“That doesn’t count. He’s a…you know. Freak of nature. Ethan will be the first normal person to complete all five—”
I pushed off from the wall and hurried down the stairs. No way would Ethan be the first of anything. Somehow, I’d make sure of it.
The second my foot hit the ground floor, a huge gong reverberated through the floor and the walls, the sound pressurizing the air all around me. I paused, stricken, as the gong died away. Had I set off some alarm? The sound immediately repeated, and I realized it was issuing from the largest, loudest, most intense cuckoo clock I’d ever encountered. But no sooner had I realized that than I noticed a rhythmic tapping between each bong of the clock.
Footsteps.
I dashed behind a moving plant—though I wasn’t sure what had moved it—before slipping behind a couple chairs farther down the way. The footsteps drew closer, the sound distinguishable over the deafening chimes in a way I didn’t fully understand but greatly appreciated. The bottom half of a figure wearing tight black spandex came into view. A prominent hip suggested a female, and her wand stuck out from a cool leather holster with intricate stitching on it. Ethan needed to up his holster game.
The middle-aged woman who was clearly looking for delinquents started upstairs, footsteps increasing in speed. She’d probably heard the chatter of the other women in the hallway. Hopefully she had, at any rate.
As the lights around me dimmed, I popped out of my hiding place like a groundhog. Coast was clear, time to move.
Putting on speed and staying to the shadows, I turned a corner, intent on finding a back door. Loud shoe scuffling caught my attention as the hallway opened up. A muffled yell stopped my heart.
I slipped in beside a coat of arms that had clearly seen more polishing than an expensive car and peered around its arm.
Down the way, heading for a dimly lit double door leading out into the night, three figures dressed in dark clothes wrestled with a thin, bucking figure dressed in trial grays.
The expectation of danger flared up through me and adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. I couldn’t tell if that was Gregory from here, but whoever it was, they needed help.
Another muffled scream sent me out into the open.
“Help!” I yelled, sprinting down the corridor, hoping one of the security guards would hear me. If they cared so much about curfew, surely someone would be out enforcing it.
Two of the figures jerked, looking in my direction. One whipped out a wand as they neared the door. A blast of red zipped through the air, and I dove to the side, hitting one of those waving plants and sending it clattering across the floor.
“Wild! Help!”
My blood ran cold. I knew that voice. It was Gregory. They, whoever they were, were trying to take him.
“I’m coming,” I yelled, climbing quickly to my feet and dodging another blast of magic.
Hands slapped the long metal handles on the double-door, shoving them down and the door open. Gregory tried to rip his arms free and spin away, but he was too small and they were too many. They held him fast and marshaled him through, aiming another blast at me.
I jumped to the side, kicked the plant, and plowed into an armchair. The door swung shut, but I was up and running again.
A slip of black caught my notice up the way, like a shape ducking out of sight. I wished with everything in me that I had a wand to brandish and a spell to cast. As it was, I’d have to hope it was a trick of my eye and not another bad guy trying to stay out of sight.
I jumped over a fallen vase that couldn’t have been glass because it hadn’t so much as cracked—or, well, magic—and shoved at the door handles. Crisp night air greeted me. The cluster of people moved away right, struggling behind a grouping of trees. Disturbed branches waved as they passed.
Another burst of speed, using the span of my long legs, and I was hot on their tail.
“Wild!” I heard Gregory yell from beyond the trees.
“I’m coming. Someone, help!” I called, really needing a little backup. This was an emergency if ever there was one. “Help me!”
I was nearing the trees when more footfalls registered right behind me. I didn’t have time to look. I assumed someone had finally seen fit to answer me.
A solid, heavy mass hit me from behind. My front slammed into the ground and my face bounced off of the grass. The assailant landed on my left side, thankfully not center mass. Even still, the weight of solid muscle pushed the breath from my lungs. I gasped and threw an elbow back, hitting a hard slab of muscle. My attacker’s arms tightened around my chest, and suddenly he was up, deadlifting me as though I weighed absolutely nothing and running me over to another grouping of pine trees.
