by W. J. May
“He was here too,” Luke assured her. “He was just down getting coffee, came back in a few minutes later.” He shifted restlessly against the pillows. “Actually, the nurses told me he never left the room, even after he donated almost half his blood.”
“Pardon?” Rae blanched and wondered how to move forward, but before she could say a thing, Luke held up his hand and stopped her.
“Hey—I get it. It’s no big deal. I figure if a guy would be willing to virtually exsanguinate himself for another guy on behalf of some girl. Well, that’s something I don’t want to get in between. Not to mention I, uh,” he said and cleared his throat, “I heard you two when I got to Heath Hall.”
Rae closed her eyes, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole. “You…um, you heard that?” She did not want to have this freakin’ conversation. Her cheeks burned from the heat inching its way over her scalp now too.
He looked at her speculatively for a long moment, before his face cleared with an honest smile. “It’s no big deal. You didn’t know I’d be coming. Plus,” he said and hesitated a moment before continuing, “it’s almost a relief in a way. No more passive aggressive competition with your boyfriend. No more stalking you through your files.” He chuckled. “I’m kidding on that! You and me, we’re meant to be friends. I’m cool with that if you are.”
It was that simple? This easy? Rae reached down and squeezed his hand gently. “You’re an incredible friend. I can’t believe the risks you took for me. I want you to know I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. If there’s ever anything I can do to repay you, just say the word.”
“Well,” he grinned mischievously, “you could put in a good word for me with Molls.” He looked at her face and backtracked quickly. “I mean, if that isn’t too weird or anything…”
“No, no!” Rae said and bit her lip when his eyes went wide. “I mean, not no! No, it isn’t weird, not no I won’t put a good word in for you.” She sounded like Molly now. She sighed and tried again. “It’s fine! Actually, it’s better than fine.” Two of her favorite people in the world? What better match could there be? “I have to warn you though, most of the people who cross Molls the wrong way, end up with a few thousand volts of electricity running through their chest. Proceed with caution.”
He grinned. “Duly noted.” Then his face got serious. “Now, about that address I gave you. Please tell me it led to something?”
Rae jumped off the bed and began pacing in excitement. “Someone, actually. Someone who’s going to want to meet you the moment you’re feeling up to it.”
“You found her! You found your mom?” Luke’s head fell back against the pillow in relief. “I’m so happy for you.”
Rae glanced back up at the wires connecting him to a heart monitor and shook her head. She couldn’t help but grin. “You are truly the strangest, most selfless person I’ve ever met.”
Luke winked at her. “Yeah, well, I’ve recently just found out I have a whole lot of time on my hands. Brain injury, they say. So, if you’ve got time, want to fill me in on what happened?”
She had all the time in the world today. Rae gave him the entire story—sparing no detail, holding no punches. He soaked it in as hungrily as someone might if they were looking forward to the next few weeks being chained to a hospital bed. When she was finished, they laughed and talked and joked around until a nurse came to banish her so that they could run a few more standard tests.
Rae kissed Luke on the forehead and headed back to Guilder feeling like a literal weight had been lifted from her chest. Leave it to Luke to find a way to cheer her up from a hospital bed.
She was still grinning to herself when she got back to Aumbry House and pushed open the door of her room. Half a dozen faces sat staring back at her.
“What the hell?” She had almost zapped everyone using Molly’s tatù. She managed to catch herself in time and gazed around in confusion at the scene before her. Her room had been transformed into a virtual study center. Four extra laptops were positioned on the bed, and a literal mountain of books and documents was stacked on her dresser and in massive piles on the floor. For good measure, Molly had even dragged her desk inside from across the hall.
Rae’s gaze fell directly on Molly, who looked up at her in wide-eyed panic.
“We’ve got a problem. A big one.”
Chapter 3
“What is it?” Rae felt a tingling in her spine as she tried to sense the danger lurking around them. Her tatù tried to find the ability she had which would be the strongest and most efficient. Rae mentally focused and controlled it. There was no way Carter would have contacted Molly to put together students to help search for Cromfield. He’d have left that for Rae to sort and decide, right?
