The man's brows tug together, and he falters. "He did."
"No, your friend had an accident. Don't you remember?"
"Wrong. There were vamps. A shifter...." The hunter's voice trails off into doubt. "I think."
My head aches as I channel the magic, the action sucking away my energy. "No. You didn't see anybody."
I'm aware of somebody beside me as Andrei stumbles and grabs the guy by the throat. "Forget everything you know," he says in a hoarse voice. "Listen to her."
The guy's eyes water as he tries to close them but can't. Blood cakes Andrei's ear—even injured, Andrei can use his power. I've underestimated how good these people are. "How many are with you?" asks Andrei.
"Just me and Adam."
"Tell Tobias," Andrei urges. "I'll deal with this."
The man's slack-jawed concentration on Andrei would've horrified me in the past, but I'm impressed.
And relieved.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. Go.” Andrei’s eyes remain on the compliant hunter.
With a nod, I walk to the stairs. The burgundy carpet is worn and muddy as I creep up.
Where are they? I peek into darkened bedrooms, unable to hear voices until I reach the opposite end of the hallway.
The door to a small room is open, inside piled with boxes as if used as a storage space. There’s a window with open curtains to my left and beneath it, Tobias stands over a guy lying on the floor, his foot on his chest and a gun in one hand.
The guy I saw in the pub.
My heart lurches into my mouth and I back into the hallway.
"Adam. Take the gun," Tobias says softly. "The guy downstairs? He's planning to kill you. Strike first."
Tobias knows his name. Did he deliberately let the hunter escape?
I continue to peek around the door as the glazed-eyed guy gazes back. Tobias squats beside him and turns the gun handle to allow him to take hold. "I need you to tell me who you're working for. Is it Ezra?”
The man examines the pistol in his hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. "Why does Lucas want to kill me?"
"He knows you're working with the Dominion."
"So is he!"
Holy crap. I grip the door handle.
“Lucas plans to kill you, Adam,” Tobias says, his voice mesmeric. “You need to kill him first.”
The man looks between the gun and Tobias. “Why would he?”
“Ezra told him to because you know too much.” Tobias curls his hand around the guy’s to ensure he keeps hold of the gun. “You can’t trust anybody but yourself in this job.”
Adam squints at Tobias. "I know your face."
"No, you don't know me."
He blinks down at the gun again, brow furrowed. "Maybe, I don't. I can’t believe that bastard is about to double-cross me."
Tobias tips his head. "You've had your suspicions, haven't you? Who've you seen Lucas talking to?"
His fingers shake around the gun handle. "Nobody. Not apart from Ezra. Ezra’s human, isn't he?"
“No.” Tobias whispers something. I can’t catch the whole conversation, but I swear I hear the words “kill yourself too.”
Shit. I need to leave.
Tobias looks up but not towards the doorway. "Maeve. Why don't you come inside?"
"Are you persuading this man to kill his friend?" I whisper in horror. "You can't. That's not why we're here. This is a field trip to teach mental magic."
I hold a palm to my forehead, momentarily aware how ridiculous that sounds.
"Where's Andrei?" asks Tobias.
"Wiping the other guy’s memory. Tobias, you can't do this."
I wish he'd turn around and meet my eyes. I want to see the truth inside them—that he's willing to break the supernatural law in this way. Doesn’t he care about the penalty?
"I'm not injuring anybody," he says softly.
“No, but you’re forcing him to kill someone against his will. Aren’t you?”
Adam looks up but doesn’t focus on me. He struggles to his feet. “Bastard,” he murmurs. “I’ll fucking kill him first.”
Adam moves towards me, gun in hand, and I freeze in horror as he tries to push by. “You can’t kill! It’s illegal,” I protest to Tobias.
“I’m not killing anybody,” he says, expression hard.
“Who are you, Tobias?” I ask hoarsely.
The man’s shoulder bumps me as he’s about to walk by and the reality someone else might die blinds and throws me into a new place.
