by Riley Archer
A hint of mischief barely crossed pretend-David’s face. It was the only hint Damian was really in there—he’d slipped into an uptight skin as seamlessly as a shapeshifter.
Because bonus—shapeshifters really exist. I’d learned in my incredibly tedious Customs class that law-abiding shapeshifters were required to register their skins and allow an inquirer to drop saltwater on their forearm; if the subject was a shapeshifter in action, the wetted skin would momentarily flash green.
And if the doused person-creature wasn’t a shifter, no big deal; it was just a little water.
I wondered what shady jobs those fellas got assigned. During that lesson, I had made a mental note to carry saline injections with me at all times.
Damian pulled my attention back to him. “I do, Miss Kennicot. Would you appreciate a demonstration?”
Did he just say what I think he said? From the snickers around me, it seemed he had.
A person with more sense than me might’ve blushed. Instead, I slapped my wrists together and stuck them out.
“I would love a demonstration. Is this going to be a Houdini type thing, or …?”
Damian dangled the shackles in invitation. All eyes were on me as I joined him at the front of the class.
He tossed the cuffs at me; they were smooth and surprisingly light. The metal had an expensive feel to it, like cashmere in place of cotton. Damian pointed at them. “Get me in these, and you can keep them.”
“Can I get you in those, Professor?” someone called out from the back. Chuckles bounced across the room. I slid my bottom lip between my teeth to keep from smiling.
But I wasn’t just tickled by the schoolboy with a crush. I was imagining Damian begging me to release him from whatever dire position I’d trapped him in. It was thrilling.
I tinkered with the enchanted metal. The thick rings opened and closed like magnets; they didn’t seem all that difficult to slip out of, but all I had to do was clip him. He expected me to play his little game right this instant, probably to demonstrate some stealthy move to the class, but I wasn’t feeling very complicit.
I slid both shackles on my wrist like chunky bracelets and moved back toward my desk. My classmates booed. I swiveled back around like I was about to pounce, and Damian’s only reaction was a small twitch in his neck.
“What?” I said at everyone’s gawks. I recanted one of the mantras from our Customs class: “Every detail matters. Professor hotpants up here didn’t say when to cuff him. Maybe next time he’ll be more specific.”
Damian tried his best not to roll his eyes. He wanted to though, I could feel it in my bones.
Well, he probably had something more violent in mind, which was all the more pleasing.
Before I left class, I pointed from my eyes to his as if to say, I’ll be watching you.
I made good on my threat to watch him.
Stalking him was the most entertaining thing I’d done in days, even if I kept catching glimpses of the mysteriously silent Mari in shadowed corners. I’d have hissed at her if it wouldn’t have given me away. I was determined not to tip him off, weaving through students when possible, slipping into shadows like silk, and walking light as a mouse.
Mouse was probably a bad comparison when a kitty cat was haunting me, but whatever. My nerves thrummed for action.
My prey gave an evasive smile to a young woman who tried to wave him down.
Sure, Damian could mimic his brother’s mannerisms without a hitch, but it was a lot harder to fake relationships … unless his brother was also unforgivably antisocial. If so, maybe he and Damian had more in common than just their facial features.
But twin reapers? I wondered if they’d died together in some freak accident.
It was a good question to ask a soon-to-be-prisoner.
I pressed myself flat against a rough stone wall while I waited for Damian to turn down a corridor, and then I continued my loose pursuit. I had one hand in the book bag, ready to pull out the enchanted cuffs at a moment’s notice.
Ten minutes and a maze of hallways later, impatience seized my chest.
Where the hell is he going?
Actual hell by the look of it. We’d wandered into the decrepit deep of the castle. Which meant he’d either figured out I was following him, or this was getting a lot more interesting.
Damian turned again and I gave it a second before peeking around the corner. He stood flush with the stone wall, knocking on random bricks like a timid trick-or-treater. Then, he pushed a brick inward and a door-shaped section in the stone pushed outward.
