Rhys rammed past Eric and rushed Gavin, driving him into the wall. He pressed his arm into Gavin’s neck. While the other guy’s eyes bulged, Rhys snarled, “Don’t. Ever. Come. Near. Maddy. Again.”
I tugged on Rhys arm, encouraging him to release Gavin before the guy’s face turned completely blue. “Don’t bother with him. He’s just a pup.” I let my gaze travel down Gavin’s front like he’d done with me, and scorn dripped from my words. “He’s not worth it.”
Rhys yanked away from Gavin and took my hand. We strode past the groups of silent, gaping kids and through the back entrance of Wadsworth.
“Crap,” I said once we were inside. My knees shook, and my heart had to be going a thousand miles an hour. I flopped against a wall, sucked in cool air, and fanned my face. My belly twitched and spasmed, and wild, giddy laughter kept rising up in my throat. If it burst free, I might never stop.
“Thanks for the help back there,” I said, my voice one solid croak.
“Anytime.” He put his arms around me and gave me a hug that made my legs stop trembling. “You were awesome.”
“And you! They were stupid to take us on.”
“I wanted to kill him for touching you.”
“I’m glad you were there. I was scared.”
“Maybe. But like I said, you were fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” His voice sounded strange. I read...caution?
I leaned back in his embrace but couldn’t read his expression. Fear surged through my veins. “What do you mean?”
“The smoke...when did you learn to do that?”
“I…” I squeezed my eyes shut, but only for a moment. Shifting away from him, I sunk down to the floor and leaned against the wall. I curled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them, barely resisting rocking. “Wings. Slitted, amber eyes. And now I’m breathing smoke?” My eyes stung with tears when I looked up at him. “I think I have an idea what it all means, but I’ll need confirmation.” If only I could go back to being an ordinary witch. Assuming, with my unusual power, I’d ever been ordinary.
But if what I suspected was true…could I handle that as well?
“I want to know but I don’t,” I said. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s it going to take for me to find out?” I ground out, rubbing my face. “Me fully shifting?”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Rhys said, nothing but respect shining in his eyes. He dropped down beside me and put his arm around my shoulders, tugging me close. Offering his strength and his warmth. At least he didn’t fear me. Yet.
This untamed part of me scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t control it, and it seemed eager to control me.
“I’ll read more of the book,” I said in desperation. “I’ll find an answer.” I won’t let horrible things happen.
Turning me in his arms, he kissed my forehead, my lips. “We’ll face whatever it is together.”
Would we?
I bit down on my lower lip hard and gave him a jerky nod. I knew he’d do all he could to help ease me into whatever came next. Cece would, too. Maybe even Aidan.
But one of these days, I was going to have to face my shifter side alone.
What would I see when I looked in that mirror?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cece
Why my sister had to choose that moment to go on a side quest was beyond me, but she seemed so determined—almost called to do it—that I didn’t argue. The dragon painting could wait a minute. But when that minute turned into two, we got anxious. Well, I was anxious. Aidan was practically scaling the walls, his anger thinly veiled in the glares he cast at the door my sister had disappeared through.
“Maddy?” I called.
“We’ll be just a minute. Go on without us.”
Aidan didn’t need to be told twice. He headed to the end of the hall and stopped before the door.
“This one?” he asked as he turned to look at me.
“Yeah.” I took a breath to steady my racing heart.
I really hoped the angry dragon wouldn’t be waiting for us, loose on the other side.
Aidan stepped aside for me to do the honors. When I shot him a surprised look, he shrugged. “I want my hands free, just in case.”
Not comforting.
I gripped the knob and turned it slowly. “Get ready for some really weird shit.”
The door opened and we stepped through—only to find ourselves back in the main hall of the residential wing. The door snapped shut behind Aidan—on it was a sign that read ‘JANITOR’.
“What in the fresh hell—”
“This doesn’t look like an attic,” Aidan said dryly.
“No shit.”
“Celine!” the headmaster called out, ripping me from my shock. I took a deep breath and turned with a smile on my face.
“Headmaster Warren, I was just looking for you.”
“I guess fate intervened on my behalf,” he said with a chuckle. I felt Aidan go rigid beside me, wariness emanating from him by the boatload. My energy wasn’t much better. “I announced the dance to everyone. They seemed very pleased with your idea.”
“Great,” I ground out. “So happy to hear that.”
“Now, I don’t want you to feel too much pressure, but there will be some very distinguished people at Wadsworth this weekend, so we need to make sure that this is a spectacle of the highest order,” he said, leaning closer, “while making do with what we have for supplies.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
The headmaster’s gaze drifted to Aidan tucked in tight at my side. “Aidan, I trust I can count on you to help Celine in this endeavor. You are the leader of the student body here. Your example is important.”
“I’d be happy to,” he said, his wide smile born of placation. It was impressive how well he could play the role of teacher’s pet—scary, actually.
“Excellent. Since we only have a couple of days to prepare, I’m going to excuse you both from afternoon classes so that you can start collecting everything we’ll need.”
