A year ago, I would have given up and begged for a rest ten minutes into our jog, but all the hours with Gabriel and in boot camp had improved my stamina tenfold. Even so, when we reached the Shadow Thicket, I gladly leaned against a tree and took in a few deep breaths while my heartbeat evened out.
“You good?” Anji asked, moving up beside me. She’d been running with Amalia and Jada in the rearguard.
“Yeah. If you’d asked me last year if I could run that long, I’d have laughed at you.”
“That’s what hard work gets you,” Gabriel said. He skimmed his fingers down my back, a light touch that fell away far too soon.
“All right, since we have a newbie with us, let me go over how this works,” Rodrigo said. He drew a wooden toy from his pocket that was carved to resemble a rabbit. “This here is our lure. I set it loose, it beelines away, and after a minute head start, we pursue. Whoever catches it gets a tally mark in the club journal. Member with the most tallies picks the location for the end-of-semester field trip. That’s a weekend hike and campout in Tir na Nog.”
Jada’s eyes lit up with interest.
I wanted to beat her on principle—a childish part of me desperate to ask Gabriel what she’d enjoy the least.
Rodrigo activated the spellwork on our lure and set it down on the ground. The wooden decoy glowed a soft green and doubled in size, the wooden surface morphing into a furlike appearance, almost like a real bunny. It twitched its stiff ears then took off, shooting into the thicket. I tried to follow it with my eyes, but the lure vanished, making me wonder how on earth I was supposed to track it when I didn’t have a predator’s sense of smell.
“Go!”
The area exploded into activity. I darted forward and followed the path I’d seen the lure take before I lost sight of it. One of the cat sith twins blew past me, a blur of black fur.
Long and slender, whip-thin branches slapped my face and tangled in my hair like wooden fingers. I ducked beneath a few more by instinct and stumbled over a gnarled root, nearly breaking my ankle.
What the fuck? Who called this fun?
Off to my left, a wolf howled. Crap. Did that mean the lure had been spotted? In need of a light, I summoned a palmful of Faerie Fire. The blue-gold glow lit up my path and gave me the confidence to pick up my speed.
A sensation like a static tickle buzzed in the air farther ahead to my left. Then it skimmed right. I ran that direction and saw tiny little tracks glittering on the ground. They faded so quickly I could have imagined them.
Maybe I wasn’t as impaired as I initially believed.
Now we were all running, wolves sniffing the ground, bears snuffling through leaves and ground flora that was somehow growing in this dim thicket. The lure was so damned fast it was hard to get a bead on it, even with their enhanced reflexes and shifter speed. If a werewolf hauling ass couldn’t catch it, how the hell could I?
Movement on the right and a flicker of green caught my eye. I lurched that direction, and then a raven swooped, its black shape blending with the rest of the shadows. It dove for something—missed—and then the silver-green blur of the rabbit lure was off again, a lightning bolt streaking through the woods.
Another howl filled the air, this time from behind me, but the cry cut off into a yelp. I froze in place and strained to listen.
Rodrigo shrugged out of his bear form and into human shape. “What happened? Who’s hurt?”
Gabriel landed a second later. “Sounded like Blaire.”
The raven who had swooped ahead of me to take the lure turned into Jada. “I think it was. Came from that direction.”
Another wolf cried out in the darkness, and then all chaos broke loose. Rodrigo shouted orders to regroup, and moments after I started toward him, two more voices shouted for help.
I ran for them, joined by many other shifter bodies. My wings exploded into existence again like twin lanterns lit by gold and blue flames. Instead of cursing, someone thanked me, the light appreciated, because at least now we could all see the danger.
Dozens of thick, thorn-tipped vines spread across the ground between the trees from a large plant with oversized purple flowers and a ginormous bulb that throbbed like a damned heart. I’d never seen anything like it before. The vines whipped into the air and struck out at the slightest movement.
