Wait, I’d always had him pegged as the bad cop of their Good Cop, Bad Cop image.
“She did,” Simon agreed, mouth twisted into a frown. “If you hadn’t called, you’d be out of the program right now—”
“What!?”
“—at least until next semester.”
“You’d do that?”
The big mage’s brows raised toward his smooth scalp. “You think I wouldn’t, if it meant you’ll survive training to become a licensed sentinel?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So are we,” Sebastian admitted. “But you left your work assignment and—”
“Wait!” Something flitted across my memory. “Technically, I didn’t break the rule though.”
Simon’s dark brows raised. “You heard the same message as all other students attending the assembly.”
“I did, but that isn’t what was said,” I argued stubbornly, resorting to pulling up the provost’s voice with my Mimicry glamour. “Doctor Riordan said, ‘Until the culprit has been found, no student shall leave school grounds without at least two sentinels in company, and then only with staff approval.’ That’s what she said.”
Stunned, Simon leaned back in his seat. “That may be the case, but you understood the spirit of the rule.”
“I didn’t. Riordan specifically said we weren’t to leave the grounds unless we were in groups. I left with four other sentinels. She never mentioned walking outside our work assignment, and had you guys told me to return to the hospital lobby, I would have. I followed the rules.”
Simon stared at me, hazel eyes narrowing. I searched Sebastian’s face next. He glanced away quickly and pressed his lips together. I saw the laughter creeping around his aura, though his stoic face betrayed nothing.
Score.
“Sebastian?” Simon asked.
“I hate to say it, Sim, but she’s got you there.”
“Fine,” Simon relented. “I’ll be making a note of this in your record. Consider yourself on probation.”
“Understood.” It could have been much, much worse.
“We’ve fussed at her long enough.” Sebastian sighed looking tired. “She’s learned her lesson this time. And as you said before, she really did improve. The old Skylar would have been in the goddamned trunk of the car as he drove away.”
Simon laughed. And since they were laughing, I laughed too.
I would not tell them that the thought passed through my mind.
“I’m really sorry,” I said again. “I really wanted to show you that I’d learned from my past mistakes—”
“You did,” Sebastian cut me off, blue eyes twinkling. “You did learn. You showed tremendous restraint. Perhaps not as much as we’d like, but enough that we’re still proud of you for uncovering this shit. Those people are going to recover because of you. The families of the deceased will have closure because of you, Sky. Don’t forget that.”
I nodded, swallowing the tension in my throat.
“We’re harsh because we have to be, but do you honestly think any of us graduated without running off headfirst into danger and breaking a few rules?”
“I doubt you two ever did.”
Sebastian snorted.
“Ha!” Simon’s sharp laugh made me blink. “Scruffy here is the king of lone-wolfing it.”
“It’s true,” Sebastian admitted. “I lost count of how many disciplinary infractions I received for wandering off and doing my own thing. You wanna know the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Everybody gets called in for this bull at least twice before they graduate. We like to prepare you for when it happens at the SBA. You need to learn to advocate for yourself, because few others will.”
“Oh.”
“We saw Gabe three times. You’re in trouble because we have to follow the university rules, because we care about you, and because Gabriel would have our asses if we let you waltz out of here without a few cross words. Your mate is going to be your biggest challenge. Don’t worry about us.”
“Ugh.”
Simon’s smile didn’t fade. “A bit of advice, Skylar?”
“Please.”
“Stand up for yourself, but admit when you’ve been wrong. You’re both strong-willed, and part of being newly mated is learning to ride out the arguments as they come. Don’t try to kiss his ass to make up for it.”
Sebastian nodded in agreement. Then he reached behind him into a cooler and pulled out a bottled Frappuccino in peppermint mocha, and he tossed it to me across the desk. “You look like you could use a little sugar.”
“Thanks.” I needed a whole lot of sugar for the talk ahead of me.
* * *
Gabriel was at home when I arrived, but already dressed for duty in campus uniform.
