He reached inside his bag and pulled something out.
“What, this key?”
I tossed a glance round the corridor, but we were completely alone. The key he was holding was the same size and shape as the one we’d taken from Shaun’s office, but the brass looked new, and glinted under the hallway’s lighting. A copy.
“How did you… never mind.” There were some things I didn’t want to know. And some things I did. “How long have you had that?”
“Not long,” he said, tucking it in his pocket, and setting off towards the dungeon again. “I figured it might come in handy. You know, for when you were ready to hear their side of the story.”
And when he said it like that, I felt like a total bitch. I should have gone back weeks ago. No wonder Laura’s face was haunting me. I deserved to be haunted. But I didn’t have time to beat myself up. The others would notice if we weren’t back before the end of lunch.
As predicted, we made it to the dungeon without seeing another living soul. The whole shifter stereotype about food was true. Shifting burned through calories like a hot knife through butter. My stomach rumbled at the mental image, and I shoved it aside. Food later. Innocent people locked in dungeons now.
Ryan’s illicit key opened the lock without problem, although he didn’t look nearly as relieved as I felt. Apparently not everyone round here was as much as a wimp as I was.
“Come on,” he said, locking the door and ducking down the corridor ahead of me. Maybe he was nervous, after all. “Brad first.”
“Why?”
He paused, then slotted the key in the lock.
“Well, we haven’t met him yet. And we should, right?”
I couldn’t – and didn’t – argue with that. Ryan let us in, then locked the door behind us.
“Ryan. You’re back.”
My head whipped round, and I stared at the wiry guy in the cell across the room. He was a few years older than us, in mid-twenties maybe, but it was hard to tell in the dim dungeon’s lighting and under the dark shadow of his stubble, and honestly I had other things on my mind.
“How do you know his name?” I twisted back to Ryan. “How does he know your name?”
“Tell her,” the guy in the cell said.
“Tell me what?” Uneasiness welled in my stomach and crept up my spine. Something was very wrong here. “And what does he mean, you’re back?”
“Don’t freak out, okay?” Ryan said. “I’ve been coming down here. On my own.”
“You lied to me?”
“No, I didn’t, I–” He paced two steps, turned around, paced back. “I couldn’t leave them down here thinking no-one gave a damn. You see that, right?”
“What I see,” I ground out, “is someone who looked me in the eye and lied for– How long have you been coming down here?”
And then I remembered his scent tracks, that day we first came down into the dungeon and met Laura.
“You were lying the whole time, weren’t you? You’ve been coming down here since the day you got out. It was a setup. All of it.”
“It wasn’t like that. Please, Jade…”
“Then what was it like, huh?”
“They were locked down here, just like me – just like you. I could hear them screaming every time they changed. What did you expect me to do, just leave them here?”
“I expected you to be honest with me.” I threw up my hands. “You know what? I’m done. Give me the key.”
“No, listen to me.”
“Give me the damned key!” I lunged at him, trying to wrestle it from his hands, and the pair of us thudded against the wall, and then into the cage bars. I gasped as my back thudded into the metal bars, knocking the wind from me. Before I could get my breath, a hand shot out from behind me, and wrapped itself around my neck. Brad’s hand.
“Now, listen here, darling,” he growled in my ear.
That seemed like a shit idea to me. I lifted my hands and clawed at the arm jammed against my throat, gouging with my nails and fighting to get him off me. He pressed tighter and shook me, rattling my head against the bars. Pain exploded behind my eyes. I couldn’t reach his face behind me, and I couldn’t get a foot through the bars to kick him. Pulled tight to the bars, I couldn’t twist to get any leverage against him. All I could do was keep clawing at his arm, and I clawed with a vengeance, until my nails were slick with blood.
Brad hissed in pain, and jammed his arm tighter to my neck, until I couldn’t breathe.
“Knock it off. Stop fighting and listen.”
