by Ann Denton
I glanced up at Triton in utter shock as the rooftop door burst open and Bodie and Easton joined us on the roof. They were back in human form, but both armed, weapons pointed right at Trite. Unfortunately, Drake and I were right behind him, so they wouldn’t be able to get off a clean shot right away. He was the sniveling monkey in the middle, but we were the ones with the disadvantage. Damn it all.
Triton smirked—or maybe it was a sneer—as his gaze rapidly darted from left to right. He reached into his robes for a potion, just as Drake and I each took a tiny step in opposite directions, trying to open up a shot for Easton or Bodie.
Trite patted his pockets almost frantically, his eyes wide as saucers until he finally pulled out a single rainbow-colored Portal Potion. Must’ve been his last one. Without another word, he smashed it and disappeared into the smoke.
Drake and I dove to the ground like we were sliding into home plate, and as soon as we were out of the way, Easton and Bodie fired into the hazy air. But each of their guns only had one or two shots left, and we didn’t hear Triton grunt or groan before the magical vapor dissipated.
"Goddamn it!" Bodie cursed, growling up at the moon as he tugged on his hair like a madman.
Easton huffed as he caught his breath, looking just as pissed and disgusted as Bodie at the fact that Triton had just gotten away.
But Drake... Drake just looked devastated. Over what, I couldn't tell, couldn't understand, but it made me want to comfort him.
"Drake," I said softly, reaching out to skim his fingertips with mine.
But he pulled away from me yet again. Walking to the rooftop edge, he jumped and flew away into the night.
My throat and my heart both squeezed. My lungs and my eyes all burned. It was like my entire body was wrapped in an anaconda's coils and I was slowly dying a horrific death of bone-crushing agony.
He'd saved my life from that acidic potion, but when he walked away from me... when he left me standing there brokenhearted without a single backward glance... he may as well have smashed the acid into my chest himself.
Because that had fucking killed me.
18
Easton
This game of hot and cold that Drake was playing with our mate had to end. And I was gonna be the one who ended it.
I left Aubry in Bodie’s arms, ignoring his wide-eyed ‘get back here and help me’ look. He could drag his heart out of the vault he kept it in for a few minutes to deal with our tearful mate.
I needed to find Drake, because that was the only way to stop Aubry from crying off and on every few days from some new rebuff. It was also the only way to ensure Drake could focus on our true threat—Triton.
Annoyance rippled through me. I was pissed that I even had to do this shit. Drake should fucking know better because he could read people. He had to know he was fucking hurting her. But, just like Bodie, he had too much pride.
Unlike Bodie, however, Drake believed that he was unclean. That he was soiled and stained in sin so bloody it would never wash out. I knew, because I’d felt that way once.
I didn’t know if the fucker would be able to listen to reason or see any sense. I certainly hadn’t been able to take in my grandma’s words of wisdom all those years ago. But if logic didn’t work, I had fists.
"I hope it doesn’t come to that," I grumbled to myself. But I knew there wasn’t much sense in hoping.
When I reached the Student Union Building, I searched from top to bottom, but Drake was nowhere to be found. I was sort of guessing that he might fly there and use the crowd to hide, but apparently, I was wrong.
Before I could leave and continue my search for the brooding iguana, I got tangled up with a couple of betas and had to reassure them that the threat was really gone.
"It’s all clear," I told Corey, Bodie’s second-in-command. Rocco’s guys were manning the guns and Kira was doing a perimeter run, ready to use her wind power to blast away any unwelcome fliers. "You’re free to go outside as needed."
Next to him, a squirrel shifter beta nervously swirled her head, like she was still looking for attacks. Corey didn’t look panicked like her, just pissed off.
"Dude, we thought the bank was safe, too, and that even had a vault. This is way more fucking exposed." Corey gestured at the floor to ceiling windows on the first floor of the Student Union.