Under normal circumstances, my brain would be screaming hot! but since he had both arms crossed against his chest and was glowering at me, no panties dampened.
Ama flew onto his shoulder and glared at me too. “Bad Sky.”
“Oh, come on!”
No fair for her to gang up on me when we were finally starting to get along. She preened a feather and repeated her admonishment. Little brat.
“Sky, what were you thinking?” Gabriel began.
Stand up for yourself, Simon’s advice echoed in my mind.
“I was thinking that the doctor was acting strange, so I was going to get his information and report it, but the abduction interfered.”
“You can’t keep running off on your own—”
“I know. You’re right.” He blinked, startled, so I pressed on before he could finish his tirade. “I didn’t set off planning to break rules, but I’d be a poor sentinel if I’d just ignored what was happening. If I’d just called, he would have gotten away. All those people could have ended up dead if I didn’t make the judgment call that I did.”
His frown didn’t fade, but he sighed. “I know. It’s just…you always end up in a heap of trouble. I haven’t decided if it’s just bad luck or if you’re some sort of bad guy magnet.”
“Probably a little of both.”
That got a smile, fragile as it was. “I worry, okay? The thought of you and the others being that close to the Plague Doctor freaked me out.”
“Except it wasn’t him.”
“Right, but that’s what you reported. That’s what I thought going in.”
“Oh.” I put myself in his shoes and decided I’d have been worried and mad, too.
“In the end, you did good today. You broke open a huge case and you should be proud of yourself for that much.”
“Except I scared everyone. You, especially.”
My gaze dropped to my feet, and then Gabe’s arms were around me, pulling me in close.
“Babe, if this had been any other time, I’d like to think I’d have been high-fiving you behind Sebastian and Simon’s backs. This Plague Doctor has everyone tied up in knots.”
Ama leaned in and preened my hair. Then her little feet settled on my shoulder, and I knew I was forgiven by her, too.
“Can you please, for me—”
“Us,” Ama said insistently.
“For us, stay out of trouble for at least the rest of the semester?”
“I’ll do my best, I swear.”
24
Mending the Broken
A grounding from Simon and Sebastian was no fun at all. Officially, I was off the roster for all combat objectives beyond school premises for two weeks, which sucked. Anji, Alistair, Rachel, and Cole were selected to go on a big mission across state lines to investigate Plague Doctor activity in Wisconsin, and I had to sit at home.
On the other hand, it was totally worth it when Sebastian brought the Chicago Times to me and I read my name in PNRU’s official statement commending the junior sentinel who busted the case wide open. My parents called to congratulate me, having no idea about the trouble I’d gotten myself into.
Life was normal. Peaceful.
Really fucking boring. We stil
l had no good news about Billie Gilroy. She was alive, but clinging to the edge of life—neither undead nor completely alive anymore. With her parents’ permission, she’d become a guinea pig for the Kostas.
Aside from occasional Tricia sighting, no one made any headway in the investigation. She always vanished before sentinels arrived on the scene. Every lead seemed to split into two dead-ends, and during my Monday class, Simon and Sebastian took a group of us out into the city. We chatted with business owners and reviewed their security feeds. It was dull and boring.
I went to classes, studied, hit the gym a few times, met with Dain and my fellow fae, caught up on a few books, and made some spectacular dinners for Gabriel and Ama since the former had forty-hour work weeks on top of his graduate course load and acting as Sebastian’s TA. Sometimes Sam joined us. He and I hung out to watch movies together. We ate ice cream, wore face masks, and sipped wine during Gabriel’s absences.
Sam liked the finer things in life. He also knew how to braid hair like nobody’s business.
A week into my confinement to campus, as Gabriel and I were enjoying a peaceful Saturday afternoon on the couch, I decided to make some trouble.
Apparently, I couldn’t help myself; I really liked to stir up shit.
