by Elena Lawson
We tended to stay away from them, keep to ourselves, and tonight was stone cold validation of our reasons why.
“Whatever it was, I can still feel it,” I admitted. “It’s like… like an itch in the back of my brain that I can’t scratch.”
Adrian stopped and watched his hands as he opened and closed them, his brows narrowing as if unable to decide if he was angry or surprised. If he wanted to hit something or go straight back to her.
“What is this?” he asked again, voice barely more than a flustered whisper. He looked at me, eyes glowing gold as his wolf edged to the surface.
The witch had done something to us, that was for certain. Pinpointing exactly what she’d done was the issue. We weren’t physically damaged, but—
“It felt like someone knocked the breath out of me.” Adrian picked up my train of thought. “And then, at the same time, brother wolf rebelled at the idea of hurting her. I was ready to rip her throat out before it hit me.”
“You think that’s what her spell was designed to do?” I asked. “Something to keep us from hurting her?”
He clenched his fists again and I could hear his teeth grinding in the silence of the cabin. “Maybe. It felt—feels—like more. Something’s wrong, Cal. We should go back, make her tell us what she did.”
I didn’t disagree, but with the appearance of the male witch, I wasn’t ready to charge in so quickly. “Mmmm. We’ll wait a bit, see if we can’t catch her without her bodyguard. Make her reverse whatever the hell this is.”
I struck the bedpost with the side of my closed fist, wincing as I tried to fight off the foreign feeling seeping into my bones. “Damnit,” I growled. “Why did we deviate from the fucking route?”
Adrian sighed his agreement and pushed his fingers into his hair, his thick muscles bunching as he fought his own discomfort. “Do we tell Atlas?”
My stomach dropped.
Our alpha would want a report on this, but I knew without a doubt that it would put the witch in danger. Adrian’s expression told me he knew it, too, and was also fighting with the sudden urge to protect the pretty redhead. I blinked and frowned, hating the way the thought slithered into my mind.
Was she pretty? I hadn’t gotten that good a look at her, but after Adrian had tackled her, what I saw through the mud and blood was striking. Her hair, even in the dark, shone the bright red of apples in the fall, and her eyes seemed an even brighter green than my own.
And after her initial fear, the look she’d given us was…
“Don’t even think about it, Cal.” Adrian was watching me, one eyebrow raised. “She’s a witch. There’s no telling what kind of effects the spell she cast on us will have. We need to keep our heads, not play into her little game.”
“We can’t tell Atlas yet, either,” I said, answering his question from before as I rubbed at my face and groaned, flopping onto my bunk. “We’re on second ring patrol again in a few days. If the effects haven’t worn off by then, we’ll go back, see if we can lure her out somehow.”
Adrian curled his lip. “What did she use to draw us out there in the first place? Did you see any of their magic circles or anything?”
“Actually, she looked just as surprised to see us as we did her.”
I wasn’t willing to trust a witch based on the completely fucking foreign instinct to protect her, but her initial fear and shock when I came up on her were genuine. We could at least give her the benefit of the doubt, give her time to explain herself and fix it before we took it to our alpha.
I’d rather not get reamed out for wandering outside of the patrol route. Not because of some witch. No matter how helpless she seemed. No matter how much I wanted to...
The thought turned my stomach again and I ran my hand over the hard muscle there, hunching.
Adrian caught my movement and shook his head.
I met his eyes, the golden glow now faded back to his usual light brown as he sat down beside me. “Okay. So, this stays between us for now. Atlas will just stir shit up with the Arcane Council and we don’t need that kind of heat on our pack. And that’s the least he’ll do, he’s more likely to kill her if he suspects she’s done something to us.”
When his lip curled this time, it was with regret more than anger. “Maybe she deserves it.”
There was no heat in the words. He was trying to hold onto his anger, like he always did. It was easier than acknowledging anything else.
Even now, I felt a pull, the strong urge to run back to the lost looking girl in the woods.
It was similar to the shifter mate bond, or at least how Stella described it, but there were also enough differences to cast that theory aside. It was entirely fucking impossible for one, but if it weren’t we wouldn’t just be banned from the pack for it; we’d likely be hunted and killed for it, too. Anything that didn’t follow the natural order was feared. Repulsed.
Just look at that pack out west, their alpha was a female. A female that mated to two male mates. The only reason she was left in relative peace was because she also had one of the largest packs in the country.
I shook my head, clenching it between my clammy palms. Trying to squander the feeling that still persisted. This whole thing reeked of trouble for the both of us.
“A few days,” I said again. “We just have to wait until our rotation. We might do well to sniff out the place first, maybe find a secluded spot to get her alone without exposing ourselves.”
Adrian was silent for a few moments, his eyes darting across the floorboards as if reading something only he could see. Then he nodded, rubbing his chest absently.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way for now and keep Atlas out of it. Hopefully this goes away on its own and we can just fucking go back to business as usual.”