Well, well, well. That was an unconventional doorknob.
When he passed through and closed his secret door behind him, I cracked my neck and counted.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three … okay, time’s up.
I checked my six, saw the fluffy flick of a ghostly tail in the distance, rolled my eyes, and pushed forward. I pressed along the line of cold bricks until one wobbled. Ah-hah. There it was.
I pressed it again; it went in slightly before popping back out. Mild irritation scratched at me. Damian made it look as easy as clicking a pen, that deceptively lanky bastard. I pushed the brick with my knuckles this time, holding the pressure until I heard a clack. Satisfaction broadened my shoulders.
Wearing my best evil grin, I unsheathed the cuffs and plunged into darkness.
I closed the inconspicuous door behind me, which was easy since this side of it had a handle. Then, I inched down a wobbly stone stairwell, careful not to make too much noise. Faint torchlight glowed from a distance below. I had breached a basement of some sort.
I’d once again stepped into a horror movie scene.
Because if Damian ever wanted to murder me, this was the place to do it. Eerie, discreet, and cold enough to slow the decomposition process. The stench of my body wouldn’t reach the halls of the living for weeks. And that was if the Abyss didn’t come to claim me.
Chills swept along my skin the closer I got to the freezer of a floor.
When I reached the bottom, I glimpsed out into a wide cavern. Other than pillars keeping the building from crashing down, it was wide open.
Damian stood behind one such pillar, peering out at a small fire that crackled from a distance. Half a dozen or so people circled it, positioned on the floor like they were playing a game of spin the bottle. The kissing part would be hard considering they wore long robes that covered their faces. All in all, it was incredibly cultish. But I was pretty sure I spotted bottles of beer.
I had what I thought of as an understandable aversion to clubs of all sorts by now, but I’d take a creepy robe and stare at flames for a cold—
Wait, where did Damian go?
My spidey senses kicked into high gear.
Right as he attacked, I dropped my bag, pivoted, and flung to my back in the same motion, keeping a firm hold on the cuffs. I swept my foot under his, which caught him off guard enough that he tripped forward.
Instead of losing control by stumbling away, he forcefully pitched over me.
Time slowed for a brief moment as we both held our breaths. In the dim light, our eyes found each other and locked. When I finally inhaled, the air came with a clean, boyish scent and I got goosebumps. Because it’s cold down here. I tried not to think of how good the weight of his body felt on mine.
He thought he had me pinned.
Okay, he did have me pinned, but I fully planned on getting out of it. I slapped a cuff around one of his wrists, which was perfectly perched right next to my head.
“Chill out,” he said in an angry whisper.
I put my lips to his ear, vaguely aware of how nice he smelled. “How can I when you’re playing rough?”
“I’m not playing—”
I gripped his cuffed arm and yanked it down. Before he could squirm out of my grasp, I draped a leg over his and pushed, flipping him like a pancake.
The downside to getting him to the ground was that I lost control of the other cuff. And I knew
for sure that I’d lost control of it because it was now clamped onto one of my wrists.
Shit.
As punishment, I squeezed my thighs into his sides; instead of crumpling in pain, he pulled me close and rendered me useless.
His breath tickled my ear. “Idiot.”
I pulled back a smidgen. “Creep.”
“I’m looking into something that could help us both, and your dumb antics probably just exposed us.” His whisper brimmed with malice.
I pulled back harder. “You were about to knock me out!”
“No, I was about to clamp your mouth shut because you clearly can’t do it yourself.”
He wanted to clamp, huh? I pushed my knees in hard enough to punch the breath out of his lungs. Then, he shifted in a way that made it clear he was going to topple me like a watermelon, so I lifted my weight and held my hands up in surrender—well, my hand up in surrender. The other was being pulled between us in a round of tug-o-war.
The diameter around my wrist had shrunken to an uncomfortable snugness. I supposed small hands had no advantage here.
