Quest for Trust

by Jacey Ward

  Zahreena had to chance it, she needed to figure out exactly what Lilithe had gotten her into here.

  As much as Zahreena loathed doing it, she vowed that if she had the chance to sift through memories of some of the students who had only started attending in October, she would.

  If she was careful, her ‘mental’ connection would go undetected. She wouldn't dare try anything like that with Hunter, he had been too suspicious of her doing exactly that – he’d no doubt flag her efforts in a heartbeat.

  Gabe, however, proved to be a much easier read.

  She had seen him in the library and quickly dematerialized, before he saw her. Because she had already been able to reach him on some level that day when he’d fallen at the cafe, she was able to glance through his memories of the past few months.

  She felt like such an interloper when she picked up on the deep love he had for his brother and his family and the pride he had in this school. She got a mental image of him and his twin soaring through the sky in their dragon shapes – absolutely freed of everything.

  Zahreena concentrated harder and focused on his memories specific to his body. She nearly lost her focus to stay invisible when she ‘felt’ the excruciating pain he had recently suffered. No wonder he had fallen so hard that day when Cyrcole had manipulated his perception of the ground beneath him. He had already been so weak and was barely recovered from that.

  She picked up on debilitating pain with him, as she quickly scanned his memories, before gently extracting herself from his subconscious.

  Before heading to the medi-centre, Zahreena made her way to the faculty building, the same one as professor Kamberlin’s office was in.

  Not wanting to venture anywhere near that office, for fear of being caught, she made her way to the records and media room.

  As she had suspected, news of the Veritas Academy choosing a new chancellor had been fairly big news in the paranormal world. Richard Billeford, an apparent shapeshifter of some sort had only been hired a few years ago.

  With the opinion that most in the paranormal world shared, shapeshifters especially, of the Faery Realm, what could possibly made him want to strike a bargain with several of her kind?

  Zahreena barely stopped herself from exclaiming aloud when she looked more closely at the image on the newspaper she held.

  There, far in the background of the picture and barely visible to one who was not looking for it, were several of her elders, either teleporting in or out. She could barely discern the particles in formation, but they were definitely there – a photo enhancing program would definitely pick them up.

  Had they put whatever plan they had in motion that long ago, knowing they could manipulate a newly designated chancellor with more ease than someone immersed in the animosity between faeries and others within the realm?

  Zahreena didn’t want to chance getting caught in the building, so she quickly replaced the file with the paper, back into the folder, and chose to teleport out of there.

  She visualized the outside of the medicentre as her next stop, and in but a moment began to rematerialize, just across from it. She shrank back behind a shadow quickly when Valluna, locking up the outer doors to the clinic, suddenly turned and glanced back at the exact spot she had begun to materialize.

  After a few heart stopping moments, Valluna turned back to her task of locking up for the evening.

  Zahreena waited, cowering in shadows for what seemed like forever, before becoming fully visible again. This was the best shot she had of getting into that clinic and trying to learn anything more about this apparent curse.

  Chapter 15

  Hunter couldn't seem to track Zahreena down since they'd shared their night of passion. He wasn't completely surprised. In fact, at first he may have even been relieved she hadn’t tried to seek him out.

  But now it had been several days and while they both had chaotic class schedules and assignment deadlines with it being well over halfway into the first term, he was starting to wonder at her absence.

  She hadn't seemed awkward or upset when she'd left his place early the next morning, but now he was second guessing himself and getting suspicious as to why he either kept missing her before or after her classes, and why he hadn't even chanced upon her at the Campus Cafe with the two other faeries she seemed closest with.

  Was it by her design? Was she deliberately avoiding him?

  He, Gabe, and Tristan had decided to meet for drinks tonight and as he walked to the joint, his thoughts were all over the place.

  Damn, what the hell had he been thinking, that night? He certainly knew what he'd been thinking with. Things now couldn't be in more of a mess.

