by May Dawson
Maddie shook her head. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”
“I know you will,” Piper said fondly. “I’m going to get Finn and Seb to work running down any lead on your father. But when it comes to ground work, you might…”
She trailed off. If their pack was being watched, they could lead the Alpha Council right to the truth, and that truth might be that Maddie wasn’t what she was supposed to be.
But Maddie could slip off academy grounds. She’d done it before. And she’d be in the best position to get the truth out of her father.
“I should go find him,” Maddie said. “I know.”
Her voice was calm, cool.
But when she turned away from Piper, she accidentally caught my gaze with hers just for an unguarded second, before her mask snapped back into place.
Maddie’s wide, worried blue eyes had made it clear she didn’t feel calm at all.
“Rafe,” she said, “I know you’re going to hate the idea…”
She was right. I hated the idea. I wanted her here, at the academy, safe.
But the academy might not be safe for her if someone else found the truth before she could. “I don’t like it, but I agree. You have to prove you’re not a witch.”
If she could.
Chapter Eleven
Maddie
“We’ll figure out how to get you out of here. For now, you go to combat training with Chase. Try to stay out of trouble and keep a low profile,” Rafe said as we emerged from the wooded trail and back onto the long green lawn that surrounded the campus. He gave me a skeptical look, as if staying out of trouble for two hours was a tall order.
“I can manage,” I said tartly.
Strangely, my attitude seemed to do nothing to dispel his worry. But he went on, “Don’t draw any attention. After dinner, bring Ty and Penn to my room.”
“Got it.”
We were late to hand-to-hand combat already. Despite being dressed in our blazers and dress shoes, Chase and I ran along the gravel road that led up to campus, past the haunted-looking asylum buildings that formed our school. Chase glanced at me like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.
The two of us talked to each other through the open bathroom between our rooms as we threw off our clothes and pulled on our PT shirts and cargo pants instead. I jammed my feet into my boots, jumping on one foot as I laced them up until I reached the doorway. Looking through, I could glimpse Chase across the way, his broad shoulders hunched as he laced up his boots.
“I wish I was going with you,” he said abruptly.
“I know,” I said. “I wish you all were.”
He glanced up at me, frowning subtly. His eyes were a strange shade that shifted between gray and green, and I couldn’t quite tell what color they were under his dark lashes from here. Sometimes I thought the colors betrayed his mood.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, quickly tying the last lace and coming through the bathroom to him. “Besides the fact that you’re late because of me and that means we’re almost certainly in for an ass-kicking?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not because of you, and I don’t care anyway. It’s not worse than football practice.”
He pushed the door open for me, and the two of us headed down the hall at a jog. The shiny waxed floors squeaked under our boots.
“Do you miss playing football?” I asked as the two of us headed down the stairs.
“Every day,” he said. “But mostly I miss being normal.”
Piper had tried to give me a typical, happy childhood, but looking back at my high school days, I’d failed at being normal despite her best efforts. “So would you go back?”
“I can’t,” he said. “But no, I guess I wouldn’t anyway.”
“Really?”
He ruffled my hair with one big hand, and I ducked away, trying to frown at him but losing it and smiling instead.
“Couldn’t leave you on your own, Northsea. Someone has to look out for you.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m looking out for you, actually.”
“Maybe.” He inclined his head. “Race you.”
The two of us ran as hard as we could for the pits. I crashed into his shoulder, trying to slow him down, and he laughed as I bounced off; the man was built like a tank.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, green eyes twinkling under the sun.
A gorgeous tank.
The two of us crested a small grassy hill, and the fighting yard—and the sand pits where we did a lot of our hand-to-hand training—spread beneath us. Conditioning was over; the fields were dotted with small groups practicing hand-to-hand. I searched for my patrol.
“Late again, Northsea?” Duncan snapped. Of course he’d be the cadre lingering closest to the dorms, eager to catch any cadet running late. He also hated me. He was all too willing to be just another asshole instead of a decent instructor.
He glanced across the field, and I followed his gaze. Lex was with our team, a hundred yards away. Our team was always outnumbered, given that we’d lost all the second-year and third-year students except Jensen and Tyson. Without Chase and me, they had to fight two-to-one.
As if he sensed me, Lex looked up the field toward us. Duncan scowled.
“Go help your team,” he grumbled. “You already let them down enough today.”
Chase and I jogged down the hill, exchanging a look once Duncan couldn’t see our faces. We both knew he was pissed off that he couldn’t try to do anything to us with Lex looking on.
“Always winning friends,” Chase teased.
“Some people just don’t realize how awesome I am. It’s a personal problem, really.”
“Short-sighted of them,” Chase agreed.
An hour later, when we were coming back from hand-to-hand, Dani’s car was parked in front of the house. She wrestled a box into the trunk.
“What’s going on?” I asked. But Clearborn’s words echoed in my ears. He’d implied that bringing the Hunters’ witch here was a mistake he intended to correct.
At least sending her packing wasn’t the worst thing the shifters could do to a witch.
