
“If so, I don’t know what it is,” Xavier answers.
“Well then, what’s even the point of going to school in a magic castle?” I complain, throwing up my hands.
“There’s nothing actually ‘magic’ about the castle itself,” Jaxon says in a voice meant to calm me down. “Just the people in—”
“Actually, that’s not technically true right now,” Macy says, sitting up like her hair is suddenly on fire. “Oh my God, I think I know what to do!”
95
Second Star to the
Right and Straight
On Till Siberia
“We’re almost there,” Macy says as we walk single file down the dorm hallway. Flint, Jaxon, and Xavier are talking loudly and joking around, trying to act like it’s totally normal for us to all be wandering the halls together at eleven at night, half of us with backpacks over our shoulders.
It’s a good effort, but the truth is, I think anyone from the Circle who sees the eight of us together is going to know there’s a problem. Which is probably why the rest of us are walking around like we’re scared of our own shadow.
Well, not Eden. She looks like she’s ready to punch anyone who glances at us twice. Then again, the more I’m around her, the more I’m beginning to realize that’s her normal modus operandi.
My stomach is churning, partly from the fear of getting caught, partly from nervousness over the Unkillable Beast, and partly because Hudson has gone radio silent. He’s never quiet, and I know his nerves must be triple mine, ’cause we’re either both going to die or half of who he is will no longer exist after today. I refuse to focus on either outcome.
Still, I’m trying not to show how anxious I am, and I think I must be doing an okay job of it, because Jaxon doesn’t seem any more concerned than usual—and neither does Macy.
“Okay, we’re here,” my cousin says as we stop in front of the yellow door leading to her secret passage. She waves her hand in front of the door and whispers the same spell as last time, and then we’re inside.
It’s just as cool as I remember, with stickers and jewels and scented candles to lead the way. Everyone else seems to think so, too, because—despite the circumstances—there are a lot of oohs and aahs going on.
“I can’t believe you kept this place a secret,” Eden tells her as she stops to examine a sticker that reads, Life’s a Witch, Then You Fly. “It’s amazing.”
Macy shrugs. “I don’t know. I found it when I was a kid, and it’s kind of always been my place. I used to hide from my dad in here when it was bedtime.”
“Well, I, for one, plan on visiting a lot more once we get the Circle the fuck out of Katmere,” Xavier says with a wink at Macy. “It’s really cool.”
“It could use a dragon sticker or two,” Eden tells her as we wind our way around one of the twists and turns.
All of a sudden, Xavier leans over and licks Macy’s cheek. She shrieks and shoves at him, and a glance around tells me everyone else is about where I am—doubting what we just saw with our own eyes.
But Xavier just shrugs and points at a sticker directly above her head. “I was just following orders.”
I move closer and see that it reads, Get a Taste of Religion: Lick a Witch, and I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. Macy and Eden crack up right after me, followed quickly by the others. Xavier, the giant goofball, looks exceptionally pleased with himself, though I don’t know if it’s because he managed to get all of us to loosen up or if it’s because he licked Macy and didn’t get punched.
The last traces of tension are completely gone as we wind our way down the hallway until it dead-ends at a short ladder, right in front of a trapdoor at the top of the wall. “Next stop, planetarium,” Macy says as she scoots to the front of the group and climbs up the ladder. Seconds later, she pushes open the door and crawls forward a few feet before she disappears with a loud squeak.
Xavier bounds up the ladder after her. “Macy? Are you okay?” Suddenly, he falls through the hole, too—though the noise he makes is more of a yelp than a squeak.
The rest of us kind of look at one another in a “who’s next?” kind of way, but none of us actually makes a move for the ladder. Facing the Unkillable Beast, sure. Falling through a floor…maybe not.
Eventually, though, Eden rolls her eyes and mutters, “What the hell,” right before she charges up the ladder, two rungs at a time. A little more cautious than the other two, she sits on the top of the ladder and slides in feetfirst. Seconds after her head disappears, we hear a soft thump on the other side of the wall, followed by another, louder yelp.
“Think she landed on Xavier?” Mekhi asks, brows raised.
“Oh yeah,” Jaxon answers. “No doubt.”
Jaxon seems determined not to go before I do, so I climb the ladder next. I slide my feet in first, just like Eden did, then close my eyes and call out, “Incoming,” right before I let myself drop straight into darkness.