And trapped amidst the thorns lay a white wolf with a blanket of crimson on its pelt. One of the vines wrapped around Blaire and rolled him up like a burrito toward its pulsating bulb. A hole filled with sharp teeth yawned open.
Holy shit. Tir na Nog had carnivorous plants?
“Skylar, watch out!”
Gabriel streaked down from the sky and shifted in midair, crashing into me and bringing me down to the ground. A heavy vine tipped in thorns whipped over our heads.
Then the burning began. There was fire in my blood, spreading down my arm toward my fingers and throbbing in my veins. I screamed and jerked from beneath Gabriel’s protective huddle, rolling from under him and leaping to my feet.
“Sky?”
“Fuck, the vines are everywhere,” someone yelled from our left.
Shadows detached from the trees around us and circled overhead like vultures. The first dove at me with sharp claws extended, and I fell back with a startled shriek, fire flaring against my fingertips.
“Get back!”
“Don’t use Faerie Fire here, Sky! It’s a trap. You’ll only end up burning us.”
“Ah shit, man, she got scrat—” Rodrigo’s words blurred into a distorted slur. I stumbled to the left then fell on my hands and knees as my world swam in and out of focus.
“Gabe? Gabe, where did you go?”
Another dark shadow with curved talons loomed over me, red eyes glowing in its black face. It called me by name, inky tendrils wrapping around my wrists before I could throw another fiery blast.
“Skylar,” it hissed.
When it ducked toward me, I screamed and thrust with both hands, issuing a jet of Faerie Fire that chased the shadowbeast away. It glided away like some sort of diabolical wraith. “No! Get back! Get away!”
Another beast joined the first and reached for me with skeletal fingers tipped in gore and blood. Shrieking, I took off running from both. Where were my friends? Where had everyone gone?
Then the glow from my wings shed light on the mystery, and I saw where my friends had gone. Gabriel and Anji lay on the ground in a broken tangle of limbs, their dead, bloodstained faces staring up at the bleak canopy.
No, no, no. That couldn’t be right. The vines couldn’t have gotten them.
“Gabe?” The motionless body didn’t answer me.
With tears blurring my vision and blood pulsing in my ears, I whirled on two nightmare beasts closing in on me and channeled a wave of Faerie Fire. One rolled away through the air, but the second was caught in the inferno, shrieking.
The first creature took me down to the ground and pinned both of my arms over my head to the dirt in a steel grip. Its hard body stretched out over mine, eerily familiar. “Sky, it’s me. I’m right here!”
“Gabriel?”
“I’m right here. Stop fighting me, Sky, please.” It didn’t sound like Gabe, but it felt like him. The monster had his warmth and his smell, and somehow I knew his scent even though I wasn’t a shifter. “No more fire, okay?”
“But I…” I’d seen him dead. I’d seen him and Anji both dead.
“Deep breaths. You’ve been poisoned. You can’t trust your eyes, okay?”
“But I saw—”
“Whatever you saw was a hallucination. Please, babe, no more fire.”
“Everyone fall back,” Rodrigo ordered. “Isaac and I got him.”
Gabriel scooped me up, though my eyes insisted a ghoul had me in its clutches. I closed my eyes and buried my face in his throat, breathing him in and focusing on what remained familiar.
A few minutes passed before I risked looking at our surroundings again. Through my hazy vision, I saw the twin
s making a stretcher for Blaire from a few sticks and glamour. Rodrigo took one end and the other big bear shifter grabbed the opposite side, even though both were bleeding heavily.
“I can walk,” I mumbled.
“The hell you can.” Gabriel tightened his hold on me and started after the others. “You’re going straight to medical until the toxin is out of your system.”
I didn’t argue again. When every shadow around us looked like a face-eating monster, there was nowhere safer than being wrapped in his arms.
* * *
Sebastian’s stern visage swam into view when I opened my eyes way later. I didn’t even remember arriving at medical. “Why is it every time I see you it’s either because you’re banged up or in trouble?”
“Um… bad luck?”
He cracked a smile and laughed softly. “You certainly have that. How are you feeling?”