“Finals. We have finals.”
For once, it wasn’t about the world ending. It wasn’t about psychotic serial killers, or brain washing devices, or attempts on the Royal Family. It was about something far, far worse… finals.
“Rae!” A tall blond-haired, brown-eyed girl swept past her in a small gust of wind. “Nice to see you again, Rae. Keeping out of trouble?”
Rae blinked in astonishment. What the heck was Haley doing in her room? But as she gazed around the makeshift study center, she saw that her old ‘fr-enemy’ was hardly the only familiar face.
“Andy? Rob?” Rae exclaimed. “Is that you?”
In a second, she pounced on both of them, taking care to brush up against their bare skin, especially Rob.
He caught the gesture with a grin and squeezed her hand. “Somebody caught the flying bug, did they?”
“What can I say?” She felt almost breathless with the rush as the familiar tatù hummed along her fingers before blending seamlessly with the others. “It’s come in handy more than once. There’s really nothing like it!”
“Oh, yeah?” Andy countered. “And how about mine?” He reached out and took her wrist.
All at once, a new humming joined in with the others. Rae closed her eyes for a moment as she focused on the sensation. There was something more primal about this one than the others. Something a bit more raw—untamed. Truth be told, Rae had never used Andy’s tatù before, although she had always been curious. He was a bit like Rob in that he was a shifter. But instead of shifting into an eagle, he turned into a wolf.
“That’s pretty intense,” she murmured, ignoring her sudden craving for bloody steak. “So, where on earth have you two been? It’s like you just vanished from Guilder!”
“You’re one to talk!” Andy laughed.
“Yeah, overall we’ve been here more than you,” Rob added. “The PC paired us up and sent us off to…” His voice trailed off as he glanced around the room. “Well, needless to say, somewhere really freaking cold—and we’re glad to be back in England.”
“It was Serbia,” Andy blurted, hardly bothering to lower his voice.
Rob smacked him upside the head. “Andrew!”
Andy shrugged carelessly. “Who the hell cares? It’s Rae. Plus, we’re back at freaking headquarters—where could we be more safe?”
“You can never be too careful.” Rae shook her head, but couldn’t resist a grin. She’d forgotten how contagiously lively the young wolf could be. “I’m glad you guys are back. I really missed you!”
Rob gestured around the room with a sigh. “Well, we couldn’t miss this, could we? Not that we didn’t try…”
Andy frowned. “Honestly. You’d think the Privy Council would wait to sweep us away until we’d actually graduated. I’m sure I’ve forgotten half the stuff we were learning, and now, suddenly, we’re supposed to be tested on it? I’m going to fail for sure! And then what?”
“No more Serbia,” Rae said helpfully.
He shot her a rueful grin and smacked her shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like that? Then you, Devon, and Julian would have no competition for the PC’s new golden boys.” When Rae hit him in the chest he added, “And girl.”
“Oh, Rae’s nobody’s golden gi
rl,” Haley joined the conversation with a smirk. “She’s on probation.”
The boys turned back to her in surprise, but Rae narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “How do you know that?”
‘Haley’s the PC’s secretary. She didn’t pass the qualifications to be a field agent, so they have her making schedules and running files…’
Most people would have jumped out of their skin to hear a sudden voice in their head, but Rae whirled around in anticipation. Sure enough, there was Maria, nestled on the ground next to a desk with her head in a book. She glanced up and flashed Rae a huge smile.
“You’re back!” Rae ditched the other three and knelt down on the floor beside her. She leaned over and hugged her before sitting back. After her initial excitement to see her friend, her face clouded in concern. “How are you feeling?”