My feet hit solid wood and not werewolf, thank God, but it’s so dark, I can’t see two inches in front of my face. I do have the presence of mind to shuffle several feet away from the gaping hole above my head, but after that, I’m left fumbling for my phone as I call for my cousin.
“Right here!” she answers a little breathlessly, and when I finally get my flashlight app open and focused on her face, it’s hard to miss the fact that her lipstick is smeared in all the right places.
Looks like Xavier found more to lick than just her cheek…
I gesture for her to wipe her mouth just as Jaxon comes through the hole and lands like a cat next to me with barely a sound. Flint slides through after him, whooping like he’s on a ride at Disneyland. Then again, when isn’t he whooping like he’s on a ride at Disneyland?
Mekhi brings up the rear, and then—flashlights out—we’re stumbling around, looking for a light switch.
Xavier hits the switch to turn on the giant star dome above us. Suddenly, all the constellations are rotating over our heads and it’s strangely cool to be in this room, with these people, as all the stars float by above us.
It reminds me of the night Jaxon first kissed me, when he took me out on the battlements to watch a meteor shower. I glance over at him, feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside, only to find him already watching me, a soft smile lighting up the hard planes of his face. So I’m not the only one remembering that night.
“So, wanna tell us why we’re in the planetarium, Macy?” Flint asks.
She gives him a huge grin. “Well…I was practicing how to build portals with Mr. Badar, our Lunar Astronomy teacher, because I figured we might need one to get back to campus after the Boneyard. Anyway, Mr. Badar was demonstrating how to build a portal leaving campus instead of just returning, and so he built this one…” She holds her hands wide like she’s revealing a magic trick. “And he left it up so I could come back and study it!”
“Way to go, Macy.” Flint offers her a high five, and now we’re all grinning.
“Only thing is that portals tend to move a few inches with the rotation of the Earth, so this one could have moved.” She points to a corner in the room. “Last time I saw it, it was over there.”
I turn and take a few steps back, so I can see around the telescope to where she’s pointing, then scream as I feel myself falling, falling, falling for the second time in less than a week.
96
Get Fanged
No matter how hard I try to right myself as I tumble through the vortex—determined not to make the same mistakes this time—I end up falling out of the sky and flat on my face. It turns out, hitting the ground hurts even more than slamming into the planetarium stage did, and it knocks the breath out of me.
Still, I scoot along the ground, trying to get out of the way of the portal before someone else comes shooting through after me. Sure enough, I still haven’t managed to take a full breath before Jaxon lands on his feet nearby. The jerk.
“Are you okay?” he asks, crouching next to me.
I nod as my lungs finally start working again. “One of these days, you’re going to need to teach me how to do that without nearly dying,” I gasp.
He grins. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Seconds later, the portal drops Macy out—and she, too, manages to land on her feet. It’s a shakier landing than Jaxon’s, but that’s not saying much, since I’m pretty sure the moon landing was shakier than his.
I look around and realize we’re in the forest beyond the cottages. I wish I could see a bit more as I wait for everyone else to make it through the portal. But it’s dark and there isn’t much to see.
Once everyone arrives, Flint and Eden change into their dragons. Flint lowers his head and I’m just about to climb on the way he showed me—much to Jaxon’s chagrin—when we’re suddenly surrounded by about twenty Circle guards in their black uniforms—several of whom have partially shifted into their werewolf or dragon forms.
The others—vampires and warlocks—stand shoulder to shoulder with them. And every single one of them looks like they mean business.
“You need to come with us,” the vampy-looking one with the most stripes on his shoulder says.
Jaxon steps forward, gives him a sardonic look. “You know that’s not going to happen, Simon.”
The fact that Jaxon knows his name surprises me, until it registers that these are his father’s guards. “The king has given orders that anyone trying to leave campus be detained and brought to him immediately,” the guard responds.
“My father doesn’t get to make those decisions at Katmere and you know it, Simon. The Circle doesn’t run this school.”
Jaxon takes another step forward, angling his body so that he’s blocking as many of us from the guards as he can manage, while also keeping me firmly behind him.
“Yes, but I take my orders from your father, and I will follow them. He thought you and your mate might be too afraid to show up tomorrow, so we’ve been on the lookout for you all night. And here you are.” He doesn’t finish the sentence with like the cowards you are, but his voice says it for him.