“Like I went on a bender and have the world’s worst hangover.”
“Doomshade toxin will do that.”
“I’m just surprised the club went somewhere with a plant like that.”
Sebastian frowned. “That’s the thing, it’s not native to that area of Tir na Nog. Not enough sunlight. There’s no way it should have been there.”
“Except it was.”
“Yes. A strange little mystery we’re not likely to solve unless the fae get involved and care to share their findings. My best guess is some dryad was pulling a prank. Maybe she was fed up with the club trampling through her woods.”
“How’s Blaire?”
“About forty-five stitches. Broken leg and arm. He’ll heal, but it will take a little time.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“A few minor injuries. Amalia got hit with toxin same as you, Justin took a pretty good lump to his head, and Catlyn twisted her ankle. Everyone else is just a little battered and bruised. A few burns.”
My stomach clenched and rolled with nausea, the taste of sour bile filling my mouth. I’d done that. I’d hurt my own friends. “Who did I burn?”
“You weren’t in your right mind. Neither was Amalia.”
“Still, who did I hurt?”
Sebastian sighed. “Anji took some burns to her arms. Rodrigo will have to grow back some fur.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“As I said, doomshade toxin will do that to you. Besides, your singe was nothing compared to the chunk of flesh Amalia took off him, so don’t beat yourself up too badly over the whole affair.”
“If you say so…” Except his assurances didn’t make me feel any better. My gaze drifted away from him to the window then the bedside chair. Gabe’s jacket lay over the back of it.
“I sent him out to get some coffee,” Sebastian said before I could ask.
“I didn’t hurt him, did I?”
“Nah. Gabriel was one of the handful to make it out unscathed.” When my eyebrows raised high enough to probably disappear into my hairline, Sebastian continued, “I know, right? Guess there’s a first for everything. He practically lived in this medical center last year. Anyway, glad to see you up and clear-eyed again.”
“Thanks.”
“Not gonna lie, you were pretty hilarious before you finally crashed. Between you and Amalia, I’ve never laughed so hard. She thought I was a zombie out to eat her brains.”
He hung around with me until Gabriel arrived bearing coffee. Then the wolf excused himself to check on the other injured students.
The moment the door shut, Gabe scooted his chair close and kissed me. “How do you feel?”
“Better. Less like I’m starring as the final girl in my own horror movie.”
He stroked my cheek then smoothed a few strands of hair from my brow. “Sorry your first night out with us went to shit, Sky.”
“Not your fault. You didn’t stash a deadly, poisonous plant in the hunting grounds. I—” My attention drifted to the wall clock. I had missed boot camp entirely while passed out and was due to start my Intro to Cybercrime class in twenty minutes. Crap, I’d have to make up a quiz. “Don’t you have a class right now?”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be in Global Business Perspectives.”
My eyes crossed. All his general classes sounded the same with titles like Economics This or Business That. “Then go.”
“I don’t wanna leave you a—”
“Go to class. I mean it. If you sit there staring at me all morning, I’ll just be grumpy and irritable. Please go.”
Gabe sighed. “All right. My phone’s on if you need anything.”
Nurse Kristi came in to check my vitals not too long after Mr. Overbearing left. Once she hung a new bag, added something to my IV line, and stepped out again, I was finally left alone with my thoughts.
Could it be coincidence that less than a month after someone had tried to kill me with black magic, I’d also been attacked in Tir na Nog? Something also told me that Sebastian didn’t really believe a mischievous dryad would do anything to endanger the group of us.
And I had a hunch that whatever it was, whoever was behind it, that wasn’t the last I’d see of their troublemaking.
6
I am a Magnet for Cute Guys
Most of us were out of the medical center by Friday afternoon and able to recuperate over the weekend, except for Blaire. The doctors kept him in the campus infirmary for closer to a week, which made me think Sebastian had downplayed his injuries.
