Shades gave up their weapons.
Shifters their ability to change form.
Vampires their speed and need for blood.
Necromancers their power over the dead.
Mages their magic and their wands.
Wands. Plural.
I was moving before I thought better of it. Maybe it was stupid, but I didn’t think so. My instincts were saying I would need a wand of my own, so that’s what I was going to get. A grin slid over my lips. One more rule to break, and I’d be done.
Honest.
Chapter 18
My plan consisted of very few details. Go right into the director’s office, ask her a few questions about what I could do to keep my brother and sister out of this place, see if I could distract her enough to lift a wand. She’d been so proud of how many of them she’d collected in that mahogany box. There was no way she’d miss one.
I should have been nervous. But all I could feel was excitement. I was getting me a wand, dang it, one way or another. Maybe Ethan could help me learn how to use it? Train me on the side?
That conjured up an image I hadn’t been expecting. Ethan smiling at me as he faded. I like ’em tall.
A hot flush spread through me, but I pushed past it. Nope, a whole lot of nope on that one. Ethan was a very bad, if very hot, idea. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told his father it would never happen between us.
There was no sign of Adam, so I walked right up to the director’s door, knocked once, and then turned the handle as if I belonged there. “Director, I need to speak to you.”
Because let’s be honest, with my track record so far, anyone who saw me walk into the director’s office would assume I’d been summoned.
Shockingly, the door was unlocked and the room was empty.
“Well, hot damn,” I whispered, shutting the door behind me.
I went right to the box on the desk, flipping it open, and looked down at a dozen or so wands. Which one did I take?
The door clicked behind me and I spun, my hand going for my right pocket.
Ethan stood in the doorway. His suit jacket, pants, and vest were a deep midnight blue, and his collared shirt was white as fresh-fallen snow. Hair slicked back, he was…damn it, he was gorgeous. He raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
I wasn’t sure I trusted him, even now, and that hesitation seemed to bother him. “What are you doing?” I countered.
“I figured you might be in trouble again. Thought you could use a hand.” He walked toward me, and I thought about closing the box. But if I wanted him to teach me to use a wand, I’d have to tell him about said wand.
“No. I’m here for a wand.” I swept my hand over the box and stepped back. His eyebrows shot all the way up to his hairline, his eyes darting from the box to me.
“It’s not a bad idea. It would be smart to have a wand of your own, to train yourself with it. Even if there’s no real reason you should have such an ability with magic.” He leaned over the box and I caught a whiff of his cologne. Expensive was my first thought. My second was that I wanted a closer sniff.
No. Bad, bad, Wild.
“How do I choose one? Yours felt…better in my hands than the tester’s. Her wand was clunky and uncomfortable,” I said, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand.
“You pick them up. See what feels good.” He didn’t touch any of them.
I stared into the box, dipped one finger into it, and soaked in the energy of the different wands. When I reached the bottom, it felt like a tiny spark of electricity shot through me.
Voices came from the other side of the door.
“Hurry!” Ethan whispered.
I grabbed the wand that was calling to me, yanked it out and shoved my hand into my left pocket. The wand slid into the loop I’d created, fitting against my leg more securely than it should have, as though it wanted to ensure it stayed put. For just a moment, I thought I’d end up with another burn mark on my leg, but there was nothing like that. Just the reassuring warmth of the wand’s presence.
I flipped the box top down and sat in one of the visitors’ chairs. Ethan sat next to me and we both turned as the door opened and the director stepped in, annoyance written across her very young face.
Her eyes flew to us. “What are you two doing here?” And then she caught herself. “You broke into my office?”
We both shook our heads. “No, I came to speak to you about my siblings,” I said. “I knocked and thought I heard you say come in. The door was open.”
Her eyes narrowed and her full lips pinched. “And you, Mr. Helix?”
Ethan smiled. “Just keeping my graduation date company.”
Well, hell, there was no way I’d get out of dancing with him now. The smug look on his lips said it all. He’d planned that last little bit. Because if I denied him, it would be obvious he’d just followed me in.
He was good, I’d give him that.
Ethan stood and offered me his arm. “We’re going to be late. We waited too long for the director.”
Just like that, he swept us out of the room, past the frowning director, and into the hall. I hung onto his arm with my right hand. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“Confidence usually works, especially when you’re bluffing.”
“Ah, so you have a date already.” I let go of his arm, but he caught my hand and returned it to the crook of his elbow.
“No, I’d planned to ask you. The least I could do since you broke the rules to bring me back from the dead.” His calm tone caught me off guard.
“No, Wally brought you back.”
Ethan glanced at me. “No, she wouldn’t have even tried if you hadn’t made it happen. Everyone knows that. She’s strong enough, we know that now, but it’s forbidden. The only reason we aren’t all being kicked out is your obvious lack of education when it comes to our world.”
The usual condescension that dripped from his voice was gone. This was fact to him, pure and simple. Maybe almost dying had changed him. Maybe he realized he wasn’t invulnerable after all.
“Besides, you wouldn’t have survived that challenge without me coaching you through the spells.”
