Trials

by Sadie Moss

  Hmm. That actually sounds like a great way to spend the afternoon.

  All right. I’m probably going to regret this, but if it gives me a chance to deliver the royal smackdown on a girl who’s been nothing but a bitch to me since day one? I’ll take the chance.

  You only live once, right? And when else am I going to get a no-holds-barred opportunity to punch Alyssa?

  “Guess I’ll just see you on the battleground, then,” I tell her sweetly, and then I turn on my heel and march over to the sign-up table where Roman’s sitting.

  His dark eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline as I walk over. “Elliot.”

  I hold out my hand. “Give me a damn pen, I’m signing up.”

  “Are you sure about this, Reckless?” Roman asks quietly, his eyes narrowing even as he hands me the pen.

  I sign my name and list my two powers—wall walking and sonic boom. “Look, if I don’t sign up for this? Everyone’s going to gossip about me. If I do sign up for this? Everyone’s going to gossip about me. At least this way I get my anger and aggression out, right?”

  Roman looks simultaneously intimidated, worried, and turned on. He leans forward, lowering his voice. “Not that I don’t admire your attitude, Elliot, but—”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” he drawls, his eyes darkening in a way that makes my clit throb inappropriately. “I don’t think I could stop you from doing anything you set your mind to.” Then he pauses before adding, “But please be careful.”

  “Hey.” I shrug casually, projecting more confidence than I feel. “I’m not going to get hurt.”

  “I meant more with your sonic boom.” Roman hesitates, like he knows this is a delicate subject and is mulling over how he wants to say his next words. “When you hurt Asher… you were torn up about it for days, I could see it in you. I don’t want you to do anything you regret later.”

  “Trust me,” I reply, setting the pen down, “I’m not going to regret doing what it takes to give certain people a black eye.”

  Roman’s gaze flicks over to Alyssa, who’s now standing with the other three girls and complaining about something. Her new hair conditioner, I think. Jesus, she really is fucking vapid.

  And she’s doing her damndest to make it clear to the whole room she doesn’t care one way or another what I do. The lady doth protest a little too much, methinks.

  Roman’s low voice drags my attention back to him.

  “I know she’s given you hell, Reckless. And I know you can take her.” For a moment, heat, humor, and savage pride flash in his eyes. Then he sighs, his serious expression dropping back into place. “Just be careful, all right?”

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” I say with a defiant arch of my brow, even though he can and he has and I fucking loved it.

  His expression tells me he just had the exact same thought I did, and my cheeks flush, blood rushing through my veins at lightning speed. Shit, I better get out of here before we break every damn “not in public” rule we’ve established.

  Roman hands me my badge, his fingers sliding over my wrist as I take it from him. Little trails of fire zip up my arm from his touch, and from the look in his eyes, he wishes he could touch me a lot more than that. But of course, since no one but the other three men is aware of this little thing between us, he can’t do anything but let his fingers linger for a second.

  The heat in his gaze makes my heart beat a little harder, and I look down as I pin the badge to my chest, needing a second to gather myself. Fuck, he throws me so off-balance sometimes.

  According to the rules posted on the door, the badge has a little sensor that will monitor my heart rate or whatever, and it also has my name on it, in case people forget that. I really hope nobody is paying attention to my heart rate right now, although I can’t be the only student in the room with a rapid pulse.

  Roman drops his hand to the table slowly, his dark eyes watching me. His gaze is still too intense, so to keep my skin from spontaneously bursting into flames, I distract him with a question. “Why do you dislike Alyssa so much, anyway? I mean, I know why I don’t like her, but what’s your beef?”

  “Well, this is going to make me sound like a hypocrite, given our relationship,” he says quietly, one eyebrow lifting wryly, “but I don’t make a habit of sleeping with my students, and I don’t appreciate said students talking about me like I’m a piece of meat.”

