Unforgivable (Their Shifter Academy Book 4)

by May Dawson

  “Ms. Northsea,” Clearborn said, without any inflection at all that might be sympathy or even scolding. His voice broke me out of my daze.

  I met his cool gaze and swallowed, ignoring how my heart was suddenly racing.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “Is this… the end of my time at the academy?”

  “No,” he said. That was something else he should lead with. “No, I want to keep you here at the academy.”

  “That’s a surprise.”

  He leaned back in his chair, his gaze curious. “Why is that a surprise?”

  I hadn’t exactly meant to blurt that out. “I’m not… exactly a typical cadet.”

  We both knew why. From my magic to my boobs, I wasn’t a model student.

  “I’ll take more like you, if the packs will stop being foolish,” he said. I barely had time to process that—had Clearborn just said something nice to me?—before he went on, “The Council wants to use you to draw out the Day. They believe the warlock has been seeking you out. You’re to build a relationship with him and convince him that you are amenable to joining him.”

  I nodded, feeling a bit dazed. “I thought the Council would want to have any…witch…at the academy…”

  I felt like if I said executed, it might remind Clearborn and the council that had been their intention in the past.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “War breeds innovation, at least, and the Council is willing to consider the possibility that magic could be employed to our benefit beyond your basic defense classes.”

  He’d spoken to me as if the two of us were equally invested in the packs’ perception of magic, and then he looked at me sternly. “Some Alphas are more open to the concept than others, so you still will not flaunt your magic at the academy, do you understand me? Some of your fellow students are brainwashed by their packs, and we are going to tread lightly.”

  We. I nodded, surprised to find myself on the same side as Clearborn.

  “Until you leave campus—and after you return, hopefully, soon and safe and sound—I would like for you to practice with Tyson privately and help him develop his magic.”

  “Sir?” The note of alarm in my voice was genuine. Clearborn wasn’t supposed to know about Tyson’s magic. I’d tried to protect him.

  “What exactly are you protesting?” He drummed his fingertips on the table absently. “I’ll warn you now that my interest in your cub drama is minimal.”

  He thought I was afraid to be in close quarters with Tyson? Well, maybe I was. “I didn’t realize you knew Tyson had that…potential.”

  He smiled enigmatically.

  “You said the Council wants to use me to draw out the Day. I’m supposed to use a spell to contact my father?”

  Clearborn’s lips tightened. “More than that. The Council would like for you to go undercover with the Day. You will pretend to run away from the academy and join them. The Council would like you to send back everything you can find about their ‘Cure’ so we can study it and prepare for their attack.”

  “So I’m supposed to pretend to betray my own kind? That seems like a death warrant if the Council decides they don’t want me back,” I blurted out. As Clearborn’s brows arched, I stumbled. “After what happened to Eliza McCauley…”

  “I do believe your sister and her pack and your men would tear apart alphas until they had conquered all the eastern territories and brought you home, Maddie,” Clearborn said, his voice amused. “I don’t think that’s what you need to fear.”

  But it was obvious he didn’t like the idea. I stumbled over the thought that Clearborn was just following orders too. “You don’t want me to go.”

  “I think it’s ridiculous to ask teenagers to risk their lives before they’ve completed their training,” he said. “I don’t believe the packs are in quite such desperate straits that we need to pin our survival to one brash young woman, no matter how talented she may be.”

  “The Council is asking?” I frowned, confused if I had orders to follow or a mission I could refuse. I would do whatever it took to protect the packs, either way, but I’d never heard of the Council asking for volunteers. At best, we were voluntold.

  “No,” he said, leaning forward. His eyes studied me intently. “I am. As the dean, I have to release you from your course of study. It’s supposed to be a formality. But, if you want to refuse the Council’s assignment, I’ll tell them I won’t release you.”

  Clearborn was willing to go against the Council? “I don’t understand.”

