by Elena Lawson
Adrian shook his head. “No. It’s fair warning.”
17
Harper
They were gone within seconds, first walking back the way they’d come through the darkened forest, and then the sound of a howl broke the eerie quiet, and we knew they’d shifted and would be miles away in only a few moments. Shifters were fast.
“Come on, we should go before it gets too dark,” Elias said, holding out his arm for me. I took it gratefully, knowing that in the blinding glare of the sun just before twilight, I’d be tripping on every rock and tree branch.
I thought he might scold me for standing up to the Endurans like he had when he found out I’d followed them into the woods. But he didn’t. He remained strangely quiet and thoughtful, his jaw flexing and relaxing and flexing again.
What was going on in that beautiful head of his?
“Have you found out anything more about my dad?” I asked, suddenly remembering I’d asked him to look into it. “I mean, I know it’s only been a day, but...”
He hummed low in his throat, the faraway look in his eyes sharpening into focus. “Oh, right. Yeah. I did, sort of. Don’t get excited,” he said, and I tried to tamper down the rush of blood in my ears and the pounding of my pulse. “I wasn’t able to learn much, but that’s where I was last night. I left to make some inquiries.”
So, that was why he never showed up. I’d have been lying if I said I hadn’t thought of him in my pain and fever addled stupor. That I hadn’t wished for him to come and be at my side. Hoped maybe just the sight of him might ease some of the pain, or whatever magic his touch held would soothe mine.
“What did you learn?”
He held a branch away from us as we stepped over a thick, moss covered trunk and grasped my hand tightly to make sure I stayed upright. “Well, he was a...” He hesitated before he spoke again, his voice apologetic and strained. “A figurehead of sorts. In the group of witches who want to reveal themselves to the humans. The radical group, Manifesto.”
They had a name for themselves? I wondered how many of them there were. But the more alarming thought running and stumbling through my mind was the thought that my father was a radical in a group whose aim was to reveal witch-kind to humans. To reveal all the races to them, if I wasn’t mistaken.
It seemed odd, but I thought perhaps that was only because I believed the exact opposite. I didn’t agree with him, even though I wanted to.
Humans could not be trusted.
Humans were dangerous.
Hadn’t history proven that time and time again? The fear of the unknown drove them to do horrible things. If something like a story in an old book could rally them to war, what would they do if they thought monsters lived among them? It would be chaos.
But Alistair had been in love with a human woman. Was love really enough to drive him to something so extreme?
“Are you sure?” I asked Elias, trying to roll the idea around more in my head. To make it make more sense to me.
He frowned. “I am. He even petitioned for a seat on the council, to give Manifesto a voice where it mattered, but he never got it. He died before they even had a chance to formally review his request.”
“Well, do you know what happened to him?” I stopped, pulling Elias to a stop with me.
There was an apology written in the fine-print of his stare as he closed his other hand over mine. “I can’t be sure. It’s all hearsay.” He hesitated, trying to dance around telling me what he’d heard.
I didn’t care if he thought whatever it was wasn’t worth repeating. I wanted to hear it. “Just tell me.”
He removed his hand from mine and a chill snaked up my arm. The twilight brought with it an icy breeze that had me shivering. “From the sounds of it, the majority of people seem to believe he was murdered.”
I wanted to say I was shocked. In total dismay of his words. But they only solidified a suspicion that had been slowly growing in my mind since overhearing the Magistrate and Headmaster Sterling.
Something awful had happened to my dad. He was stolen away from me before I even had the chance to know him and I wanted to know why. “For his beliefs? Who would do that?”
“Who knows,” he replied. “The Manifesto group is large and constantly growing, and cutting off its head would only be a temporary solution. I don’t really see the sense in it if that was the case. Sorry to be blunt. But then again, I suppose it could have been anyone who didn’t agree with his views. We may never know.”
But I knew who I thought it was. Or at least, someone who knew something more about it. Sterling. I would just need to find out for myself and prove it. Whoever murdered my father wouldn’t go unpunished forever. One way or another, I’d find out what really happened. And why.
I tucked my hair away from my face, kicking at the ground. “That’s okay. I just wish I knew more,” I said innocently, offering him a wan smile. There was no need to involve him any more than I already had. If there was foul play at work here, I didn’t want him digging into dark corners he couldn’t dig himself out of. “Thanks for looking into it.”
“Of course.”
We resumed walking through the trees in silence. My mind was racing. I was second-guessing myself. Questioning everything I’d learned. Leo used to tell me my curious nature and sharp mind would get me into the most trouble someday, if I didn’t fall down a manhole first.
But before I started asking questions and doing some digging of my own, I had to be certain. And I had to be willing to accept the consequences. If whatever this was went as high up as the Magistrate, at the very tippity top of the witchy food chain, then I could be in for some very serious shit.
The uncertainty and anger roiled and churned the magic within me. I couldn’t stop the surge of the earth’s energy from rushing into me, but it wasn’t wild like in New Orleans. This much, I could tamper on my own. Keep it at a consistently rolling boil that wouldn’t spill over. It wasn’t without some effort, though.
