by May Dawson
“We’re going into lockdown?” One of the students muttered.
Clearborn met his gaze. “Does anyone think you all deserve liberty right now? I’m happy to discuss that with you.”
There was no response.
“Until you’re able to protect this academy and protect yourselves,” Clearborn said, “No one is going anywhere. So I’d suggest you learn to work together.”
His gaze seemed to find Duncan and Lex in the crowd. I could’ve sworn he even glanced at me, and my cheeks blazed in response.
“At least it’s mess night,” he added, a faint smile touching his lips.
It made me nervous when Clearborn smiled.
Chapter Forty-Eight
That night, the guys and I headed to the underclass mess.
“We shouldn’t have sent Jensen to the bar,” Chase said drily. “He’s holding court.”
It was true, Jensen was surrounded by other second-years. I shook my head, hiding my smile. Despite Jensen’s lingering self-loathing, his natural leadership ability shone through. People flocked to him. People trusted him. I hoped eventually, he’d trust himself.
“I’ll take over.” Penn glanced at Chase. “Give me a hand?”
Then it was just Silas and me at the table. Silas fixed me with one of his dreamy smiles, but didn’t say anything.
I tugged on the ends of my ponytail absently, glancing away around the room until his smile dropped away. I didn’t want things to be weird with Silas, but I didn’t know how to put them back to normal, either.
He cleared his throat. “I feel like we should talk.”
The thought of discussing that disastrous kiss terrified me far more than going up against a coven of evil witches.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said.
“Maddie. I don’t want things to stay awkward between us.”
“That’s why we just ignore it until it gets better,” I said. “That’s what normal people do.”
“Is it?” he mused, as if he was half-considering it. He shook his head. “I don’t want to do that. It looked like I hurt your feelings.”
“You did,” I blurted out. This wasn’t going to make things better. If he was going to be awkward, I could be awkward right back. “I thought you and I had…”
I shrugged. It was too embarrassing to name it.
“We do,” he said.
“We have a thing?” I asked skeptically.
“More-than-a-friend thing.” He flashed me a look that could only be described as shy. “I think, anyway.”
“More-than-a-friend thing,” I repeated. “So why did you… are you not okay with the other guys?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not that.”
Jensen suddenly materialized at the edge of the table. He twisted one of the chairs around backwards, then plunked himself down. “I’m inviting myself into this conversation because you two obviously need help.”
“I’m not convinced you’re the help we need,” Silas murmured.
“What happened?” Jensen demanded.
Silas pulled a face.
I blurted out, “I tried to kiss Silas.”
Jensen’s brows arched. “Tried?”
I raised my hands to mimic the two of us, then twisted one hand to pretend it was Silas averting his face.
Silas suddenly buried his face in his hands. “I can’t bear to watch the replay.”
“So you regret it,” Jensen said to him.
“This isn’t actually making things less awkward,” I said, to no one in particular.
“He wanted to kiss you,” Jensen said. “I can tell from the way he looks at you.”
“That’s… accurate, if creepy,” Silas muttered.
“Sorry for noticing the obvious,” Jensen said. “Sometimes I think you’ve got a terrible poker face.”
“Oh?” Silas sounded amused.
“And then sometimes, I wonder if there’s a whole side to you that we never see,” Jensen said, his gaze sharpening. “If there’s a reason why you didn’t kiss Maddie besides, I don’t know, bad breath—”
“My breath is fine,” Silas said.
“…or an established complete lack of competence in the kissing arena…” Jensen offered.
“I really wish you weren’t helping,” Silas told Jensen.
“…or some kind of condition you set for yourself on when you’d kiss her,” Jensen finished. “Or that someone else set?”
Where was Jensen going with this? Did Jensen know something I’d missed while I was away? I glanced between them. “Is that it, Silas?”
“I just froze,” Silas said stubbornly. Faint color rose across his high cheekbones.
“You never freeze,” I said. “I’ve seen you fighting witches—”
I frowned, because I had the vaguest memory of Silas fighting, but I couldn’t remember any one specific moment. It was just a blur.
“You’re different,” Silas said, his gaze holding mine, and I swore I could feel my temperature rising when he looked at me the way he did, until my cheeks flushed pink.
Chase and Penn came back with a round of beers, a welcome distraction from this conversation.
“No shots?” I teased.
“I thought I’d just have one and then call it a night,” Penn said. “We kind of sucked out there today.”
“Here’s to sucking less tomorrow?” Chase suggested, raising his beer, and we all clinked our bottles together. It was true, we’d had a pretty disappointing run, and we all wanted to do better. I was pleasantly surprised that the guys all saw it the same way. I’d heard a lot of guys at the academy arguing today—most of them had too big egos to confront their mistakes.
“What’s funny is that Clearborn might have us here suffering all weekend, but the bar’s better stocked than it’s ever been before.” Jensen glanced around. “If it weren’t for the timing, I’d be all over the shots. I think there’s liquor here tonight that doesn’t burn your esophagus.”
“Why is it hard for me to believe that Clearborn’s top priority is that we have fun tonight?” Jensen asked skeptically.