“Okay,” I gasped, with what little air I had left. I dropped my hands, resisting every instinct that screamed at me to keep fighting while there was breath left in my body – which wouldn’t be for long, if I did that. “Okay.”
He loosened his arm enough for me to suck in a decent breath. I stayed still, other than to roll my head an inch to the side to get a look at him. The air stank of fear and adrenaline, and I couldn’t tell which belonged to who.
“Brad,” Ryan said, finally finding his voice. “Stop.”
“It’s fine,” Brad said. “We’re just going to chat. Aren’t we, darling?”
“It’s Jade,” I spat. “And you’d best talk quickly before I find a way to rip your arm off.”
“And I thought I was supposed to be the one with the logic-suppressing rage. I could already have broken your neck, if I wanted to.”
His words gave me pause. He was right. If he was dangerous enough to justify being locked away down here, then why hadn’t he killed me?
Brad moved his arm from my neck and took a step back, holding his hands out to his sides.
“Sorry I had to do that,” he said.
I stepped quickly, putting some distance between me and his cage, then eyed him while I rubbed my throat. “I’m listening.”
“I did nothing worse than you.” He wrapped his hands around the bars and leaned against them. “I was attacked. Some feral wolf bit me, but I was the one who got punished.”
His hands clenched until his knuckles turned white, and then he loosened his grip again.
“But unlike you, I didn’t buy the company line. I didn’t feel like going upstairs and pretending everything was shiny. So they left me here. They feed me, they bring me water – and then they leave me to fucking rot!”
He drew in a sharp breath, his shoulders heaving and knuckles turning white again, then shoved himself off the bars, and stalked to the back of the cell. He leaned against the wall, then thumped his fist against it. I shot a glance over at Ryan. This guy was a loose cannon. Anyone could see it.
“I’m sorry,” Brad said. He turned around to face us again, clenching and unclenching his hands. “It’s hard, being down here. How would you feel if they locked you up? What would you do to get out?”
“You know how to get out. You just have to tell them you’re willing to train, to take control of your shifted form.”
He shook his head sharply.
“I don’t mean out of this cage. I mean out of this academy. Out of this whole damned world. I had a life, and I want to go back to it.”
“Don’t you want to go back to your old life?” Ryan asked me.
“We could do it, you know,” Brad said. “If we worked together. Why should we have to pay the price for someone else’s crime?”
“You’re crazy. Both of you. Give me the damned key.”
I held my hand out to Ryan. He didn’t move.
“Give it to me, or I’ll take it.” I rolled out my shoulders.
“Wait!” Ryan drew in a slow breath, and let it out again. “Wait. You can have it. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone we’ve been here.”
“Are you kidding? That’s the first thing I’m going to do.”
“You can’t.” He took a step toward me, then stopped. “Look, we can’t get out of here without your help, okay? You’re the only one with any chance of busting through those wards. If you say we’re not going, then we’re not. But you have to forget everything that h
appened today.”
“Why the hell would I do that?”
Ryan stretched a hand through the bars and took hold of Brad’s.
“Because I love him.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maybe I was going soft. Maybe some part of me wanted what they wanted. Or maybe I was just too anxious about the upcoming exams to want to cause any more trouble for myself. Whatever the reason, somehow I didn’t march myself right up to Shaun’s office. Not that day, not the next day, not even a week later.
I should have. Of course, I should have. But by the time a fortnight had passed – well, I’d have had a helluva time explaining to Shaun why I’d kept it from him that long. And it wasn’t like there was any harm in Ryan just visiting Brad. And maybe, just maybe, he was right. He didn’t deserve to be locked up for someone else’s crime. Maybe he would get better – him and Laura – if they could get away from here.
I watched Ryan like, well, like a woman who was worried he’d unleash an uncontrollable shifter into the academy and kill us all. I barely let him out of my sight. It was easy enough – he shared a room with us, he was in all my lessons. If he tried to get into Blake’s office to get the cuff key, I’d know. And if he did that, then I’d go to Shaun and tell him everything, consequences be damned. I would.