I’m in a room, but I can’t figure out if I’m dreaming or not. There’s noise around me, but I can only hear one voice. A man’s voice, the one who told me my so-called friend will end my life. My body’s rigid with anger and I have a gun in my hand. Man, he’s going to regret double-crossing me.
I’m in this room, but I’m not Maeve.
My body jerks and I fling my arm to one side. I want to let go of the gun, but it’s as if the thing’s sealed to my palm. The urgent voice tells me to leave the room, now, quickly. Shoot Lucas. I hold my other hand to my head, trying to push the voice away.
No. Don’t. This is a different voice. A girl’s. Urgent, as if I’m talking to myself.
I lift the gun and stare at the barrel. What the fuck am I doing?
I’m yanked forward by an invisible force as I move towards the window. With the gun, I smash the glass and shards cut my skin. I don’t care. I need to let go of this gun.
I pause again. The same man’s voice. Telling me not to be stupid. Telling me I’ll die.
No, Tobias, I yell in my mind, hold my arm back and throw the gun as hard as I can through the broken glass. Someone uppercuts me and knocks my head backwards, and I fall to the floor as I black out.
My head spins and I snap my eyes open. I’m standing by the door again. Conscious.
The room is the same, but Adam now lies on the floor. He’s unconscious, one arm outstretched. His hand bleeds from lacerations, but the gun has gone.
I was him.
Adam.
Tobias is crouched beside Adam with his back to me. He places his palm on the guy's head before standing and turns back to me. Holding both hands to his temples, he mutters, “You stupid, stupid girl.”
His tone is soft and low, as if talking to himself.
I heave in a breath. I stopped this. I stopped two deaths tonight.
My power worked to stop Tobias and save a human life. Now what do I do?
"You were supposed to stay downstairs while Andrei showed you how to use mental magic. To practice in the field. That’s what a fucking field trip is."
I moisten my dry lips. "While you convince humans to kill each other?" I rasp out.
He moves towards me and I back up. The door slams shut. I'm trapped. Tobias may not have the bulk of some men, but I'm terrified what he could do to me after what I witnessed.
"Maeve. You weren't supposed to see this."
"I thought you’d kill the hunters yourself, but this is worse," I stammer.
"What do you mean?"
"I heard you on the phone. Somebody asked you to do this."
A dark shadow crosses Tobias's face. "You eavesdropped on my conversations?"
"Not deliberately."
He moves closer and my limbs weaken as his shadowed expression intensifies. "You shouldn't have done that."
I flinch as his hand cups my cheek, warm against my clammy skin. My chest aches, as my thumping heart slows and I continue to stare back at him.
Amelia's explanation from my first lesson in Mental Magic rings in my ears. He's a pneuma vamp and he's drawing my energy as readily as Andrei could take my blood. My chest hurts as if I’m losing breath, and the oxygen stops pumping to my brain.
"Tobias. Don't," I rasp out. "You’re hurting me."
"Maeve, you don't understand what's happening here. You can’t know."
Energy drains from my body into his fingertips and tears spring to my eyes. "Please. Don’t.”
Tobias cup
s my other cheek and tips my head upwards. He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs, eyes searching mine with a strange sadness in them. The soothing stroke flows through as if he’s running cold water over a burn.
"I don't have any choice. I have a chance to live a life I was denied, and I can't let you threaten that."
But with his words and touch come something else, not from the energy he's stealing or the pain he's taking away, but a flash of something deep in my mind.
I wanted my visions to return, but not like this. I see Tobias in a room with three men. A flag with a raven symbol hangs above their head as they sit together, talking. He sits upright. Terrified.
My eyes refocus on Tobias as his fingers dig into my cheeks. "What did you see?"
"Nothing, I—"
"Don't lie. You zoned out. You were somewhere else." His hands drop from my face and he slips a hand into the back of my hair, fingers stroking the nape of my neck. My head aches as he draws more from me. “Tell me.”