It seemed unlikely, but I didn’t reply as he jumped up to the top bunk. I rubbed the same spot on my chest, that insistent tug telling me I was too far away from those bewitching green eyes. I may have only gotten a glimpse of them, but they were sure as hell going to haunt my dreams tonight. They were all I could see the moment I closed my eyes.
7
Harper
I thought he was leading me back to the academy, but just as I started to be able to see bits and pieces of it through the trees and we were fully in its shadow, Elias veered off, leading us down another trail.
“Where—” I had been about to ask where he was taking me when I saw the darkened shape of what looked to be a tiny cabin nestled in a grove of bushy pine trees.
“These are my quarters. Do you mind? If you go back to the academy now, with mud in your hair and cuts and scrapes all down your arms…” He trailed off. He didn’t need to say anymore.
If anyone saw me, I’d surely be sent to Headmaster Sterling’s office. Made to answer for why I was alone in the woods and what happened. Would he even believe me? Would anyone when I told them I’d bonded to two Enduran shifters in the woods?
But the more important question at the forefront of my mind was whether or not Elias would tell anyone if I asked him not to.
I was enough of a pariah as it was. Already an outcast among the outcasts. There had to be a way to undo it. To sever the bond. And if there was, I’d find it.
Swallowing past a lump in my throat and licking my dry lips I answered. “No, it’s fine. Thank you.” We climbed the three steps to the small front door, a faint orange glow coming from the window to the right.
The hinges let loose a stuttering groan when Elias pushed the door open, gently herding me inside, looking back over his shoulder as he did. My head just fit through the top of the door frame, but Elias had to hunch over to keep from smashing his.
I got why he was so tense though. I supposed it wouldn’t look right for him to have a student in his quarters.
Inside the small cottage-like cabin a fire burned in the hearth. It was mostly embers now, though, and Elias rushed to grab a log from the basket beside it, tossing it in. The place was dim aside from the glow of firelight and smell
ed like him. Like warm tea and cold mountain pine with only a hint of the mothball scent that came inevitably with the age of the cabin.
It was sort of like a studio apartment, or a motel room. A small kitchenette occupied the space to the right of the hearth, along with a wrought-iron two-person bistro style table covered in tomes, notes, and other documents.
“Sit down,” Elias said, hanging an old-fashioned kettle over the fire, which had devoured the log and grown several inches in height. I could feel the light touch of its warmth on my shins and sighed.
Elias muttered to himself as he dug around in a dresser at the end of a double bed covered in rumpled blankets and lumpy pillows. I jumped when I noticed two yellow eyes staring at me from under the bed frame. And then the creature slunk out, its ears and tail erect as it sniffed the air.
It was a silver fox. Though it was more deep gray and black then it was truly silver. Only the very tips of its ears and tail bearing the trademark metallic color of its name.
It came to me slowly, creeping over with silent steps.
“Hello,” I whispered, and the fox’s hackles raised, and it made a strange strangled sound before it skittered back under the bed.
“Don’t take it personally,” Elias said, pulling what looked like a small first-aid kit out of his bottom drawer. “He doesn’t like anyone.”
He came to kneel in front of me, holding a hand out for my injured arms. “I’m just going to clean out the dirt, and then we can use a healing sigil to do the rest, okay?” His voice was like velvet that managed to be deep and gruff while also being soft and seductively warm. I’d have let him do whatever the hell wanted to me right then.
I nodded numbly. The moment his steady hands took hold of my arm, grasping it gently in the place just above my elbow, I melted and froze all at once. The calm he radiated seemed to penetrate the aura of shock, fear, and worry that felt near to closing in. Dismantling it from the inside out.
He made quick work of my forearms, his hands deftly working to clean the dirt and muck out of the many tiny lacerations. He didn’t speak while he did it, just worked quietly, his jaw tense and brows drawn.
When the shock had almost completely worn off and the warmth of the fire reached bone depth, the tension left my body. I slumped into the unforgiving iron of the chair, suddenly lightheaded and exhausted.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Elias said. He drew the sigil over my forearms that would help speed the healing process. The simple glowing circle and cross symbol seeped into my skin, making it glow too, and tingle for a moment before the magic of the sigil faded and the lacerations began to close. The process was slow, but they’d be healed within the hour instead of within days.
Being a witch did have its perks.
“I hardly felt it,” I said, blowing out a breath.
A beat of uncomfortable silence lingered between us before I started to feel awkward and like I was imposing.
“I really should go,” I said, dropping his suit jacket on the back of the chair as I stood.
Elias’ large hand closed around my wrist. “Wait,” he implored me, swallowing before he added, “Are you certain you bonded with them?”
“I am.”
The connection I’d felt to the two wolves in the forest was undeniable. Leo and Lara had always told me I would know when I’d found my familiar, but I didn’t think it would feel quite like it did. They didn’t say anything about it being so painful.
Regardless, I was completely certain. It didn’t matter that I thought it was impossible because it had happened. To me.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Elias said, more to himself.
I huffed. “You’re telling me.”