“No…way,” I ground out, and kicked behind me, trying to reach a shin. My foot sailed through dead air. I arched, punching back with my head, but barely managed to hit his shoulder. I spun and twisted, throwing my weight to loosen his grip. It did loosen, and I kicked again, but he’d already adjusted his hold, maneuvering me like a fussy baby, and handling me just as carefully.
His smell hit me like a Mack truck, even as branches thwapped my head. Warm spicy vanilla, pure comfort on a cold night.
My heart lodged in my throat, and I stilled for a moment. Sensing safety even though I’d just been tackled.
“Quiet now,” Rory said urgently, his lips to the shell of my ear. “Really quiet. This is a bad night for you to be out snooping.”
“But—”
His huge hand clamped down on my lips, muffling my protest.
“We have reason to suspect that the people being taken aren’t being killed,” he whispered, his hot breath dusting my face. “Your friend will be fine.”
I peeled his fingers away from my mouth. “Don’t you lie to me, Rory Wilson. What people?”
His sigh ruffled my hair. “Still able to see through my fibs, I see.”
“It’s not like it’s hard. You’re a horrible liar.”
“You’re the only one in the entire magical world who thinks so,” he murmured before scooting away from me, farther against the tree.
I leaned forward to resume my chase, but Rory was faster than I remembered, and he’d always been damned fast. He grabbed me around the middle and hauled me back before crossing his legs over my lap. He hugged me tightly with his arms, keeping me put.
“Wild, help!” Gregory’s shout was more distant, but the words were no less clear.
“Let. Go. Of. Me,” I said through clenched teeth. “So help me God—”
“Shhh!”
The sound, his tone, and the sudden tension in his body dried up my protest. A moment later, warning flared through me again, this one so brightly hot and blinding that I couldn’t think for wanting to run. Being stared down by a wolf, stalked by a mountain lion, kidnapped and tossed onto a magically enhanced chopper, even forced to endure the first two trials—nothing compared to the intense terror I felt in that moment.
Those other things had been dangerous, this was death incarnate. Someone was stalking us, and I knew this person was the reason I’d needed to take Billy’s place. He—somehow I knew it was a man—was the reason Tommy had died.
Now he was coming for me.
Chapter 10
Below me the ground was hard and cold, and around me were Rory’s arms—warm and solid, but neither of those helped ease the fear of knowing an assassin was only feet away and looking for me. “Easy, now,” Rory whispered, his words barely riding his breath like he was talking to a spooked horse. “Easy, Belle.”
Rory had made up his own nicknames for us when we were kids. I was Belle, the beautiful Maribel—his way of teasing me for the name I hated and for my appearance, which had never mattered to me. Tommy had been Tank, tough and stupid. Those names were Rory’s way of claiming us and pushing everyone else away. Only those he trusted implicitly got nicknames. Only Tommy and me.
History was a hard thing to eradicate. Rory had always been my shield when I needed one, my fist when my
own wasn’t strong enough, and my tormentor when I wanted to get stronger. He’d been my rock through turbulent times, just as I’d been his. I’d always trusted him as hard as he’d trusted me.
No matter how angry I wanted to be, history made me trust him now.
I relaxed in his arms and let my head fall back against his shoulder, awaiting further instructions.
“Good,” he said, just as softly. I could feel the fear in his words and knew instinctively that it wasn’t fear for himself, but for me. “Now curl up your legs, real slow. Nice and quiet.”
He lifted his legs to free mine, letting his thighs and calves hover in the air, a Pilates instructor’s dream. I did as he said, closing my eyes in an attempt to regain focus. To ignore my pounding heart and my sweating palms. The desire to throw him off and sprint toward the mansion.
“Good, just like that.” His volume dipped until I struggled to define the deep rumbling in his chest.
He lowered his legs back on top of mine.