But Ryan didn’t so much as look in that direction. He kept his head down, showed up for our extra sessions with Brendon – in which he was annoyingly doing much better than me – and visited Brad twice a week. I didn’t try to stop him. Maybe he could help Brad come to terms with what he was. And even if he couldn’t, they both deserved whatever happiness they could find, wherever they could find it. None of us had asked for this.
Maybe it was time to have another talk with Ryan about what was going on. Maybe even try to persuade Laura and Brad to give the academy a chance. I was pretty sure that would be a doomed attempt, but maybe if I could explain what it had done for me, they’d see it was for the best. I’d talk to Ryan in a minute. He was around here some place.
“Jade?”
“Huh?” I blinked Cam back into focus. Crap. I had to make an effort to be less distracted. “Hey, have you seen Ryan?”
“Ryan?” His face went from hopeful to hurt to angry in seconds. “Yer asking me about Ryan, now?”
He pushed himself up from the floor and glared at me.
“Yer unbelievable. I ask you that, and all you care about is him? You know what, if you care so damned much about Ryan, why don’t yer just date him?”
“What? No, it’s not like that, he’s not even–”
I clamped my mouth shut. I had no idea who Ryan had told he was gay, and even I wasn’t enough of a bitch to out him to save my own skin. Cam scowled at me.
“Tell it tae someone who cares. I’m done.”
“But…”
I watched his retreating back with my mouth hanging open, and then I dropped my head into my hands. I’d really screwed up this time. Christ knows what Cam had been saying when I’d zoned out. How could I have been so stupid to ask about Ryan? I mean, was it any surprise he thought there was something going on? I was practically stalking the guy. Dammit. But he couldn’t mean it. We couldn’t really be over. He’d calm down. He had to.
I got up from the stubby grass, dusting myself off. There was no point in going after him. He obviously didn’t want to speak to me right now, and I could hardly blame him. And it wasn’t even like I could explain why I was following Ryan. It was all such a mess!
One that I wasn’t going to fix standing around out here feeling sorry for myself. If I couldn’t talk to Cam, then I could at least talk to Ryan and Brad. I grimaced. That was not going to convince Cam there was nothing going on between us. I trudged back to the castle in silence, trying to decide if there was a way I could have screwed myself any more thoroughly.
“Hey, Jade, we were looking for you. We are heading for dinner, are you– What’s wrong?”
Mei broke off, searching my face. Dean was with her and he had the super-bitch and her cronies in tow – proving that, in fact, my day was always capable of getting worse.
“We’ll catch you up,” Mei said, catching hold of me and pulling me aside. Dean looked concerned for a moment, but then hurried after Madison and the bitch pack.
“Well?” she said, once they were out of earshot.
“I… uh, I think Cam just broke up with me.”
“What? Why would he do that?”
I groaned.
“Because I’m an idiot, that’s why. He was asking something and I wasn’t really listening, then I asked him if he’d seen Ryan, and… I don’t know. He got pissed off about it.”
“Really, Jade?” She arched a brow at me and put one hand on her hip. “Cam’s talking to you, you’re thinking about Ryan, and you wonder why he’s upset? Could you be any more obvious?”
“No, it’s not like that. Seriously, why does everyone think I’m obsessed with Ryan?”
“Um, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve been following him around like a puppy-dog for the last month?”
Well, yeah, when she put it like that, it didn’t sound great. But what was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like I could tell everyone why I was paying so much attention to him. I’d kinda taken for granted that they’d assume it was a Bitten thing. And now look what it had cost me.
“I’ve lost my appetite. Go ahead without me. I think I’m going to head up to our room and hit the books for a bit.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” Mei said, linking her arm through mine before I could protest. “Skipping meals is not going to help you. And an extra half hour of studying will make no difference to your exam results.”
“It will if I learn something that comes up in the exam.”
“Look, there’s no point trying to avoid Cam.”
