by Ford, Lizzy
“I’ll take care of my little girl.” His smile was quick but she saw his worry.
“We’ll help you,” she offered.
“Decker will have to leave the knife behind,” Beck said.
“I’ll teach her to take care of herself. No one will mess with her,” Decker promised.
“You guys are sweet.”
“Take care of yourself, Beck,” Summer said. “You need a break.”
“Too much to do,” he replied. “I’ll be fine. What matters is that you are preventing my twin brother from destroying himself or the world.”
“He’s fine, Beck,” she said, smiling. “I promise.”
“No doubt in my mind,” Beck replied. “Anyway, I’ll see you guys later. Gonna try to get some sleep.”
“Night, Beck,” Decker said.
The blue-eyed twin started towards the school. Decker watched him, his head tilting to the side.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Something at the school is off,” he replied.
“Like how?”
He paused then shook his head. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Will you stay with me tonight?” Decker whispered, when his brother was out of hearing range. “It’s Saturday. No school tomorrow.”
“Can you behave?” she challenged.
“Unfortunately.” He grimaced. “I just need to be with you tonight.”
Summer nodded. “Let’s go.”
Decker took her hand, and they started walking down the driveway, away from the school. His black fog swept over them, and a moment later, they were in his room at his parent’s cabin down the road.
Decker bent and picked her up, plopping her on the bed. Summer laughed, and he settled into bed beside her. She felt his pain – it was the same after every time he took a soul. Only she was able to give him peace. Decker smoothed her hair from her face, kissed her gently, and wrapped his arms around her.
“Bartholomew stopped talking to me,” he said, referring to Bartholomew-the-Terrible. As Master of Dark, Decker inherited the souls of his predecessors. They were his constant companions, talking to him, teaching him, guiding him through his duties. Except for Bartholomew, whose goal was to help the Darkness take over by dragging Decker into the Darkness.
Summer smiled. “He got tired of me shutting him down?”
“Maybe,” Decker said. “I hope so. With him gone and you in my arms …” The tension slid from him, and he sighed into her hair.
Triumphant, she snuggled against him, loving the strength and heat of his body. The idea she’d been the key to ridding him of the soul that almost drove him over the edge made her happy.
“I love you,” he murmured.
Summer smiled, her magick and heart singing.
Chapter Three
“You want your daddy to live, put the soul stone in the heart of the Light.”
Morgan MacLeod snapped awake. The dream was too vivid. She looked around, not daring to relax until she verified she was in the boarding school for witchlings in Priest Lake, Idaho, and not home in New York with the Dark uncle who tormented her for the past four years.
She knew better than to question the man who gave her the tasking. It was the condition her uncle – and legal guardian – gave her in exchange for agreeing to let her come to the boarding school. The mere thought of incurring his anger made the cold winter morning sink further into her skin. No doubt, her Sunday would start the same way it had for the past three weeks, since she arrived at the campus: with her out in the stupid snow, trying to find the heart of the Light.
Her room was freezing. She summoned her fire magick. It crept through her body, making her glow. It was close to seven, time to get up.
She threw off her covers and went to the dresser, picking up the black rock that resembled polished obsidian. It sat in the palm of her hand, heavy like iron. She didn’t know anything about the soul stone, other than it was passed down from her mother, who was also a fire witchling. Whatever knowledge originally accompanied the stone had long been lost. Her mother gave her two simple rules: no one was to know about it, and no one but a fire witchling could touch it.
Morgan understood why. Sometimes, it was cold enough to cause frostbite on contact, if not for her fire magick. Right now, it was chilling her entire room to the point that icy cobwebs spread across the inside of her windows.
She clenched it in her hand. Flames burst out around her fist. She’d never been able to warm the stone itself, but she could counter its ability to make her room cold. When the temperature of the air no longer made her shiver, she released the rock and picked up her phone.
For the first time since arriving, she had the urge to call her father and check on him.
But she didn’t. She didn’t feel like getting screamed at by her father, whose construction accident left him both disabled for life and angry about it. Unable to care for himself, he had invited his brother to move in.
Her life had been hell since that day almost four years ago, when Morgan’s mother lost the custody battle and the courts sent Morgan to live with her father. Connor stayed with their mother.
Restless, Morgan got dressed and left her room. She trudged into the snowy forest filled with towering pine trees, not at all certain what she sought or even how she would know it if she found it.
A native of New York, Morgan was accustomed to snow, but she didn’t have to like it. She jammed her gloved hands into her coat pockets. Her right hand wrapped around the stone she was sworn to let out of her possession only when she found where it belonged: at the heart of the Light.
She chose to walk towards what the campus map called Miner’s Drop. The trail through the forest was knee-deep, and she went halfway down it before turning back and trudging towards the cleared road that led around the witchlings’ Light campus, which lay several dozen kilometers north of the Dark campus.
Movement beyond the boys’ dorms caught her attention. She paused to peer into the Square, the gathering area inside the horseshoe-shaped backyard, edged by the school and boys’ dorms. Witchling students held bonfires here most evenings after dinner, unless it was storming or too cold.
