Unforgivable (Their Shifter Academy Book 4)

by May Dawson

Echo and I went into the back together, but I stopped outside the bathroom. Echo frowned at me from the doorway. “Problem?”

  I shook my head. “I need to contact Clearborn. I have a spell I can use.”

  “That is a problem,” he warned “Bennett will sense your magic.”

  “I’m worried he’s in trouble. Garmond’s pack is targeting him.”

  “Then call him.” Echo pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and wiggled it between his fingers.

  I tried, but no one picked up. Frowning, I moved on to call Lex, then Rafe, but no one answered. Before I could try another number, Echo plucked the phone from my fingers.

  “You aren’t the only one who’s resourceful,” he reminded me. “He wouldn’t want you to endanger your mission.”

  I raked my fingers through my hair. “You have a cell? You could’ve called me any fucking time?”

  “No, I couldn’t.” He leaned back against the door, holding it open for me. “Get in here.”

  Normally, I’d have shoved his chest and complained that he was bossy, but tonight I just ignored him and breezed into the bathroom.

  We’d seen each other naked so many times, but as we stripped, it felt different. The two us crowded next to each other to wash in the sink, which rapidly pooled with bloody water. I kept glancing at his shoulders and his slender but powerful chest and then away again.

  “You need to wash out your hair,” Echo said matter-of-factly. “There’s blood in it.”

  Only in my world was it a problem to be blond because it shows blood readily.

  “How did I get blood in my hair?” I asked. It was the first semi-normal exchange we’d had.

  He shrugged. I tilted my head, trying to get it under the flow of the water in the narrow sink. He pressed against me, and for a second I almost forgot how to breathe. I still liked him—I liked him a lot—but I felt uncomfortable, too. I didn’t know who it was that I liked, and I didn’t know what he was capable of, and I didn’t entirely trust my wayward heart.

  But his fingers slid through my hair, caressing my scalp, rinsing out the blood. His touch felt so good that I almost groaned, and he stilled, as if that small sound meant something to him.

  “You called me Echo,” he said, his voice gentle as his fingers as they teased and pressed against my scalp, lighting sparks in their wake. “I thought you might, after that.”

  “You did what you had to do,” I said it again, trying to convince myself.

  “I’m not a very nice person, Maddie,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “I’m a good person. I’d wager money on that. I look out for my friends. I’d die to knit the rips back together and keep us all safe. I don’t hurt anyone if I can avoid it.”

  His thumb traced across the back of my neck before he cut the water, and I felt as if I’d lost something when his touch was gone.

  I straightened, looking in the mirror as I combed my wet hair back with my fingers. His face in the mirror looked drawn and shadowed. We’d both had a very bad day.

  “I know that,” I said.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “And that’s okay. This is why I didn’t want to kiss you until you knew who I was, Maddie. Because I wanted you to know the truth, and I wanted you to be able to say that I wasn’t what you wanted. Who you wanted.”

  He was so calm and forgiving, in this moment when my own feelings were a roil. He was a rock.

  My rock.

  “I don’t think there’s a universe,” I said carefully, “where I wouldn’t want you.”

  “You’d want who? Echo or Silas?” he asked, his voice teasing, even though his eyes were intent.

  “Either,” I said. “Both.”

  I pressed myself forward into his arms. His hand cupped the back of my head, his fingers sinking through my wet hair.

  When he leaned into me, I covered his mouth with mine. The two of us traded quick, wild kisses as he walked me backward into the wall of the bathroom. Cold tile met my bare skin. I didn’t give a damn right now.

  I broke away from his lips to tell him, “I might feel differently later. I might hate you again when I don’t want you so much.”

  His chest shook against mine with laughter. “All right. I always want you, so I’ll be here until you forgive me.”

  He pressed me against the wall, his hands catching my wrists and drawing them up and together until he pinned me against the wall with my hands above me.

  “I never get tired of looking at you,” he murmured, his gaze sweeping down my body. “You’re so perfect.”