  His suspicions and the conclusions he was coming to about this stupid project were not good. He didn't know how much of what he believed transpired all those centuries ago should be revealed to Zahreena.

  Now, if she was staying clear of him because of their encounter, well shit, that would manage to make things even messier. He wanted to tie up this blasted investigation, give her his findings and leave the rest up to her to work on.

  He knew he'd have to help her through to its conclusion, but at least if he didn't have to see her on a regular basis, he could get that beguiling body of hers out of his head.

  Hunter also wanted some distance, so he could figure out why he'd become so suddenly willing to relate to, and even empathize with her. Where had his frustration and anger gone for the tricks he believed she had played on his friends and his brother? Had she somehow managed to manipulate his thoughts, after all her rhetoric about personal privacy?

  Jumping to yet another thought, Hunter never would have guessed that she'd be so responsive to him.

  Maybe she didn't just respond that way to him ... that thought came to him unbidden. For all he knew, she’d played that innocent act before to manipulate the situation. What he was certain of, was that she couldn't have been new to sex, given the way she had encouraged him that night in his residence. She had enjoyed it just as much as he had.

  "What the hell have you got going on in that head of yours, Kamberlin?" Tristan Willowby asked, when Hunter nearly walked right into him. "That look in your eyes leads me to believe you could easily take somebody out?" the wizard asked, laughing, clapping him on the shoulder, as they walked together into the bar, joining Gabe at a table.

  "Your brother does not look very happy. Much less happy than usual even, Gabriel. We’ll have to try to remedy that," Tristan said, catching their waitress' attention, with a single blink of his electric blue eyes.

  "When the hell are you gonna teach us that, Trist?" Gabe asked him, with an amicable elbow to the ribs.

  "Oh, I don't know, maybe when you teach me how to breathe fire," his response shot back.

  "With the magic you can wield using your bare hands, you certainly don't need any more skills," Hunter replied sardonically, trying to forget the jealousy that had driven through him at the thought that Zahreena had been with others before him. Why should he give a damn who’d she’d been with?

  "What's up with you, Hunter?" His twin asked, sensing his mood, despite Hunter’s best effort to mask it.

  "This year is doing me in," he complained.

  "Bullshit. Something else is going on," Gabe pushed.

  "Whatever, Gabe - drop it, alright?" Hunter snapped back.

  “Girl troubles, perhaps?” Gabe directed his question to Tristan, barely dodging the backhand Hunter aimed at his head.

  “Hmm, definitely looks like you may have hit a nerve. Funny how that twin thing connects you guys, huh?” Tristan tried to ignore the glare Hunter was directing at Gabe.

  “Holy shit,” Gabe muttered, staring his brother down. “You’ve gone and done it now, haven’t you? You idiot – you slept with that faery, didn’t you?”

  “Keep it down, Gabe! I’m sure your brother wouldn’t appreciate the whole campus knowing of his sexual prowess with the ‘enemy’, shall we say?” Tristan added in a mock whisper.

&n
bsp; “You two are assholes, you know that?” Hunter grumbled, shooting back his drink.

  “Okay, don’t be kicking that shit back too hard, buddy. I don’t want to be responsible for fueling any fire coming out of that mouth later.” Tristan smirked, as the brothers both glared at him. “Jeez, tough crowd.”

  “So, what the hell happened with not falling for their perfect petite packages, brother?” Gabe asked, lowering his voice substantially.

  “I don’t bloody know, alright? She must have gotten into my head!” Hunter growled.

  “And of course, that meant you had to ‘get into her’? I think I can figure out exactly what happened. Based on the tune you’ve been singing this entire term ... she used her faery magical dust on you and manipulated you into her bed. That must be it.”

  The laughing sarcasm dripping from his tone did nothing to help Hunter’s mood.

  “Shut the fuck up. And if you must know, we were in my bed, actually.” Hunter felt the beginnings of a grin at the men’s ribbing.