“Okay…”
“No need to worry, Celine. I’ll get it all taken care of.” He patted me on the shoulder, and it was all I could do not to slither away from his touch. But instead, I tried to follow that connection to see what I could sense inside him—inside the man who, less than twenty-four hours earlier, had tried to kill us. All I found there was an air of pleasantness that felt stiff and empty. Just as I tried to push past that, he let me go and started off down the hall. “You should start downstairs on level B1. There is some storage space down there, and I think there might just be some decorations and such buried in the back. Let me know how your progress is coming along tomorrow morning.”
“Will do, sir,” Aidan said with a wave. “Don’t worry, Cece and I have everything under control.”
The headmaster gave us a final smile over his shoulder before he disappeared around the corner.
“So. Fucking. Creepy,” I muttered under my breath.
“There’s no denying that, little witch, that’s for sure.”
“Great. Glad we can at least agree on that.” I didn’t give him a chance to retort. Instead, I headed for my room, the sudden absence in my pocket noticeable. It was time to track down the morphing crystal ball that liked to disappear when I needed it most.
That ancient relic was about to get a stern talking-to.
And then I’d try to use it to track down my sister.
“Do you have a plan you’d like to share, or should I just follow along and wait for the surprise?”
“I need to get something,” I said as I punched in the code to my room. When Aidan didn’t respond, I glanced over to find him staring at me, brows furrowed. Nothing good ever came of that look. “What? Why are you glaring at me?”
“I’m wondering what you could possibly need other than a hair tie or a sweatshirt.”
Shit.
“Umm…”
His expression darkened. “You’re checking on the ball.”
Not a question.
“I mean, I’m not checking on it. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Then why do we need to stop here?”
“Technically, we don’t—I do.” I pushed the door open and headed for the bathroom, Aidan on my heels. He muttered something under his breath as I pulled the curtain back to expose the crystal ball that had gone black.
“Are you planning to fluff over the fact that we just walked out a janitor’s closet that was supposed to be the attic?”
“I wasn’t planning to, but it’d be great if we could—”
“You didn’t freak out like you typically do—”
“I don’t typically freak out!” I argued.
“In fact, aside from the initial surprise, you didn’t even bat an eyelash.”
“What’s your point, fairy boy?”
He quirked a brow. “My point is that it feels like that wasn’t the first time that’s happened to you.”
“Um, okay…are you the empath now?”
“I don’t need to be an empath to know you’re hiding something.”
I tamped down my rising nerves and steeled my spine. “I am hiding something.” He leaned in closer, anger blooming from deep inside him. “The ball,” I said, pointing to it.
He let out an irritated sigh “We don’t know enough about that thing to mess with it,” he said, looming over me as I bent to pick it up.
“Be that as it may, we might need it to find Maddy and Rhys, if they got shipped elsewhere during their search like we did.”
Those ice blue eyes narrowed at me. “And why do you think it can help?”
Double shit.
Time to juggle a little lying with some truth.
“Well…I had it with me when Maddy and I found that library. When I asked for books to show themselves, they just kinda…did.”
I stood to face him, our bodies far too close for comfort—at least for me.
“Are you saying that you had the ball with you when we went there?”
I bit my lip. “Maaaaybe?”
He swore. “Cece—”
“It’s complicated!” I shouted, his anger and worry overwhelming me.
“Complicated how?”
“It—” I cut myself off, unsure how to explain that the shrinking ancient relic seemed to come and go as it wanted—or as I needed. I wasn’t sure which it was yet. Maybe both. “It kinda follows me, I think. I can leave it here, and it’ll just show up in my pocket later—”
“In your pocket?” he said, his tone laced with confusion.
“Yeah,” I said, edging past him. “It shrinks.”
He caught my arm and turned me to face him. “Did you have it with you when you found the attic?” My grimace was response enough. “You need to put it back.” I bristled at what I assumed was an order—which wouldn’t have been a shock, coming from Aidan—but then I felt a tiny shred of fear wrap around my arm and creep up my neck.
“It won’t matter, Aidan. Like I said, it’ll just follow me.”
His tight expression softened ever so slightly. “Do it anyway. Please.”
That word on his tongue was beyond shocking, and it took a moment for it to even register. I pulled out of his grasp before his emotions could assault me any further.
Part of me didn’t want to know what they’d expose.
The other part, however, was desperate to.
“Okay, Aidan,” I said softly as I stepped back around him. “I’ll put it back…”I gently placed the ball down in the shower and whispered for it to stay, like it was a naughty puppy. Then I stood to face the fey malum magicae. “There.”
His mouth moved as if to speak; then he closed it and nodded before walking out of the bathroom toward my dresser. He scooped up the book I’d found in the magical library and tucked it under his arm as he headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked as I rushed over.
“To find your sister,” he replied as though I'd lost my damn mind.
“With that?” I pointed to the book.
He shot me a wicked smile. “I can read and walk—multitasking isn’t exclusive to the female sex, you know.”
“Wow,” I said, mimicking his expression, “I guess you really do learn something new every day.”