Maria had been the first casualty of Rae’s father’s brainwashing device. Well, not the first—Rae’s own mother was the first—but the most recent. The last time Rae had seen her, she was under heavy sedation, still spitting in rage and screaming into Carter’s mind as he tried to interrogate her. Perhaps more importantly, the last time Rae saw her, she’d been attempting to kidnap the future Queen of England. Not of her own volition, of course, but Rae wasn’t sure how much that would matter to a royal jury. “You’re not, like, in a ton of trouble, are you?” she asked, lowering her voice.
For a second, Maria’s little face clouded. “No. They understood I wasn’t myself. That I wasn’t in my right mind.” She smiled and shrugged. “Apparently, no permanent damage was done.”
“That’s good.” Rae watched Maria’s face and pressed her eyebrows together when her friend didn’t smile.
“But, I’m afraid, I’m off field work for a while.”
Rae frowned indignantly. “That’s so unfair! They said it themselves, you weren’t in your right mind. You were the victim. They’re just lucky it didn’t happen to one of them!”
“No, you misunderstand me.” Maria put her hand on Rae with a steadying smile. “I asked for a leave of absence. I needed to…clear my head. Get back to school for a while.” She winced as she held up her book. “Of course, I didn’t know I was coming back in time for this.”
“Which brings us back to the point, people!” Molly shrieked loud enough to quiet the room. She was perched on top of a stack of mathematic textbooks, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a paper bag in the other. Every few seconds, she rotated between the two—simultaneously drowning herself in caffeine and hyperventilating into the bag. “We’ve got less than three months to catch up with what we missed or it’s bye-bye Privy Council, no more graduation. And I, for one, don’t want to stay here another year. Now let’s focus!”
“Some of us have been here!” somebody called from the other side of the room.
“Lucky you,” Andy scoffed. “Some of us thought we’d already graduated and just found out the PC created a new requirement that you need to graduate high school in order to get paid.”
Rae scratched her head. “I thought you had graduated.”
“So did I!” Andy shook his head. “Apparently, since we didn’t sit and write our final exams we are not considered high school scholars.” He pointed to the textbooks by him. “Like cramming all this in is going to help us in a life and death situation where I have to shift. They don’t teach that shit in textbooks!”
Rob laughed. “Headmaster Lanford did. He believed all…” He stopped talking when the room went instantly into a hushed silence. With big eyes, Rob turned to Rae. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean… I just…”
Rae rested her hand on his forearm. “It’s okay, Rob. He was around here for your schooling. I get it. It’s not a big deal.” She had visions of Lanford. How much she had trusted him and how she hadn’t seen his betrayal coming. Imagine he was alive? The thought made her shudder. Bad people were supposed to give off evil vibes, not make you trust them and respect them.
It didn’t take long for Molly to stomp her foot and get everyone’s attention again. She sucked from the bag and then the coffee as her panic spread to the rest of the group, even Rae settled down with a textbook.
For the next few hours, nobody said a word except what had been taught at Guilder the past year as they submerged themselves in old lecture notes and study sheets. The final exams were notoriously difficult, and this graduating class was woefully behind. That being said, they did have one or two tricks up their sleeves, and maybe a tatù or two.
“Thank the heavens! Nicholas!”
Rae’s head shot up with the rest as Nicholas MacGyver entered the room.
Nic looked around in surprise at the new set-up and straightened his glasses before they could fall off his nose. “What’s going on guys? I just came by to say hi to Rae and Molly.” His face brightened hopefully. “Are you guys working on something?”
Molly rolled her eyes and with a grin she teased, “For the smartest person in the world, you sure have a knack for stating the obvious.”
Rae got to her feet in relief, walked straight up to MacGyver, and clapped him deliberately on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Nic.” She grinned as the familiar tatù coursed back through her veins. “Well, I’m good! Anybody up for a bit of sparring?”
“Rae Kerrigan! That’s not fair—that’s cheating!” Molly shrieked in jealous dismay.