“We kicked ass when it was just us,” Penn reminded us all. “It’s a lot harder when there are so many moving pieces.”
“I didn’t anticipate what a mess today would be,” Jensen said. “Lex had a lot to manage. I’m not sure Ty or I helped him as much as we should’ve.”
“You really think we were the ones lost today?” Silas sounded genuinely curious. “Or was it Duncan’s patrol?”
“I obviously want to say it was Duncan’s, but I’m not sure,” Jensen admitted. “I’m betting Rafe will tell us.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be Duncan, getting the look Clearborn gave him when he tried to blame Lex in front of the entire school.”
“It’s not Clearborn’s dirty looks I’d worry about,” Jensen said.
We finished our drinks—and our review of the day—and then headed back to our room. They put on a movie, and all of us curled up on our makeshift bed in the cozy, darkened room. I lay with my head in Tyson’s lap, and he absently toyed with my hair. Jensen pulled my feet into his lap and began to knead the balls of my feet, releasing all the tension from the long day. I almost smiled. I wanted my men to get along, but if they had to compete with each other, I was fine with foot massages.
When there was a knock on the door, I scrambled up.
“We’ll pretend we aren’t here,” Chase said as he draped a blanket over Penn’s head. I laughed at them as I swung the door open.
Lex was in the hall. “I’m surprised you all are here and not in the mess.”
“Trying to be responsible,” I said, leaning in the doorway.
“Like I said, I’m surprised—” He broke off in the middle of teasing me. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. You’ve got all your guys in there?”
“All of them except for you and Rafe,” I said. Lex’s brows arched slowly, and I corrected, “Our whole team excep
t for you and Rafe.”
Lex’s lips turned up slightly. “Mind if Rafe and I come in for a second?”
“That’s fine.” I took a step back. I was wearing booty shorts and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt because I’d planned to sleep, not go wandering around the halls. Lex had seen me in much less. But still, it was different now.
“Clearborn’s having us run more drills tomorrow. All day. And there are a couple of alphas hanging around. We might not be doing ‘the trials’,” Lex made air quotes, “but we’ll be watched.”
“We’re going to do better tomorrow,” Jensen promised. “We need to talk about who takes what position if you and Rafe are down.”
Speaking of the devil. Rafe came in the door, and his eyebrows quirked at the sight of us all curled up on the bed, but he didn’t say anything.
“Clearborn had notes,” Rafe said.
Of course he did. Clearborn always had notes.
The eight of us gathered together, figuring out how to work more smoothly as a team. We talked about what we could do differently today, who was in charge if Rafe and Lex went down, how we were going to split up by pairs and in half patrols depending on what we needed to do. We were just trying to minimize the communication we had to do in what was sure to be a typical Clearborn masterpiece of chaos.
After a while, Rafe was so deep in the conversation that he didn’t even seem to notice as he sat on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked beneath him. Lex leaned back in my desk chair, kicking his feet up onto the edge of my bed, his handsome face stern with concentration until Chase made a joke and he grinned.
The conversation was important. But just for a second, I looked around at the seven sexy, good men arranged around my bed, and the comfortable, close-knit bonds growing between us all.
And I believed we’d come through tomorrow—through the days to come—and we’d find our way to a happy ending.
Together, we really were unstoppable.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The alarm started blaring through the halls at four o’clock the next morning.
“Jesus, is this the drill?” Jensen said as he yanked on his trousers. It sounded like chaos in the halls, and someone knocked hard on our door before Lex burst in.
“Remember how the trials started at nine o’clock in the morning last year?” Jensen said Tyson.
“Well, if you’d like to start a petition for a later morning, I’m sure you’d get lots of signatures right now and also no one would give a fuck,” Penn said. “Let’s move. We know we’re running yesterday’s drill before we do anything else.”
Adrenaline pushed some of my bleariness away as I hastily dressed and grabbed my sword. The eight of us headed through the chaos in the hallway. Someone threw up in the hall.
“Jesus Christ,” Rafe said. “A bunch of kids are drunk from yesterday.”
Lex turned when we were out in the relative peace of the lawn, where patrols were trying to form up at their rally points. “Please tell me none of you are drunk now. Penn?”
“Why do I get called out specifically?” Penn asked.
“No idea,” Chase deadpanned.
“No, I’m actually far too sober for this whole scenario.” Penn swept his arm out to encompass the controlled chaos of the drill.
Rafe was unshaven, since he’d been pulled out of bed, and dark scruff covered the chiseled angles of his face.
“He’s as furry as you are,” I whispered to Chase. “Maybe you’re cousins.”
“How many times have we discussed that you aren’t allowed to attempt jokes until at least eight o’clock in the morning?” Chase whispered back.
“Well, hallelujah,” Rafe said. “It’s a low bar, but at least we’re all sober.”
We ran the drill again, this time in the dark. This time an instructor handed me a note card silently as we moved through the woods. I took it, confused—as if he was handing me a gift card in the middle of the night, I should’ve figured it out—and he leaned in toward me to shine his flashlight on the card. It had a list of symptoms.