An unexpected and glorious sound rang out through my room as I pulled the door open. Aidan’s laughter followed me into the hall, and I bit my lip to stifle the grin threatening to spread my smile wider. There was a strange sense of power in knowing that I had made the surly, brooding head of the class laugh. I doubted it happened often, if at all. I instantly wanted to hear it again.
I led the way through the halls, following the path toward the elevator to the basement in case the keepers or the headmaster happened to be watching, then deviated at the last second to head up to where we’d left Maddy and Rhys—unintentionally.
“Learn anything good back there?” I called to Aidan. His silence along the way had been unnerving at best, but we needed answers about the stalker ball, so I had managed to bite my tongue and let him read the text that I could not. When he didn’t respond, I stopped and turned to face him. He was staring at the book like it was an enemy he couldn’t dissect, couldn’t beat. Not a good sign. “Aidan?”
“I’m going to destroy the ball when we go back,” he said without looking up.
“Um, why? Where is this coming from?”
He peered up at me through the hair that had fallen into his eyes. “This says that an orb like that is an extension of the one who wields it.”
“Okay…meaning...?”
“That’s what I’m trying to decipher. It sounds like it may amplify your abilities, but I also think it might be able to be used in your stead.”
“Like if I’m not there to hold it?”
He nodded. “I can see there’s more, but I haven’t gotten through it all yet.”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t execute the poor thing until you do. I mean, really, what can happen? I’ll affect the emotions of those around me that much more if I’m holding it?”
“I think that’s a gross oversimplification of your power, little witch.”
“Really?” I said, cocking my head. “What was it you said to me in the infirmary? Something about wounding you with scathing assessments of your childhood? That doesn’t seem super complicated.”
He closed the book and stared. “Do you want the power you used on the headmaster unleashed unwittingly on someone else? Because that would not only be complicated, but possibly deadly.”
I swallowed back the tang of that reality and started walking again.
“The ball stays until we know more,” I said with a sense of protectiveness I didn’t fully understand but surely felt.
Aidan muttered something under his breath that I couldn't make out, but the dissonant vibrations of worry and suspicion hit me in the back as we made our way to the attic room where I’d found the painting. The room I hoped Maddy and Rhys had made it to.
“Maddy? Rhys? Are you in there?”
Silence was the only reply.
I reached for the knob, but stopped just shy of it. Suddenly, Aidan’s emotions were eclipsed by a blast of anger and malice that I couldn’t ignore, a wave of hostility that needed to be heard. To be felt.
To be found.
“What is it?” he asked, stepping up close behind me. His presence stifled the feelings coursing through me, but not entirely. That palpable rage simmered just beyond him, stalking the periphery, waiting to strike again.
“Something is here,” I said, eyes closed as I tried to focus on where the feeling came from. “It’s angry...so angry…”
His hand fell gently on my shoulder, and I looked back at him.
“Where is it?” he asked, his intent stare pinned on me.
“I don’t know.” My gaze drifted back to the door in front of me. “But we need to find it.”
With that, I grabbed the worn brass knob and turned it. I swung the door wide and raced through, hoping my sister and Rhys weren’t standing face to face with an angry dragon who’d escaped his painting. What I found was something else entirely.
Darkness greeted Aidan and me—along with the stone wall I crashed into face-first, Aidan’s weight driving me in hard. Once again, the door to the attic room had sent us somewhere else, and it was really starting to piss me off.
“What the fuck?” I yelled, rubbing my poor nose. “Is that door a weird portal or something?” Or maybe just like the library...
“Maybe,” was all Aidan said before he pulled away from me and spun me around. “You okay?”
“My nose isn’t, but overall, yeah. I guess.” He gave me a once-over in the dim light coming from somewhere down the narrow hall. My eyes had begun to adjust, making it easier to take in the grim, tunnel-like space. “Where in the hell are we?”
“No clue,” he said, glancing back and forth. It was then that I realized that the stone walls surrounding us were unobstructed and without any doors.
Then the pulse of anger washed over me and pulled me to the right. Without thought, I started down the hall toward it.
“Cece,” Aidan said, his tone full of caution.
“It's this way,” I replied. “I can feel it…”
“I don’t doubt that,” he said, tucking himself next to me so close that our bodies touched and our arms tangled. “I doubt the wisdom in seeking out malicious energy.”
“Scared?” I taunted as I hurried into the dark abyss before us. With every step, the light at our backs waned.
I could feel his stare on the side of my face. “Not of what we’ll find…”
I shook off the implications of his words and picked up the pace. The anger abated as I neared, as though my presence calmed it somehow—soothed it. My effect on it was undeniable.
“We’re close,” I whispered, not wanting to spook the owner of the energy. I wondered who or what it was. Would we find another mini-wolf-like creature locked away somewhere in the basement? Or would it be something far more ominous, like the smoke demon Aidan had vanquished? Though the latter possibility should have scared me, it didn’t. All I felt was exhilaration at the prospect.
Rogue Reformatory: Broken (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 2) Page 10