My mouth parts as his face moves closer to mine. Tobias isn't lamia. Is he? Because my body is alight at his touch, stomach liquifying at the thought his mouth could touch mine. The desire is overriding the terror.
Tobias’s breath ruffles my hair as he moves his mouth closer to my ear.
"I can't influence your thoughts, Maeve, but I can make you forget."
He slides his other hand into the small of my back, supporting me. If it weren't for the energy pulsing from my skin into his where our bodies touch, we could be lovers embracing.
Tobias supports me as the chattering voices in my mind lure me towards oblivion.
In the moment before the world blackens, I see Andrei standing in the doorway, blood streaking his ear and cheek, face drawn into an expression of horror.
Chapter Thirty-Six
MAEVE
I snap my eyes open. An unfamiliar tassled nightshade dangles above me and the burgundy material shades a single bulb. Moving to sit, I fail and fall back onto the bed. My muscles ache as if I ran a marathon, and my head pounds as if I’ve banged it against a wall.
A figure sits on a chair in the corner of the room and jumps to his feet when I mutter to myself. Andrei's face comes into view as he crosses the room.
"Maeve. Are you alright?"
I prop myself on my elbows and take in my surroundings. I'm in a semi-dark bedroom with sports posters on the wall and items neatly arranged on shelves.
"What happened?"
"You passed out when we were with the hunters." He reaches out to touch my hand and I look down in shock. "Do you remember?"
My memories are fractured. A car journey. A house. Tobias and Andrei. Hunters.
"No. Did somebody hurt me?" I hold my fingers against my aching temples.
"I hope not." Andrei's fingers curl around mine. What's strangest here? The fact he's holding my hand again, or that I'm in an unfamiliar bedroom.
The door opens and Ash's frame fills the doorways, blocking light from the hallway behind. "I heard voices."
"Maeve woke up." Andrei looks over his shoulder. "I think she's okay."
"She wants to know what's happening." I pull the covers from me. At least I'm only missing my shoes; thank god nobody undressed me. "What time is it?"
"Eight,” says Ash. “P.M.,”
"How? We left to find the hunters at eight. I'm pretty sure time travel isn't in anybody's magic arsenal."
Andrei chuckles and lets my hand go. “8.00 p.m.. on Sunday."
"I slept a whole day?"
Ash sits on the bed beside me. "Yeah. I didn't think hunters could do that to someone." He side glances Andrei.
"Don't look at me like that. I didn't do anything to her. Tobias would never let me."
Tobias. Why didn't he stop whatever happened?
"Where's Tobias?"
"In the pub downstairs. He's waiting for you to wake up so we can leave."
I stand unsteadily and Ash takes my arm. "Rest if you need to."
"Dude, Maeve slept all day. I think she's rested. We need to get back to the academy."
"Did we deal with the hunters?" I ask.
Andrei sucks on his bottom lip. “Yeah. I found one unconscious beside you, and Tobias helping. The other was downstairs, slumped in his chair after I blanked his mind.”
“They’re dealt with," says Ash. “They won’t remember us.”
Why can't I remember more?
"Good result, then," I say brightly. "Though I’ll lose marks for fainting."
Andrei walks to the door. "I think Tobias will be kinder than that." With those stiff words, he strides through and his footsteps thud on the stairs.
"Andrei's as weird as ever," I say to Ash and I'm interrupted as he seizes me in a bear hug. I gasp as he squashes air from my lungs.
"Damn, I thought you were badly hurt. I didn't know what to think when you wouldn’t wake up. Did you see anything when you were unconscious?"
His shifter heat warms my cheek, the arms around me as good as any blanket, and I resist the temptation to bury my face into his chest and inhale his comfort. I wouldn’t want to move.
"I'm fine," I say, voice muffled by his body.
He strokes my hair. "Magic attacks can be serious. Tobias told me he stopped the hunters’ magic, but wouldn't explain what they did. I'm pissed off that Tobias didn't keep a closer eye on you."
"I'm sure he stopped something worse happening." I shift away to look into Ash’s face.
