by Jaymin Eve
I looked across to Princeps Jones, who was snoozing. He’d had a big night as well with some old friends, and I was grateful not to be the only one looking like dogshit when we’d left the prison town.
“Yeah, I guess.” I said, keeping my voice low. This was a private conversation, and I was well aware that there was a pilot and cabin crew on board, all of whom were supernatural.
Asher leaned down and brushed his lips across my ear, sending tingles through my body. “I tried so hard to stay away from you, love. Protect you from the fucked-up skeletons in both of our closets. But … we are inevitable. Our love is a true mate bond and I was fighting fate…” He pressed the softest kiss to my throat. “I was always going to lose.”
“No more secrets, Ash,” I breathed, shifting on the chair as his lips continued their assault on me. With reluctance, I pushed him away. “I need to go slow. I … it’s going to take me a long time to get back to where we were.”
If we ever could.
Asher’s eyes shuttered as he took a deep breath. “I understand.”
In an almost monotone, he started to tell me everything. About his mother, how powerful she truly was, and how she would try to destroy anything or anyone who got in the way of her plans—plans that included Asher. He’d been trying to stop her from ever knowing that I was important to him.
“Were you planning on keeping it up forever?” I asked, sarcasm spilling out. I hated when people “protected me for my own good.” Such a bullshit copout.
Asher’s eyes were begging me to understand, but I wasn’t there yet. “No,” he said with a sigh. “I was trying to figure out a way to take her out. Same as I did with Shera. That’s what we’ve been doing since I got back to the Academy.”
“And the guys…?” My voice broke, because their betrayal hurt almost as much as Asher’s.
“She wants them too,” he admitted. “None of us were willing to risk you. We just needed some time to formulate a plan.”
A plan I was clearly not part of. “You should have trusted me. You should have told me about this plan and let me decide if I wanted to be protected.”
Gods, I was angry.
“I don’t know if she has spies in the Academy,” he said. “She was awfully quick to send me back during this trial. She does nothing without an ulterior motive. I still haven’t figured hers out.”
With a snort, I leaned away from him, staring out the window at the cloudless sky. “She probably wants the library.”
Asher’s head jerked toward me and I stilled. When I turned to look at him, I felt dizzy as all the blood drained from my face. “You didn’t know,” I said softly. The guys hadn’t told him…
Suspicion wormed its way inside of me and I wondered then if I’d been a fucking idiot falling for Asher’s long game. Was he double-agenting all of us for his mother? She was certainly powerful enough to control him.
“You found the library?” he asked.
I tried to backtrack. “Nope. Haven’t found it. I just meant that we know it’s somewhere in the Academy vicinity.”
Asher didn’t seem to buy it. “If you’ve found it, Maddi, I need to see it. There might be vital information in there to take her down. To take all the gods down.”
I kept my face blank. “Yeah, I know. But I haven’t found it. No luck.” He was watching me closely, and I was doing the same, and I saw the hurt on his face. I almost faltered, but Asher was still too much of an unknown. I couldn’t cave until I knew for sure. “We should look for it, though,” I said, because that’s what I would have said in normal circumstances.
His lips quirked, just a little, and my heart ached. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Our silence was heavy. “If you were trying to protect me,” I finally said, sounding tired, “then why have you been back on the ‘we’re-true-mates train’ the past few days?”
Asher didn’t even have to think about his answer. “I wasn’t strong enough to stay away. It’s been killing me. I don’t sleep, I barely eat. I just train and hunt and research. And in the time I’ve pushed you away, I’ve learned exactly zero about fixing this fucking situation.”
The ache in my chest was deeper than ever.
Asher took my hands. “I was dying without you, Maddi.”
Me too, without him. Every fucking day.
We were nearing the end of the flight now, and I was still tired. Asher opened his arms and my first instinct was to jump up and run, hide from the possibility of letting him in and getting hurt again. But … my legs didn’t move. I’d barely slept since Asher was taken from me—seemed I was codependent that way.
And this was so tempting.
“Come on, water baby,” he said softly. “Both of us could use a few minutes’ peace.”
A single tear trickled down my cheek. I closed my eyes before deciding he was right. Peace. I’d been chasing it for months, and it was more elusive than ever.
The moment his arms wrapped around me, I felt it return. Home.
We were coming in to land, but I drifted off, unable to stay awake. I stirred when I was lifted and carried, going in and out of consciousness, content to be in his arms once more. It was almost scary how much I didn’t want to burst the bubble of my time with Asher.
It wasn’t until he placed me in a familiar bed—my bed—and left me to sleep that I felt the pain filter through me again. It was sharp and fast, and with it came the familiar nightmare, the one where Asher exploded in front of me, only to reform in the same breath, made purely of gold. His skin and hair and eyes, everything about him, was powerful, strong, and cold as the Antarctic.
A living, breathing statue.
The dream caught me and didn’t let go. It never let me go, making me relive every fucking moment of my pain. My mourning. Over and over. I cried out, thrashing across the bed, desperate for anything to pull me from this agony. Asher had left me long ago, but somehow he was back again in that moment, his arms around me, jolting me from the dream. Finally I was able to wake.