“Fine. Truce,” I whispered. For now.
Damian frowned as we maneuvered to our feet, his attention darting between me and the metal linking us together. “This has to be one of my worst nightmares.”
A smile stretched across my face. “I knew you had dreams about me.”
Damian shook his head in yielding annoyance. I followed his gaze to the robed circle. Their heads were still down as if they were praying in a temple.
“If we’re lucky, we didn’t disturb them.”
“Maybe I want to disturb them.” I marched in their direction, but I didn’t even get a foot away before the pressure on my wrist halted me.
Damian tilted his head, pleasure teasing his wicked lips. “Regretting your decisions now?”
I met his eye, which was easier now that he’d been grooming his hair professor-style. “Absolutely not. This was exactly what I intended to happen.”
He blinked with disbelief. “You wanted to bind yourself to me?”
“No,” I scoffed. “I wanted to bind you to me. And … force you to tell me your secrets.”
“What secrets?”
I poked his shoulder with my free pointer finger and stepped in close. “I’m not stupid, Professor. You’re no ordinary rogue.”
I thought I saw panic fill the shadowed crevices of his beautifully structured face, but it was gone before I could relish it.
“We need to go.” Damian dragged me back toward the stairwell. “Before they become lucid.”
“That’s lovely, but can you unclip me?” He was tugging me hard enough to leave a mark. It wasn’t horribly unpleasant, but I wanted no part in Damian’s kinks.
“I’d release you into the Abyss if I could, Ellis, but these aren’t ordinary cuffs.”
“You’re sweet.” By that, I meant he was rotten. I wanted to trip him, but if he tumbled, so would I. Karma was a witch.
“Do you see a keyhole on these? I’m stuck with you until I get the unbinding spell from my office.”
“A spell?” I stomped up the stairs behind him. “David Forrester. Does that mean you’re a magical abomination like me?”
“What?” Damian grumbled.
I cleared my throat and put on my best English accent. “Are you a wizard, Harry?”
In the dusty shadows, Damian rubbed his temple with his free hand. “I don’t need magic to use the spell because the cuffs have magic embedded in them. There’s an entire department in AA dedicated to creating magically infused artifacts, which are obscenely expensive.”
The mischievous part of my brain grabbed up that piece of information and filed it away. “Okay. So, you need a spell. Wouldn’t you have something like that memorized?”
Damian looked both ways before pulling us through the sneaky doorway.
“I wasn’t planning on actually letting you cuff me. I intended to demonstrate an evasive maneuver in class, but then you took the cuffs hostage. While I would be inclined to snatch them back from you, David would just stare stupidly and not know what to do.”
Sounded like David was a big ole softy, but that wasn’t my concern.
“First of all, I didn’t take them hostage. Second of all, you didn’t let me—”
Then, Damian shoved me inside another hidden compartment in a wall.
8
The Talented Mistress
Damian was embarrassed that I’d snagged him, so we took a million hidden passageways to get to his office. Or rather, his brother’s office.
Whether his brother worked here or not, it was curious how well Damian knew the campus. The dank corridors weren’t exactly on the map nor were they easy to navigate.
Damian had hacked his brother’s life, not his brain. Which meant … at some point, Damian must’ve been a student here. There was no other explanation. If this place had yearbooks, I needed them pronto.
Before I could get too hung up on it, Damian told me he believed the immobile students were part of some group called the Illusionists.
“The what-a-what?”
His voice got lower, even though we were still traveling inside the walls. “The staple elitist organization on campus. The kind people don’t talk about. You need an invitation to join them, do their initiation rituals, yada yada.” He also explained that in true corrupt corporation fashion, their alumni infiltrated the highest tiers of Reaper Collective; membership was an invisible stamp of approval on a reaper’s resume.
These hidden hallways were too narrow for my liking.
“It’s a ducking secret society, isn’t it?” The kind that wore robes and meditated in underground tunnels. “I knew I was getting cult vibes.”