  “Every year you spend here increases your chance of survival, Ms. Northsea,” he said bluntly.

  He thought I might die if I went undercover with the Day.

  “If I do go…” I said, and he sighed faintly, as if he already knew what I’d decide. My heart raced at the thought of a real mission. “Could I come back? If I join the Day, it would look as if I ran away from the academy…”

  “If you were to survive, there would be a place for you, absolutely.” He tilted his head to one side, still studying me. “Do you think you’re ready—now—to graduate?”

  I paused before I lied, “No.”

  “Yes, you do. I wish you saw that you still have much to learn, Maddie.” He ran his hand over his light brown hair, absent-mindedly tousling it. He sounded resigned when he said, “You’re going to accept the Council’s mission.”

  His obvious concern made unease squirm through my stomach, even though I normally wouldn’t think twice. “If I can help my people, I have to.”

  “I would’ve made the same choice at eighteen,” he said. “It’s the wrong one, of course.”

  “That’s not much of a pep talk.”

  “It’s not supposed to be,” he returned. “I respect your right to accept the Council’s mission, but I’m still going to be honest with you that it is a mistake.”

  “But it’s my mistake to make? You won’t punish me when I come back?”

  “I wouldn’t punish a cadet for following the council’s orders,” he said. “And anyway, I’ll wager the mission will be punishment itself for your arrogance.”

  I stared back at him. The mission from council should be a chance to show my worth to my fellow students and to the packs themselves. But Clearborn’s reaction had thrown me off, and my feelings were a roil. Part of me almost thought maybe he was right—maybe I had more to learn at the academy. Maybe I wasn’t just here to prove myself, but to learn what I needed to fight the covens.

  But I was the only one who could take this mission from the Council.

  “I can see the excitement in your face,” he said. “You do relish the opportunity to be special, don’t you?”

  “I want to serve the packs. Protect my niece and nephew. Do my job.”

  “That too,” he said, his lips quirking up at the corners. “One last thing, Ms. Northsea.”

  I raised my chin and straightened my shoulders, suddenly certain that I wasn’t going to like whatever came next.

  “I know it’s unnatural to keep any secrets from your team,” he said. “But our Intel guys believe that, just as some packs worked with the covens to smuggle drugs, some packs are still allied with the covens.”

  I leaned forward so quickly that I caught the edge of his desk with my hand to steady myself. “No one on my team—”

  He raised his hand to stop me. “I’m not accusing anyone on your team. I think other packs might be a threat. I’m putting every possible protective measure in place to make sure that you do come home safely, and that includes keeping your mission a secret.”

  Given the attempt on Chase’s life a few months prior, I nodded.

  “Let me be clear that this is an order from the Council and from me personally as well,” he said. “You are not to tell anyone about your mission. Not Rafe, not Lex, not Jensen. No one. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Does it change anything for you?”

  I hesitated. “Nothing except that i
t makes this job seem terrible.”

  “Yes, well.” Clearborn stood. He held out the necklace that Dean McCauley had confiscated, the one that my father had used to contact me once before, and it dangled between his fingers. “Welcome to the war, Ms. Northsea. It’s all pretty terrible.”

  Chapter Ten

  The guest house at the edge of campus was deserted. It was a struggle to get the key in when I couldn’t see the lock, and once I made it into the foyer, I turned on the porch light. I left the house dark, heaving a sigh as I clutched my bookbag.

  Time to contact my father, if I could, before Ty arrived for our magic practice. I’d managed to finagle the keys from Rafe, the only consequence a suspicious cock of his brow, but that was pretty much his default expression when it came to me.

  I locked the door behind me and headed into the living room. My footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors. The empty house seemed so lonely it was almost unbearable. I was never alone anymore; the guys ate our meals together like a family, we worked out together, and I slept between them.

  I’d spent the last few hours in the library, looking for answers, surrounded by my men. That had been a different silence, filled with their quiet company and the sound of turning pages.