  Oh. Roman didn’t know I was his student when we first hooked up at the bar I worked at back in Portland. In fact, at the time, I wasn’t his student—I didn’t have my powers yet and had no idea I’d be going to the Academy of Unpredictable Magic in the near future.

  Our decision to continue our sexual relationship is a questionable one—I’m well aware we’re not exactly being prudent here. But I’m not into him because he’s my teacher. That’s not my particular kink, thanks. And he’s not into me because I’m his student.

  I can definitely see why a bunch of people giggling over how hot he is and talking about him like an object could get on his nerves. Not to mention, make him uncomfortable. I’ve had to deal with that kind of shit from men at the bar, I don’t wish it on Roman or anyone else, no matter what their gender.

  “Yeah, that is shitty. You want me to punch her for you?” I ask lightly.

  “Your instinct toward violence is concerning,” he replies, but a smile quirks his lips. It’s soft and devastatingly sexy—the one he gives me when he’s looking down at me in bed, the one that makes me forget I don’t want anything serious. “So as your professor, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  A loud bell rings out from the quad, and he stands up. “Ah, you should go, they’ll be starting soon.” He lowers his voice. “Good luck.”

  I nod, feeling my cheeks heat up, and then start for the quad.

  Somehow—with magic I’m sure—the quad has been transformed into a sort of arena. There are sections marked off with white paint, like the kind they use for the lines on sports fields, which I assume will be there for the first round of one-on-one, keeping us apart.

  Professor Binns checks my badge and does some kind of spell on me—I have no idea what, which concerns me slightly—and then I’m put in one of the sections. I see everyone around me being lined up for the same thing. It looks like the whole school did indeed sign up.

  Yay. Pizza party, I guess?

  Silver lining, it means there won’t be any spectators for this first round besides the professors. Since we’re all paired off, there’s no one left to sit in the stands. There will be for the battle royale, but if I get that far, I doubt anyone will be able to really tell who’s who with all the magic and fists flying.

  Someone comes to stand across from me, I’m guessing my opponent. I turn, ready to say something like “sorry you’re stuck with me,” but then I look at her face and blink.

  It’s Kendal.

  Chapter 7

  Kendal looks startled to see me, her blue eyes going wide. I remember reading somewhere that the rarest hair-eye combination is red hair and blue eyes, and Kendal genuinely rocks the look. She also lacks the hard-edged, nasty sort of expression that takes away from whatever natural beauty Alyssa has. Kendal tends to look like she’s Alice who just landed in Wonderland and has no clue what to do with that.

  “Elliot!” she blurts out.

  “Kendal.”

  “I guess… um…” She shuffles her feet. “May the best woman win?”

  “Uh… sure.”

  I’m surprised not to be met by an insult, but then again, Kendal doesn’t seem to have the taste for blood in the water like the other three preppy sharks do. Not that she stands up for me, either, so we’re sure as hell not friends.

  Dean Hardwick’s voice is magically amplified as he gives us a little speech explaining what’s going to happen and going over the rules one more time.

  No trying to kill or maim your opponent. Only get them to surrender or to step outside the bo
unds marked by the white paint. So on and so forth.

  “When you hear the bell, begin!” he announces.

  I spread my feet out and drop my weight. Kendal brings her hands up like she’s about to cast a spell.

  There’s a moment of silence, and it feels like the whole world goes still as we all wait.

  I know Tamlin’s been telling me to use my mental strength and not my emotional strength, but I can’t rely on that if I’m going to get past this first round, not when I’ve been failing so spectacularly with my magic lately. Instead, I think about Alyssa and how much I want to get her to go away, how much I want her to disappear, how much I want to punch her, punch my dad, shake some sense into people like Aurora who gave me the ultimatum of go to this damn school or lose my magic forever—

  The bell dings.

  With all the fury working in me, I let off my sonic boom.

  I aim for the ground near Kendal’s feet, since a direct hit with a sonic boom could put her in the infirmary for weeks. A small crater appears in the earth, and Kendal is catapulted backward out of our section, landing on her ass on the grass with a shriek. She’s okay, just a little bruised in the ass region, I’m guessing, but she sits up just fine, coughing a bit to work the air back into her lungs.