"We should shift into our animals and hide out in the forest until you have a new location," the squirrel shifter said, throwing in her two cents.
I sucked in a sigh and glanced away. Damn it all. I didn’t know how to deal with this. It was Drake’s fucking forte to get people to fall in line, not mine.
I put a fake smile on my face as little Mariana and her mother passed by.
"I smell cheese," she said, scrunching her nose and pointing her little finger up at me.
This time my grin was real. "Sounds like we’ll have to go on another hunt soon."
"Aubry, too," she decided. "Can we go tonight?"
"No," her mother interrupted. "Not tonight."
"Not fair," Mariana groaned, as her mother guided her down the sidewalk.
I turned back to Corey and the squirrel beta. I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to say, but I had to at least try because the stupid Shadow had disappeared into the night. "Look. I get what you’re saying—"
"I know we’ve got those hostages," Corey said, cutting me off and completely ignoring the fact that Mariana and her mother were barely ten feet away.
"Man," I grabbed his shoulder and steered him away. Glancing back, I watched Mariana’s black curls bounce as she looked up and asked her mom if she could go see the ‘ostriches.’
"Kids don’t need to hear that," I scolded him. "You’re lucky she thought you said ostrich instead of hostage."
"Most of them have seen worse," he countered with a shrug. "But people are antsy here. They don’t feel safe, especially after what just went down. What’s the next move? When are we getting out of here?"
The squirrel beta, I thought her name was Karen, nodded. "We’re leaving soon right? For somewhere safe?"
"We’re working on it," I said tersely. No wonder Drake just spat orders and never gave explanations. "We handled the attack tonight just fine. My guns did their job."
I didn’t even mention the fact that the Triton fuck—who was our biggest concern—had escaped. People didn’t need to worry any more than they’d already begun to. They had enough on their plates.
Corey had another twenty questions for me—none of which I had the answer to—but he was a persistent bastard. Eventually, Karen couldn’t handle the stress of the back and forth and she shifted into a squirrel, running off to climb a pillar. As soon as I could, I broke away, feeling just as antsy as both of those betas about our future. Because our leader was currently being a fuckwit instead of a fucking dragon.
I left the Student Union and went to the science building, following an old scent trail of Drake’s. I smelled Aubry there too, and spotted the broken potion bottles in one of the classrooms. But Drake was nowhere to be found.
Mother fucking hell.
My bear growled and my stomach rumbled. It annoyed me that the stupid dragon kept going off on his own. Drake had never been a coward—never before this, anyway. But now, I was starting to doubt him. And that was fucking bad.
After an hour of playing hide and seek, I finally found Drake in the gymnasium, sitting by the pool where the chlorine masked most of his scent. Clever fuck.
He sat in a white plastic lounge chair and stared out across the turquoise water. The look on his face was dark. His brow was furrowed, blue eyes squinted, and he clasped his hands together in front of them, squeezing and releasing like there was so much frustration inside him that he needed to relieve the tension and get it out somehow.
I knew the feeling.
I grabbed a chair off the far wall and sat down beside him. My ass hardly fit on the scrawny thing, and the plastic bent beneath me. But I decided to start off casual. Bodie alwa
ys fucked shit up with Drake because he didn’t know how to attack issues from the side; he ran at problems head-on and shot them right between the eyes.
Machines were a little like people. Finicky. You had to take them apart in the right order or you’d fuck things up. And while I was no people expert by any means, I’d seen Bodie and Drake go head to head enough times to know that Bodie’s approach was a no-go. I was gonna have to pick Drake apart my own way.
"Good save tonight." I leaned back in the crap chair and crossed my ankles. But the give of the plastic quickly made me sit upright again.
"Don’t." Drake’s response was monosyllabic.
"Don’t compliment you?"
"I know why you’re here." He waited a beat and then unclasped his hands and ran them over the back of his head, giving a sigh. "She’s crying."
"Why would you think that?" I asked.