Today, however, it wasn’t a bonfire that caught her attention. A large Christmas tree was being moved into the center of the Square by a handful of hired workers.
Her eyes went to the windows of the girls’ dorm rooms, many of which overlooked the Square. Hers was one, and she frowned, realizing she’d be able to see the tree from her window.
She wanted to burn it down. Her fire magick stirred with her anger, and tiny sparks landed in the snow at her feet, sizzling to their demise.
Morgan hated Christmas more than snow. Christmas four years ago – a week before she turned fourteen – was the worst day of her life. She hadn’t celebrated her birthday or Christmas since.
She turned away from the Square and walked down the road, not wanting to recall that night. Or how this year, she’d be eighteen, old enough to run away finally, but without anywhere else to go.
Especially not if her overbearing brother, Connor, figured out her plan.
“You are way too cute to be frowning like that.”
Morgan’s breath caught at the familiar voice. She hadn’t heard it since arriving three weeks ago, when the teen boy with a dark complexion and beautiful, blue eyes left her feeling as if her head was either going to explode or float away. He’d accidentally touched her once, and she still remembered the giddy anxiety that flew through her faster than the fire magick did when she was angry.
And then, like all the rest of the good parts of her life, he had just … gone away. Abandoned her. Someone said he was on vacation in Europe with his family while others said he was in jail for getting some girl pregnant. There were lots of weird rumors about him. She took it as a sign that she didn’t need him in her life.
“Whatever,” she said without turning. She didn’t think she could look at him without fe
eling what she did when they met: as if the fire in her blood burned hot enough that she was fevered. The touch of his strong earth magick – calming as it was – distressed her.
No, he was not what she needed, especially so close to the anniversary of The Incident, the worst day of her life.
“We’re going to decorate as soon as the tree is up. You want to help?”
“No,” she replied firmly and started walking again, away from him.
“How are the sisters?” he asked, referring to the two younger teen girls she arrived with. They were all but traumatized when they arrived, having never left home before. She did what she could to help them relax, and then they, too, had found other friends and moved on without her.
“Fine.”
“You settling in okay?”
She sighed. He wasn’t taking the hint. Typical boy, like her brother, who needed a two-by-four to the head to understand when she wanted time alone.
“Connor and I are fine,” she said.
That shut him up, though she couldn’t help feeling disappointed that it did. Her brother always came between her and any guy who looked at her twice. Usually, she was grateful, but sometimes, she wondered what it was like to be a normal teen girl. One who didn’t have the dark secret she did or who wasn’t afraid to trust herself or the guys she was attracted to. One without a Dark father, emotional basket case of a Dark mother or a brother who took his role of protecting her too seriously. One who was able to date someone as cute as Beck.
“I, uh, kinda need to talk to you about something serious.” Beck’s voice jarred her out of her thoughts. She realized he hadn’t gone away; he was following, at a safe distance, as if aware that her fire didn’t react well in close quarters.
“What?” she asked, turning at last.
Tall and athletic, Beck was confident enough to be cocky. His smile was quick and friendly. He wore a white puffer jacket and jeans. Dark hair was neatly trimmed, and the combination of his high cheekbones, large eyes and strong jaw rendered him stunning. He glowed with Light that left her feeling inferior, after she was told in class that she was an in-between, neither Light nor Dark, like the polluted gray snow lining busy roads.
His steady gaze made her face grow warm.
“Amber says you’re not doing so well in class. I’m supposed to be mentoring you. So, I, uh, just wondered … what’s up,” he said. He rubbed the back of his head, as if unaccustomed to being a mentor with a bad student like her.
“Nothing,” she replied.
“She says the only thing you’re really interested in is your fire magick courses.”
“Yeah, so?” she asked. “Maybe I don’t like it here.”
“Is that it? You really don’t like it here?”
I don’t fit in. The mostly wealthy kids here had never been poor or hurt like she had. She’d never met anyone yet with two Dark parents. But it was more than that. She wasn’t about to explain it to him, though.
“I guess,” she said.
“Is your offer to set someone’s shoes on fire for me still open?”
“Yes, of course. No one should ever talk to anyone like she did you,” Morgan said with firmness. “It’s not right to belittle someone else or to hurt them, just because you’re angry or upset.”
Beck was studying her, and she assessed she’d revealed too much. She flushed and looked away.
“Tell Amber I’m fine. I’ll adjust, and I don’t need a mentor, especially one who’s gone all the time.” Turning away once more, Morgan began her journey towards the frozen creek that ran beneath a bridge at the edge of campus.
“Do you want company?” he called after her.
“No.”
Beck watched the gorgeous redhead walk away, now understanding her instructors’ concerns. The normally cheerful head instructor for Light Arts, Amber, had been genuinely upset about one of her newest students, who she described as throwing up walls at every attempt to talk to her.
Tempted to go with Morgan despite her refusal, Beck debated for a moment then turned towards the Square. He was almost relieved Connor McCloud – Morgan’s brother – wasn’t standing behind him with the familiar glare of warning. If Morgan didn’t want to talk to him now, he’d deal with her later. He had other issues on his plate this morning.