“I’m not going to try to get away,” I whispered, tilting my head back until my lips grazed the stubble along his jaw. He tensed, his hold on me tightening.
“You may have raw talent, but I have two years of training on you.” His voice was strained. “I’ll keep you alive. You’ll get you dead.”
“Taking vocabulary lessons from the Sandman, I see,” I said beneath my breath, facing front again.
He must’ve heard because I felt his body shake with silent laughter.
The sense of warning outside the enclave of the tree sharpened, erasing any mirth until sweat coated my forehead. A presence lingered beyond the tree branches. I could feel it moving slowly out there. It was absolutely silent, which somehow made it worse. There were no footsteps this time. No swish of fabric. No padding of paws. No more cries from Gregory.
The night around us held its breath.
“Breathe deeply,” Rory whispered. His arm shifted, a slow movement, and his fingertips touched down on the pulse in my neck, throbbing away as fast as a rabbit’s feet. A strange little shock of electricity rolled through me, there and then gone. “Easy, Belle. Nice and easy. In just a moment, I’ll need you to control your breathing. Feel my body. Do what I do.”
I closed my eyes and sank into the strength and comfort surrounding me, feeling the slow rise and fall of Rory’s hard chest. His smell tickled my senses, reminding me of home. Of safety, and a million close calls we’d braved together. His breaths were long and slow, as though we were napping in a meadow and not hunkered down next to some homicidal, magical maniac.
I can do this. Calm the eff down, you idiot!
The tiniest of sounds interrupted my focus. My eyes snapped open. I spotted it immediately.
Beyond the reach of the pine branches brushing the ground, movement cut through the static plane. A black boot stepped into view, polished to a high shine. Absolutely no sound accompanied the movement, though it was less than twenty feet away.
An explosion of fresh fear pounded through my body. No one had to tell me—the ultimate predator stood just outside our easily pregnable stronghold. His stealth was incredible, and I knew his strength and speed would match it.
House of Shade.
The thought bleeped into my mind, unbidden. This wasn’t a student, either—this was a graduate, an expert. A killer.
And I knew without a shadow of a doubt he was stalking me.
My heart ramped up. My breathing turned shallow. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to master the panic and return my focus to Rory’s breathing, but only a fool turned a blind eye on a killer. I snapped my eyes open again in time to see the second shoe silently hit the grass.
There he paused. Listening.
Rory didn’t whisper now, and thank God for that. He simply tapped my throbbing pulse and brushed his lips against the shell of my ear.
Memories washed over me, flushing away the worst of the panic. Hiding from shop owners. Causing trouble in the town green and then hiding in the shrubbery as the out-of-shape sheriff tramped around bellowing our names. Cowering in Rory’s closet when his dad was on a drunken rampage. Rory had always shushed me in the same way: his lips against the shell of my ear, willing me, the younger, inexperienced troublemaker with a crooked angel’s halo, not to give us away.
Shhhhh. Calm down.
I shut my eyes again, and this time I kept them shut, feeling the looseness of Rory’s muscles around me. Energy coiled in his body, ready to be called into action, but he remained relaxed. I bet his heart rate was nice and slow. I doubted his shirt stuck to his back like mine did.
His lips pulled away a little in silent approval and I focused on my deep but silent breaths. Rory had always been good at stealth. At hiding and fighting. And, apparently, lying. He, too, was House of Shade. He clearly knew what he was up against, and if he thought he could hide us from it, I’d let him.
Sometimes history could save your life.
My eyes fluttered open as one of those black boots lifted off of the ground and turned in the air. It came back down softly. The other followed, until both toes were pointed right at us.
My breath caught. My heart ramped up again. Raw talent, my ass. I wasn’t cut out for this.
Rory’s fingers tapped the vein on my throat again. I wanted to slap his hand away. I wanted to grab the knife I’d stupidly left in the room. I wanted to throw a pinecone, anything.
The boots didn’t move. They didn’t even shift from side to side. How the hell could anyone stay so damn still? My whole body trembled.