“We’re not running away,” Jaxon tells him in the most reasonable tone I’ve ever heard from him. “We’re out here practicing for the Trials tomorrow. My mate was nervous and wanted to do one more practice session.”
“Well then, I’m sure the king will understand when you explain it to him.” Simon grins coldly. “But you will be explaining it to him. Tonight.”
His voice is sharp as steel and filled with resolve, but that’s not what has my breath catching in my throat and my blood turning to ice.
It’s the malice in his eyes—it’s obvious he’s been looking forward to this for a long time, and he isn’t going to be talked out of it. Which means we’re about to be hauled in front of the king before we get the heartstone, or we’re about to put up a fight. Either isn’t optimal right now, especially not this close to the school and the hundred or so other guards the Circle brought with them.
“You need to shift.” Hudson’s voice comes, loud and urgent, from deep inside me. “There’s going to be a fight, and you’re way too vulnerable as a human.”
If I shift now, I’ll take any element of surprise away from Jaxon.
“Jaxon can handle himself and so can the others. If you don’t shift now, it will be too late.”
My friends and I talked about this the other night, what to do if we ended up getting caught on school grounds. Jaxon was adamant about us leaving him, but now that we’re faced with that decision, there’s no way I can do it. A glance at the others’ faces—especially Mekhi—tells me the same thing. None of us is going anywhere without Jaxon.
And so I do almost what Hudson suggests. I reach for the platinum string and hold it gently in my hand. I don’t close my fist around it quite yet, but I prepare myself to be able to in a split second.
“Shift, damn it!” Hudson is frantic now. “You don’t know my father. You don’t know what he’s capable of—”
Can you please be quiet? I urge. I can’t hear with you shouting in my head. Just give me a minute to think, will you?
“Simon, we both know this isn’t going to end well for you and your little band of misfit toys.” Jaxon’s voice snaps like kindling. “Which means you’ve got two choices. You can go on your way and pretend you never saw us out here practicing.” He holds up his backpack as proof of our late-night practice routine. “Or you can get your ass kicked. Now, I don’t care which one of those you choose, but it is going to be one of those two choices. So take a minute, talk it over, and let me know what you guys end up deciding.”
A couple of the other guards laugh, a sound that’s immediately quelled when they find themselves the object of Jaxon’s own ice-cold stare. Though, to be honest, I’m shocked they can even meet his gaze. I’m his mate, and if he ever looked at me like that, I would die.
At first, it feels like they’re going to back down. A couple of the guards shift their feet; a couple others look anywhere else but at Jaxon. And still others—warlocks, all of them—lift their hands away from their wand holders, a clear sign that they aren’t looking to get in a full-on battle tonight.
But then something happens—the crack of a twig in the forest, a sudden movement from Flint behind me in his dragon form, a slight shift of Jaxon’s feet so he could blo
ck me just a little more completely. I don’t know—I’ll probably never know—but out of nowhere, one of the guards at the very edge of their circle leaps straight at Mekhi, shifting in midair.
Jaxon shoves me into Flint—for protection, I think—and then moves to intercept the guard, but Mekhi is on the other side of the group, and the split second he took to shove me into Flint cost him. Worse, it costs Mekhi, as Jaxon is half a second too late as the guard sinks his werewolf teeth straight into Mekhi’s throat, going for the jugular.
97
Another One
Bites the Dust
Macy screams as Jaxon rips the wolf off Mekhi’s throat, and for one second, two, time seems to stand still. And then all hell breaks loose.
Mekhi drops to his knees, clutching his throat, as blood pours onto the ground around him.
I’m desperate to reach him, but every time I try, Flint wraps his tail around me—my own personal dragon armor—and holds me tight even as he shoots fire straight at the contingent of guards rushing toward him.
But I’m not weak, human Grace anymore, and while he is busy par-broiling one of the werewolves, I grab hold of my platinum string as tightly as I can.
“Get to Mekhi,” Hudson urges. He appears behind me as the shift comes over me. “We can still save him, but it has to be now.”
I don’t question him—not about this and not when time is so precious. Instead, I shoot straight up in the air to disentangle myself from Flint’s tail.
He’s either too busy to notice or he trusts gargoyle Grace in a way he doesn’t trust my human form. Either way, he doesn’t come after me as I fly straight up, high above the melee.
Blood and destruction are everywhere—broken branches litter the ground, several trees are either uprooted or on fire, and people and animals are locked in hand-to-hand combat or lying dazed and injured on the ground.