Drake gave me a wry look.
I gave him one right back.
For the first time since I’d met him, Drake looked away first.
But I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt annoyed, angry even, that he knew he was being a little shit and he wasn’t doing anything to stop it. He was dragging all three of us through the mud, because—like it or not—when Aubry was miserable, Bodie and I were too. Whenever her beautiful face collapsed in tears, my bear wanted to smash down a tree.
"It shouldn’t be like this," he muttered.
"A lot of things shouldn’t be the way they are," I replied.
He shook his head. "Larry’s got some half-finished Portal Potions. When they’re done, I’m gonna—"
"You’re gonna do fucking nothing," I said, my vision going white hot. He was going to change the subject on me? And not just change it, but he was going to bring up leaving? When he knew what that would do to Aubry? I leaned forward in my seat and jabbed a finger in his direction. "We are gonna do something. Together."
Drake shook his head. "It’s too dangerous. Triton Vale is unhinged."
"So are most mages."
"Did you see his eyes?" Drake shook his head and stood, groaning.
That’s when I realized the side of his shirt was drenched in blood.
"Shit! You got hit!" I moved forward to shove his shirt aside and check the wound, but Drake slapped my hand away.
"It’s fine."
"It doesn’t look fucking fine," I growled.
"I pulled the bullet out. It’s nothing."
"Did you shift to heal?"
"Don’t try to babysit me, Easton."
That pissed me the hell off. Concern was babysitting? That goddamn fucker had sat at my bedside for three days after one of our firefights with council member John Daggler and his lackeys. I’d taken three to the chest and healing was a bitch. Drake had been a fucking nursemaid, changing bandages and shit.
"Don’t want to be babysat?" I asked mockingly. "Then don’t act like a fucking child!"
"I’m not!" Drake’s fingers curled into a fist and he lifted it.
For the first time since we’d met, I swore he looked ready to punch me. I didn’t give a shit, though. My bear was eager to fight, ready to meet him head-on. But I held him down.
Not yet.
Drake was getting emotional. He never got emotional. Which meant that this situation made him feel things; Aubry made him feel things. I just needed to nudge him in the right direction.
"Look, I shouldn't have said that," I apologized.
That was a fucking lie, but whatever. I needed him to calm down in order to hear me out. If the idiot wasn't even taking care of his wound, then I doubted he was thinking all that rationally.
"Point is, you don't go it alone." I wanted to add, 'especially not after what happened last time with the goddamned mage jewel.' But I didn't. I wasn't Bodie.
Drake shook his head and didn't respond. He just turned and strode out into the hallway, making his way toward the locker room door, before pulling it open and disappearing inside.
I followed.
Instantly, without the overwhelming stench of chlorine invading my nostrils, I smelled Aubry. Her orange scent, the scent of her arousal, all of it. This was where he'd taken my mate… and then rejected her.
Drake's hard eyes met mine.
The fucker knew what he'd done, coming in here. He knew it would rouse my beast. He wanted to fight. He deserved to get his ass kicked. And then some. He wanted a beat down? Fine. I'd give him one.
But not the way he wanted.
"She cried for hours," I told him. "She could hardly talk."
That might have been a stretch, but he didn't need to know that. Her throat had definitely been scratchy.
"You made her feel like a whore." I accused.
I couldn't help the way my fist curled then. That part was completely true. And saying those words aloud made my rage flare up. My indignation started to tunnel my vision and my eyes turned gold.
Drake saw. The gold in his eyes flickered too and he widened his stance. He was ready for an attack.
"You can try to fight it all you want, but you're gonna be distracted and sloppy as hell until you give in. I was," I told him. "I was a damn mess."
Drake shook his head. "You're too soft, Goldilocks."
Soft.
The word triggered years and years’ worth of pain and anger from my childhood. Verbal abuse that spewed from the mouth of my supposed father, physical abuse at his hands and feet. Years of thinking I truly wasn’t good enough, because of the color of my pelt, because of the gentleness of my temperament. And suddenly, I lost all control.