His hand still circled my wrist, and with him so close, I could’ve sworn I could hear his heart beating. Loud and fast, but steady. His comforting tea scent, something that vaguely hinted at citrus, mingled with the smoky tang of burning wood, dragging a sigh from my lips and a shiver from my body.
How could he not feel that?
My magic awakened within me, buzzing in my veins as it came to life. It nudged my senses into overdrive and ignited a fire deep in my belly. The wild tendrils of it reached out from my core, tentatively stroking at the cage of my skin as if attempting to reach out to the man standing before me.
He had to feel it too. He had to.
“Sorry,” he said in a rush, letting me go to rub a palm against the scruff on his chin. He turned away before sitting down hard in the opposite chair at the table.
“For what?”
“I didn’t know you had bonded to them. I just—I heard you scream when I was on my way to the academy for dinner. I knew it was you.” He raised his head from where it was hung over spread knees to find my face. “I don’t know how I knew, but I just did. I wouldn’t have stepped in if I’d known.”
I didn’t forgive him out loud. He had done the right thing. He knew it as surely as I did. There was no way he could’ve known.
Because no one had ever bonded with a shifter before, or any of the other species either. We were bound to animals, not shifters, or vamps, or fae.
“What do I do?” I asked, my eyes pricking and chin quivering.
Without taking his eyes off me, Elias wove his fingers together at his front. “Don’t tell anyone.”
My stomach dropped. I was sure my shock at his suggestion showed because he hurried to explain what he meant.
“The bond may have somehow been superficial. Or maybe it won’t forcibly draw you together like a normal bond between a witch and an animal would.”
Normal bond.
I clenched my hands into fists.
“You don’t know that,” I argued, my voice laced with exasperation and something like rage.
Elias shook his head. “Neither do you.”
Wait, why was I arguing? Wasn’t this what I wanted? For him to agree not to tell anyone?
He went to grab the kettle from the fire, bringing it over to the countertop to pour into a little brass teapot filled with loose-leaf tea. Earl Grey, if my nose didn’t fool me—the source of the scent that clung to him like cologne.
“Did you know that I’m new on the faculty?”
Elias set the teapot and two cups on top of the mess of papers coating the table between us, gesturing for me to sit back down.
I shook my head, wanting to tell him that I didn’t care he was new. And ask him why that mattered right now.
“The last history professor who worked here died at the end of last term. Heart attack, I think it was. Anyway, I had already made something of a name for myself in the community because of my thesis on witch evolution and the evolution of the other species. But really it boiled down to a case of me being in the right place at the right time. It was Sterling himself who offered me the job.”
I cocked my head at him, sitting to take the tea he offered me.
“So, are you saying you think my magic is more evolved, or that the shifters have somehow changed?”
He curled two fingers into the handle of his mug, holding it tightly but not raising it to take a sip. “I don’t know, but either option is possible. And I’m probably the only person at the academy who would believe you.”
“So?”
“So,” he repeated, taking a long drink of his tea. “I have a proposition for you. I won’t tell anyone about what happened in the woods if you promise to come straight to me if or when they come looking for you.”
He leaned in close. “Come to me and only me.” His storm cloud eyes practically burned a hole through me with their quiet intensity. “Do we have a deal?”
* * *
Bianca was up studying when I got back that evening. She looked up from her notes with a worried expression, her hair still damp from the shower.
I mumbled to her that I lost track of time studying in the library and needed to rush to get washed up before bed. I didn’t give her time to respond or to look too closely at me before I snagged a towel without ask
ing and ran out the door.
The lavatories were the only part of the old castle-like building that seemed to have been upgraded. When I entered, I was surprised to find newer looking plumbing and more modern stainless-steel fixtures. Large oval mirrors formed a perfect line over a bank of raised bowl sinks. There were eight shower stalls on either side of the wide room, closed off with thin white curtains.
A few toilet stalls ran along the back wall, and benches formed a half-moon shape in the middle.
The floors were wide terra-cotta tiles. And it was windowless. Steamy. The smells of fancy soaps mingled with the stagnant mildew smell of floors in a perpetual state of wetness. The air was humid from the mad rush to shower before lights out, but at least it was warm.
It reminded me of the bathrooms at the campgrounds we often stayed at—granted, this one was a bit nicer. Not for the first time that day, a black mood fell over me at the thought of my guardians. I wished they were here with me. But getting upset because they weren’t wouldn’t help. They’d freak if they knew what’d just happened to me in the woods.
I shivered. The cold from outside had made a home in my chest and muscles. I was afraid not even a hot shower would help me be rid of it.
There were only a few girls left, and they sat applying creams to their faces and brushing their hair, perched on the benches like pretty little birds.
They grew silent when they saw me, and I’d rushed into one of the curtained stalls, praying none had looked too closely. There was definitely still mud caked into my hair. My slacks were covered in dirt, and the scrapes on my forearms still hadn’t fully healed.
I felt like the bond I’d made with the two shifters in the woods was somehow written on my skin. Like if anyone looked too closely, they’d just know or smell it on me or something.
I’ve always been a shit liar. And even more terrible at keeping secrets.