by Theresa Kay
As I move inside, I brush against Seth’s desk and knock over his pen holder. The contents go scattering.
The voices stop, and a couple seconds later Burke steps out. He raises an eyebrow. “Can I help you, Ms. Andras?”
Bernadette is behind him half a second later. “This is all your doing.”
“My doing?” I scoff.
“You are the one who claims those animals as friends, family even,” she says, her upper lip curling with disgust.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Anger stirs in my stomach.
“They took him,” she says, her composure breaking for a split second, long enough for me to see the frantic worry in her eyes.
“Your uncle requested that Allister present himself to the alpha. As he is now a shifter, he had to comply,” explains Burke.
“Okay . . .”
“Connor refuses to allow him to return home,” says Tristan in a dull voice as he steps into view behind his mother. His face is blank, but his jaw is tensed.
I shake my head in confusion. “I don’t understand. That doesn’t sound like Connor.”
Bernadette sneers and looks down her nose at me. “Tristan tells me you are the one who asked that creature to intervene.”
Oh shit. How does he know? My gaze darts to Tristan.
“I did,” I finally say, wincing at the way Tristan’s eyes harden. “But not like that. I thought it might help to improve things. And I wanted Tristan to be able to see him.”
Bernadette snorts. “And look what your meddling has created, much like the circumstances that led to my husband being Bitten in the first place.” She looks me up and down. “If you lay down with dogs, you get fleas.” She turns her attention to Burke. “Tristan is withdrawing, effective immediately.” Her gaze moves to Tristan, clear disappointment written on her face. “Prepare his transcript, as pathetic as it currently is. I will be in contact to let you know where to send it.”
Burke’s nostrils flare, but he nods, a curt, barely there movement.
Bernadette grabs hold of Tristan’s arm and tugs him toward the doorway. “We are leaving.” She looks me up and down again. “There will be better prospects elsewhere.”
I open my mouth and take half a step forward, but Tristan sends me a sharp-eyed glare and a jerky shake of his head. Then, his eyes downcast, his face blank, he follows his mother out of Burke’s office without so much as a goodbye.
For a beat, I stare at the doorway, open-mouthed, then whirl on Burke. “Connor wouldn’t keep Allister prisoner. I know he wouldn’t. There’s something else going on here.”
“Come.” He motions into his office and waits for me to walk in behind him before shutting the door. He sits down at his desk then removes his glasses and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “This is a disaster.”
“No kidding.”
He puts his glasses back on and stares across the desk at me. “I could not say anything in front of Bernadette, but I have spoken with Allister. He made the choice to stay. There are . . . extenuating circumstances.”
“What does that mean?”
Burke’s jaw tenses as he presses his lips together, thinking. “The alpha of the Tidewater region is staying at your uncle’s house.”
I give him a blank look. “And?”
“How much has Tristan told you about his sister?”
“Not a whole lot. She was kidnapped. The local alpha wouldn’t let anyone on to pack lands to search for her and a shifter eventually killed her.”
Burke swallows and takes a deep breath. “The region Cecily was taken to was the Tidewater region.”
My stomach twists. Connor said he didn’t know anything about Cecily. Did he lie to me? Why would he harbor an alpha who did something like that? “Besides the fact that it would piss Bernadette off, I still don’t understand what this has to do with anything.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment as if searching for something in my eyes. “What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room.”
“Okay . . .”
“The reason Allister is staying is because Cecily is alive.”
“What? How is that possible? And why are you telling me this and not Tristan? Why did you just sit there and let her—”
“Tristan chose to go with her. There are things she holds over him—”
“Like his focus. I know about that. But why not tell Bernadette? Wouldn’t that solve a lot of issues?”
Burke releases a harsh breath through his nose. “Keeping this information from Bernadette is of vital importance.”
“I don’t understand. Why would it be so important for Bernadette not to know her daughter is alive?”
Another long sigh. “The Tidewater alpha is Cecily’s alpha.”
I shake my head. “So, she’s Bitten. I still don’t see the problem here.”
“What do you think Bernadette would want done to the shifter who bit her daughter?” He leans forward over the desk.
“She’d want them killed, like she wants Penny killed.” My mind whirls through all the possibilities before landing on something, a realization crashing over me. “Cecily doesn’t want that shifter killed, and she doesn’t think she could stay her mother’s hand.”
Burke nods. “The current Tidewater alpha is Cecily’s husband. She was never kidnapped. She left voluntarily.”
“But Tristan was there. He said . . .”
“He was a child,” says Burke. “Time and the influence of his mother have most likely twisted his recollection of the events to fit more closely with the story Bernadette has spun.”
I sit back down. “But why didn’t Cecily clear up this misunderstanding years ago? Couldn’t that have stopped some of this?”
“Cecily was only seventeen when she left. My guess would be that she realized Bernadette would have petitioned OSA to have her returned and, by the time Cecily was eighteen, she was Bitten. Revealing herself to Bernadette at that point . . .”
