by Sadie Moss
Great.
She looks as carefully done up as ever, and there’s a sharkish smirk on her face as she walks up to me.
“And here I was taking bets that you’d be in a coma again.” She purses her lips, her gaze running over me like she’s trying to find some new flaw she can poke at. “All that hero business not wearing you out yet? Ready to take a back seat and stop hogging the spotlight?”
Right. Because I’m actively seeking out things like fighting a demon bird and getting sent into a coma and nearly getting murdered in my first semester by a guy I thought was my friend.
“Elliot!”
I turn and see Tandy waving at me from a table. It’s her, Tom, Erin… basically all the people who had their magic stolen last semester.
“Come sit with us!” Tandy calls, giving me a big smile. “We’re forming a club,” she adds with mock seriousness.
Cam grins. “Hell, yes.”
He leads us over, and I don’t bother saying goodbye to Alyssa. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her huff and roll her eyes before stalking away.
I sit down, Cam on my left, Asher on my right, and Dmitri on Asher’s other side. It’s our usual arrangement.
A moment later, someone else clears their throat tentatively. “Um. Hi. May I join?”
I look up to see Kendal standing near the head of the table.
Kendal always looks pretty. She has gorgeous red hair and blue eyes, with a smattering of freckles and an elfin face. But usually, she looks a lot more… done up than this. Like she’s trying to imitate how Alyssa looks, with her perfect hair and makeup.
Now, she looks so much softer. She’s still wearing a skirt, but it’s a light pink instead of a bright color or black, her hair is in a braid instead of curled and artfully styled, and her makeup is done in earth tones instead of bright red lipstick and dramatic eyeliner.
It looks like she’s actually going with her own style, instead of trying to adopt someone else’s.
Everyone glances at me. Guess it’s up to me to decide if she can sit with us or not.
Kendal hasn’t always been very nice to me, at least in the beginning, but she helped me a lot during the Trials. She stuck up for me last semester when Alyssa tried to speak out during a speech and claim I was attacking the students and draining their magic.
And she’s a gentle person. I think she’s just used to letting people step on her, and has been trying to fit in and struggling to express herself.
I nod, shooting her a smile. “Yeah. Of course.”
The redheaded girl lets out a little sigh of relief and sits down on Cam’s other side. I don’t blame her one bit. It was that or sit next to Dmitri, and the man is very intimidating to pretty much everyone except me. In fact, I think that’s part of why he was drawn to me—from the very beginning, I didn’t put up with his bullshit.
I don’t talk a lot as we eat, but nobody seems to mind. Everyone’s chatting and catching up on what happened over the break. I’m not hugely social, but I’m finding that with nobody pressuring me to actively participate, just letting me sit here and make a sarcastic comment now and again… I like this.
Maybe this whole being social thing isn’t so bad after all.
After breakfast, it’s time for Dean Hardwick’s speech. As we file in, I can see that Hardwick looks… tired. We’re not right up in the front row, but even from here I can see he’s lost a lot of his vitality.
Hardwick’s generally a cheerful, unassuming guy who’s like an overenthusiastic uncle or a dad who knows all the stereotypical dad jokes. He cares so much about the students and about this school, and he’s had to work hard to keep it open, but I can see the strain taking a physical toll.
I can’t help but wonder if there was more pressure to shut the school down during the break, and if that was how Hardwick spent his holidays—fighting to be able to keep giving us the training we need.
Once we’re all settled, the dean gets up and walks to the podium, clearing his throat. “Greetings, students,” he says, and wow, he sounds subdued.
He’s trying to sound cheerful, but it’s not working. He just sounds tired. Old, even. I don’t know what age Hardwick actually is. I kind of assumed he was in his early fifties or something? But right now, he looks like he’s seventy.
I don’t dislike Hardwick, although I’m not exactly close to him either—but I suddenly have the urge to wrap him up in a hug and thank him for all he’s doing for us. Ever since my first semester when Raul started attacking students, Hardwick has had to fight for this school with everything he has, and it’s only been getting harder as the tide of public opinion turns against us.
Hardwick gives the usual speech, talking about our accomplishments and the things to look forward to this semester.
“And of course,” he finishes, “be careful. Look after yourselves, my dear students. Look after yourselves and each other.”
I blink.
He’s never said anything like that before. He usually ends his speeches saying something about how he hopes we enjoy the semester.
But now he’s telling us to be careful.
To look out for each other.
Worry creeps up my spine like slowly forming ice. All around me, the auditorium is silent. I can’t even hear anyone breathing. The last few semesters started out with energy, and mostly positivity, but now…
Now it’s like we’re all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Cam and I head out early before class for a run. It’s fucking freezing out, but we don’t feel it once we start running—and besides, I’m no wimp. I love spending time with all of my men together, but I also make sure to spend time with each of them individually, and Cam and I have always liked doing outdoorsy stuff together. That’s our thing.
“What did you think of the speech yesterday?” he asks as we set out. “First time I wasn’t struggling to fall asleep.”