I gasped. “You left,” I said roughly, trying to get myself under control. “You left me.”
Asher’s arms tightened. “I never left you. I was outside your door, sitting on the floor, waiting for you to wake.”
“Why?”
His face was hard for me to read, but his eyes were blazing. “I can’t sleep without you, and … I just couldn’t go home to an empty bed tonight. Not tonight.”
My Asher. There he was again. The more he came around, the harder it was to distance myself from him. The harder it was to remember everything he’d put me through. The harder it was to remember that maybe I shouldn’t place all my trust in him.
“You should go,” I said finally, the words burning because they were the last thing I wanted to say.
I thought he was going to fight me, but he stood, his eyes caressing me in the darkness as he reached out and brushed a fingertip across my cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, water baby.”
Then he was gone. Taking my fucking heart with him.
40
The next couple of weeks at the Academy were … weird. The Atlanteans and I fell into some sort of truce where I started to slowly hang out with them all again, mostly swimming, but none of us were quite comfortable letting our guard down. No matter how many times Jesse, Axl, Rone, and Calen apologized, I kept holding them at arm’s length.
“I can’t let them have that sort of power over me again,” I told Ilia at breakfast the morning of Supernatural Day. It was early, and only a few lingered in the commons, giving us a semblance of privacy. “I’m not sure I want to be around them today.”
I’d been dreading this day. I’d had such high hopes of being at Supernatural Day with Asher this year, and I would be, but we were in an awkward place.
“They don’t deserve you,” she agreed, a loyal-as-fuck friend. “But—” I stilled because she hadn’t added any buts before today. “But … maybe it’s time to consider that the five of them are absolute dumbass dickheads
with their heads up their own asses”—she was probably setting a record for the use of ass and head in a sentence—“and that in their own stupid way they were acting in your best interest. Calen told me how devastated he’s been … how crushed they’ve all been. They’re up all freaking night trying to find a way to destroy the gods. Or at least protect you all from them.”
“You made up with Calen?”
She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip. “He’s like an addiction for me, Mads. As much as I try and distance myself, I keep falling back into him.” Her eyes held mine, begging me to understand. “I promise I did not go anywhere near him while they were being assholes, but since you’re all friends again…”
I waved her off. “It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it. You’re allowed to see whoever you want. Just…” I trailed off and she lifted an eyebrow at me. “Be careful, okay. We shouldn’t blindly trust them again. They cut us off so easily, like we were nothing to them. It’s the Atlantean-five, and it always has been.”
Even if for a brief time there had been an Atlantean-six.
Thankfully she changed the subject. “So … have you figured out who your dirty-as-fuck secret admirer is?”
My eyes went to the phone, silently mocking me on the table. I’d gotten a few more texts from the unknown number, each more sexually explicit than the last, and despite my constant demands for them to tell me who the hell they were, I had no idea.
When I shook my head, her expression darkened. “You should tell someone,” she said again. “If not Asher, then Princeps Jones at least. He might be able to figure out how to trace the number.”
Trace the number. Axl could probably do that. That boy was the genius of all geniuses, and he was always up for a challenge. “I’ll be right back,” I said suddenly. “Don’t start Supe Day celebrations without me.”
Ilia waved me off, her mouth full of bagel. I grabbed my phone and sprinted for the library, more than a few eyes on me, but I didn’t care. “Where are you going, Mads?” Calen called, and I knew Asher was watching me, but I just gave them a quick wave, not stopping. Axl wasn’t at the table. I had a strong suspicion I knew where he was.
The library was brightly lit inside, and quiet, especially after the noise of the commons. Axl was exactly where I expected him to be, at his usual table, surrounded by books. When I dropped into the chair across from him, his head jerked up, and I was somewhat surprised when I got all of his attention. Axl found it hard to stop when he was in the middle of a project, but since we’d started being friends again, he’d made a real effort to push everything else aside for me. Of all the guys, I had forgiven him the most because he’d fought against the rift.
He’d tried even after Asher told him not to. He was devastated. I’d known from that first day I’d gone back to their house and he’d hugged me for so long.
“Maddi, is everything okay?” he asked, pages falling from his fingers as he dropped the book.
Taking a deep breath, I shook my head. “I need your help, but I also need you to promise not to tell Asher.”
Axl was immediately uncomfortable. “You know I’m terrible at keeping secrets. Especially from my brothers.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “You owe me, Ax. I promise I will tell Asher if we find anything important, but, otherwise, he doesn’t need to know.”
Guilt scrunched his face and I felt bad, but not bad enough to take it back. “Yeah, okay. You’re right,” he finally said. “I promise not to tell Ash unless we find something important. And then … you can tell him.”
That was the best I was going to get. I held my phone out to him and Axl stared down at it for a moment before he took the device. “I need you to trace a number,” I said softly. “I got some texts when I was coming home from Germany, and at first I thought they were Asher.” Axl would understand why the moment he read them. “But I checked and it wasn’t him. I’m worried that it might be something … bad.”
Axl didn’t dismiss me as crazy. He focused intently on my phone, his pen and paper magically appearing in his other hand as he immediately began to jot down some information.
