by May Dawson
“Witches certainly are different.” Rafe frowned, watching her, and I turned just in time to see the spider walk onto her palm.
She smiled at us as she raised the spider in front of her face, until she peered at us over its dark shadowy shape. Long, delicate legs rested on her palm. The spider seemed to be looking at me too, just like she was, and it made me shudder inside.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked.
“You’ve been a huge help,” Rafe said. “Please put the poison-bug down and go to bed. I’m sure you’ll be more normal when you’ve had a full night’s sleep.”
His tone was amused, though. We liked our strange little witch friend with the dark past and the bright smile.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” she said.
She took the spider with her when she left.
“My life was a lot less weird before women started coming to the academy,” Rafe muttered.
“We’re better off with them,” I reminded him. I glanced at Maddie’s mother. At least Dani’s magic had calmed her nerves. She curled up on the mattress in the corner of the room, her eyes staring forward blankly.
“I never said we weren’t,” Rafe retorted. “But you had to admit. Life hasn’t been the same since the two of them arrived.”
Well, that was true enough, but I didn’t want to go back to the way things had been, even if we could.
Together, my friend and I headed toward the house.
Time to talk to Maddie.
Chapter Four
Maddie
The lights in the hall were too bright when it was this late at night—or rather, this early in the morning—but I couldn’t stop pacing, waiting for Lex and Rafe.
I’d tried to send my guys to bed—we still had PT and classes and the trials hanging over us—but they didn’t follow orders very well. That wasn’t a surprise.
Silas. Penn. Chase. Tyson. Jensen. The five of them waited with me, no matter how bleary-eyed and tired they were. Jensen leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, one boot braced against the wall behind him, towering over me as I wandered back and forth. It was a familiar pose from him, but now it was protective rather than intimidating.
Well, Jensen was always intimidating, but I didn’t mind it anymore. The scary man was on my side.
Penn, Silas, and Chase sprawled across the floor, studying from our freshman Myths text, as if there was nothing odd about breaking the books out at two o’clock in the morning.
The three of them had such an easy way of being my friends, sacrificing for me like it was nothing. No matter how much anxiety tightened my stomach, I also felt a glow of warmth as they leaned over the books spread across the floor, sharing notes and quizzing each other.
“Kiddo.” Tyson grabbed my shoulder, bringing my pacing to a stop. “We don’t all need to be awake. Go to bed. I’ll keep watch and get you when Lex and Rafe come back.”
“You’re right, we don’t all need to be up. But I’m not going to sleep anyway.” I yanked absently on the end of my ponytail. “You guys should just leave me to wait. I’ll tell you what’s going on in the morning.”
Ty’s lips pursed to one side. He didn’t say it, but I knew what he was thinking.
Leave me?
Never.
The fire door at the end of the stairs swung open. Rafe and Lex entered. Their tall, muscular bodies moved in sync without the two of them even realizing it as they loped down the hall.
Rafe stopped and glanced around at all of us. “What are you all doing up? Tomorrow is going to be a long, unpleasant day for you.”
“They’re all long, unpleasant days,” Penn reminded him, flipping his book shut.
“It’s good you guys are there for each other,” Rafe said. “But Lex and I want to talk to her alone. She can decide what she wants to share with the rest of you.”
“That bad?” I asked lightly.
Instead of answering, Lex swept his arm toward my room.
Ty squeezed my shoulder as he gave me an encouraging smile. I touched his hand quickly. I couldn’t quite smile back, but I wanted him to know I’d be okay.
“I’ll be on the other side,” he said, tilting his head toward the boys’ door just down the hall from mine, separated by our shared bathroom. He and Jensen both had single rooms now, since their old roommates had left the academy. But he planned to wait with them until he heard if I needed him. He shrugged as if it was nothing. “Just in case.”
The thought that these men all knew how upset I was about my mom made me feel vulnerable. I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just led Rafe and Lex into my room.
Rafe closed the door behind us and leaned against it. Lex reached the windows and glanced outside at the empty yard, as if he was looking for something, then turned.
“Rafe and I talked to your mother. She’s really out of it. I’m not sure she fully understood what she was doing, coming onto academy grounds…” Lex trailed off, but we all knew that could have been a death sentence.
“She’s always been…odd,” I said, “but this isn’t like her.”
Lex nodded. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
The question made my cheeks blaze.
“It’s been a while.” Then, because they should know the whole, specific truth, I corrected myself. “Three years.”
Once Piper stopped forcing me to stay with Joan during the summers, I’d stopped going. It was one of the few things Piper and I had fought over, and just admitting that I abandoned my mother made shame flush my cheeks.
“It’s all right,” Lex told me. “The dean wants your pack to come get her before the Council arrives. He already called Piper.”
He sounded soothing. Lex was trying so hard to make me feel better that instead, it made me anxious.
“I want to see her,” I said.
Lex and Rafe exchanged a look that was far too telling. They were worried about how Joan’s condition would affect me.