After making numerous apologies to Anji, she threatened to ignore me for the rest of the semester if I begged for her forgiveness one more time, but I couldn’t help myself. Her arms had been shiny and pink from her palms to her elbows, and it made me feel like shit, because I’d done that to her. By comparison, Rodrigo happily let me grovel for a while. Buying him cookies made a successful bribe.
Then two weeks later, those crazies were arranging another run in Tir na Nog like nothing ever happened—except the Shadow Thicket was off the agenda, and Blaire was still recovering. I didn’t think any of them would want me there after how I freaked out, so I stayed home to skip the meeting until Rodrigo and Isaac hammered on my door.
Then a bunch of wolves started howling and the loudest ravens I ever heard kept cawing my name until I stepped outside. “What the hell is this?”
Rodrigo grinned. “We’re the ‘Skylar, Get Off Your Ass’ brigade. The fuck are you wearing? Go change.”
Isaac glanced at his watch. “Time is ticking, shorty. Get into your jogging shit.”
A half dozen werewolf eyes gleamed at me from the yard, including one dark-furred, blue-eyed sentinel. Sebastian tipped his muzzle up at me and gave a wolfish grin.
Apparently, everyone but Jada had shown up to drag me to the Twilight Meadow. Pilar practically kicked me out the door just to get them all off our lawn.
Our run went much better that time, with no carnivorous plants to be seen, and while I didn’t race Rodrigo, Sebastian did, and the big bear got his ass trounced.
I didn’t catch the lure either. Stark swooped in from nowhere and practically had it in his claws, only for Kitania to bolt in and dash away with the rabbit in her feline jaws. She won a tick on their logbook. Then we celebrated with pizza before splitting for our evening classes. Boot camp actually seemed to fly by for once. Instead of killing me, I emerged from the showers energized and full of vigor after the three-hour training session.
“Skylar, come sit with us.” Jiro waved me over when Holly and I went to look for a table in the student center.
“Oh, that’s Sai sitting there across from him,” Holly said. Since she needed a vampire mage for a mentor, and Liadan needed a skilled sentinel, Sai had the honor of performing both roles until our friend caught up on her new classes.
“Shall we, then?”
“You go on ahead. I’m actually meeting a guy for lunch. Wish me luck.”
“May this one not be a psychopath.”
Holly grinned.
While she took off, I veered to the table where the two upperclassmen
were eating lunch—breakfast—whatever it was called for us night students dining at 1:30 in the morning.
Sai rose and offered me a hand. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“Same.” His grip was strong and his skin surprisingly warm for a vampire, but he had the same telltale ice-blue eyes that identified all their kind who inherited magic.
“You looked good on the hunt today,” Jiro said. “I’ve been trying to convince Sai to join the club.”
“Thanks. To be honest, I didn’t expect to have so much fun after what happened last time.”
Sai shook his head. “Yes, I heard about that misadventure. I did not participate in the club back in Shangri-La either.”
I glanced from one guy to the other. Both were reasonably attractive—Jiro golden and sun-kissed like Gabriel, his eyes a brighter green than mine. Sai had a cool undertone to his brown skin, reminding me of how much I’d been in love with Tricia’s almost silver complexion. Vampires could be so pretty sometimes.
“So, uh, you two are friends?”
Jiro chuckled. “Yeah, we go a long way back. I attended Shangri-La back during freshman year.”
“Really? What made you decide to come back here? Gabriel said he’d been tempted to stay over there when he did his semester abroad.”
“My dad’s job transferred him from Okinawa to the States, so the whole family moved here. PNRU didn’t seem like a bad place to finish my education.”
“What about you, Sai? What made you decide to do your final year in America?”
Sai sipped a drink through a black straw, but my imagination filled in for what I couldn’t see. “Provost Riordan contacted me over the summer, as did the Sanguine Court. There is a shortage of vampire mages enrolled in any of the schools, and had that traitor not abandoned the school, she would be in my place. I understood Holly’s plight and volunteered to come.”
“Very noble of you.”
The Scary Godmother: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2 Page 6