"Yeah? Well, at least I don't get hard on fucking other people's mates!"
I charged at him and grabbed him around the torso before smashing him into the silver lockers. His grunt of pain was music to my ears. I reared back and sent a right hook smashing into his perfect, smug jaw. My teeth elongated and I roared.
Drake didn’t fight back. He just smiled at me and said, "Your mate would be disappointed. You hit like a girl."
On autopilot, I smashed his face again and again. It took me nearly a minute to reign myself in. By then, Drake’s eye was swollen shut, his nose was bleeding, and one of his teeth looked cracked.
I dropped him. "Jesus! Fuck! Why do you gotta punish yourself like this? Why do you have to make me the bad guy?"
"You aren’t the bad guy," Drake sank down onto one of the wooden benches in the middle of the locker room. "I am."
I shook my head and rolled my eyes, still breathing heavily from my onslaught. "You’re the only one who thinks that, you know."
"I killed her father, East. Her father."
"Yeah. Ever ask her how she feels about that?" I retorted, moving to lean against a locker beside him.
"I’m sure she feels how anyone would feel." His head dropped into his hands.
He looked broken. So lost. Not like Drake at all.
I shook my head. "You need to talk to her. But know this: she knows why you did it. She knows it was for a mage jewel to protect all of us. Not some personal vendetta or some cheap shot or some bullshit. And she still wants to be with you."
I knelt down and peered into Drake’s broken face.
"You didn’t search her family out and hunt them down. You are not Citrine Pierce."
Suddenly, Drake pushed onto his feet and strode off.
I’d obviously struck a nerve.
Question was, was it the right one? Could he ever forgive himself? Or would he doom himself, and with him, all of us?
19
Aubry
My mind was numb. In a daze. So many thoughts, questions, and emotions ran through my head, trampling me down until I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't even feel them anymore.
I strode across the campus quad, the sun shining brightly in the morning sky, robin's egg blue. It was like a picture in a children's coloring book. The sun smiling, the flowers dancing, all the colors vibrant, all the creatures happy, so totally fucking fabricated it couldn't possibly be real.
It was l
ike the day hadn't gotten the memo about what had happened during the night.
But I hadn't forgotten.
Triton had attacked. If there was ever an ounce of doubt in my mind that he’d attacked that elementary school, then it was now gone. His lackeys had stolen our identities and killed at least sixty shifters. Innocents who'd been lulled into a false sense of calm and security, thinking they were finally in a place that was safe.
We all thought they'd be safe, that the five hundred hostages here would be security for us...
Now, the shifters were more restless than ever before. Just the sight of our faces drained the color from their lips. Their leaders, the people they looked up to and trusted, had become triggers for heartache and anxiety, fear and sadness.
Wrong didn’t even begin to describe it. Terrible didn’t. There weren’t words for it.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And I couldn’t help but think... none of this would have happened if I hadn't been thrown into the picture. Their lives were bad before I'd arrived, but they'd only gotten worse ever since I’d shown up. Like, a hundred times worse.
I couldn't combat the guilt swirling through my chest at the thought. Not when I was already too worn down from all the other emotions boring a hole in my heart.
I entered the dull brick bursar building, scanning the long row of empty cubicle windows where magical beings would have stood in line to pay their tuition bills or handle any other financial business. Now, it was a prison cell for our captives. Not too different from the original purpose, I supposed, now that I thought about it. Student loans and iron chains were pretty fucking similar.
I pushed through a side door and walked into the office on the other side of the glass, where administrators would normally rifle through filing cabinets and click through digital forms on their computers, all while lit by unflattering fluorescent lights all day. From the main administrative room, other rooms and offices were located down a short hallway, each one holding a small group of prisoners that'd been magically locked up with a Movement Restriction Spell.