by May Dawson
“You can go,” I said, turning away from him. I didn’t need someone who was so cruel watching over me now. “I’m not going to run. Not after everything I sacrificed to be here.”
“Not the way it works, rabbit,” he said.
He called me by the name of my own prey, when I was a wolf. Well. I had been a wolf. My jaw set, and I pushed his hand away angrily. I hated him for touching me, and I hated myself for wanting him to touch me.
When I took a step toward the tub, my knees buckled. I caught myself on the edge of the tub, my fingers sinking into the cold, hard porcelain.
Echo picked me up, sweeping me off the ground and into his arms as if I weighed nothing.
“Put me down,” I said, struggling against him.
“No,” he said. “I’m not going to have you collapse and hit your head on something. You’re brain-damaged enough.”
I tried to push him away, but my arms were weak, and his mouth twisted into a smirk. He plunged me into the water, even though I was still half-dressed in my bra and skirt. I tried to shove him away, got my foot against his chest and kicked him hard. He stumbled back, and when he looked at me, heat flared in his dark eyes.
Fear twisted through my chest, but there was something else, too, a rebelliousness. They couldn’t cow me.
“I’m trying to help you,” he said evenly.
“I don’t need your help,” I said, even though it was a lie and we both knew it. “You’re going to help me? Why did you leave me without food, Echo? Why did you keep going when Tritan left?”
I didn’t give him the chance to answer. My voice rose. “You tried to break me.”
“Believe what you want,” he said.
“I can’t be broken,” I told him.
He knelt at the tub beside me. “Sure, sweetheart. Everyone can be broken.”
There was no shower, but there was a brass shower head and hose attached to the side of the tub. I reached for it, eager to wash the filth and blood out of my hair. My hands were still shaking, and I dropped the nozzle into the water.
Water splashed over Echo, soaking part of his shirt to his body, and he glanced down. When he rose and went to the towel rack, I thought he was going to dry himself.
Instead, he folded the towel deftly and draped it over the edge of the tub behind me. “Lay back.”
“I don’t want you to be here with me,” I said. My whole body was trembling now. I was going to fall apart. I couldn’t bear to be that vulnerable in front of him.
“I know,” he said, kneeling beside me. “But you can’t be alone.”
“Tell Winter he can cut me some slack when I still have my wolf’s blood on my—on my—”
“It’s not Winter’s rule,” he cut me off. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Gently, he reached out and pushed my shoulders back until my head met the towel. I was so bone tired, and for once, I gave up on fighting. He wasn’t going to hurt me, not now. I didn’t want anyone to see me vulnerable, but my body was beginning to shake and I wasn’t sure I could get through this on my own anyway.
“You’ve done a good job answering all Winter’s questions,” he said, his voice soft. “You’re a smart girl.”
I turned my face away, looking out the window. I could hear guitar music playing outside.
“Everyone can be broken,” he said, “but only when they’re alone.”
“You’re not my friend,” I murmured.
Then something about his voice caught me. I looked back at him, studying his face. “Echo. Are you alone?”
His lips quirked up faintly. “Until you realize I am your friend. Yes. Terribly.”
“You’re an asshole,” I said.
“Also true.”
But I still let him wash my hair, his fingers caressing my scalp, teasing soap down my locks, washing the blood away.
After a while, lying in the warmth as he cared for me, my muscles stopped trembling. The pain faded.
When I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was home, safe with someone I loved.
Chapter Thirty-Two
As I walked barefoot across the frozen ground, the witches waiting outside looked to me and went still. A hush fell over the crowd.
Long tables were covered with white linens and food, and the barren trees were wrapped with white flower garlands. The sun was bright, no matter how much the cold prickled on my arms.
Winter offered me his arm. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
I couldn’t look more different now than I had in my tattered school uniform. I was dressed in a long white dress with lace sleeves and a tulle skirt that whispered around my legs. It was eerily like a wedding dress, which made me feel a little nauseous.
Alice and another witch I didn’t know came forward and set a crown of greenery and white flowers in my hair.
“Today my daughter was reborn as one of us,” Winter said. “Just as she has left behind who she was, let us leave behind the past as well.”
“Where there was darkness, let there be light.” The coven echoed. “Where there was death, let there be life.”
The trees suddenly flowered, green buds bursting against the winter sky, then forming into leaves. I gasped, unable to help myself at the sight of greenery bursting forth and blossoming before my eyes, and Winter smiled.
“The world is full of magic,” he murmured into my ear. “Even though some have tried to drive that magic from our world.”
The some he mentioned were my people, but I nodded.
“I need you to say these words, Maddie,” he said. “Where there was hatred, let there be beauty.”
I repeated his words and green shoots pushed out of the ground all around us. They rapidly blossomed, surrounding us with red and orange and yellow flowers, bright against the dark ground.
“Where there has been desolation, let there be a garden,” the coven chorused.
I stared around us in wonder at the riot of colorful flowers that seemed to bloom against the stark landscape in defiance of the cold.