  Ty’s absence had been felt, but then it always was. Rafe and Lex had worked with us for a while, then left for the cadre meeting.

  The last thing I wanted was to sneak around and keep secrets from my men. I’d learned over the past year that love and secrets can’t co-exist, and I had never intended to hide anything from them again. But now, I was under council orders to keep my mission to myself.

  The guys would understand later. But that didn’t stop a knot of dread from forming in my stomach. For some reason, I started thinking of how Lex and I broke up. I hadn’t lied to him, exactly, but I hadn’t been in a hurry to tell him that I was joining him at the academy. It felt like it had been another lifetime. I’d been so young and short-sighted then.

  I bit my lip as I settled onto the floor and drew the locket my mother had given me out of my pocket. The chain coiled in my palm like a snake. I couldn’t bear to wear it around my throat.

  “Time to stop brooding and go to work, Northsea,” I told myself. My voice seemed to hang in the air. It was not reassuring.

  If I was doing what I had to do, why was there this ache in my chest?

  I heaved a sigh and pulled Eliza’s knife out of my bag, then ripped open the Band-Aid, preparing to slip it on as soon as possible. If I sliced my palm, the guys would notice—and it would hurt like a bitch—so I flipped my skirt up, exposing my lean, tanned thighs. I gritted my teeth as I nicked myself with the knife. As blood swelled to the wound, I smeared it across my fingers before I picked up the necklace, then hurriedly pressed the Band-Aid over the wound.

  The guys would notice this Band-Aid, but a cut across my palm was a dead giveaway I was doing blood magic. I could pretend this away.

  I could lie this away, I corrected myself. Might as well be honest about what I was doing, even if I could only be honest to myself. Fuck. Even for a council mission, lying to them made me sick.

  Clearborn had made it abundantly clear, though, that if he thought anyone knew about my mission, my life would be in even more danger, and he’d yank me back to the academy so fast my head would spin.

  It was almost comical that I felt far less fear about walking into the coven of the Day to steal all their secrets than I did about the consequences of disobeying Clearborn’s orders.

  I squeezed my blood-smeared fingers around the locket and closed my eyes. “I call on my blood, I call on my father. Man who chose to be a stranger, hear the voice of your daughter.”

  Don’t ask me why rhyming makes magic work easier. I’ve never understood it.

  “I call on my blood,” I began again, repeating the words. At first, the words sounded awkward in the silence of the room, and then my voice began to gather power as I chanted my spell over and over. The necklace in my hand warmed, then burned against my skin with its magic, and I squeezed my fingers tighter. “Hear the voice of your daughter.”

  “Hello, daughter.” It sounded as if he was in the room, right behind me, but of course when I whirled, there was no one there. The voice was low and familiar. It might be the voice I’d heard in that cell when he told me to pretend that I couldn’t shift. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I want to know who you are.”

  “Why?” There was gentle humor in the voice. “What’s worth all this blood and trouble?”

  “Why?” My temper flared. I jumped to my feet, even though there was no one to face off with. “Because I’m in danger here. Because no one wants a witch at the academy. Just like you never wanted me, apparently.”

  “Are you really in danger, Maddie? Or is this just a trick?”

  “I’m really in danger,” I promised him.

  I’d spent my whole damned life in danger because of the covens.

  He sighed. “I can’t just bring you into the Day. No one trusts you.”

  “Funny. No one trusts me here. They know you’re my father.”

  “Oh, do they?” He exhaled. “Go home to your sister’s pack. This is nowhere for you to come.”

  “You don’t want me? A shifter princess for your coven? Then why the hell did you contact me in the first place?” Why the demon in the woods? Why had he stolen the locket from my mother?

  “If you come here,” he said, “you’ll be stripped of your wolf. You’ll become nothing but a witch. Is that what you want?”

  No. “If that’s what it takes. I’ve never been much of a wolf anyway… I assume that’s your fault.”