“It would put Cecily’s new family in danger.” I nod, slowly. “But why reveal herself now, after all this time?”
“She didn’t reveal herself. Her husband talked to Allister.”
“Because he was at Connor’s house, and I asked Connor to talk to Allister. I messed everything up. Crap.” I glance at Burke. “I thought it would help, to have an intermediary between the shifters and witches. I told Connor I thought Allister might be a good choice for that because of who he is.”
“It was not your fault. Things were already in motion as soon as Oliver realized who Tristan was.” He quirks a brow. “It would have been nice to not be blindsided by the fact that you stopped to have a chat with your uncle after the party last weekend.”
“Wait . . . Oliver? You mean the shifter with the kid? If Oliver is Cecily’s husband, that makes Xavier Tristan’s nephew.”
Burke nods then props an elbow on the desk and rests his chin in his hand. “I do not care for how this all came about, but your proposal of an intermediary was a good one, and it helped me come to a realization.”
“What do you mean?”
Burke lets out a sardonic chuckle. “Apparently you are not the only person to have the idea of having a well-placed witch working in the interest of shifters.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“After talking to Allister, I spoke at length with your uncle and we came to the conclusion that there is more than one group of rogues, each working toward their own agenda. The group Penny was a part of appears to be selecting witches in high positions and biting them in the hopes of gaining, if not allies, people who can no longer work against shifters. The two shifters you overheard at the party were more than likely looking for targets.”
“And the other group?”
“That one was formed more recently and is the one responsible for the recent deaths.”
“But why? What do those shifters hope to gain from killing witches? Doesn’t that just make things worse?”
“At this point,
I am not certain as to whether or not the attacks were perpetrated by shifters. Many things are not adding up.”
“But you said the deaths were clearly caused by shifters.”
“I said they were mauled in such a way as to leave no doubt that shifters were the culprits.” He interlaces his fingers and rests them on his desk. “But that is what I was told. I have not seen any of the crime scenes or reviewed any of the files. Whoever is in charge of those investigations may have simply seen what appeared to be injuries caused by a shifter and not looked any further than that.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“You will do nothing,” says Burke. “I will take this matter up with OSA.”
“But . . .” He gives me a hard look, putting a stop to my—admittedly weak—protest before I can even voice it. “Fine. Going back to the whole Cecily thing, I understand keeping the truth from Bernadette. But I still don’t get why you don’t want Tristan to know. If you’d told him, he probably wouldn’t have even gone with her so there’d be no danger in telling him.”
Burke shakes his head. “Despite the fact that Ravencrest is closer to a college than a high school, most first-year students are still minors. Tristan does not turn eighteen for another six months. Therefore, if his mother wants to pull him from the school, there is nothing I can do about it. I did not speak to Allister until early this morning, well after Bernadette told Tristan she was coming to pick him up. Knowing that Bernadette was planning to withdraw Tristan from Ravencrest no matter what I had to say on the matter, I did not think it best to spring the information about Cecily on Tristan when he would not have time to fully process it before his mother arrived. I could not predict how Tristan would react, and there was too much of a risk of him revealing too much, too soon. The truth about Cecily needs to be kept quiet while I figure out the best way to handle things.”
“And in the meantime, Tristan is back in Bernadette’s clutches? He was making progress. What if—”
“I know, Selene, but this is bigger than Tristan. I cannot put aside the need of the many for just one person, no matter how important he may be to you or to me. He chose to go with Bernadette, and there is nothing we can do about it except hope that he remembers he can stand on his own.”
Tristan’s newfound independence and self-confidence are barely a week old. Can they stand against whatever Bernadette might throw against him? Can they stand against him thinking I betrayed him by talking to Connor? Despite everything in me that tells me Tristan is strong enough, smart enough, to realize the truth, that I was only trying to help, I still don’t know for sure. And I hate that.
I move through the rest of the day in almost a daze, going from class to class and barely retaining anything. And, selfishly, I wonder what this new development means for things between Tristan and me. We had just started to get to a good place. What happens now?
I can’t help but feel like everything is slowly falling apart.
The next two and a half weeks are a blur. When I’m not in class, I’m busy prepping for the tournament, studying with Isobel and Adrian, and trying—and mostly failing—to keep my mind off Tristan. I haven’t heard from him, of course, and I have no idea what’s going on or how he is or if he and I are still . . . whatever we were.
There’s been no word from Connor or Allister about what’s going on with the shifters either, and not knowing what’s going on is killing me.
The one bright spot is that my powers are back under control thanks to the second dose of Nikiforov’s potion. Attending class is kind of awkward with him as my teacher since he pointedly ignores me, but my grades haven’t suffered for it, so I guess I’ll deal. Next semester my classes will change, and I’m not likely to have him as a teacher again, though I still wish I knew what the hell I did wrong because losing those weekend tutoring sessions with him set me back.