Rae shrugged, unable to keep the giggles inside of her contained. “I can’t help it if I now have a photographic memory.” She and MacGyver shared a conspiratorial grin. Nic had a particular set of skills, and his photographic memory came in handy with his tatù. Actually, it was part of his tatù. “I’ll look through this stuff tonight and be ready by tomorrow. Good luck studying, guys!”
Rob and Andy got to their feet at once, followed quickly by Haley and Maria.
“We need a break! At least I do,” Andy declared. “If I read anymore I think my eyes are going to start bleeding.”
“Molls…” Rae said imploringly. Her redheaded friend was now the only one not leaving the room, and was staring back at the departing group in obvious distress. “Want to blow off a little steam? Maybe shock the living hell out of a few of our dear friends? That always cheers you up.”
Molly looked comically back and forth between her friends and the textbooks. “But…we have so much to do! I don’t think we—”
Andy and Rob marched straight back inside and picked her up by the arms, carrying her out with the rest of them. The boys were so tall that it didn’t matter she was running with her feet in the air.
Her shouts of protest, however, could be heard all the way across campus. “Put me down! We have work to do! I don’t want to zap you but I will. Don’t you pretend you can’t hear me! I see you smiling Andy! Do you want me to call your mother?! I’ll tell her it’s you clogging the shower drain with all your wolf hair! You two put me down!”
The girl didn’t even stop to take a breath as she continued.
Nic stepped in front when Andy and Rob dropped her suddenly. Both of them shook their hands, obviously trying to get rid of the shocked feeling in their arms. MacGyver held out his hand. “Look, Molly,” he assured her, “I promise I’ll draw up some study sheets for you, all right? I’ve already gone through the database and researched every finals question each teacher has ever asked. We’re all going to breeze right through.”
Molly—and the rest of the gang, for that matter—cheered up considerably at Nic’s comment. Everyone agreed to head off to the Oratory to spar. Someone suggested a knock out competition and Rae laughed when the boys jumped at the chance. It felt like first year all over again, without the stress of not knowing her tatù and no one judging her this year.
She led the pack, pleased with the success of her mutiny and ready to test everyone’s skills against hers. When she opened the main door, she ran right into a very sweaty, and very sexy-looking Devon.
“Woah there!” He caught her as she fell back. She’d already switched her tatù to catch herself, but s
he didn’t stop him from reaching out to touch her. “You should be more careful where you’re going, Miss Kerrigan. Wouldn’t want you to give anyone the wrong idea.” He winked.
She pulled herself away with an incriminating blush. “Sorry. We’re in a bit of a rush.” Tonight, she and her boyfriend were going to have a serious talk as to the meaning of the word ‘discreet’.
“What are you guys up to?” he asked with a grin, his face lighting up when he saw Andy, Rob and Nic. “Dudes!” After high-fiving them, he turned back to Rae. “I thought Molly had you all locked away studying for the next few months.”
“We happen to be taking a much needed study break.” Molly sniffed self-righteously. “Besides, we have something that you and your cronies didn’t have for your final exams.” She turned and patted Nic on the head like he was a prized collector’s item. “We have MacGyver.”
Julian appeared behind Devon, running his hands back through his long dark hair and securing it in what Rae thought to be a very ‘pirate-looking’ ponytail. His muscles glistened with sweat as it was clear both he and Devon had just been sparring themselves, and the thin tanks and low jeans both guys were wearing offered the crowd a rather tantalizing look at their rather delicious physiques.
“Aw, you don’t think we too stole Nic when it was time for our own exams? His brilliance isn’t just contained to your generation,” Julian teased.
There was a small cut just within his hairline that was dripping a slow line of blood down to his ear. The second she saw it, Haley stepped forward with a seductive smile. “You’re hurt! Here, let me help you with that.”
He braced himself automatically against her advances and shook his head politely. “Oh, that’s sweet, but I got it. Thanks.”
“You sure, Julian?” Rae teased back. She knew how her best friend still grew uncomfortable by the constant stream of female attention he got. He stood out with his good looks, but he was shy. Haley definitely didn’t seem his type. “It looks pretty bad.”