  Light shoots up from the lines of our section, surrounding me in a cage that looks like bright sunshine, and I look around to see I’m not the only one encased like this. I guess it’s what happens when someone wins—I can see Cam dusting off his hands and grinning as his section fills with light too.

  He sees me and gives me a thumbs-up. I grin back at him. I’m glad he made it through.

  Asher and Dmitri have made it too, though I didn’t ever doubt they would. Alyssa and Cristina also got through, and I grit my teeth.

  Good. I’m coming straight for them.

  Once everybody’s won or lost, the light goes away and the lines disappear, as if the light burned them away. Only the outside lines remain—the one marking the edges of the arena.

  “Congratulations!” Hardwick announces as the school medical staff check people for injuries and the defeated take up spots around us to watch. “Now it’s time for the battle royale. Last person standing gets to move on.”

  I stretch out my arms, trying to breathe and not let nervousness overtake me.

  “The Trials will be messy, and you’ll be going up against multiple opponents at once. The goal is to see who can handle their magic the best under the most stressful of circumstances. This doesn’t just mean how you can use it in a fight, but how you can control it so it doesn’t kill or maim someone else. It’s all about control,” he emphasizes.

  Well, I’m fucked then, and not in the fun way.

  All the professors and staff are gathered around the arena, their stances alert and ready. I have no doubt they’ve been instructed to intervene if any of the fights get out of hand. This whole thing is about bringing good press to the school, and it wouldn’t look too great if one of the students were seriously injured before the Trials even start.

  “The goal here is to be the last person standing. That means your opponents have either surrendered, been pushed out of the arena, or been incapacitated—that is, rendered unconscious or otherwise unable to fight. Throwing a magical net around your opponent so they can’t move, for example, counts as being incapacitated.”

  Okay, makes sense.

  “Non-magical tactics, including hand-to-hand, are available to you as well,” Hardwick finishes. “When the bell sounds, it’s everyone for themselves.”

  My eyes find Alyssa across the arena. I’m not letting anyone, and I mean anyone, get in the way of me smashing her into the dirt. It’s ninety percent of the reason I signed up for this shit.

  I should probably be a lot more concerned about this bloodlust than I am. Oh, well, chalk it up to another issue I’ll inevitably have to discuss when finally I get a therapist.

  The bell sounds, and chaos erupts.

  Everyone’s charging at everybody else, conjuring, summoning, unleashing insane powers. I dodge a fireball as someone to my right transforms into a goddamn wolf, and several students on the other side of the arena start floating. Just picture a food fight in a high school lunchroom and add a shit-ton of crazy magic, and you’ve got a good idea of the insanity I’m surrounded by.

  I head right for Alyssa, dodging and weaving, using my spider climb to actually parkour off a few people like they’re walls to avoid getting hit by a wayward mini tsunami.

  Jesus Christ, it’s total pandemonium out here.

  Alyssa’s distracted, flinging spells at someone else, so she doesn’t see me coming until I…

  Well, okay, I’m not all that proud of it, but I take a flying leap and tackle her into the dirt.

  Look, I’m not apologizing for it, it’s satisfying as fuck. I feel like a five-year-old going after the girl who stole her crayons, but nothing beats the sensation of hearing Alyssa shriek in surprise before she lands with a heavy oomph on the ground beneath me.

  “You freak!” she shrieks as she bats her hair out of her face and realizes it’s me.

  “I thought I was a slut?” I ask, cocking back my fist. “Don’t go changing the insults on me now—you know my poor little brain gets confused.”

  I clock her in the nose, and blood pours from her nostrils. Ha. Try being all high and mighty with a broken nose, you stuck-up brat.

  Alyssa screams bloody murder and scratches at me, trying to get her hands around my throat. But I twist out of her hold and spring to my feet, backing up several paces.