Issues that should have been more important than seeing the beautiful girl with a peaches-and-cream complexion, red hair that clashed with the white wonderland around them and pine-colored eyes. A fire element, Morgan’s magick was the opposite of Beck’s calm, balanced earth magick. Hers sizzled off the ends of flame-hued hair and sparked in her eyes.
Beck shook his head to clear it of her effect. Frustrated with her new student, Amber insisted he talk to her first thing this morning. He didn’t expect to feel a renewal of the strange connection they’d had when they met. He preferred blondes, and his initial attraction to girls was normally gone after a few days.
It wasn’t with Morgan, which was weirding him out. He still felt his pulse race dangerously when he saw her.
Maybe it’s better she wants nothing to do with me. Except that it was his duty as the Master of Light to determine what to do about her and her brother, both of whom were caught between Light and Dark and neither of whom had taken their trials at the age of seventeen, like they were supposed to. Connor was eighteen and Morgan would be soon.
Beck returned to the warmth of the main schoolhouse and Amber’s office, where the Light Arts instructor was catching up on grading the projects assigned to the witchlings under her charge. The projects were contained within small glass bubbles that littered her desk. Some held waterfalls, others snow tumbling from miniature clouds while still others featured tiny trees sprouting to life. None contained fire, a reminder of how rare the element was.
“I went, and she’s not interested in talking,” he reported. “Anything else, before I start working on my normal duties?”
Amber glanced up from her laptop. “She won’t even thaw to the infamous Beck charm. I thought you could get anyone to talk to you, especially girls.” Her words were accompanied by a wink.
“I didn’t really try,” he retorted. “If I wanted to …” Stop, Beck! He ordered himself silently. Not thinking before he acted was how he got into half of the messes he was trying to deal with now.
“The next step is counseling,” Amber said. “I have a feeling that won’t go over well with her parents.”
“Or her.”
“Maybe you should bring it up to her first.”
Beck eyed Amber, who was trying not to smile. “Aren’t you her instructor?”
“Aren’t you the Master of Light?”
Beck sighed.
“You have to learn to help people, right? Go help her.”
“I don’t want to help her.”
His honesty was too quick to stop. Amber looked up, startled.
“I mean, of course, I want to help her, but I don’t think I’m the best person. She doesn’t like me,” he rushed on. “Her brother doesn’t like guys anywhere near her.”
“Amazingly enough, Connor is a model student. I expected the opposite from the both of them,” Amber said. “Well, if she doesn’t like you, and you won’t talk to her, I’ve got to call her parents and tell them Merry Christmas – come get your kid or we’re putting her into counseling.”
Beck instantly felt badly. He was being selfish, not wanting to deal with Morgan, because he was attracted to her. The idea he’d rather see her sent away than try to talk to her made him feel like a fool. He was exhausted from the past few weeks and his recent bout of insomnia, but he still had a duty to the witchlings. For once, it would be nice if the problem at hand wasn’t urgent.
“Shall I make that call, or do you want to give it one more shot?” Amber asked.
“One more shot,” he muttered. “I might try talking to Connor first.”
“That’s a great idea. They seem really close.”
Irritated at himself, Beck nodded and le
ft. He didn’t look forward to talking to Connor anymore than he did Morgan. But at least Connor might give him more than one-word responses. Maybe, if Connor understood his sister’s danger of being sent home, he’d talk to her for Beck.
Beck felt even worse for this thought. He should be able to handle one rogue fire witchling. He needed to clear the air with Connor anyway, so the protective, elder brother didn’t bite off his head for talking to his sister.
Like a few other of the witchling guys, Connor was gathered in the Square, watching the tree go up. At least he had made good choices of friends: Beck liked the boys flanking him.
“Hey guys,” he said, approaching with a smile. “How’s life?”
“You come back from one vacay just in time for the holiday break?” Isaac, a beefy blond air witchling, teased. “Lame!”
“I wish,” Beck replied. “Family business to take care of. It was definitely no break.”
The two didn’t ask; everyone knew his business, as much as he wished they didn’t. His pregnant ex-girlfriend, who had recently gone Dark, and the death of the last girl he’d been dating … Those kinds of secrets didn’t stay private for long, once police and lawyers started interviewing people for character references.
He’d had no down time until arriving to the school campus yesterday, where he’d immediately plunged into his next big problem: salvaging the Light beneath the school.
“This tree is bigger than last year’s,” the second guy, Adam, observed. The teen was tall and geeky with a shy smile and glasses. “Hopefully no storm blows it over this year.”
Beck glanced at Connor. He wasn’t certain what he expected – maybe that the boy was able to read his thoughts about Morgan? – but Connor smiled much more warmly than he had when they first met. Beck took it as a good sign. From everything Amber said, the brooding Connor had bloomed quickly at the school.
“Hey, Connor, you got a minute?” Beck asked.
“If you want to date my sister, the answer is no,” Connor said instantly.
Beck laughed. “I take it you’re getting a lot of guys asking her out?”