  “Holy Hell!” Gabe stole Hunter’s favourite phrase. “Mom’s gonna be totally pissed. She’s gonna turn you in to a bloody toad, or worse, one of these damned elves. Then I’ll have two of you in my life!

  “How’d he get to be so lucky anyway?” Gabe addressed Tristan. “He gets the gorgeous green-eyed sex-kitten faery, and I somehow get stuck with one of these elf creatures? I wouldn’t have minded ‘partnering up’ with that violet haired girl at all. I could nibble on her pointed ears all night long!”

  “Careful what you wish for, friend. The faery I got paired with might be delicious to look at, but she’s stubborn as all hell. And she’s the farthest thing I would compare to a cuddly kitten – ever. I wouldn’t be tempted to partner up with that one if my life depended on it.” Tristan effectively shook his body like the very thought gave him the heebie-jeebies.

  “Whatever. You guys can take your stupid jokes and you know damn well what you can do with them.” Hunter grumbled at them both, taking in their sneers. They could be the bloody twins tonight, they looked so goofy.

  “Look, joking aside,” Hunter started, looking from one to the other. “I think there’s some serious crap coming down the pipes this year. This project Mom’s got Zahreena and I working on, there might be some nasty ramifications for you and me. And possibly every other dragon in this academy, by the time we get to the bottom of it.”

  Hunter’s eyes landed directly on Gabe.

  “What are you talking about, bro?” Gabe finally got the sense to take him seriously in this, at least, as he explained some of what he and Zahreena had discovered.

  Chapter 16

  Hunter woke with a splitting headache vowing he would never again drink with his brother and Tristan. Ever.

  When his phone pinged on the bedside table, he cracked open an eye, not wanting the daylight to penetrate both of his eyes, for fear his head would explode.

  -Dragon, get to the clinic as soon as you can! Valluna

  Now what? he thought.

  She must have found out something about those fossils.

  He showered and dressed, planning a pit stop at the cafe – he definitely needed coffee this morning. Thankfully, he had no classes until later, so he could crash once he’d met with Luna. He also planned to hunt his ‘partner’ down. He wanted to know if she had been avoiding him, and if so, why.

  As if on cue, Hunter spotted Zahreena, also at the cafe. She smiled shyly at him, those dimples appearing for just a moment, before she looked more closely at him.

  “Are you okay, Hunter?” She asked.

  Wow, he must really look rough this morning.

  “I’m good, faery. Had a late night with my brother and a friend last night,” he answered her truthfully.

  “Oh, I see,” she commiserated, trying to hide her grin. “You know, they say troll’s pee is a good remedy for a raging hangover,” she offered, those dimples peeking in her face again.

  “Really ...” he looked down at the sprite before him. “I think I’ll pass on that. A strong cup of coffee has always worked fine for me.”

  “Just trying to be helpful,” she added, looking up at him and batting those lashes of hers.

  “Yes, I’m sure you are,” Hunter felt a surge in his shaft. Given her playful mood this morning, he assumed that she hadn’t been avoiding him. Secretly he was pleased. He wasn’t sure why he cared so much, but the thought that she might have regretted their time together actually kind of hurt.

  Once they’d each gotten their coffee, they stepped back out onto the patio.

  “We need to meet —”

  “I think we need to get to—”

  They chuckled, then decided to meet back at Zahreena’s residence, after Hunter’s only class that afternoon. He made his way to see Valluna.

  “Luna,” Hunter called as he entered the medi-centre. “I assume you have news for me?”

  Valluna came out from the back room, strangely flustered, her eyes glowing red and her face even more pale than a vampire’s face normally was.

  “Luna? What the hell, you look worse than I feel after a night out with the boys.”

  He placed his hand on her lower back, leading her to a chair.

  “I’m fine, Hunter,” she reassured him. “I’m just in a bit of shock, I guess.”

  “What’s wrong? Is this about the results of those fossils I asked you to test?” he asked.