“Headed back to the Hunters’ academy.” She looked exasperated instead of scared. The fact that she felt that way made me think even more that she belonged with us at the shifter academy. “Apparently, I’m no longer wanted here.”
“This isn’t fair.” I frowned. “Anyway, they let me stay, even though I’ve never been wanted here.”
“Maybe you should come with me.” She said it lightly, but she arched her eyebrows at me meaningfully.
“You know I can’t do that,” I said.
“I don’t know anything of the sort. But maybe it’s better this way. I’ll be on the outside when you need me.”
I leaned in close to her before I whispered, “Does this have something to do with the prophecy?”
“No,” she said, her red lips parting in a smile. “Just from meeting Clearborn, I know that asshole is going to cause problems for you. And if you need help, I’ll be there.”
I’d never expected to find a friend in Dani Hedron.
She touched my shoulder. “Maybe the goddess intends for me to leave the academy for a reason.”
I couldn’t believe that, but then, I didn’t believe in much except friendship and fighting.
“The book you left me,” I said. “I lost it… or it was stolen, I should say. I never got the chance to read it...”
“That’s all right,” she said. “It was a book of prophecy, but maybe prophecy doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“That’s cryptic.”
She shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a witch?”
“What was in the book? What did you want me to know?”
“If the prophecy mattered, half of your friends would be dead already,” she said. “You changed what was supposed to happen.”
Wait, who would be dead? “What?”
“I don’t know what happened to the book I left you,” she said.
“But maybe it’s for the best. It would have told you what the prophets believed would happen. But who cares about the opinion of those grumpy old men? You don’t need to live in the future they imagined.”
There was a teasing smile on her lips, but I couldn’t keep up with the things she said.
“I can give you the name of a nice tarot card reader,” she added. “Maybe she can help you find what you need, Maddie.”
Rafe joined us then, a frown dimpling his forehead above dark brown eyes. He studied Dani with troubled eyes. “This isn’t right.”
“Oh, your precious academy isn’t perfect?” she teased him. “This only surprises you. The rest of us were already keenly aware.”
She rose on her tip-toes to hug him goodbye, and Rafe hugged her hard, his arm around her waist.
“We’re going to miss you,” he said.
“You promise to look after Maddie. I think things are going to get rough around here.” She patted his cheek familiarly, and Rafe’s frown deepened.
“I always try to look after Maddie,” he said drily. “Not that she makes it easy.”
I pulled a face, but Dani was pulling me into a hug. “And you look after Rafe,” she said. “He desperately needs you.”
“Well,” Rafe began, as if he was going to protest that thought.
“You can’t argue with me right now,” she told him over my shoulder as she squeezed me. I hugged her back, ducking my head to hide my smile from Rafe. “Your stupid academy is kicking me out. I get to have my dramatic goodbyes.”
Rafe raised his hands. “Fine. I’d hate to interfere in your witchy need for drama.”
She rolled her eyes as we separated, then said to me confidentially, “He says that as if wolfish boys aren’t the most dramatic people I’ve ever met.”
“In all seriousness,” Rafe’s posture was tense, “if I were you, now that you don’t have any formal shifter protection, I’d head right back to the Hunters’ academy.”
“I’ve got a full tank,” she told him lightly. “I’m not going to stop until I reach the gates of the Hunters’ academy.”
“Good,” he said.
“But for you to be afraid that your fellow shifters would hurt me for no reason, beside who I am,” she said, “you must realize that things are going very wrong in wolf-world.”
Rafe’s mouth tightened. It was as close as he’d come to agreeing with her.
“Oh, I’m going to miss you all so much,” she said, and she still sounded light and playful, but there was a note of truth in her voice too. “I’d tell you to be careful, Maddie. But we both know that’s not your path in life.”
No matter how teasingly she spoke, there was something about her words that nagged at me, even though I flashed her a smile and waved goodbye as she left.
She said I defied prophecy. But there was something about the way she talked about my path that made me feel like she knew something about what waited ahead of me…
…and I was pretty sure that the something that lay ahead of me was dark and dangerous and full of misery.
Chapter Twelve
Lex
I stood watch in the doorway as Rafe sat at Cormac’s computer, in the dean’s anteroom. Rafe asked, “Do you know how to backdate a file so it looks like it was created before today?”
“I do not know that,” I said. “Last I checked, tech is not usually a werewolf strength.”
“We’ll just have to hope for the best,” Rafe said.
“Look at you, breaking rules and hoping for the best,” I said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d been body-snatched.”
Rafe snorted. “I hate it.”
“But you’re willing to do it for Northsea.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. He tapped a few keys, then stood as the printer rumbled to life.
There were footsteps down the hall, and then I caught sight of Clearborn as he came around the corner. I ducked into the room. “Clearborn’s on his way.”
“Awesome.” Rafe grabbed the sheet of paper off the printer and jerked his head toward Dean McCauley’s office. The two of us hurried on silent feet. Rafe leaned over the dean’s desk as he plucked a pen out of the brass organizer. Despite the rush, he seemed steady as he focused on forging the dean’s signature.