  “You’ll have to prove yourself.” His voice was fading.

  “Of course I will.” I kept proving myself over and over. But what would the witches want from me? Was it a price I could even pay?

  I glanced at the clock in the corner, wondering how much longer until I lost the connection between us completely. “I have one question.”

  I had a million, but some of them would have to wait until I saw him. I felt an ache in my chest, hearing his voice, no matter how cruel he was. The council had given me a chance to not only help the packs, but ask all my questions.

  “What’s that?”

  “Why did you try to protect Ty and me from Alice’s spell?”

  He huffed a laugh. “Is that what you’ve been clinging to? You wanted to believe that I was looking out for you?”

  Those words ripped into my soul. He made me sound so stupid.

  I gritted my teeth against a sudden rise of fury, but I couldn’t help the way my voice came out in a growl as I said, “One last question. You’re not Tyson’s father.”

  “I don’t think you know what one means, Maddie. Or question, for that matter.”

  “Is Ty your son?” My voice had an urgent note. He sounded more distant, as if he were in the next room. The spell was fading, and I still had so many questions.

  “Who cares? You’ll need to come alone. If there’s another wolf in a twenty-mile radius, you won’t see me, and we’ll never speak again.”

  He didn’t trust me? Well, that was mutual. “Hurtful.”

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Go to the Highland city cemetery. It’s neutral territory.”

  We called that land packless territory. I guessed it made sense the witches didn’t see it the same way.

  “What time?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” His voice was a whisper. “I’ll find you.”

  I still had a thousand questions.

  If he could find me that easily, why hadn’t he?

  There was a tromp of a foot on the porch. I dropped my necklace into my bag in a rush, then hurried into the bathroom. I flushed the toilet just as the door creaked open, then washed my hands, scrubbing the blood off.

  “Maddie?” Lex’s voice carried through the house.

  Shit. Lex wasn’t supposed to be here tonight at all. And he was the worst
person to be here now. He knew me—and my magic—too well.

  I reached for the towel to dry my hands, then saw a speck of blood on my wrist. I turned the water back on in a hurry. “One second!”

  He loomed in the doorway behind me, his handsome face reflected in the mirror as his nostrils flared. “Are you hurt?”

  That tiny speck of blood? Really? How attuned were these men to me?

  “I nicked myself with my knife practicing my draw,” I said, pulling a rueful face. I happened to catch the reflection of my calm face, surrounded by long blond hair that flowed down my shoulders. God, I lied so easily. What was wrong with me? “I’m fine.”

  “Let me see.”

  “I don’t need to be mothered, Lex.” I shook my hands off in the sink and turned, catching the towel.

  Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. I turned right into Lex’s chest, and I looked up into his face, which was worried. The two of us were so close that I could breathe in the familiar scent of his peppermint gum and feel the heat coming off his body, but we still didn’t touch.

  My heart stuttered, being so close to him, and my chin rose in response. “Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the cadre meeting?”

  He didn’t answer my question. “Piper texted me.”

  “It would be so convenient if I had my own cell,” I said lightly. “What’s going on?”

  He held out his phone. There was a slightly grainy photo on the screen, an older photo that must have been scanned. In the photo, a young man stood with his arms around the shoulders of two women. Over their shoulder was a mirrored wall, lined with bottles, and behind them was the corner of a wooden bar.

  “What am I looking at?” My voice came out level, but my heart was beating faster.

  “She sent wolves to pack up your mother’s apartment in the city and bring everything back to her house on the island. They found this photo hidden behind the baseboards.”

  “Is ripping apart the baseboards a standard part of moving?” I took the phone from him to study the photo. “That’s my mom.”

  “That’s your mom,” Lex confirmed. He tapped his finger on the face of the other woman. “That’s Tyson’s mom. They both ran with the Atlantic pack when they were first turned, but Ty’s mom eventually married into Penn’s pack.”