I started by easing behind Gabriel and nudging him to sit on the floor between my thighs. I rubbed his shoulders the way he liked, kneading the tense muscles and really working my thumbs into the knots.
Once he was putty in my hands, I opened my mouth and screwed it all up, “We should invite Jada over for dinner tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because…because it would be awkward, that’s why.”
“Uh.”
Gabriel twisted around to peer up at me. “Skylar,” he said, voice reminding me of old I Love Lucy episodes. This was our future now. We were Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, modernized. “What did you do?”
“What makes you think I did anything?” I asked, straining to project absolute innocence.
“You answered my question with a question, which means you couldn’t tell a lie by claiming to have done nothing.”
“Shit.”
His mouth flattened. “What did you do?”
“I already invited her over for dinner tomorrow, and she’s really excited about seeing Ama.”
He groaned into his hand. “Whatever possessed you to do a thing like that without talking to me first?”
“Because I know how stubborn you are and that you’d say no. C’mon, Gabe, if I can make friends with her, then you can certainly forgive her. I know she hit you, but she bullied the hell out of me, remember? And I was just an innocent bystander.”
“I don’t know…” He trailed off, his gaze shifting to Ama. She perched atop her cage on a play stand and watched him. She turned her head in that way only birds can and gave a soft, pleading chirp.
“Fine. I still don’t like it, but I’ll play nice—for Ama’s sake.”
* * *
Pilar came to my rescue Sunday afternoon when I made the epic mistake of cooking my turkey at way too high a temperature. Cooking things hotter didn’t make them cook faster. It burned them. But with a little glamour we managed to get the smell out of the apartment, and then she helped me whip up a gourmet meal out of what we had left in the fridge and pantry.
Who knew that you could stuff pork loin with apples and wrap it in puff pastry? Now I did.
“That smells delicious, Sky,” Gabe said as he came in from his afternoon shift. I took a moment to appreciate the sheer hotness of my mate in his black uniform. “I thought you were making turkey.”
“I, um, changed my mind.”
“Well, it smells great.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek, then paused to sniff my throat. A tickle danced up my spine and raised goosebumps on my arms. “You smell great.”
“And you smell like a gym locker. Go get cleaned up before she gets here.”
He laughed as I swatted him away. Truth was, he smelled like sin incarnate, but if we went down that road then Jada would be standing outside the door for a few hours.
While he showered, I diced chives and prepared toppings for the baked sweet potatoes. Those were enormous and more than enough to feed two hungry shifters. The tiramisu was already chilling in the fridge.
Jada waited in the corridor with a potted orchid clutched to her chest and a nylon wine tote in the other hand. “Hey.”
“Hey, come on in.”
“Thanks. I, uh, brought some wine and some liquor. Figured we might need both.” She nervously thrust the orchid at me. “And this. It’s dying on my desk.”
“You didn’t have to do that, but the more wine, the better.” I grinned and shooed her toward the couch where Ama waited patiently. “I can help perk this orchid up for you to keep if you want.”
“I think it’d have a happier life here,” she said. “Really. I don’t have a window anywhere close to my desk. They keep it dark because of the vamps.”
After setting the orchid on a table beside the window, I crept into the bedroom to check on Gabriel. He never took so long to dress, usually in and out of the shower in minutes.
“She’s here.”
“I know.” He gave me a wan, forced smile. “Came to drag me out?”
“Kicking and screaming.” I quipped. My teasing smile faded and I stepped up beside him. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
“It’s weird, you know. She and I were pretty much engaged for years. I never thought I’d sit down for dinner with the chick I used to love and my mate.”
“Just another oddity in our crazy lives. I’m beginning to think normal will never apply to us, so why not embrace it and do things on our terms?”
“When did you get so wise?”
“No idea.”
We laughed, and that shattered the last bits of worry darkening Gabe’s mood. After a quick kiss, Gabe opened the door and gestured me out ahead of him. After one step, I froze. Before Gabe could ask what was wrong, I grinned over my shoulder at him, a finger to my lips, then pointed into the living room.