And there he was, teaching “How to Look Down Your Nose at Someone 101.”
I rolled my eyes. In my heels, I was a good three inches taller than him at least and could give him a solid downward glare I’d been wanting to blast him with all week. “Please. You were too busy getting eaten by a T-Rex to coach me. I guessed at the words.”
We walked by a girl in a bright red dress as I said that. She gasped, tears gathering in her eyes. “How can you talk to him like that? He almost died!”
I scrunched up my nose at her and Ethan laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Wild. You don’t pull punches, not ever. Not even when society dictates that you probably shouldn’t talk about someone’s near death experience mere hours after it happened.”
“I do what I can to keep it real,” I said as we turned the corner at the end of the hall. A wide set of double doors loomed ahead of us. They were closed, and from behind them came the steady thump of bass, music playing loud enough that it rumbled through my head, setting off the ache of the concussion.
“Shall we?” He gave me a mocking half bow. I would have curtseyed if I’d known how.
“Attitude before skill.” I waved him forward. And again he laughed.
Damn it, I’d taken a pot shot at him and he’d just laughed it off. Ethan went to the door first, pushing both sides wide open. Music spilled out around us as the kids who’d survived the culling trials danced, grateful to have survived, to have made it this far.
The mass of bodies sent an instant wave of paranoia through me. I hesitated and Ethan came back for me and leaned in close.
“Are you getting any warnings?”
I wasn’t sure I liked this new Ethan. Laughing with me. Listening to me. I certainly didn’t know what to make of him. “No, nothing.”
“Come on then.” He tu
gged me forward, taking me by the hand like we were really on a date. Maybe I should have pulled away, but he was my lifeline in this crowd of people I didn’t know. People I didn’t trust. At least I knew where I stood with him.
Standing on my tiptoes, I searched the crowd for Wally, Pete, and Orin. They were all the way across the floor, near the food. Even at that distance, I could see Wally’s mouth moving, Pete’s head bobbing, and Orin’s trademark bored expression.
I lifted a hand to them. Orin put two fingers to his head and saluted me. “I’m going over there,” I said.
Ethan held my hand fast. “Stay here, with me and my friends.”
I turned to see his friends were all magic users, of course. Within seconds, they were patting him on the shoulder, congratulating him on winning so many of the trials. Telling him how strong and amazing he was because he’d survived when everyone had thought he was dead. The girls batted their eyelashes, and the guys weren’t much better. Colt was missing though.
Colt was missing.
My brain tried to get me to care, and I struggled around the throbbing in my head to want to go find him.
Ethan lapped all the love and attention up. I shook my head. Yeah, he was an ass, although of the good-looking, smelled so good I wanted to stick my nose against his neck and breathe him in variety.
I turned away and started through the crowd toward Wally and the two guys. There were far more people here than those of us who’d finished trials. Distantly, I recalled someone saying that the academy students had been invited so they could meet the new kids.
I let the music pull my feet forward, let it call to me, and though I was no dancer, it moved through me.
It felt no different than fighting. I sidestepped the other bodies with ease, my magic skirt trailing around me. The shadows seemed to cling to me and the dress, and it was like people weren’t even seeing me. I spun around an entangled couple and found myself face to face with a ghost. My feet slammed to a stop, and I’m not entirely sure my heart didn’t follow suit.
“I warned you to be careful, and you’re on the goddamn dance floor in a dress at a party full of people who could kill you at the drop of a hat?” Rory snarled the words at me. Like he wasn’t supposed to be dead. Like I hadn’t seen him go under a mass of zombies. Like he hadn’t broken my heart into a thousand pieces.
He’d survived, and he hadn’t told me. He’d let me suffer.
Just like he hadn’t told me he’d come to this school.
“Son of a bitch!”
I snapped a fist out so hard and fast there wasn’t even time for his face to register shock. In my haste, I landed the blow on his cheek, rather than his nose.
He stumbled back and a few people laughed and made way for us. The music didn’t slow. I turned away from him and pushed through the crowd, knowing without a shadow of a doubt he’d follow. I wanted to hug him tight, to cry and kiss his face and tell him I was glad he was alive.
But I was damned pissed that he’d let me believe—again—that he was gone forever.
I passed Ethan, who arched a brow, but I shook my head. I didn’t need help for this. A side hall opened up and I turned down it, heading deep into the shadows. There was the softest of footsteps behind me, and I spun. “You should have told me!”
Only it wasn’t Rory behind me. Jared stared at me and I stared back, shocked by how dishevelled he looked. His normally immaculate clothes were torn in places and there was a smudge of dirt across his one cheek.
“You need to come with me, now. I was wrong about you.” He grabbed me by the arm and propelled me forward.
“Why, what happened?” I tried to put on the brakes, but between his strength and my heels, it wasn’t happening.
“Your sister is here. They have her.”
All the wind in me left in a whoosh that made me lightheaded. Sam is here?
“The ones who took the other kids, they snagged her too.” Jared loosened his hold on me but didn’t let go.
I wasn’t fighting him, mostly because my mind had gone into a tailspin. I slowed my feet as the sound of a loudspeaker squealing came through the sound system.
