“Oh.” I sighed. I tried to wipe my arms, but it was difficult with the boxing gloves on. Or maybe it was the intensity of his gaze as he watched me. “Well, thanks for letting me know. Guess I’ll just—”
“Let me see your hands.”
My cheeks warmed, and butterflies danced around in my stomach. Shut up, body. We don’t like him. We don’t. Did he really say that? He must’ve sensed my confusion—or I was making quite a face—because he held his hands out. I held my gloves out in front of me. To my surprise, he reached forward and pulled my boxing glove off of me.
I frowned. “Oh, am I done training for today?”
Jackson’s eyebrows rose as he looked at me through thick eyelashes. He chuckled and shook his head while he pulled my other glove off. “Bloody hell, what a way to kick someone out that’d be.”
Then he did something I absolutely never expected—he grinned.
My heart did that stupid flutter thing, and I knew I had to be blushing by the heat in my face. His smile was gorgeous. I liked the way it made his eyes twinkle, gave him a wild look I hadn’t seen on him before.
He frowned, eyeing me suspiciously as he pulled a long black fabric off his shoulder. “What?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never seen you smile.”
He leaned forward and arched one eyebrow. “Did I do it right?”
A chuckle escaped my lips. Good Goddess, did he do it right. I nodded. “Yes,” I said softly.
His lips curved into a sexy little smirk. He took my hand then began wrapping that black fabric around my wrist. It was soft but firm and about an inch or so wide.
I watched him wrap my wrist and hand for a second. “What is that?”
He kept working. “We only have First Years wear boxing gloves until they’re used to punching things. Otherwise, we only wrap our hands for training. Make a fist for me?”
I curled my fingers in like he’d asked and noticed the material covered my top knuckles. “But…why?” I hated asking dumb questions, but I loathed feeling confused.
He nodded then finished the wrapping. Apparently the end of the fabric strip had Velcro on it. He took my right hand and began to wrap it. “Do you remember fighting that demon in the bathroom at your school?”
I shivered. “Unfortunately.”
He smiled so wide it gave him the smallest little dimples. “Yeah, that was one of the nasty ones. You did a great job, all things considered. But anyway, do you think wearing boxing gloves would’ve helped or hindered you?”
Did he just compliment me? And…is he being nice? What is happening? I had no idea, but it was a nice change. Shit, he asked me a question.
I shook myself. “Definitely hindrance.” I couldn’t even wipe myself off with them on.
“Exactly. Make a fist.” He checked to make sure the fabric covered my knuckles, then went back to wrapping. “But more importantly, we’re not punching demons.”
I opened my mouth then closed it. He made a great point. One I hadn’t thought of in my determination to get better. “Then why do we box and spar with each other at all?”
He shrugged and I liked what it did to the muscles in his shoulders. His black tank top showed a lot more skin than I could really handle. He Velcroed the fabric then dropped my hand. “The key to being a great fighter is footwork. You have to be able to move. And quickly. We train in martial arts so that our bodies become so used to moving, flipping, jumping, that it’s second nature. That way when we have swords in hand and we’re fighting a demon, our bodies just do it. Does that make sense?”
“The fact that I followed that is what doesn’t make sense,” I said before I could stop myself. Making fun of myself in front of other people wasn’t a hobby of mine.
He chuckled and walked over to the wall where the pads were stacked. “I was watching you before you saw me. Your form looks good now.”
I scoffed. “No thanks to you.” Why did I say that? He’s finally being nice! I bit my lip.
He turned back toward me with a handful of pads. “Here I thought it was in spite of me.”
“Is everything usually about you, Lancelot?” I need to learn verbal control. I smiled nervously.
He exhaled long and slow. “Not by choice,” he said softly.
I didn’t know what to say to that. This gentle side of Jackson Lancaster was taking me by surprise. I felt like I was walking through a desert filled with landmines, and at any given second, I could say something and get myself blown up.