Thankfully, Mr. Davis somehow convinced Agent Wright that I need to be able to fully participate in PE, so I have been able to practice my spellwork a little. I will never be any sort of master spellcaster or whatever, but I’m at least somewhat competent. Even better, my ward work has improved enough that I actually got a B on my last quiz. Still, I’m glad the tournament takes the place of any final exams because I do not have it in me to take any more freaking tests.
With all the craziness and stress, I’m looking forward to the three weeks of Winter Break before next semester. Sort of. I’m not entirely sure where I’m spending it yet. Since everything is so up in the air with the shifter alphas, I don’t know that I’d be welcome at Connor’s, not for three weeks straight anyway, and Mom and Dad are still in hiding.
I’ve put off figuring out what to do, and now the tournament is tomorrow and I’m out of time. Maybe I could go home with Isobel?
If not, I’ll probably be stuck here on campus . . . if that’s something they even allow. Crap.
I guess I’ll figure something out.
Maybe Basil will have an idea.
Today’s Friday and the last day of classes, so I’m on my way to his office for what will be my last tutoring session since next semester I’ll—supposedly—no longer need tutoring on the basics. I’m sure I’ll still end up spending time with him though. He hasn’t had as much time as he would’ve liked to continue his research into my magic and the binding spell, but he’s positive he’ll have some answers by the time spring semester starts. There are bound to be tons of things for us to discuss then because, if my luck is anything to go by, the answers will probably only lead to more questions.
Of course, I’ll have to do well in the tournament to even be around for spring semester . . .
The door to his office is closed, but the light’s on inside, and someone appears to be moving around.
I tap my knuckles against the wood before pushing it open and stepping into the room. “Basil, I—”
The words choke off as I take in the scene around me. The normally cluttered office is a disaster area with books and papers scattered everywhere instead of in their typical messy stacks. Basil is on the ground by his desk, something that looks like claw marks marring his features in four straight lines down his face and over his shoulder.
And there’s someone leaning over him, a type of presence I’ve only felt once before. In that strange bird out by the woods.
“What are you—”
The . . . person? Creature? Thing? Turns and hisses at me—straight up hisses like some kind of overgrown cat—its face hidden beneath the shadows of a hood. It straightens to its full height, which is a good foot taller than me, and rushes toward me, clawed hands out in front of it.
Could this thing be a vampire? I’ve never seen one before, but I don’t recall hearing anything about them having claws.
One of those clawed hands grabs my chin, locking me in place as it tilts my face upward. I still can’t see a face in the shadows of the hood—must be a spell of some sort—but its hand is warm, not room temperature, so it’s definitely not a vamp. This is something else, something other.
The creature speaks, and half-formed words in a language I don’t recognize flow around me. Is this some sort of spell? I’m frozen, unable to pull away from the grip on my chin, and I’m not sure if that’s the creature’s doing or because of my own fear.
The sound of voices carries in from the hallway. The thing hisses again, and I catch a flash of its teeth as it bares them under the hood.
A jolt of pain twists along my nerves as the thing pricks me with one claw in the back of the neck, just below my hairline. The pain lasts only a moment before the claw withdraws, my blood decorating the tip.
The creature extends a jet-black tongue to lick away the blood. I shudder. There’s a long pause, and the creature tilts its head to the side as if puzzling something out. It releases a string of syllables that sound like nonsense to my ears, but somewhere in the back of my mind they almost make sense.
The voices outside the room are growing louder now, closer.
The cre
ature makes a sound that might be a snort of derision or disgust then grabs my entire face in one clawed hand, the narrow, too long fingers extending all the way from my chin to my ears. Another stream of those musical-like words flows from its mouth, and then the creature shoves me to the ground before leaping over me and moving into the hallway and disappearing from sight.
In my dazed state, the events of the last few—minutes? seconds?—take a moment to fully catch up with me, and I’m suddenly on my knees, vomiting onto the floor as something that feels like fire rushes through my veins. A moment later the sensation is gone, as if it’d never been there, and I’m kneeling, panting on the floor when someone screams.
And that’s the noise that finally pulls me out of the weird fogginess in my head. My attention focuses on Basil, limp and bleeding on the floor, one of those weird pictures from Helen’s office and a familiar purple flower clenched in his hand. What the hell happened?
And was this all my fault?
My stomach twists, and I almost puke again from the stab of guilt and pain. Someone grabs my arm and hustles me off to Burke’s office, leaving me alone, my hands shaking and my stomach churning as questions swirl around in my head.
What did that thing do to me? What language was it speaking? What was with the creepy blood licking thing?
And what the hell was that thing? It definitely wasn’t a shifter, but those injuries certainly looked like shifter claw marks. Hell, I might have thought shifter attack based on how the situation looked if I hadn’t sensed the thing which means . . . OSA will blame the attack on a shifter.
And I’m right in the middle of things. Again.
My whole body goes cold.
The door flies open, jerking me away from my thoughts, and Agent Callahan storms into the room, Agent Wright and two other OSA agents close behind. There’s no sign of Burke.
Callahan sits down behind Burke’s desk and, with a flick of his hand, directs the other agents to position themselves on either side of me.