I was tougher than they realized.
“What did she mean when she said she doesn’t know what I am?” I chewed my lower lip.
“Someone altered her memory.” Lex’s tone was all business, but his gaze was kind. “She’s starting to lose the false memories, and now she doesn’t remember you being born.”
I stared at him. “Someone deleted me from my mother’s memories?”
“Or they added you, and now she’s losing the false memories,” Rafe said grimly.
His words punched into my gut. I stared back at him, my lips parting. Joan wasn’t my mother?
It was too ridiculous. It couldn’t be true.
“I was born into a pack,” I said. “Someone must have seen my mom pregnant, must have been there after I was born—”
“Piper and her pack will help us sort this all out,” Lex promised. “Don’t get spun up in what-if’s, Maddie. We’ll figure out what’s going on together.”
“We brought down a smuggling ring,” Rafe said. He suddenly pushed himself of the door and crossed to me as if he needed me to hear him. He towered over me, his dark eyes intent. “We crushed a coven. We’ll figure this out together. We always do, right?”
I nodded, but I felt sick, as if the floor had just fallen out from underneath me and I kept falling.
“Go to bed,” Rafe said, clapping his hands together. “Everything will be okay. We’ve been through worse.”
I wasn’t sure about that.
He gave me a tentative look, as if he wanted to say something more. He was so close that I could feel the heat coming off his body. Part of me wanted to press forward into him, into the taut lines of his muscular body, and have him wrap his arms around me.
But I didn’t dare. Rafe and I didn’t have that kind of relationship, as much as I longed for him sometimes.
And even if I could close the distance between us, would it really make me feel better?
Lex and Rafe seemed strong enough to protect me from any
enemy.
But they couldn’t protect me from the truth.
Chapter Five
Lex hesitated in the doorway of my room. “Are you all right, Maddie?”
I could never look him in the face, with his worried blue eyes fixed on me, and lie to him.
“No,” I said. “But I will be.”
Somehow, someday.
He looked as if he didn’t want to leave me. Then there was a knock on the bathroom door. His face changed as he realized I had my guys to comfort me, and he managed a smile as he nodded.
“Lex—” I didn’t want him to leave like that.
But he was already closing the door between us.
God damn it. I yanked absently on the end of my ponytail. “Come in.”
Penn opened the door and leaned through the doorway. “You want company?”
“Yes.” Even I could hear the relief in my tone.
My boys made me feel better.
“How much company?” he asked.
“Any and all.”
“Then we’re going to have to re-arrange the furniture,” he said.
Penn came into the room and wrapped me up in a big hug. I rested my face against his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him. Some of the tension left me just with his body against me.
Behind him came Jensen, Chase, Silas and Tyson. Without comment, they started moving furniture around, dragging the mattresses off the bunk beds until they’d made one big bed on the floor.
No matter how upset I was, I found myself smiling.
“Like a sleepover.” Chase hit me playfully in the lower back with a pillow.
I laughed out loud as I grabbed a pillow and smacked him back. It was so weird to see my enormous, furry friend acting like he was a stereotypical teenage girl at a sleepover.
But who doesn’t love a pillow fight?
As if they seized on anything that would make me smile, the room broke out into a fight then. Wolfish boys take any combat seriously though—even of the fluffy kind—and it quickly degenerated into tackling each other and what appeared to be affectionate attempts to break each other’s noses or smother each other to death with pillows.
I laughed as Chase slammed me into one of the beds. He tried to pin me down, throwing one leg over my waist to anchor me, but I was too quick. I rolled out of the way just in time. When his knee caught my lower back, I let out a small grunt of surprise.
“Sorry, Maddie—” he started.
He broke off as I slid behind him, grabbing his muscular neck in a choke hold.
He flipped me over his shoulder onto the mattress. Then he pounced on me, tickling me.
“You clearly need some help,” Jensen told him, grabbing me around the waist. He held me tight against his muscular body, his arms hard bars wrapped around me. I was laughing as I protested, but I didn’t want them to let me go. It felt good to be playful.
“We just can’t let anyone know it takes multiple shifter males to bring Maddie down.” Chase’s tickling fingers along my side made me gasp with laughter—but also sent a strange wash of heat through my body.
I was so close to Chase and Jensen that this playful moment could easily take a turn into something more. It wouldn’t, tonight… but it made me imagine what could be.
As if I didn’t do enough daydreaming about that already, with my gorgeous guy friends and my traitorous body that longed for all of them.
I felt better by the time we all climbed into bed. I needed to see my mom for myself—it felt as if maybe if I saw her, I would know if she was really my mother or not—but either way, at least I had my guys.
It had been a long day, and we didn’t have much longer to sleep. The guys all fell silent around me, their breath dropping off into slow, even breathing.
All except for Chase. I could feel that he was still awake, even though he moved very quietly when he shifted his weight, trying not to wake anyone.
I half sat up, looking over Jensen’s sleeping form to find him in the semi-darkness. “I can practically hear you thinking.”