Good thing I was used to it.
I could make out the place where the woods ended, and the academy grounds began a little ways ahead.
Elias squeezed my hand, and I gasped as he pulled me back from leaving the cover of the trees. I looked to where my hand was still wrapped tightly in his. The contact was soothing and warm and exciting all at the same time. And then I glanced up and was floored at the rugged beauty of his face in the shadows.
Why was he looking at me like that?
“You really are extraordinary,” he breathed. “I can feel the raw power coming off of you in waves.” He paused, and the way his teeth ran over his bottom lip turned my knees to Jell-O. “I can’t explain why, but it calls to my magic.”
I gasped. So, it wasn’t just me.
He did feel it, too! The bastard, making me doubt myself.
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic—or was it going to be witty? I couldn’t remember because one minute he was an arms length away and the next I had the divine pleasure of watching his resolve snap.
Before I could blink, he’d pulled me to him, our bodies colliding only a millisecond before our lips.
His fingers traveled up my arm to cup the back of my head, tilting my head up while he pulled me against him. I softened at his gentle caress, an exquisite ache forming behind my breastbone and some place deeper, more primal.
A small moan liberated itself from my chest, and my arms wrapped around him, hungry fingers tugging at his leather jacket to keep him close. His spice and pine scent was downright intoxicating, and I couldn’t get enough of him.
“Elias,” I whispered. He jolted, whimpering as though in pain before he pulled away, but only far enough to rest his forehead against mine. Our heaving, broken breaths mingled in the cool mountain air. My fingers still clutched the back of his jacket. I didn’t want to ever let go.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he said between breaths in a whisper-soft voice, letting loose a throaty nervous laugh. “I’m s
orry if I—”
“Shhh,” I said, pressing my thumb to his lips, fingertips tracing the hard line of his jaw. He shivered. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
But the moment I said it, I felt his spine go rigid where my right hand still held a fistful of leather at his back. I watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat, and a crease form in his forehead. Why hadn’t I just kept my damn mouth shut?
18
Elias
I. Am. Fucked.
Hot water sloshed dangerously as I yanked the kettle from the fire.
My skin tingled, my magic rising to the surface every time I thought of the unplanned rendezvous with Harper the previous evening. In all my years of study, I’d never read about reactions like the one I experienced when I was near her. Amidst all the books on familiars scattered about the cottage were a few I’d hoped to get other answers out of.
Namely, why my magic instinctively reached for hers when we were close.
It was an old wives’ tale. One of those things alchemist mothers told their alchemist daughters in romantic bedtime stories. Telling them they would know when they found the one. That their magic would call to another’s so strongly that the connection couldn’t be denied.
A fucking bedtime story. Not real. It wasn’t based in science. Not documented in text.
Not. Real.
And yet it was. More real than any human connection I’d ever had, even if there had been few.
Unfortunately for Harper and I both, I wasn’t the only magnet attracted to the iron in her soul...
I needed to find a way to break the bond between her and those damned Endurans. There was no mistaking how they’d looked at her, despite how much attitude they flaunted to cover it up. The bond wasn’t meant for people, even ones that could shift into animals, and it seemed like it might be affecting them differently.
I snorted as I poured the boiling water into the mug on the busy table, spilling some over the side. If it hadn’t been Harper this was all happening to, I knew I’d be otherwise fascinated from an evolutionary standpoint. I wanted to know how it was possible, what was different about her—and I was positive it was her rather than them, though it was possible their genetics may have also played a role.
Sipping at the scalding Earl Grey, I let the burn both wake and soothe me as I flipped another book open.
I was afraid to tell Harper that I didn’t think her newly forged familiar bond could be broken at all. Even the more unscrupulous witches I’d contacted had no ideas on where to start. On more than one occasion, I’d debated hunting down the Endurans and finding some way to negotiate on her behalf that didn’t end in her blood being spilled.
The thought sent a chill skittering down my spine despite the hot tea in my hands.
Maybe I would still take to the woods if the rest of these books turned up nothing. I glanced at one text in particular on sigils. While I was better than good with spells I knew, I wasn’t confident in the possibility of creating an entirely new one without blowing one or both of us up. Granger was the academy’s resident expert on sigils, but I had my doubts that even she could do something like that.
Entirely new sigils hadn’t been created in centuries. At least none that would require magic as potent as what would be needed to sever a witch familiar bond.
The report Sterling had sent out the previous evening peeked out from beneath the tome I was skimming, making me grimace through my next sip of tea. After I’d left Harper, it’d been waiting for me in the cottage. A report on Friday night’s freak storm and a certain student’s unstable magic. I wished I’d gotten it earlier so I could ask her about it, ask if she was okay. I remembered her rubbing her head before she left my cottage that night. I should have sensed something was off.
Slamming the book shut with a thump, I carried my mug to the sink, drained the last of the tea, then set about getting ready for the day. Sunday was as good a day as any to go out and find some answers for her that these useless texts weren’t giving me. The wolves had given us a week and I had no doubt they’d be counting down the days.