“I wasn’t– Okay, fine, I was going to avoid him. But just until he calms down enough that I can explain.”
Exactly what explanation I could give him that wouldn’t land me in a world of trouble remained a mystery, which was the other reason I wanted to avoid him. But Mei wasn’t taking no for an answer. And to be fair, I was hungry.
I went with her without any more objections, and when we reached the dining hall, I was more relieved than I should have been that there was no sign of Cam. There was no sign of Ryan, either, but I figured this wasn’t a good time to bring it up.
“Where’s lover-boy?” Madison said with unmistakable glee as I set my tray down at our table. It was a bad sign that I wasn’t sure exactly whose absence she was gloating about. Tiffany snickered, and Dean shot the pair of them a warning look.
“I was just being nice,” Madison said, holding her hands up. Right. And I was the pope. How the hell had everyone found out so quickly?
Mei shot a nervous look at someone three tables away, and my heart squeezed painfully. Cam. I guess I didn’t have to worry about avoiding him. He was avoiding me.
“It will be fine,” Mei said. “He just needs to sleep on it.”
“So,” Dean said loudly. “Three weeks until exams. Who’s ready?”
It said a lot about how shitty I was feeling that impending catastrophic failure bothered me less than Cam sitting at another table.
“Instructor Fletcher says I’m predicted a high pass,” Madison said, flicking her hair over one shoulder. “And, of course, I’ve always been a natural at shifting.”
The food I was chewing turned to clay in my mouth. Shifting. My weakest subject. Fail anything, and I’d get held back a year. I was scraping through on the theory stuff, but I still couldn’t control my shifted form.
“What do we have to do for the shifting exam?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t imagine it’s trying to kill the instructor, so you’re going to be in trouble.”
“Madison, give it a rest,” Dean said. Madison pouted, then slipped her hand into Dean’s, practically purring with satisfaction.
“Whatever you say.” She smiled up at him and pressed he
r lips to his.
“Really? I’m trying to eat. You two are putting me off my food.”
“Sorry, Jade,” Madison said, resting her chin on Dean’s shoulder and sounding anything but. “I didn’t mean to rub it in.”
I put my knife and fork down.
“I’m done. I’ll catch you guys later.”
“Jade, wait,” Dean said, but I grabbed my bag and made for the exit. I heard him chastising Madison behind me, for all the difference it would make. Once a bitch, always a bitch. And she wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to make me feel bad. She still hadn’t forgiven me for bringing Ryan into our little group. I hadn’t forgiven her for coming back, so I guessed we were even.
I wasn’t in the mood for hitting the books, but I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with anyone either, and the library seemed like the safest bet to avoid any sort of conversation. Plus, no-one would look for me there.
At least, that was the plan. But when I stepped into the usually deserted room and inhaled the scent of books that were older than me, I caught the scent of someone else, too. Fresh scent. Ryan was in here. For a moment I thought about just ducking back out – I really wasn’t in the mood to have this discussion now, not when Cam thought I was sneaking around with him. But, like it or not, Brad and Laura were more important than my ailing love life. Or as important, at least.
“Found any Stephen King?” I asked, heading over to the lone figure. He shook his head and flashed the heavy tome at me. I frowned as I made out the worn lettering on the front. Arcane Warding Spells.
“Wards? Are you kidding?”
“Keep it down,” he hissed, glancing around the room. He needn’t have bothered. I already knew we were alone. “I just wanted to be prepared. In case you changed your mind about helping us.”
“What did you find?” I mean, it didn’t hurt to know, right?
“Nothing good. You need an alpha to deactivate one. Or a druid, but I can’t see Blake letting any of them in here.”
“Yeah, druids and shifters really don’t play nice, do they?”
I was pretty sure it was only because Leo turned out to be innocent that things never came to a head between the two factions. The idea of a druid walking through Blake’s precious academy? Laughable. Which was a good thing. Because there was no way smuggling Brad and Laura over the wall was going to end well.
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