We both lingered near the bedroom door to watch Jada and Ama. She’d turned completely playful, writhing on her back across Jada’s lap and exposing her stomach for scratches and rubs. I hated to interrupt them, and had to grin at how happy they both looked.
Jada jumped up from the sofa when she noticed us. Ama hurtled away to her cage and screamed at us from there, looking indignant and irritated, but so damned cute I couldn’t take her seriously. “Oh, hey, Gabe…riel.”
I’d expected to feel like an awkward interloper between two former lovers, but one look at the two ravens told me I was exactly where I belonged. They weren’t going to fix their problem alone. I nudged him with my elbow.
“Gabe’s fine, Jada,” I said for him. “Uh, and thanks for accepting our invitation.”
She smiled uneasily. “I’m glad you asked me over. Glad to spend time with Ama, too. Dinner smells amazing.”
“That was all Sky,” Gabe boasted.
“Well, actually…Pilar helped. I sort of, um, burned the turkey.”
Jada blinked. “I always thought fae could magic food ready.”
“Only if you know the right spells, and mine suck. Dad made me learn to cook the hard way.”
An uncertain smile touched her lips. “Except for turkeys, right?”
My cheeks burned. “Guess I’ll have to work on that. But I can totally open wine without a corkscrew so who wants some?”
Opening wine gave us the perfect excuse to stop standing around awkwardly. Gabe pulled down glasses and I filled all three up beyond the standard serving with an overly generous pour.
Jada guzzled hers. Gabriel wasn’t far behind, so I poured again without questioning it.
“So, um, before we sit down, I have something to say.” Jada twisted a lock of her dark hair around one finger and avoided looking at us.
“Okay,” Gabriel said. “Floor is yours.”
&nb
sp; “I owe you both an apology.” Jada sucked in a deep breath then wiped her hands against her slacks. “You, Gabriel, most of all. I wasn’t a good friend to you even before Skylar came to PNRU. I was an awful friend, and I deserved what I got.”
The long silence after her admission could have stretched for miles. My stomach churned with anxiety, bubbling more each second Gabriel didn’t respond.
Just when I thought he’d leave her hanging, he sighed and stepped forward to guide her to the couch again. “You weren’t an awful friend either. Not always. I don’t know what changed our junior year, Jada, but I miss how things used to be.”
“Me too. I shouldn’t have punched you, and you had every right to leave me on the highway. It’s no excuse but, um, I’m in therapy now. For a lot of things. It helps.” She glanced toward me. “I blamed you and I really had no right to.”
“I can admit I sort of crushed on Gabe, but I never planned to act on it. I swear nothing happened until the school year ended, and by then, you two were way over.”
“I know. You were just an easy target to blame. It was really beneath me. The truth is that…that I noticed Gabriel was pulling away before we returned to school, and when I saw how great you two were together, I was jealous. Jealous and…really afraid of losing my friend and being replaced. But I’ve always known you can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to. Especially not Gabe.”
“I’m sorry things ended so badly,” Gabe said. “I hope we can still be friends. If you want.”
“I do. I want us all to be friends. And I’m really sorry about what happened over the summer.”
Nosily, I peered into Jada’s aura, without knowing what I expected to see. A green tinge of envy, and golden, shining confidence faded into shades of loyalty and hope. They blurred and overlapped, but I knew she’d meant every word uttered to us.
But looking at one thing always led to another, and I couldn’t help but search and pry. Being a fae meant my curiosity knew no bounds. While she and Gabriel chatted about their respective jobs with the SBA, I turned my back on them and opened a portion of Jada’s Destiny Lines. It wasn’t easy, looking into a shifter’s, and even more difficult peering into a mage’s fortune. Our supernatural natures tended to muddy our futures, turning our destinies into a sort of soup that hurt the brain to look at.
The Plague Doctor: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 3 Page 21