“Does my form really look good?” I heard myself ask.
He peeked up at me as he finished strapping pads to his chest and arms. Then he picked up two thick hand pads and slid them on. He clapped them together. “I wouldn’t lie about that. Now, let’s work on your footwork. I’m going to come at you. Show me what you’ve got.”
I frowned. “You want me to hit you?”
The grin he gave me would torture me forever. “Like you haven’t considered it, Princess?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
JACKSON
There was a bloody good chance Bettina Blair was sent here to destroy me.
No one in my family let me forget for even a second about what was at stake when Michael came back. My entire bloodline was looking to me, relying on me, to fix the mistakes of a man some six hundred years ago. I hadn’t gotten us here, but for some reason, I was the one supposed to get us out. Thanks, Mum and Dad. No one else knew what they’d done to make me be born with magic, but I knew. Well, so did Warner and Trey, my two best friends, but I’d had to tell someone or I’d lose my damn mind.
The Archangel Michael was coming back for me…before my eighteenth birthday.
That meant sometime in the next year and a half. That wasn’t much time to be ready for whatever it was he’d make me do. No one knew what that was going to be, or when, so I just had to be prepared. So I’d spent every day of the last ten years training. The warrior Angel wasn’t going to be easy to please, and he had it out for my family. I had to be ready. I had to reclaim our honor and our magic. And I was ready, for the most part. I was the best soldier at school. I’d killed quite a few demons, too. I was an excellent student with perfect grades. I thought I was ready.
Then Bettina appeared, and my armor cracked.
I knew she wasn’t a spy or some ploy to tear me apart, but she unraveled me nonetheless.
“Dude, you stare at the girl any longer without blinking, it’ll start lookin’ creepy.”
I sighed and closed my eyes.
“Trey’s not wrong, my friend,” Warner added like I was going to argue the fact.
He wasn’t wrong. It was starting to look creepy. I needed to stop. I needed to have stopped three weeks ago. I took a deep breath then told myself not to look at her when I opened my eyes.
From the very moment I laid eyes on her at Dean’s party, she’d invaded my brain and refused to leave. She had the face of an angel and the longest legs I’d ever seen. And she wore Converse sneakers with a dress. I had no idea if she’d said anything to me when Dean introduced us. My brain had simply shut itself off. The eye contact was overwhelming. I’d had to bail, but even still, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. And of course she’d been the one Dean had called me to see, the girl he was confident was a witch. He was right, obviously, though I knew that the moment the Ouija board game started.
Hello Jackson. Michael is coming. I shivered as the spirit’s words flashed through my mind for the millionth time. No, stop. Don’t think about that right now.
I sighed, again, and rolled my shoulders to try and relieve some tension. My gaze snapped over to where Bettina stood in line with all the other girls waiting for the Autumn Equinox ritual to begin. I drank in the sight of her. She looked more like an angel than ever in her white cloak. The hood was down so her soft blonde hair glistened in the moonlight, and the orange glow from the bonfire in the distance flickered across the long strands. Her hair before had been spunkier and charming, but this long hair was intoxicating.
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I just didn’t understand why she had to be so damn cute all the time. Didn’t I get some kind of reprieve? Even when she was sweaty and her hair was sticking out in a million directions, she still looked beautiful.
“You’re doing it again, bro,” Trey said with a laugh and smacked my arm.
I groaned and hung my head.
“I have to admit, I don’t get it—”
“You don’t get it?” Trey practically shrieked, interrupting whatever Warner was trying to say. “Dude, she could be a Victoria’s Secret supermodel. She’s a total smoke show.”
My stomach turned and I winced. “Trey, bloody hell, no. Don’t— Just don’t talk like that.”
“That’s not even what I was going to say.” Warner shook his head. His dark eyebrows were furrowed low over hazel eyes. “Obviously I know she’s beautiful. She’s also intelligent, funny, and tough as hell. I mean, she was as shocked by her Suiting assignment as everyone else was, and yet look at her now. What I was trying to say was I don’t understand why Jackson is resisting.”