Rory’s fingers drummed on my neck, slower than my heartbeat. Strangely, with sweat pouring down my brow, I fell into that rhythm. Felt the comfort of it. When my heartrate eased, Rory’s fingers slowed a little more. And a little more.
One of the boots lifted and it stepped to the side. The other followed. After a beat, the stalker side-stepped again. Then one more time. Down the way a little, the boots creased, the stalker probably bending forward. A moment later, they moved on.
Still Rory stayed firm, his arms not relenting, his fingers continuing their soft beat against my pulse point. Minutes passed, then more, until I lost track of time altogether. All I knew was his comfortable smell, reminding me of home, and the tap of his fingers against my throat.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity had passed, his chest rose in a deep, silent breath.
“We’re good,” he said, and his arms came away. His legs straightened and then bent off to the sides, leaving me ample room to crawl away. Cold rushed in to replace his warmth and I shivered.
“That was close, too close. You can’t be wandering around alone. Not anywhere, and especially not at night, do you understand?”
His voice stayed even and calm, but I still heard the fear buried deep beneath the words. It set me on edge all over again. Which turned into an anger I couldn’t control.
History also had a way of dredging up old wounds.
I pushed up onto my knees and spun to face him, flinging out my hand and slapping him across the face.
I hadn’t meant to do that last bit.
His striking green eyes, the color just visible this close, surveyed me silently.
“I’m sorry for not telling you where I was going,” he finally said.
I pulled back my hand to slap him again, but at the last moment he reached out and caught my wrist.
“You got the one, and I’ll say I deserved it,” he said, his eyes twinkling now. A little grin pulled at his full lips. “You have to earn the second.”
Rory always could take me from spitting mad to giggling in a second, but I wrestled the smile off my face before it got very far. I couldn’t let my guard down until I got to the bottom of this. I needed a real friend here. Someone I knew I could trust. I had to know if he was still that guy.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked
He shrugged with one broad shoulder, much more muscular than when I’d last seen him. “The letter I got said anyone I told would be in
danger. My mom said that they were a brutal organization and were entirely serious. She went to the academy when she was younger, too, with your mom. When I got the envelope was the first I’d heard of it. I said she could have most of the money, and she was gone so fast out of the house I didn’t hear much more about her past.” He shrugged, and suddenly his mom taking off made all kinds of sense. “Your dad and Tank hadn’t told you about the academy, and my mom said it was probably safer for you if you didn’t know. I didn’t want you to get hurt, Belle, honest. I was thinking of you, otherwise I never would’ve lied about something like that.”
My heart squished but we still had unfinished business.
“Fine. Then what about Tommy? You must’ve been there for that.” Tears blinded me, the pain still so raw. It had never healed, not even with time. “You didn’t come home for his funeral.” The last was an accusation. A plea to help me forgive him.
He reached forward to touch my knee, then pulled back at the last moment. I couldn't have said why. He dropped both hands between his legs, hunching his shoulders, the picture of a man defeated.
“I wasn’t there when Tank died, no. I should’ve been. I didn’t want to go to this lousy school. Any lousy school. I’d always planned to stay in Texas with you guys and help out with the farm. But when the recruiter told me that Tank was here, I came for him. To watch his back. I figured, if I had this skill, I should use it to protect my family…my real family…” He lifted his hands for a moment, then dropped them again. “This magic I have, Tank had it, too. If he did, I knew you surely would. I figured you’d be here in no time, lighting the place up like you always do. But…” He shook his head. “Tank kept a lot to himself. I didn’t know what kind of trouble was dogging his steps until it was too late. I came here to get his back, but when he needed me the most, I wasn't there. I wasn’t there.” Those last three words were spoken so softly I wasn’t sure he even knew he’d said them aloud.
His voice quavered and my heart broke for him. He blamed himself. Tommy had intentionally kept him in the dark, probably to keep him safe, but Rory still hated himself for not figuring it all out. His loyalty was like an oak: solid, strong, and with deep roots.
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