Goddamn it. I didn’t want to be a potato sack all morning; I wanted to help my team fight.
He raised his eyebrows at me meaningfully. I sighed and let myself crumple to my knees, then I face planted into the soft ground.
At the same time, smoke bombs went off near us. There was a roar of noise, a wild whistling so high pitched that I clapped my hands over my ears before I could help myself. I saw Rafe and Penn cringe at the high-pitched noise, and Silas frowned, cocking his head to one side.
No one could hear anything over the magical noise. Was this a real attack, that coincidentally happened at the same time as our drill? If that was the case, I needed to get up. Forget play-acting.
I started to rise to my knees, and the instructor shook his head at me.
I flopped back in the woods as the guys moved on without me, since I was unseen in the foliage. The instructor moved quickly away.
“Wait, where’s Northsea?” Lex’s voice was barely audible. He had to run to catch Chase, who had taken point as we moved through the woods, because Chase couldn’t hear him shout over the noise.
Fuck. We were falling apart, again. I could tell from the chaos and shouting in the distance that other teams were doing worse than us, even before Lex doubled back. He almost stepped on me in the dark and the brush, then dropped to his knees. He shouted, “Silas, stay with her.”
Silas couldn’t hear him, though, and Lex jumped up and ran to catch him.
“Fuck,” I heard Lex mutter, realizing other teams had moved ahead while I was a casualty, and then there was a heavy sound as someone else went down near us in the woods from another team.
Silas leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “This brings back such fond memories for me.”
His hands were moving systematically across my body, cataloging any possible damage, checking my pulse, my breathing. He moved briskly, the way we’d been taught in our basic med course. Silas had an easy confidence that didn’t seem to fit with his peculiar personality, but it was magnetic to me.
My eyes tried to track the instructor who was grading us, but he’d moved ahead with the rest of the team. No one could overhear us over that damned painful noise.
“Clearborn sure found an inventive way to torture us.”
“He’s certainly done a fantastic job bringing the chaos,” Silas agreed, not sounding sarcastic at all. “Hopefully we find some order out of this mess soon.”
Silas hauled me up onto his shoulder before he loped through the woods. The forest floor seemed to shimmy back and forth as I swung slightly over his shoulder, making nausea rise in my stomach. Upside-down is no way to travel.
I stared at his back, my hand resting in the leanly muscled small of his back. Silas was probably the smallest of the guys on our team, tall but slender, but he never seemed to run out of energy. He was a force.
When the alarm finally stopped, blessed silence reigned in the woods for a minute. The phantom noise was still ringing in my ears, though.
“We never finished our talk,” he whispered. “Despite all Jensen’s helpful thoughts.”
“I’m half-dead right now, Silas.”
“That’s your excuse, huh?”
“There’s nothing to say,” I said. “Someday, maybe, in like ten years, I’ll be brave enough to try to kiss you—”
“I’m not waiting ten years to kiss you, sorry,” he said.
“Then why are you waiting at all?”
“Was I supposed to try again last night with Jensen watching?” His voice was amused.
“I’m pretty sure there are other opportunities,” I said.
“Well, I’m waiting for the right one.”
“So I should wait for you,” I said. “I shouldn’t try again. That’s what you’re telling me. No more kissing attempts. They’ll end badly.”
“You’re really making me feel like an ass, and usually dead people don’t do guilt trips.”
“I’m no
t dead yet. That’s why you’re taking me to medical.”
“Maddie Northsea,” he said, “I don’t mind if you kiss me. But I’ve got something to tell you when I kiss you. I’m going to kiss you when the time is right, and believe me, you’ll know it.”
“I’ll know the time was right, or I’ll know you’ve kissed me?”
“Both.” His tone was full of mischievous confidence. His voice sent a flutter through me.
“What is it you want to tell me?”
“You’re unstoppable, aren’t you? I generally find that adorable, you know.”
“Generally?”
“Wait for it, Maddie.”
I sighed. I might’ve pressed the subject, but it’s hard to win an argument when you’re impersonating a potato sack.
Chapter Fifty
“That was much less embarrassing than yesterday,” Clearborn said when we were all gathered together again. He glanced at a kid who had vomit on his shirt, then back out at all of us. “Still not our ideal showing, but we’ll get there.”
I hoped we’d be there sooner rather than later.
“Today’s the start of some exciting new drills,” he said.
General enthusiasm did not seem to be that high.
“One brief order of business first,” he said. “Eventually, each patrol will have just one leader.”
Rafe and Lex both shifted their weight subtly, and Lex’s arms rose to cross over his chest. They glanced at each other, and a pit settled in my stomach. I hated the thought of Clearborn pitting them against each other.
Then Lex mouthed something at Rafe I couldn’t read, and Rafe’s lips parted in a faint smile. He elbowed Lex as the two of them turned their attention back to Clearborn, and relief flooded my chest.
Nothing could make enemies out of Rafe and Lex.
“Sometimes, this is going to be a difficult choice, and it won’t reflect at all on either of the patrol leaders,” he said. “But sometimes, it will.”