  “I’m a million miles from perfect, and you know it,” I said. He released my hands, but I kept them above my head. I might have my doubts, but I trusted him to have his way with me.

  His hands swept down my back, over the curve of my ass, to my thighs, stirring longing everywhere he touched.

  He shook his head. “Well, maybe I have my own, very-fucked-up definition of what makes a girl perfect.”

  “Oh?”

  His fingers tightened around my thighs, and suddenly he yanked me up the wall. I grinned, catching his shoulders with my hands, and wrapped my legs around his waist.

  “Maybe I like my girls spirited to the point of being obnoxious,” he said, his lips devouring my throat, kissing and licking and sucking, and my head tilted back, wanting more of him. His cock brushed between my thighs, and my hips rocked forward subtly, wanting all of him.

  “Maybe I like my men mysterious and dark and possibly evil.”

  As if to prove my point, his hips rocked forward, and he thrust inside me in one smooth motion that almost made me cry out. My fingers tightened against his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin.

  “Maybe I like my girls impulsive and hot-tempered and stupidly heroic,” he suggested, driving into me, hitting a sweet spot that made stars burst in front of my eyes. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

  “Maybe I like my men… ah, I can’t even think right now.”

  He laughed out loud, a sexy sound right by my ear, and my toes curled. He was so good to me in his own damaged way.

  The two of us moved together, our bodies rocking until I let out a scream. He tensed against me, and he drove me against the wall, still holding me up easily, until he came himself with a muffled cry, burying his face in my shoulder.

  I ran my fingers through his hair, brushing it back from his face, as the world finally stopped revolving around me. He lowered me to the ground, and when I swayed, he grabbed my shoulder, a self-satisfied, wolfish grin crossing his face, as if he were pleased he’d left me wobbly.

  “I know who you are, deep down,” I murmured, caressing his bare chest with my hand, right over his heart. “You’re mine.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me one more time.

  No matter who he was, in his kiss I tasted more love and promise than darkness.

  Chapter Fifty

  Rafe

  I caught up to the idiots when they stopped for gas. I parked my car underneath the trees on the other side of the gas station and inhaled a few times, trying to find some calm. Just some. They didn’t deserve a lot of calm.

  The gas station was empty except for the two of them, but then, it was late. Jensen was gassing up the car; he’d ripped off yet another automobile from his father. Apparently, former-dean McCauley had an endless supply of cars for his son to highjack. Jensen’s golden eyes seemed to glow in the fluorescent lights that lit the pumps against the dark night. Lex was nowhere to be seen; he must’ve gone inside.

  “How did you two fools get past the gate guards?” I snapped as I stepped out of the shadows.

  “If we were fools, we wouldn’t have made it past the guards.” Jensen leaned against the car, his handle still on the nozzle, his other hand shoved in his pocket.

  He seemed neither surprised nor alarmed that I’d caught up to them, and that relaxed reaction made my jaw set.

  Lex came out of the door of the gas station then, carrying a plastic bag in one hand. He wasn�
��t smiling, but he looked confident, sure of himself. It seemed as if going after Maddie was the one thing he didn’t have any doubts about. I hadn’t realized how miserable he’d looked lately.

  The look on his face changed the second he saw me. “Ah, shit.”

  Lex didn’t have Jensen’s poker face, or maybe he just didn’t try with me. We knew each other too well.

  “That’s right, ah shit,” I said. “Good thing you got snacks. You wouldn’t want to ruin your life without a break for cheese puffs and beef jerky.”

  “I love cheese puffs,” Lex admitted. He pulled the bag out and tossed them to me. I caught them automatically, my hand crushing them against my chest. “Almost as much as you do. You coming?”

  “No, I’m not coming.” I threw the cheesy puffs back at him, then felt ridiculous. Sometimes Lex didn’t bring out the best in me.

  God, did he really think I’d hop in the car with him and go off on his ridiculous scheme?