Music began to play then, and some of the witches began to pair off to dance while others broke off into conversation.
Winter rested his hand on my shoulder. “You must have had some doubts about surrendering your wolf to join us.”
I met his gaze evenly. “It wouldn’t have been much of a test if I hadn’t.”
He smiled. “Yet you chose us. Why?”
“The shifters would never let me be who I really am,” I said.
“I think you’ll find this is a very different world,” he promised me. “We don’t suffer from the misogyny or the violence of the packs.”
We’d see about that.
For that day, though, I found myself drawn into a mesmerizing world. Everyone was kind, everyone danced, music filled the air.
It was easy enough to pretend I wanted to lose myself in their world, for a while.
Even though I was always conscious of Echo’s gaze, catching me from across the party.
“Come sit with us.” Alice caught my hand in hers, drawing me with her to a table where a few other witches around our age waited. “Everyone wants to get to know you better.”
At the table, she offered me a glass of wine.
“You’re going to need it to get to know these fools,” she told me when I hesitated. “Don’t worry. This isn’t like the land of the Fae. You won’t be trapped here because you ate our food.”
“That’s a myth anyway,” one of the boys at the table said.
“That’s Kairn, our resident know-it-all,” Alice told me.
“Every group has one,” I said.
“Do we all get descriptors as part of our introduction?” A red-headed girl asked from across the table. “Because I am so curious…”
“That’s Josephine,” Alice said. “She’s the beautiful one we all adore.”
Josephine made a show of brushing her red hair back as if she were preening, giving into a slow smile that spread
across her face. She really was lovely, with pale skin and pink cheeks.
“And that’s Victor.” Alice pointed to another young man, with brown hair and a beautiful face. “He was our resident charming bad-boy until Echo dethroned him.”
“Echo is charming?” I asked skeptically.
“I like her already,” Victor said, patting the chair beside him. “Come sit by me, pretty girl.” Glancing at Alice, he said, “You’re terrible at introductions, by the way.”
I took the seat by Victor. “How come I’m only just now meeting all of you?”
“We’ve all been on missions,” Victor said.
“Also, Echo locked her in his closet all week,” Alice said airily.
Victor shook his head slowly. “And you girls all have crushes on him.”
“Echo can lock me in his closet,” Josephine said, a mischievous smile slipping across her red lips. Her gaze swept across the party to find Echo, and Alice turned to look for him too, her expression unconvincingly idle.
“Speaking of hopeless crushes on Echo,” Kairn said, “where are the Everly sisters?”
“Banished.” Josephine told him in a hushed voice. “We won’t speak of them again. They’re not witches any longer.”
“But they’ll still have their magic, won’t they? Even if they don’t remember how to use it?” I had to learn everything I could about how witches understood magic to work.
Kairn shook his head. “Just as you sacrificed your wolf, magic itself can be sacrificed. It can be given to another person.”
“That’s part of how Winter is so strong,” Alice said. “He was powerful in his own right, but as witches have aged and known they were going to pass on, they’ve gifted him their magic.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why not spread the wealth around, if it’s possible for dying witches to give up their magic?”
They all exchanged glances.
“It’s not a simple, painless process and it creates a dangerous bond between two witches,” Alice said carefully. “But that’s not something we need to discuss today. It’s a happy day, and we’re happy you’re here with us, and there will be time for you to learn everything.”
“Winter is excited to teach you,” Kairn said. “But you’ll begin some of your lessons with me. And with Echo.”
Jealousy flashed across Alice’s face, but I wasn’t sure if she were jealous of the time I’d spend with Echo or with Winter. As the conversation went on, it became clear that my fellow young witches were quite amusing, in their own ways.
It also became clear that they all looked up to Winter in a way that bordered on hero worship. If people thought so highly of him—and thought he would be the one to save the magical world—I understood why other covens were being slowly consolidated into the Day. The Day would only grow more powerful.
Echo danced with every other girl but me, whirling them barefoot around the garden. He smiled at them, his handsome, cruel face relaxing as he led them easily, spinning and dipping them until they were laughing. He danced with Alice twice.
When she came and sat beside me, she was still laughing, her cheeks flushed red.
“Cold?” she asked me suddenly, yanking my attention away from Echo, who was speaking quietly to Winter now. It seemed the two of them had left the past behind them. She drew my feet into her lap. “You’re supposed to use magic to stay warm, Maddie. Otherwise, the winter garden isn’t nearly as magical.”
I almost pulled my feet away from her reflexively, but she ran her hands over my bare feet, caressing them and massaging as magic sparked under her fingertips. Warmth glowed through my feet.
She smiled at me. “I don’t know what wolves are like, but we’re pretty affectionate with each other around here. I hope it’s not too strange to you.”
“I’m not a wolf anymore,” I said. “I guess I’ll get used to it.”
“I hope you’ll come to like it,” she said. “Not just get used to it. Life is good here.”