We had to get Maddie off campus, and she’d need permission to get past the guards. Dean McCauley would’ve been willing to sign, but no one had seen him since he walked off academy grounds with Clearborn that morning.
Rafe shook the paper, drying the signature, as he headed toward me. There was a creak of a door in the next room..
“Good afternoon,” Clearborn called, clearly aware there was someone else in the office.
“Good afternoon,” Rafe called back.
Rafe handed me the paper, and I ran it through the copier in a hurry. Shit, shit, shit. The copier made a soft whispering sound as it printed the copy, as Rafe headed for the door to intercept Clearborn.
As soon as it had scanned, I slipped the paper off the copier and into the outbox for filing. I still needed the copy for Maddie, Tyson and Penn to carry to the gate guards.
Just as Rafe reached the door, Clearborn came in. He was shorter than Rafe and me, short for a male shifter, and exceptionally short for an alpha. But even his bland clothes—khaki trousers and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up—couldn’t hide his lean, ropily muscled body, as if he were a fighter. He carried himself with a commanding presence, even if he only came up to my shoulder.
He cocked his head to one side. “May I ask what the two of you are doing in Dean McCauley’s office?”
“We were supposed to have a meeting with him,” I said.
“And he would want you to make yourself at home,” Clearborn said.
“Cormac’s off this late in the afternoon, so we were looking for Dean McCauley. I’ve never known him to run late,” Rafe said.
For all his many faults, Dean McCauley was at least punctual.
“Do you know where Dean McCauley is?” Rafe added innocently.
Clearborn gave us a long look, then crossed to the desk. He began to shift through some files there, and it was only when he did that I noticed Rafe had thrown the pen back into the cup, but it was askew, on top of the other pens. That was a tiny detail though, not the kind of thing anyone would notice unless they were as tense as I was now.
I blocked the copier with my body. I couldn’t leave the forged form there. I folded my hands behind my back, the way I’d been taught to stand at ease as a cadet in front of teachers and staff.
Clearborn picked up the wayward pen, studying it for a second, and my heart almost stopped before he began to twirl it between his fingers absently. “It’s convenient I ran into you two. I’d like to have some student cadre perspective at the Alpha council meeting tonight.”
Tension twisted through my stomach, but maybe this was a good thing. We’d know more about what was going on at the academy and how they intended to deal with the ‘threat’ that Maddie’s mother raised.
“That would be an honor, sir,” Rafe said.
Clearborn glanced at him, and I took the opportunity to reach one hand behind me, finding the hard plastic edge of the copier and then the sheet of paper.
“We’ll see,” Clearborn said.
I folded it behind my back, then slid it into my back pocket, tugging my blazer down to hide its edges.
“You can ride with me,” Clearborn said, although it sounded more like an order and less like an invitation.
We hoped to get Maddie off campus tonight, but there was nothing to do now except follow Clearborn. I resisted the temptation to keep checking that the paper was still in my pocket. If anyone discovered Rafe and I had forged an off-campus pass, we’d be put in a situation to explain too much.
Clearborn stopped in the hall and locked the door to the office, then pocketed the keys.
Clearborn had Dean McCauley’s keys. Rafe and I exchanged a glance.
“Securit
y seems awfully lax around here,” Clearborn said. “I think it might be time for some changes.”
Great. Dean McCauley had been easy to go around, when Rafe and I felt we needed to break the rules ourselves, as much as we tried to get our cadets to toe the line. Right now, when Maddie could be under suspicion, wasn’t a great time for changes.
We headed through the dark school building toward the doors, then outside to the circle where a black truck waited. I hadn’t expected Clearborn to drive a pick-up truck. I wondered what was in the files he threw on the dashboard as he settled in the driver’s side.
“So, tell me about yourselves,” Clearborn said as I climbed into the passenger seat and Rafe got into the cab behind me. “What brought you to the academy?”
“We want to protect the packs from the witches,” I answered.
“Sure,” Clearborn said. “That’s the simple reason why everyone is here. But everyone has another, deeper reason. What else?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer as Clearborn drove the truck toward the academy gates.
“It’s not a trick question,” he said, but I had a feeling everything Clearborn said was a trick to some extent or another. He seemed calculating. “I was a Marine for fifteen years before I came home to the packs. Everyone who puts their life on the line has a real reason, or maybe I should say a second reason, no matter how much they believe in duty and honor.”
“What was yours?” I asked.
Clearborn’s lips twitched in a faint smile. “Fair enough. I went into the Marines because my pack was an undisciplined mess that never stood a chance. When a coven attacked us when I was a teenager, we lost a lot of people.”
He went on, without hesitating, “I was useless then, and one thing the Marine Corps promises is that you may experience plenty of pain and suffering, but you’ll never be useless. Pain and suffering comes anyway in life—it might as well be for a purpose.”
“You fought in their war?” I didn’t know much about the endless war America had waged in the Middle East. It wasn’t something we thought about much in the packs. We had our own war.
“I did. Fallujah, Kabul, Basra. Took the grand tour.”