There was someone I needed to see, and it was looking less and less like I had a choice.
Campus was quiet with most of the students still at home for the weekend. My footsteps were unusually loud in the halls as I headed for the portal rooms, dread following like a black cloud in my wake. I tried to focus on the questions I needed to ask, the answers I was hoping for, but I could already sense the direction the encounter was going to go.
The Arcane Council building was enormous and as equally empty as the academy had been, but I knew she would be there. The lower floors were reserved for the Arcane Authorities and resembled something like a human police station. The exposed desks and counters were littered with stacks of paper and only one person could be seen working at a desk in the back corner. I continued past them all and into a hallway with several closed doors, stopping in front of one.
“Come in,” a female voice said just as I’d lifted my hand to knock.
I sighed at her gruff tone and opened the door. “How’d you know?”
Cecily smirked and tapped her temple. “I could feel you thinking about me all the way from that god-awful place.” She grinned and chuckled, gesturing to my feet. “I saw the shadow under the door. I didn’t actually know it was you. How’ve you been, Elias?”
She sat behind a large wooden desk covered in just as much paperwork as any of the ones I’d just passed, though hers a bit more orderly. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a simple ponytail and she wore a sharp grey suit that only hinted at the curves I remembered from our academy days. The scar on her jaw would’ve been invisible now to anyone who didn’t know to look for it.
“Well, I think,” I replied, easing down into one of the chairs in front of her desk. “You remember what the place was like. It hasn’t changed much since our time.”
Aqua blue eyes pierced me with a stare as she propped her chin in her hand, looking more casual than I’d ever seen her. “Neither have you. So what brings you all the way over here on your day off, hmm?”
This was where I needed to tread lightly. I shrugged, trying to seem put-out, which wasn’t that difficult given the circumstances. “Several things, actually. Research for a couple unrelated projects and one personal favor for a… uh, student.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “A favor for a student?” she asked skeptically.
“She’s an orphan,” I explained, “and has no other family, so no way to leave the campus and no one to contact. I’m throwing some lines out on her behalf, hoping to help her out.”
Cecily hummed and sat up, folding her hands on the desk. “What is she looking for, exactly?”
“Information on her father, Alistair Hawkins.”
Her whole body froze statue-still. “That’s the third time I’ve heard that name in as many days. But it’s the first time I’m hearing he had a kid.”
I frowned. I’d known Granger had been looking into him on Harper’s behalf, and we’d overheard Sterling in the hallway the other night, but the fact that Cecily had been hearing it in the Council building was strange. Was Harper’s appearance really stirring up so much talk?
“One of the other professors was looking into a possible inheritance,” I admitted. “An old friend of his, apparently, but Harp--the student asked me to look into his death. I couldn’t find much about it besides rumors and hearsay.”
“I hate to tell you, but that’s all there really is.” She slid a drawer open and pulled a folder out. “I started looking into it myself after the second mention. Coroner came up with nothing suspicious, but his association with Manifesto made him a prime target. That’s all I got, though.”
Nodding, I sat back in my chair. “Yeah, that’s about all I’d heard, too.”
Plopping the folder back in the drawer, she forced another pleasant smile on her face. “You said you had research questions, too?”
“Yeah, if you have the time.”
Her smile warmed. “I’ve always got time for you, Elias.”
Ignoring the attempt to flirt, I cleared my throat. “Do you have any records of Enduran packs near the academy grounds?”
She blinked and straightened in her chair. “I’ll admit, that’s not where I thought you were going with this.”
“We’ve heard wolves in the mountains.” I leaned forward, the hard wood digging into my elbows. “I’m mostly just curious. I don’t think they’ll harm the students, but I couldn’t recall any packs having settled nearby and some of the kids were a bit unsettled.”
If anyone knew about the location of Adrian and Cal’s pack, it would be Cecily. She was a supervisor in the Arcane Authorities’ Cooperative Affairs Department, which handled any cases that involved the shifters and vampires. One of the reasons we’d gotten along so well in school was our interest in the other races, though our chosen career paths were also one of the reasons we’d broken off a semi-serious relationship.
Due to the paranoid and mostly hostile nature of the Arcane Council, I wasn’t as willing as she had been to jump into bed with them, and she’d mocked my choice to be a teacher at the academy after the hell we’d endured there for being sympathizers. I could admit now, though, that having someone like her might improve relations with the other races if they’d ever let her loose. The Council was terrified of the idea of a woman with power.
She tugged a file loose from the cabinet she’d been rifling through and sat down, flipping through pages and mumbling to herself. “There are a few in the state, but none that we’re aware of anywhere near the school. Are you sure it’s Endurans?”
“Haven’t been wild wolves in West Virginia in over a hundred years.” I shrugged. “What else could it be? Maybe a new pack sniffing around, you think?”
Cecily scrunched her nose. “Not likely, not so close to the school. I can look into it, if you want.”