“You got a new number,” he said softly.
“Yeah, my old phone got fried, remember?”
He nodded. “I thought you’d have the same number,” he said, even softer. “I called and texted you all the time.” The sadness in his eyes was killing me. Especially when he let out a strangled chuckle that almost sounded like a sob. “Part of me is glad you never got to see the pathetic mess I was.”
And that was why Axl had my forgiveness. He was good and pure in a way that the rest of us weren’t. “I missed you so much,” I said, letting some of the darker emotions I’d felt leak out. I was pretty good at keeping my walls up these days. “Please don’t ever cut me out like that again.”
A tear fell from his eye. Just one single tear, tracing down his tanned skin. “I don’t think I ever could,” he admitted.
Axl cleared his throat and started to work on tracing the number, both of us ready for some lighter emotions. When he had everything he needed from the phone, he handed it back to me and went to work in his magical notebook. At this stage I was well aware that there was nothing normal about the pen and paper he used; it had been created and spelled by him, and it was capable of so many things.
“There’s no trace,” he said a minute later, his pen moving furiously across the page. “I’ve checked it from every angle. Run multiple scenarios on it. It’s almost like … there’s no phone on the other end.”
I blinked. “But there’s clearly a number here that’s texting me.”
He pursed his lips. “I’ll keep trying, Mads, but I really think you should tell Asher. I mean, it’s not impossible to send electronic messages through another means, but even a magical means would normally be traceable. This is … different.”
“The gods,” I snarled. It had to be those bastards. My eyes darted back to the far shelves of the library. “Why didn’t you all tell Asher about the library?” I whispered.
Axl reached forward and brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen from my ponytail. “Because it’s your secret to tell. You found it. Mab is loyal to you. We would not break that final trust.”
I swallowed roughly, a part of me more than a little relieved that they’d been on my side in some small way. “Do you fully trust Asher?” I asked.
Axl jerked his head back. “Of course. You don’t?”
He was staring at me, and I couldn’t admit out loud that I had doubts still. Maybe it was that no one else had seen him when he was with Galindra. Seen that cold look on his face. Or maybe my hurt was clouding my judgement. Either way, I was not at a place with Asher where I could give him all my trust.
“Baby steps,” I whispered, and Axl shot me a sympathetic look.
The chiming music started then, indicating that Supernatural Day was underway. I smiled at Axl. “You joining the festivities?”
He nodded. “I’ll be right there.”
With a sad smile, I pocketed my phone and turned to leave, only to find Asher standing nearby, watching us together. The look on his face … it twisted my chest. Anger and pain. Fear and loss. All the things I’d felt when he’d been gone.
“It’s too late, then?” he said without inflection. “You don’t trust me? You’ve given up on us.”
The gasp escaped before I could stop it. “Are you giving up on me again?” I asked, attempting to rein in my emotions. Fuck Asher and his ability to destroy me.
His laugh was low and derisive. “That’s not an option,” he said, his voice grumbling lower. “There’s no me without you, Maddison James. I couldn’t give up even if I wanted to.”
I needed to hear it. I needed to hear it so badly. And yet…
“I just—I just need time. You have to let me adjust to this.”
My breathing was shallow as I waited for his reaction, his anger, the fire that filled him when he fought for me. He took two long steps and closed the d
istance between us. His breath fanned across my face as he leaned in closer, his lips brushing mine gently. “I can never deny you anything,” he breathed.
He turned and walked away.
41
Nothing pissed me off more than when people respected my wishes. Sure, I’d told Asher that I needed a break. I’d told him that it was too much for me to deal with. And he’d kept his promise. He’d left me alone to wallow in my stubborn misery.
Months passed in a blur of life and school. I was back again to acing my classes, studying every spare second, and training with Jessa and Braxton. They’d returned from Faerie with a plan, a bunch of magic that they were testing out in the hope it might take down the gods, and one aim: kick the ever-loving shit out of me.
At first I wondered if they were working for Galindra in her quest to try and kill me. Then one day, late in November, I managed to take Braxton down; both of them clapped enthusiastically and I felt like a total badass.
“Our work here is done!” Jessa exclaimed and rushed over to hug me tightly. Somehow, over the time they’d been teaching me I’d learned to love the filterless, scary-as-hell wolf shifter. I even loved her extra-scary mate. He reminded me of the less bitter version of Rayge, and I found myself wondering what that reticent shifter was up to—no one had confirmed he was a dragon shifter, but I was almost certain.
“So, what are your plans for tonight?” Jessa asked, using her shirt to wipe sweat from her face.
I shrugged, doing the same thing, clad just in a sports bra and pants. “There’s a party on. Pretty sure my friends are going to drag me there, because apparently I’m fucking depressing to be around.”
Jessa snorted. “Ah, yes. I remember those days. Before my perfect little angels came into my life.”
Braxton laughed, that deep, husky dragon sound. “Angels is an improvement.”
“Fifty percent tyrant,” I heard Jessa mutter.
A real smile lifted my lips.
“You’re going back to Stratford tonight?” I asked, feeling a little sad to know they wouldn’t be around. “Louis told me that you’re going to start working on the spells.”