  “Well, that’s not exactly great news either, actually, but this is different. Hunter, when I got in this morning, blood from the clinic’s collection fridge was gone,” she cried.

  “Did you imbibe too much last night too, Luna? I know I sure as hell did,” he joked, trying to lighten the mood. He was sure any missing blood had been mistakenly stored somewhere else.

  “Hunter, I’m serious! It’s gone and what’s even weirder, is that it’s only the dragon’s blood I’ve been drawing to try to see if there was a way to alleviate some of your symptoms during the worst of the curse,” Valluna explained haltingly.

  “Dragon’s blood is missing? What they hell would anyone want with our blood? Were there any clues as to who might have taken it? Anything pointing to who would have taken it?” Hunter demanded, kicking into his investigator role, seamlessly.

  “Well… I —” Valluna clearly hesitated, as though not wanting to rat anyone out.

  “Luna,” Hunter demanded. “We have to know – if there was anything odd that you found or saw, you must tell me.”

  “I found this on the floor, near the fridge.” She held up a metallic thread and placed it in his outstretched hand. “It looks like it might be em—”

  “Embroidery thread,” Hunter finished for her, his gut sinking.

  “And there’s something else ...” she began.

  Hunter could tell by the look on her face he was not going to like hearing her next words.

  “I — well, I was locking up last night, and I thought I saw — I could have been wrong, mind you, but I thought I saw —”

  “Luna,” Hunter gripped her shoulders gently. “Spit it out. What did you see?”

  “It was dusk, I had just come out of the building and was locking the door,” Luna repeated, more flustered than he’d ever seen her before. “I glanced back across the street, and I could have sworn I saw Zahreena materializing there. I don’t know, when I looked again, there was nothing,” she paused, as if trying to think up an explanation for the situation. “I couldn’t sense anything and I actually never thought any more of it, until I got in this morning.”

  Hunter’s thumb and forefinger pinched the bridge of his nose, as his headache went from a dull throb to complete throttle, revving up to out of control.

  The thread in his hand glittered oddly in the fluorescent lights.

  Hunter stood up, preparing to leave and hunt down Zahreena Daely – even if he had to drag her out of one of her classes.

  Suddenly remembering why he thought he was coming here in the first place, he asked Luna about
the fossils.

  “Oh, yeah!” She went back to her desk, pulling open a drawer and taking out the pieces to give back to him.

  “I cleaned them up as best I could. My initial findings coincide with yours. I do believe they have to be scales shed from juvenile to young adult dragons, judging by the range in their sizes. While there isn’t much more I can do to conclusively prove that, when compared to say yours or Gabe’s, I would say the shell composition is similar, not exact, but the markers are very close, given the age of these pieces. As with yours, these give off an almost glittering effect, which I assume is what caught your eye in the first place.”

  Hunter looked down at the very different types of evidence in his two hands. The thread’s twinkle seemed to taunt him, while the sparkle from the old scales caused a feeling of foreboding to run through his body.

  There was a very strong possibility that Zahreena had broken into the clinic last night.

  But why? What could she possibly want with dragon blood? Could it have anything to do with every faery’s penchant for trickery? Could she be playing him?

  One thing seemed for sure. This day was not going to end well at all.

  Hunter decided against barging into Zahreena’s class and dragging her out of it kicking and screaming. Instead he went home, his temper at a low burn that he was more than happy to fuel. By the time he had finished his one class of the day, he was ready to pound her door in when she didn’t answer it immediately.

  His knocks got noticeably heavier, until finally he heard the sound of the lock unclicking.

  “Hi,” Zahreena greeted him, with a smile.

  If he hadn’t spent the day concocting all manner of transgressions she had likely perpetrated since she’d been here, he likely would have fallen for that smile again. In his current state, it only served to add more fuel to his rising temper.

  “I — Are you okay? Did your headache not go away?” She asked him, her tone worried.