  “Did you come all this way to take us back?” Lex asked skeptically. “Because you’ve got to realize that’s a terrible plan. We aren’t going to go with you.”

  Right, I was the one with the terrible plan.

  “How are you even going to find her?” I asked. “Are you idiots really just wandering around the state trying to follow your mating bond or whatever?”

  Jensen and Lex exchanged a glance.

  “What the fuck did you do?” I demanded.

  Jensen replaced the nozzle on the pump. “No offense, Rafe, but I figure we’re already pretty much expelled.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t stand that idea. I couldn’t imagine the two of them not being at the academy, and then, worse yet, not being on team after graduation.

  “He’s right,” Lex said. “We can’t make anything better at this point, and we’re not going to make things any worse.”

  “How did you get past the gate guards?” Jensen asked abruptly, right before his gaze locked on something behind me.

  “You definitely can make things even worse,” a familiar, polished voice said behind me, and I dropped my head forward into my hand, pressing my thumb and forefinger to the bridge of my nose. Holy shit.

  “You suck at running away from home,” I said, “Given that I was able to follow you.”

  And apparently, Clearborn had followed me. I hadn’t been as successful as I thought at talking my way past the gate guards.

  What a party.

  “I just wondered if you ratted on us,” Jensen said, his voice level, but there was a flare of anger in his eyes. Hurt, even, maybe.

  Clearborn stepped into the circle of light cast at the pumps. “The three of you have no clue what you’re doing. Maddie doesn’t need you to rescue her.”

  “She’s in trouble,” Jensen said, his voice sure.

  Clearborn threw up his hands, a flair of exasperation that we rarely saw. “Ms. Northsea is always in trouble. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed. But this time—”

  He broke off abruptly as a truck pulled into the pump across from us. He stared at it as if he knew the driver.

  I glanced between him and the truck, surprised by how suddenly Clearborn had shut down.

  “This time what?” Jensen demanded.

  Clearborn shook his head. “I’ll talk to you later. Get in the car. Make sure you aren’t followed, however long it takes, and meet me at the cemetery off exit fifteen. Highland city cemetery.”

  I frowned, but said, “All right.”

  As I turned toward my own car, Clearborn said, “Leave it. Ride with them. Now.”

  The three of us exchanged glances. Then the guys threw themselves into the car. I jerked open the rear passenger door and slid into the leather seat.

  Clearborn ran for his car.

  Lex swore as Jensen started the engine. I looked back behind me through the rear window.

  Just as Clearborn reached his car, four guys jumped out of the truck and moved toward Clearborn. He slid into the driver’s seat.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I demanded. It was the theme for the night, apparently.

  Then I saw the flash of the pistol one of the guys pulled from his jacket

  Clearborn gunned his car right for the guys, and they scattered.

  “Go, go, go,” Lex urged as Clearborn fishtailed through the parking lot, then turned onto the road.

  Jensen slammed down on the accelerator. He turned the other way down the road.

  The truck roared off in the opposite direction, chasing Clearborn’s tail lights.

  “Apparently his students aren’t the only ones who hate him,” Jensen observed with a remarkable lack of emotion. “What do you think he did to piss them off?”

  “Magic,” I said shortly. “That, and killing Garmond.”

  Lex snorted at the mention of Garmond. “The shit that makes me like Clearborn despite myself…”

  The one thing the three of us agreed on was that the world was a better place without Garmond.

  Jensen checked the rearview mirror. “He led them away from us.”

  “Turn around,” Lex said.

  He and Jensen exchanged a glance—god, that pissed me off, apparently the two of them were besties now—and then Jensen abruptly whipped the car around. We drove down the slope toward the drainage ditch, the tires bouncing, and stray branches scraped over the roof of the car.

  Then Jensen pressed down on the accelerator, and the three of us shot after Clearborn and his pursuers.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Maddie

  “We don’t have very long before Winter will expect us back,” Bennett said as the waitress of the truck stop we’d found walked away, “but by all means, order half the menu.”