Ash strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. "If anybody hurt you, they'd be fucking sorry."
His breath comes quicker, face flushed, and I believe him. "But not anything that would get you into serious trouble," I warn him. “How do you feel after...what happened to you.”
“Fine. I’ll be fine,” he says as if to himself. “The only change was my eyes, and then I snapped back to normal. No shift happened.”
“But next time?” I whisper.
He takes my hand between his. “There won’t be a next time. I’ll focus more on the meditation now I know the risks. Keep away from situations that upset me.”
“Please do. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I feel the same, Maeve. It would kill me if somebody hurt you.”
My shortness of breath matches Ash’s, but for a different reason. I'm safe with Ash; I've always sensed this. He hides from me, but that his affection for me is clear in this moment.
His eyes drop to my mouth and I kick myself for looking away. I'm not in the right frame of mind for intense situations.
I don't have the energy, for a start.
"I’ll find out exactly what happened to you," he says and gently moves my face, so I have to look at him. "Nobody gets to hurt you. Ever."
"I'm glad I have a shifter on my side."
He takes a deep breath. "Yeah, if anybody hurts you, they'll have a fucking dragon to deal with. Soon."
“Dragon,” I say and reach out to him. “This is all a million miles away from my old life."
A distance that grows daily.
Tobias sits at a table in the empty pub, with Andrei opposite. They break their intense conversation as Tobias looks over when we enter the room, but he doesn't speak.
"Let's go," says Andrei and stands abruptly. "I'm sick of this place."
Tobias runs two fingers across his lips and watches me. "How are you feeling, Maeve?"
"Confused. Aching."
"Perhaps we can explain what happened to Maeve later, Tobias." Andrei's voice and expression are harsh, bordering on insolent.
"Sometimes encounters are best forgotten." Tobias’s lips thin into a hard line. "As you know, Andrei."
Andrei drops his eyes, but his annoyance doesn't leave.
"We can discuss events further once we return to the academy." Tobias gestures at the bag in my hand. "If we're all packed, we should go."
I watch Tobias. Why isn't he looking at me? Did I screw up and he had to help? I need to remember.
I follow Ash and An
drei into the frosty night and to the car. Andrei climbs into the backseat, and I walk around to hand my bag to Tobias.
"I'm happy to hear you’re feeling okay," he says softly as he pushes the bag into the boot. "I was worried about you after the hunter attacked."
Something behind the vampire’s expression sends a chill through me.
He and Andrei were there, and they’re both evasive. “What happened?”
Tobias closes the boot. “You’re safe.”
I won't drop the subject until one of them tells me what happened to make me feel like crap and sleep for hours.
Because I don’t think a hunter can do that.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
MAEVE
I wake the following morning, exhausted. I shouldn’t be, after sleeping almost a whole day and then another night. On the way back to the academy, I voiced my concerns that hunters used magic on me—nobody knows. Tobias suspects that’s what happened; Andrei says nothing.
Neither he nor Andrei spoke much on the journey home, and I was happy for Ash’s company and concern.
Tobias was keen to leave us all once we returned to the academy. He agreed to report findings to Theodora straightaway, including my ‘accident’. Andrei slunk back to Petrescu with Tobias. I’m not dumb—he knows something and he’s avoiding me.
Jamie waited up for us in the Walcott common room. I’m surprised he didn’t ask more questions—he seemed preoccupied. Is he still annoyed we went without him? Or worrying about his assignments again? Amelia fussed over us, wanting all the details. She pursed her lips when Ash explained what happened to me and grilled me about the situation.
I wish I could remember.
The next evening, I’m feeling closer to normal, but haven't seen any other professors to talk to. Has Tobias spoken to anybody yet? I’m put out that he hasn't checked on me, but now we’re back at the academy he’s no doubt back to his aloof self.
I’ve lessons and my head is still fuzzy after yesterday. I expect Andrei to avoid me, as usual, but he’s outside the cafeteria when I leave after dinner.
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