“He sounded worried,” I admit. We head up into the woods that surround our campus. “I’ve never seen him look like that. Have you?”
“No. Poor guy’s been working himself too hard, but who else is going to do it, y’know? This school is his baby.” Cam nods in the direction he wants to go, a rougher, narrower path that’s less popular.
I have a feeling he doesn’t want us to run into any other joggers. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a make-out session in my near future.
We run through the woods silently for a bit, taking in the nature and the atmosphere. The air is crisp and cool, and there are birds around that we can hear but not see, but not many other animals. I don’t think anyone else has been up this trail for a while. On our other running routes, there’s a clear path from the constant tramping of boots and sneakers, and you can even see people’s shoe imprints.
Not here, though.
After another few minutes, we stumble—me almost literally—into a clearing.
Huh.
I pause, and so does Cam, our chests heaving.
The clearing is large, but tall grass and shrubs are beginning to encroach on the edges. And in the middle, there’s some kind of… ruin or something. It looks like the remains of an old building.
“I wonder what that was,” I murmur. Whatever it may have been originally, any wood used in the construction has rotted away, leaving just the stones. The carved gray rocks are set in a wide circle about forty feet across, almost like a jumbo-sized fairy circle—except made with rocks instead of mushrooms.
Maybe this was a tower of some kind?
“Dunno. But we should probably turn around here,” Cam says. “Head back.”
I nod and move to start running again, only for him to catch me around the waist, laughing. “I didn’t mean right this second, Sin—savor the nature for a minute.” He grins down at me, his blue eyes gleaming, and I grin back.
“You seem happy,” I tell him, taking a deep breath of his addicting sandalwood scent. And I don’t just mean his mood ri
ght now, I mean in general.
When I first met Cam, he seemed like the kind of guy who was always peppy, always ready with a joke. And he was, but underneath it was a lot of sadness. His parents died when he was young, and he’s been on his own ever since. I know he’s had moments of isolation and loneliness.
Now, though, it’s like a weight has been lifted, and he’s so much more relaxed, his humor genuine and soft, less forced.
Cam, thankfully, seems to know what I mean without me giving him a whole speech about it.
“I am happy. And not just because of you, so don’t let that pretty head of yours swell up too much.” He taps the side of my head playfully, his other hand squeezing my waist, and I lightly thump him on the chest in response as we sway back and forth in the clearing, locked together.
“Ever since we all came together… this whole sharing situation, it feels like I’m finally getting the family I never had. Asher was the only family I had for years. I met him when I was eighteen, and he became my best friend. His parents and brothers have been really kind to me, but I still felt a bit like… like I wasn’t fully contributing, as awful as that sounds. Like I had to keep being a good friend to prove I was worthy of their affection, because I always knew—I wasn’t really their son.”
I squeeze him a little harder, and he chuckles, shaking his head.
“They’d be upset if they knew I felt that way, but… it’s hard, always feeling like you’re on the outside or like you’re a charity case, even if nobody means it that way. But now…” He brushes my hair back from my face, his fingers gently trailing down the shell of my ear, the curve of my jaw. “…now I have Asher, and Dmitri, and Roman, and I especially have you. And you gave the others to me, really. It’s all because of you.”
“I’m glad I could be of service,” I reply, my voice teasing but soft.
Cam wraps his arms around me properly and kisses me, forcing me up onto my tiptoes to kiss him back.
I don’t mind in the slightest.
We kiss a few more times, soft and playful, lighthearted, and the way he holds me, the way he looks at me, the way he says it’s all because of you…
I don’t consider myself narcissistic. I like to think I have a realistic view of myself, both my virtues and my flaws. But I dare to think that maybe… Cam’s falling in love with me. Not that I’ve ever doubted he cares or wants to be with me, but there’s a difference between having affection for someone and outright being in love with them.
And this—this feels like the latter.
Which is fine by me, since the feeling is entirely mutual.
The first week of classes is, as always, a fun exercise in struggling to remember all the shit I forgot over break. I’ve never been the best at the practical aspects of learning magic, but I’m definitely doing better with it. I’m getting the hang of how magic itself works.
My mirroring power is still very new. I have the hardest time with that one. The most successful I’ve been with it was when I mirrored the power of the demon bird—don’t even ask me how to pronounce its Latin name, but it translates to “magic eater”—and stole the magic back from the doppelgängers to return it to the students, including Cam, who’d had it ripped away from them.
But that was a trial by fire sort of deal, sink or swim, and using raw magical power in desperate straits is different from the fine-tuned aspects I need to learn now. Like mirroring one person’s power for a few seconds and then switching to mirror someone else’s instead. Half the time, I can’t choose who I’m mirroring—if I’m up against two people who are an equal distance from me, it’s the luck of the draw which one of them I end up borrowing powers from.
In a way, it’s like relearning everything all over again as far as magical control goes. I’m getting really good with my sonic boom and spider climb though, so that gives me hope that I’ll get better with my mirroring power too.