  Her voice is shrill enough to shatter glass as she scrambles up, screaming insults about me, my mother, my parents’ marital status when I was born, and all that usual nonsense. I wait until she’s on her feet again, and then I unleash a sonic boom right at her feet.

  She flies backward, landing just outside the lines of the arena. A little worse for wear, she pulls herself up to sitting—and her face falls when she realizes where she is.

  Halle-fucking-lujah.

  That’s an amazing feeling. Well worth the price of admission, I’d say. I saunter away, and for a second, I completely forget everyone else around me is still fighting like we’re gladiators in Rome.

  That is, until a tall guy with blond hair charges toward me with a war cry on his lips.

  Oh, right. Battle royale.

  My sonic boom is instinctive—it’s always been a defense reflex when I’m attacked—and this time, I don’t direct it toward the ground. It explodes out of me, sending about ten people flying out in all directions, knocking into other people and messing up spells, a domino effect that causes a whole wave of new chaos.

  Oh, hell yes. Hey, I might actually get pretty far in this!

  Then someone tackles me from behind.

  My nose recognizes who it is before the rest of me does, and a surge of heat fills me as I register the scent of cloves and honey.

  Dmitri.

  I twist, kicking out—we spar in almost every fight class together, and I know his fight moves like the back of my hand.

  Problem is, he also knows mine. He catches my ankle, forcing my legs apart so he can move closer to me, and for a wild second, I can’t help but imagine what it would feel like to have him on top of me like this, spreading my legs under very different circumstances.

  Oh, God, so fucking hot.

  Ripping myself out of the badly-timed fantasy, I focus in again and headbutt him, sending him stumbling back while I scramble to my feet. I’m surprised he’s not using his magic on me… but then, I’m not using my magic on him, either. I don’t want to risk hurting him.

  But Dmitri would never be bothered about whether or not he hurt me, would he?

  I mean, he’s not a total asshole; I don’t think he’d ever want to actually injure me. Enough to knock me out of the fight though? Yeah, I think he’d hand me my ass with no qualms. The man is hugely competitive, and he tolerates me at best. Sure, we’ve gotten used to each other becaus
e I spend so much time with him and the guys. We get off on fighting each other, and I think he likes bantering with me, but he’s made it clear we’re not good friends. There’s no reason for him to be considerate with me.

  And so help me God, if he’s going easy on me because he thinks I can’t take it…

  “Come at me!” I yell, letting out just enough of my sonic boom to throw him back a little.

  Dmitri stumbles but keeps his feet, glaring at me. “What did you think I was just doing?”

  “Holding back, that’s what you’re doing,” I shoot back. “Don’t be a cock.”

  “Did you just call me a cock?”

  “Well, I’d say pussy, but we both know which is really the weak one.”

  Dmitri growls and launches himself at me.

  With a feral grin, I neatly step to the side, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back. But he uses the momentum of my movement to yank me up and over his head so it’s my turn to go flying.

  No way am I letting goddamn Dmitri of all people beat me.

  I yank him down so he’s on top of me, then I roll so I’m on top of him. His hands are everywhere, his body hard and solid beneath mine as we grapple together. It’s a lot of touching, and no body part is off limits for either one of us. My heart rate speeds up from more than just exertion, but I long ago got used to the fact that I get a bit turned on—okay, fine, a lot turned on—by sparring with Dmitri.

  He clocks me with a left hook, and I retaliate. We go rolling in the grass, punching and kicking, but he’s still not using his magic. He could be phasing and duplicating like crazy, and it would definitely give him a leg up on me. What the hell is he playing at?

  There’s an odd hush around us, but I don’t really notice it since the ringing in my ears is so much louder. I lose track of everything, including strategy, just fighting with everything I’ve got to beat him. I don’t care if I go out next—Cam or Asher will win, or at least I hope so—just so long as I can rub it in Dmitri’s face that I beat him fair and square.