“It’s hard to turn off sometimes.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Isn’t it?”
That was why I was awake. We all knew what my problems were—my problems had burst through the woods today to make themselves apparent to everyone. Embarrassment squirmed through my stomach, but I tried to push it away. These men were worth trusting with my story, even the parts that made me feel small.
I asked him, “What’s on your mind?”
He groaned. “Blake and Skyla. Always.”
His brother and sister.
“Can I meet them?” I asked.
“I guess,” he said skeptically. “They’re both pains-in-the-ass.”
“So am I, but you like me anyway.” I just wanted to see him smile. He carried so much heaviness about his family.
“True on all counts,” he said.
“But we all have our quirks. I put up with your chest hair collecting in the shower drain.” Having three sexy guys as roommates was awesome, most of the time. Sharing a bathroom with three guys, no matter how hot, is a different story.
Plus, even the handsomest men sometimes do unspeakable things to a toilet. Especially on taco night.
“I’m not sure that’s all chest hair,” he said.
I groaned. “I pulled it out of the drain this morning. With my bare hands.”
“We’re all friends here. And did you know, you can actually wipe your toothpaste spit out of the bathroom sink? You don’t have to erect little blue gel statues as monuments to your dental hygiene.”
“Oh really? I haven’t noticed any monuments.”
“That’s because one of us always cleans up after your artistic endeavors.”
“Philistines,” I accused.
He leaned up on his elbow, glancing over Jensen at me. “Sometimes it worries me that fifty percent of our conversations involve bodily functions and/or hair.”
“It’s comfortable,” I said.
“Is there such a thing as too comfortable?”
His question hung in the air.
I wondered sometimes how Silas, Ty, and Chase really felt about my relationship with the other guys. Sometimes I thought they didn’t care. They were my friends, but sometimes it felt as if they were keeping some distance between us.
I wasn’t sure I wanted that distance. I didn’t want to stop being roommates and teammates, not ever. Maybe I was greedy, but I wanted even more.
But sometimes, I thought I was being stupid. If Chase just wanted friendship, I shouldn’t ruin what was so good and comfortable between us.
I eased myself carefully over Jensen’s body, straddling him. He kept breathing deeply without waking, although his hand rose to stroke up my thigh, as if even in his sleep, he had to touch me.
I slipped in between Jensen and Chase. Suddenly we were very close, and butterflies tickled my lungs. What was I thinking?
Chase’s face was very close to mine, his eyes bright even in the dim light.
“No such thing as too comfortable,” I said.
“It’s good to be friends.” He yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand a second too late.
“Yeah,” I said softly.
He held his arm out, and I wriggled closer. I rested my head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around me.
“Sleep tight, Trouble,” he said.
And snuggled between him and Jensen, I did.
Chapter Six
Early the next morning, the guys and I tumbled downstairs for P.T. We were all exhausted, and I accidentally careened into Silas on the stairs.
“Steady there,” he said, catching my elbow with his hand. Silas always seemed bright-eyed, no matter how much the rest of us were dead on our feet.
“How are you so awake without coffee on so little sleep?” I demanded. “I want some of your—”
I’d been about to say magic, totally joking, but I stopped myself. My mother’s words about witches on campus last night rever
berated through my mind. I didn’t want Silas to get into trouble, and we both knew damn well he had more magic than a shifter is supposed to.
“Practice,” he said, totally sober for once. “Growing up, we trained hard. They’d get us up in the middle of the night. We never knew when we were going to get to sleep through the night, or when they’d get us up an hour after bed, or at three o’clock in the morning.”
I hadn’t known there were packs that trained more miserably then here at the academy.
Silas went on, “They’d take us on these long runs or hikes with full gear. When we were so exhausted we were staggering, we’d take these long, miserable pen-and-paper tests on what we were studying in school.”
“That sounds awful.”
He shrugged. “Training.”
“So you’ll be ready for the trials, at least.” Unease twisted through my stomach. On top of our regular classes, we were supposed to begin the fall bout of trials this week—exercises meant to test our characters and our ability to work as a team.
Rafe grabbed my shoulder. As I twisted to look into his face, his hand released, but I could still feel the ghost of his fingers on my body.
“Clinic,” he told me. “The doc wants to see us both to evaluate our recovery.”
I nodded.
“We’ll catch up later,” he called to Lex.
Lex jerked his head toward the trail, then took off running. The guys fell in behind him, although I could feel their reluctance to leave me behind.
Silas gave me an encouraging nod, then joined the group of guys. Jensen hesitated, looking over his shoulder as he ran, but this morning’s run wasn’t optional. They never were.
Rafe took long strides toward the clinic without looking back toward me. I would’ve assumed he was angry, but maybe Rafe seemed like a ball of rage whenever he was worried.
When the two of us were alone, crossing the grass toward the academic building, he muttered, “McCauley let me know this morning. Your sister will be here later today. But so will the rest of the Alphas for the trials.”