To my disappointment, I don’t have any classes with the guys besides our usual Combat class; all three years are mixed together for that subject, to give us the chance to fight people of different levels and abilities. It can get pretty damn chaotic, so I respect Professor Tamlin a lot for keeping us all from killing each other.
When I first started taking the class, I thought it was insane that the admins thought we needed it, but now it makes a lot of sense. Hardwick wants us to be able to protect ourselves, and whether we’re wearing our magical cuffs or not, he wants us to be able to fight if we have to. The world out there doesn’t take too kindly to us, and we have to be ready.
I miss the guys the rest of the time, even though I see them every night in our dorm. But at least we have that one class together, and I’m finally getting better at sparring with magic. I’ve always been good at sparring physically, but it’s about damn time my magic started cooperating as well.
In complete contrast to Combat, in Roman’s class, we’re working on relaxation techniques.
Magic responds strongly to emotions. The more heightened your emotional state, the harder your magic can be to control. So Roman is teaching us meditation techniques to help us access our powers more effectively and to not let our magic or emotions surge out of control.
I admit I’m… struggling with it. Not that I’m an overly emotional person, but meditation—sitting still at all, really—isn’t my strong suit. I have a hard time just letting go.
At the end of our first week of classes, I sit in Roman’s classroom with my eyes closed, trying to repeat the mantra he gave us as I breathe in and out.
But my brain just can’t seem to shut up. It’s going a million miles a minute, and new thoughts keep popping up, and I’m spending all my time worried about shoving those thoughts away and—
Roman’s hands land on me, and I open my eyes. I know it’s him even before I look up. I know his touch, the leather and whiskey smell of him, so well by now. It’s instinctive, like recognizing a part of my soul.
“Don’t try to focus on what you shouldn’t be thinking about,” he says with a quiet, knowing smile. Busted. That’s exactly what I was doing. “Instead, focus on one thing and think about that. Don’t sit there and think about not thinking. Just find something and put all your attention on it.”
I stare up at him, taking his advice without even meaning to. Because at this moment, he’s my something, and all my attention has gone to him. To his mesmerizing cobalt eyes, his dark hair flopping a little into his forehead, his rough but handsome features, his hint of stubble, his slightly hooked nose.
I could stare at him and feel his touch for hours and never get bored. There’s so much to Roman, so much depth, both in the things he’s shown me and the things I don’t yet know, and I love it.
He fascinates me.
Roman’s hands are on my wrists, his thumbs stroking back and forth against my skin, and for a second, it’s like nobody and nothing else in the world exists.
Then he seems to remember himself and pulls away. I blink and come back to myself a little, and I realize that we’re very much in class.
In public.
And Alyssa is watching us with narrowed eyes.
Chapter 7
Fuck.
I peek over at her again from under my lashes.
Yup. She’s still staring.
Alyssa doesn’t really scare me in and of herself. She’s a petty person who’s probably been spoiled her whole life, and I could take her in a fight with one hand tied behind my back.
But even if she’s not dangerous on her own, she can get me into trouble with others, like when she accused me of stealing people’s magic and a bunch of my classmates attacked me.
And that’s what I’m worried about.
Technically, there’s nothing in the rules saying Roman and I can’t date each other. But I’m not sure that’s going to matter to the gossip mill—and Alyssa will take full advantage of that mill if she can, I guarantee it.
As class ends, Roman stops me. “Miss Sinclair, I’d like to go over some thi
ngs with you about your written exam?”
I hang back as he walks over to his desk and pulls out some papers, gesturing for me to sit.
The moment everyone else has finished filing out though, he shoves the papers back into the desk and stands up, his posture shifting from that of the professor to something more loose-limbed, the way he is with me. I hadn’t even realized until now how differently he carries himself when it’s just us than when he’s being a teacher to everyone, but now it seems obvious.
“I think we need to formally declare our relationship to the dean,” he tells me.
Oh, shit. He must’ve noticed Alyssa watching us as well. Or maybe there was someone else I didn’t even see who noticed us. Roman is the most popular teacher on campus, and plenty of students have crushes on him. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them decided to report us in a fit of envy.
“If we talk to Hardwick now, it’s our news, and we control the story,” Roman goes on. “But if we don’t say anything, someone else will. And they’ll be able to make whatever claims they want, paint us in whatever light they want. I’d rather tell the dean myself and let him hear it from me.”
“Hell, no.” I shake my head adamantly. “It could ruin your career!”
“It’s not against the rules of the school.”
“So? Since when has anyone actually cared about rules? You’re a young professor, you’re handsome—this can’t be the first time someone’s accused you of sleeping with a student.”
“Yes, but this time it’s true.”
“What difference does that make?” I stand up straighter, my voice rising a little. “People are going to drag you through the mud for it, and I won’t stand for that. I hate even thinking about that, Roman! They’ll judge you without even knowing you. I won’t let you be discredited.”
“And I won’t let people accuse you of sleeping with me for good grades,” Roman snaps back. He’s towering over me, and I hate how hot it is when he gets all fiery like this.