“How did you come to the Day?” I asked.
“I was raised in a pack,” she said. “My parents weren’t… good people. They married me off to the man they thought would be the next alpha when I was just a girl.”
She stared off into the distance, as if a movie were playing in front of her eyes.
I frowned because she couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. “How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“You’re so young, Alice,” I said. “How old were you then?”
Her lips twisted in a mirthless smile. “I was pregnant by the time I was fifteen, Maddie.”
“Alice.” I was lost for words.
“I’ve never seen my daughter again,” she said. “The Day raided my pack, searching for princesses. My husband,” she spoke the word with deep loathing, “escaped with my daughter. When I was left behind, I thought the Day would kill me.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to kill as many of them as I could, but they saved me. Winter carried me out of there, kicking and screaming.”
“Did they lock you in a closet?” I asked lightly.
She shook her head. “In the cage, at the lab. The same one where you were.”
“You must have been so scared.”
“I was born scared, Maddie. I was scared my whole life, until they took me. When Winter started to talk to me, when he told me what they wanted, I was ready to stop being scared.”
“Did they kill your wolf with their experiments?” I asked. “Or did you?”
She pursed her lips. “The wolf never brought me any joy,” she said. “Not like being here, not like finding a family… By the time they took my wolf, I was ready.”
Her words tugged at my heart. It was strange to think she found the same thing here that I felt at the academy, with my men.
“Eventually, we’re going to rescue my daughter,” Alice said. “Winter is going to help me cure her. And she and I will be together again.”
“What if she doesn’t want to be cured?”
“The only reason people don’t want to be cured is because they don’t realize that the wolf is a disease,” she said, resting her hand on my knee.
Her words chilled me.
The party went on around us, full of voices and laughter, music and joy.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lex
I knocked on the door to Clearborn’s office, since it was half-closed. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes. Come in.”
I pushed the door open the rest of the way. He glanced up at me and cocked an eyebrow. “Have you been to the infirmary?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“Then you should shift and heal yourself,” he said. “No one in the cadre should walk around looking as if they’ve been beaten half to death.”
“Well.” I had been beaten half to death, but Dani had gotten away. The memory of Freyer’s face the second before he kicked me in the head would be with me for a long time, every time I saw him.
“Sit,” he said flatly. He stared at me as if he was irritated with me, as if my bruised-up, bloodied face was personally offensive to him.
He drummed his fingers on the table. “Your classmates came tattling to me.”
“They came to tell you,” I said, “that they did this to me. That’s an interesting set of choices.”
If they were confident in Clearborn to be on their side, I hoped they were wrong. I thought highly of Clearborn, even if he didn’t seem to like me much.
It was painful to admit that someone I respected didn’t respect me, but the change at the academy was undeniable. The teams fought far more efficiently after all his brutal drills.
Clearborn leaned back in his seat. “Who was your friend watching your back out there? He didn’t do a very good job.”
Oh fuck. Here we go. That hadn’t taken long. “I didn’t have one.”
“You didn’t have one,” Clearborn repeated. “So either you’re bullshitting me now to
protect a friend, or you knowingly disobeyed my direct order. Which one is it?”
My face didn’t change, but I felt heat rise in my cheeks. “I disobeyed a direct order.”
“And what was the direct order that I gave that you didn’t think was worth respecting? Just so I can be certain we’re both on the same page.”
“You ordered that no one check out on leave without a partner accompanying them.”
“So you knew what you were supposed to do, but you…” he gestured for me to go on.
“I said I was on official business to get past the gate guard.” There was no point in trying to dance around it.
He paused. “I don’t suppose you remember the name of this rather naïve gate guard.”
When I shook my head, he said, “No, I don’t suppose that you would. So why didn’t you bring a friend with you? I thought you and Rafe were inseparable.”
“He wouldn’t have approved of what I was doing.” Well, that sounded damning.
“I think your classmates felt it was safe to tell on you,” Clearborn said, “because I don’t really feel a lot of sympathy for you at the moment, Mr. Alexander.”
I stared back at him. I expected to be in trouble, but I had expected him to be fair, too.
“Those idiots are all reporting to their cadre for the strap,” Clearborn said abruptly. He studied me. “Tattling isn’t a great look. But neither is meeting with witches. Or Hunters, for that matter.”
“Dani Hedron isn’t just a witch. Or a Hunter. She’s my friend.”
“I don’t know why you thought that statement was going to improve this conversation.” Clearborn’s usual air of amusement seemed to be rapidly tipping over into pure fury. He leaned forward. “You could have caused a diplomatic incident that brought war to this academy. War with the Hunters. We don’t need to fight a war on two fronts. You might not have noticed this, but the covens are keeping us rather busy at the moment.”
“I’m aware, sir.”
“So why exactly did you need to meet with Dani Hedron? Why in the world would she be so foolish as to drive anywhere near the academy, given how hot-blooded the packs are about magic at present?”