“Their meeting place is usually somewhere inconspicuous so they can illegally astral project without getting caught. Their sponsor is almost always a staff member.”
“Hmm. Is it you? Or do you have some other mole-ish reason to be sneaking around?”
Damian grimaced as he unlocked a random keyhole and pushed.
Looky there, another secret door. I made a mental note to check my dorm-cupboard for a hidden entrance.
When the room was wide open, its sophisticated ambiance stunned me for a moment. I elbowed Damian when he dragged me inside, but I continued to scan my surroundings.
A large Victorian desk lined one side of the maroon and earth-toned haven, and a king-sized bed filled the other. This wasn’t an office. It was a fantasy suite.
A lush comforter inside a swanky New York City apartment flashed across my vision; Atlas was many things (lord knew I had a plethora of nasty nicknames for him), but the evildoer knew how to pick out amenities.
A heavy sigh ended my moment of silence. My living situation had drastically changed.
“What’s it like to sleep like a king instead of a pretzel?”
“Fantastic.” Damian sat his pampered butt in the spacious chair behind the desk. He started rummaging through a drawer. He opened a worn, creased leather journal, scanned a page, and then put it back. “Don’t pout yet. Anyway, we have a mole to unearth, dark princess.”
“Yeah?” I crossed the lone arm I had control of.
Damian squared up with me, still in the chair. “Yep. Hold on a sec.” He whispered something against the cuffs, so hushed and foreign I couldn’t follow. The metal on my wrist warmed.
I pointed an ear at him. “What was that?”
Damian responded with a slight shake of his head, then mumbled another inaudible phrase.
I pouted. “Sharing is caring.”
“The magic must be wearing out.” He tested the grip on his wrist. “And no, if you’re involved, sharing is dangerous.”
“That’s not fair. We’ve almost killed each other equally.”
He narrowed his eyes. Those mean little slits were a hard no.
“Fine. What kind of plan do you have cooking?” I rubbed the almost-permanent crick in my neck. Then, more to myself than to him, I s
aid, “Please let it be a good one. I need to get out of here.”
“You should join the Illusionists,” Damian said, point blank. Then, he tugged the cuffs again with a frantic look in his eye—the thought of being permanently bound to me was making him panic.
Which was hilarious except it meant I was just as stuck. And it was almost as hilarious as his suggestion that I join a secret reaper society.
My laugh strangled itself in my throat when someone knocked on the door.
Neither Damian nor I breathed as our eyes met. I pulled on the cuff. Yep, still attached.
Getting caught conspiring would be bad juju for both of us, so I ducked under the desk.
“Who is it?” Damian called out and tucked himself in.
“It’s Maven. Can I come in?” A southern twang practically bled through the door.
“Maven … Wyatt?” Damian asked, a trace of surprise behind the question. He knew her.
“Yeah, silly. You got another Maven I don’t know about?”
He stiffened in both voice and body. “Of course. Come in.”
“Hey, you,” the girl said as she entered. Her footsteps landed in front of the desk. The wood creaked over my head as she leaned over it. “Do you have time for me?”
Oh, jeez.
Damian’s cuffed hand flexed; I imagined her running a finger down his chest, and I wished desperately to be anywhere else.
She must’ve liked perfume as sickly sweet as her southern belle accent; the sugary scent wafted down to me like a thin, sparkly cloud.
“I wish I did, but I’m a little caught up at the moment. Raincheck?”
“Oh.” Her cough was soft with the sting of rejection. “That’s too bad. When you find yourself with a moment or two, give me a call. I might have found an informant on that person you’re tracking.”
Damian’s hand flexed again. Ooh. Maybe David Forrester wasn’t as boring as I’d thought.
“I will,” he responded after a beat.
She sucked in a breath, took a few steps before pausing, and then, finally, left the room. We sat in silence for what felt like an eternity.
I cleared my throat. “Can I come out now, or do I need to hide like a mistress all night?”