“Oh. Yeah, I wondered that, too.” Trey turned his dark eyes to me and arched one eyebrow. “What’s your deal, man? You like her, so what’s the holdup? It’s not like you haven’t hooked up with girls before.”
“Nah, this is different.” Warner crossed his arms over his chest, which pulled his cloak down and his tattoos poked out the top. “Lancaster has never been hung up on a girl before, and he’s straight destroyed right now.”
I groaned and scrubbed my face with my hands to stop myself from looking over to the object of my torment. I’d always thought it was comforting to have two friends who really understood me, who saw the real me. Now, I wished they were as blind as everyone else.
They both turned to me and stared, waiting for an answer.
I shook my head. “You know why,” I mumbled.
Warner’s expression softened. “Jackson, you have no idea when Michael is coming. That spirit could’ve just been saying he was coming, like you didn’t already know. He could show up tomorrow or two years from now. You gotta live in the meantime.”
“You know the kind of pressure I’m under—”
“So let her relieve some of that for you, dude.” Trey squeezed my shoulder and shook me. “I’m not saying marry the girl this weekend. I’m sayin’ have some fun. Unwind for a couple hours with a hot girl.”
I growled. “Bettina is not that kind of girl…and that’s…not how I feel.”
“Dude. You’re ready for Michael. There isn’t anything you can’t do. You’re ready.” Trey pointed over to Bettina. “You have feelings for the girl, then go get the girl.”
“I mean…more reason to give in to it, don’t you think, Jax?” Warner shrugged. “When’s the last time you had actual feelings for a girl?”
Never. Unable to stop myself any longer, I glanced over to where she stood and frowned. I didn’t understand why they didn’t understand the situation. This was the archangel Michael we were talking about, not some final exam or even The Coven. The angel had to be livid that a witch had somehow managed to hide his own sword from him…for six hundred years. It wasn’t going to be easy.
It didn’t matter how beautiful she looked with a crown of autumn leaves and dark flowers in her hair. It didn’t matter how wide and effortlessly she smiled—
Wait. She was grinning, like from ear to ear. Just then the person in front of her pulled their hood down, and I recognized the guy with black glasses in an instant. Dean Hoover.
He said something to her, and she threw her head back and laughed. My chest tightened and my stomach turned. Dean leaned forward and kissed her cheek—and she let him. He waved then spun and headed toward us with a wide smile on his face. Are they….?
“Wait, is she with Dean?” Warner voiced the question I hadn’t asked yet.
“I…I…” I had no idea.
Warner frowned and eyed me suspiciously. “Has she said anything about him?”
Trey scoffed. “Right, in the middle of him biting her head off for breathing, she’s talked about her current relationship status.”
Warner sighed and shook his head. “Why are you such an asshole to her?”
“I don’t know!” I groaned. “I just…I don’t know, I don’t mean to be. It just comes out!”
Warner looked to Trey and chuckled. “Did we forget to update our robot with the new emotional software?”
I growled.
Trey tapped on my chest. “Emotions are the things that go in here, bruh.”
“Hey, guys!” Dean said, still smiling as he joined us by the water. “How’s it goin’?”
I opened my mouth to ask him about his relationship with Bettina, when Harlan held his wand out like a microphone and said, “All right, witchy weirdos, let’s get this Equinox Ritual started. To the lake!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
BETTINA
Witch rituals were my new favorite thing.
I still didn’t really understand what was going on or why, but I felt better than I had in a long time. It reminded me of The Gathering. Before it went to hell, Tegan and I had been so at peace dancing around those bonfires. This was like that but better, because this time I knew I was a witch.
Harlan cleared his throat. He stood by the edge of the lakeshore with a dark-colored wand in his hand. “All right, witchy weirdos, let’s get this Equinox Ritual started. To the lake!”