  “Saving this girl’s ass makes me hungry,” Echo said off-handedly.

  I leaned back against the candy-red vinyl booth and raised my eyebrows at him. He was even more of an asshole for the benefit of other people, which was really saying something.

  “Funny, because I’m not the one who spent most of that fight unconscious in the fetal position,” I reminded him.

  His eyebrows arched. “Where you dropped me.”

  The light banter would’ve made me smile, except that Echo’s words made me remember when he sat up from what seemed like a dead sleep and, without any hesitation, shot Duncan through the head.

  I cleared my throat. “What did you want to talk to us about?”

  “I thought we could discuss why we’re all actually here.” Bennett said casually.

  Echo and I exchanged a quick glance. Before anyone could speak, the waitress came back.

  We were the only people in the diner, which felt eerie. The night outside seemed very dark, and the window reflected back all of us, sitting at the booth. Echo was beside me, his arm across the back of the booth, as if we were boyfriend-and-girlfriend.

  Bennett sat across from us, and he smiled up at the waitress as she set his steaming cup of coffee in front of him. “Thank you.”

  She set Echo’s glass of iced tea and my diet Coke in front of me, then headed for the back.

  “What are you talking about?” Echo demanded.

  “Can we skip the dancing?” Bennett asked, staring him down. “I’m from your world.”

  Echo nodded slowly. He brushed his fingers over my shoulder before resting his hands in his lap.

  Bennett smiled faintly. “Do you feel better with an assault spell worked under the table?”

  “If you’re going to talk like a crazy man? Sure.” Echo said.

  Bennett sighed. “I played the part of Maddie’s father. I’m the one who sent the enchanted bear to protect her. There was a hit out on her because some witches believe she’ll stop the rips and tear magic out of this world.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What?”

  Bennett looked at me blandly. “Which part do you have questions about?”

  “Why don’t you just tell your story from the beginning?” Echo said.

  “All right,” Bennett sai
d. “I’m one of the rebels from Silas’ world.”

  Silas stiffened faintly.

  “Yeah, I know your real name, Silas Adelphus Zip,” Bennett said. “And I know there’s a half-a-million dollar bounty on your head back home.”

  “Seems pretty cheap to me,” he said lightly.

  “You should expect mercenaries from our world to find you here,” Bennett warned.

  Silas waved his hand flippantly. “I’ll try to summon up some worry.”

  “You had better.” Bennett gave Silas a hard look before he went on. “I’ve been here for three years, working to heal the rips. Unlike certain upstarts who walked into the Day with a changed face and thought no one would see through their arrogant nonsense.”

  “It seems to have worked fine so far,” Silas shot back.

  “What do I have to do with the rips?” I asked. “I doubt you were watching over me out of the goodness of your heart.”

  Bennett shrugged. “Maybe I could be. But you’re right, you came up in the prophecy.”

  That damned prophecy again. “Do you think I could get my hands on a copy of this prophecy?”

  My gaze flickered to Silas pointedly. He’d stolen the last copy that I got my hands on. He shrugged one shoulder; clearly he wasn’t sorry. I had a feeling Echo never did sorry.

  “No,” Bennett said bluntly. “Anyway, just like there’s a bounty on Silas’ head, there’s a bounty on yours. There are spies at your academy, but they’re working with other covens. The Day would never lower themselves to partnering with the wolves.”

  “Who knew Winter-and-friends being condescending pricks would work in our favor?” I asked no one in particular.

  “They were going to kill you,” Bennett warned. “I haven’t been able to identify any more of the spies, besides Duncan and the other one… what was his name?”

  “Farro.” Silas supplied helpfully, and my stomach clenched.

  “Yeah. The bear didn’t get a chance to kill Duncan.” Bennett shook his head. “You’re not exactly easy on your own side.”

  “You can say that again,” Silas muttered.

  “Maybe my own side should tell me what’s going on sometimes,” I shot back. “Not that I’m convinced anyone is on my side. What’s in this prophecy?”