“Everyone, please line up, we will now commence the cauldron ceremony where you will have your final House chosen.”
The announcers words distantly registered, barely, through the shock. “How did they get Sam? She’s back in Texas!”
Jared paused. “Look, I know that you and I have not seen eye to eye. I’ve done what I’ve done to protect those whose job it is of mine to protect. You, a Shade, would understand that, I think.”
Damn it. I didn’t want to trust him, but the sincerity rolling off him was just that—completely sincere. And I did understand that need to protect your own, maybe better than he realized.
“Barry Darkson…House of Shade. Killian Irish…House of Shade….Farley Whitehall House of Wonder…” The names rattled off, one after another.
Jared ran a hand through his hair and started forward again. “Your sister came looking for you. Apparently, your father needs to be reminded of how to keep secrets,” he pushed open a door and led me outside. The distant music thumped along until the door shut behind us.
Jared let my arm go. “Are you able to run?”
I kicked off the heels. “Yes.”
He led the way across the lawn and to the east side of the mansion. Adrenaline snapped and zinged through me. If the kidnappers thought they were going to take Sam, I was about to show them how very wrong they were. Nobody messed with my family.
Nobody.
Chapter 19
The grass was cool and damp against the soles of my bare feet as Jared led me away from the mansion. Away from my friends. Away from Rory.
I slowed a split second before the warning tingle whipped through me. Jared turned. “You are picking up on the danger?”
I nodded, feeling the memories start to surge inside me. I’d been here before. With Ethan. I tried to piece the broken memories together. There was something dangerous here, of that I had no doubt.
But where...and what?
Jared kept moving, forcing me to either keep up with him or fall too far behind. A cry cut the air, a girl’s cry.
Sam.
I bolted forward. Screw the danger.
The ground ahead of us glowed, as if lit from within.
My breathing kicked up several notches. Even if my memories were sketchy, my body knew this place.
And it didn’t like it.
Another cry cut off as though forcefully smashed…Jared was already down the stairs and I followed, ignoring the screaming of my instincts. I needed to get to Sam, danger be damned.
Jared lifted his hand and I took it. There was darkness ahead, creeping and pooling, and it swallowed us whole. A spell.
One I’d been through before, only last time I’d been with Ethan. We stepped out of the other side of the darkness. Moved down a hall, past torchlight and a room that looked to be a guard’s room. Jared shifted to the side and I kept moving forward. Hands reached out of the cells on my right, and I found myself reaching back.
“Gregory?”
“Wild, you shouldn’t have come back.” His voice was weak.
Come back. “I was here before?”
“You were,” said a voice I knew and shouldn’t have been surprised to find at the bottom of a dungeon. Adam stepped out of the shadows. “And you should not have come back.”
Jared snarled. “I’ll take care of him. You get the other kids. There’s a way out if you keep following the tunnels.” He tossed me a ring of keys.
Adam shook his head. “Jared, you should know better by now. You can’t beat me.”
Jared grinned. “Maybe not, but you can’t beat us both. We have you now, Adam.”
Both? If I was getting the kids out, who was he referring to? Footsteps approached us from behind, and I couldn’t help but turn and look. Director Frost stepped out of the same darkness from which Jared and I had emerged. It was unmistakeably
her, but her skin was unlined. An illusion?
She smiled at Adam. “Indeed. He cannot beat us both.”
Jared launched at Adam and the director looked at me as the two men tumbled down a tunnel to our right, the sounds of their blows and grunts fading quickly. “Get the others out. We will deal with Adam.”
All along. Adam had been orchestrating this all along.
I nodded and hurried to the first cell. Gregory was so eager to leave, he fell out when I opened the door. I caught him with one hand and dragged him with me to the other cells. All the missing kids were there, including Colt.
“Thought you could avoid dancing with me at the graduation, did you?” I asked.
His eyes were haggard, but he smiled at me. “Never. I’d never run away from you.”
“Sweet, really, but can we get out of here before they take us all?” Gregory snapped his long fingers up in my face. Same old Gregory.
“There should be one more kid. They brought my sister in.” I spun around, counting the cells, but there was no one left.
“Maybe they already got her out? They kept everything dark, we couldn’t see who took us, or who was in here if they were quiet,” Colt winced as he spoke, the bruises on his jaw a testament to Adam’s violence.
A bellow followed by a wall-shaking boom stopped us in our tracks.
“You all go.” I paused and then shook my head. “Look, go out the way I came in. Through the darkness and up the stairs. It’ll be faster. Get to the mansion, tell Ethan and the rest of the crew that I’m here.” I pushed the missing kids back through the darkness. Not the way the director wanted them to go. But I knew for sure it was a way out. I didn’t want them to get stuck.
And I wasn’t leaving until I found Sam.
I waited until the kids—more of them than I’d expected— disappeared into the darkness, led by the one vampire in the crew.
A burst of warning cut through me and I spun, pulling my blade out through the pocket of my skirt as I turned. I stopped the blade only a breath away from Jared’s heart.
Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials: Books 1-3 Omnibus Page 45