Lennox grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the line with all the other girls.. “Once we go in the water, everything’s gonna be in the ancient language. So just do what I do, okay?”
I nodded. She’d given me a rundown before we got here. I reached up and adjusted my flower crown. It was super beautiful, made from oak sprigs and wheat stalks, then stuffed with red and purple chrysanthemums, and orange and yellow marigolds. I never wanted to take mine off. I loved the way it looked against my blonde hair, though it looked wicked with Lennox’s indigo strands. The best part was we got to keep our crowns, which I was stoked about.
The crowns matched our offering to the Goddess, which was an intricately woven piece of art in my opinion. It had the same oak sprigs, wheat stalks, and warm-toned flowers, but it also had ears of corn, acorns, and pine cones. Sitting in the middle of our little bouquets were two candles—one silver to represent the moon and one gold for the sun—because it was the equinox, when day and night are equal.
Apparently, we were going to walk into the lake for the ritual. The girls would make the circles in the middle, and the guys would circle around us. I wasn’t entirely sure why we were separated from the guys, but Lennox had said something about it being a Goddess thing. Whatever that meant. I was just rolling with it.
Just then, the line in front of me began moving. I followed close behind Lennox. The second my bare feet hit the water, the two candles in my bouquet lit with tiny flames. I grinned. I love magic. Amazingly, the water wasn’t cold—though I suspected that had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with spells. I wasn’t complaining.
Within minutes, the entire school was in position. Lennox and I were in the last circle for the girls. I wished I had a camera because the sight around me was breathtaking. I wanted to remember it forever.
When I glanced over my shoulder, I spotted Freddy and George a few feet behind me. They grinned and waved. I chuckled and started to wave back when I noticed Warner right beside them. Is Jackson here, too? Warner was his best friend, so there was a good chance.
Harlan began speaking in the ancient language, and I wished I was farther along in the class so I knew what was being said. Headmaster Daniel joined in. I leaned a little to the side and spotted the two of them in the middle.
I turned to Lennox just as everyone held their bouquets in the air above their heads. I copied and lifted mine up. Harlan and Headmaster Daniel said a few more things in the ancient language, and then we all lowered our bouquets and sat them on the water. Everyone held their hands out to their sides, pressing their p
alms into their neighbors’. Despite being a complete stranger, the girl next to me didn’t hesitate. With our hands touching, Harlan chanted some lines in the ancient language, and then bright white and golden light seeped out between our palms.
A few seconds later, the lights dimmed, then vanished. Once they were out, everyone turned and headed back to the shore without speaking. It took me a moment to realize we were getting out of the water, so I had to scurry to catch up to Lennox. When my toes hit the sand, I spun around and smiled. Hundreds of bouquets with flickering candle flames floated on top of the water. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. I wished I had my phone to take a picture.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Lennox said with a sigh as she stopped beside me.
“Yes, it really— Did you just—”
“Nope.” Lennox grinned and stuffed her cell phone back in her cloak pocket. She winked and started walking backwards. “Come on, Tina. The party is just getting started.”
I smiled and skipped to catch up to her…and then I froze. My eyes widened. Whoa. I hadn’t paid any attention to the bonfire before, but now I did. It was huge and in the shape of a pentacle. The flames were only about a foot tall, but the five-pointed star had to be at least fifty feet long. At each of the five points, there was a circle made entirely out of candles of varying size and shape—but all white. I sighed and soaked it all in.
“Lennox…get this, too, ‘kay?” I whispered and tugged on her white sleeve.
She looked over her shoulder and winked. “What do you think of your first ritual as an Arcana?”
Arcana was the word for witch in the ancient language. I’d asked Lennox to try and slip in vocabulary words with her English in hopes it’d help me learn it.
I grinned. “Still feels like a dream.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Dean said from suddenly right beside me. “I was afraid I’d ruined your life after that weekend.”
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