by Eva Chase
“So you snuck along to find out.” I laughed without needing to force it, finding a little comfort in teasing her. “Hell, you must have used magic to stop me from hearing you. You’re getting the fearmancer tactics down pat, aren’t you?”
A blush colored her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Sure you did. That’s okay. I like seeing the sly side of you.” Maybe if we focused on that, we could forget whatever side of me she’d seen before I’d noticed her.
No such luck. She hesitated and then said, “Are you all right? You looked— I know Malcolm can’t be happy.”
“Which is why it’s a good thing I don’t much care what he thinks of me. I’ve got to get my practice in sometime.” I tapped the keys gently.
“I didn’t know you played.”
“It’s not something I widely advertise. People would be lining up demanding I put on concerts and so on, you know. It’d really be too much hassle.”
The corners of her mouth twitched upward. Score. Making light of a situation always allowed it to go down so much easier.
“You’re good,” she said with a teasing note in her own voice. “Maybe you should put on concerts.”
I made a dismissive sound and shifted over on the bench. “It’s not all that hard once you get the basics down. Come here. If I can teach you how to drive, I can teach you piano.”
She lowered herself onto the bench leaving a careful few inches between us, but there weren’t the built-in barriers the car provided. My arm brushed hers as I leaned over to grasp her hand, positioning it over the keys. Her soft skin warmed my fingers. I focused on that and not how close the rest of her body was to mine.
“You can play the chords. That’s C major. This is G major. A minor. F major. Again?”
She repeated them with a couple of adjustments from me. After the third run-through, I gave her an approving nod. “Perfect. Play them in that order, and I’ll handle the rest.”
“That’s a song?”
“It will be.”
She started playing the chords at a steady rhythm, and I let my fingers trip over the keys, improvising a melody to match the simple pattern. I could hardly call myself a composer, but my spur-of-the-moment invention wasn’t half bad, really.
I sped up, making the song more intricate and adding a flourish here and there, and Rory laughed. In the middle of that, she lost track of her progression and fumbled with the keys.
“Ack,” she said. “I ruined it.”
“Can’t ruin what’s just noodling around. You kept up just fine.”
She looked down at her lap and then, with a determined air, reached out and took my hand in hers, twining our fingers together as they came to rest on the bench between us. My heart skipped a beat. I was abruptly afraid to say anything in case whatever fell out of my mouth destroyed the moment.
I’d never worried like this with any other girl. I’d just gone for it, and most of the girls I’d gone for had been happy to have my attention for however long I felt like giving it, which I’d admit was generally not very long. But Rory wasn’t like any other girl I’d known.
I’d thought, when I set this friendship or whatever it might become in motion, that I was mostly being strategic. How had I become this marshmallow of a guy who simply wanted to see her smile at me, who got giddy over her holding my hand, for fuck’s sake?
I didn’t know, but I wasn’t sure I minded either. I just wished I could be sure I wouldn’t fuck things up. This was all unfamiliar ground.
“Malcolm was angry with you,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
I shrugged, running my thumb over the back of her hand. “He told me to fall in line. I told him to go fuck himself. It was a very productive conversation.”
“I don’t suppose he mentioned anything about what magic he’s been working—or trying to work—on me?”
“No, unfortunately he didn’t reveal any of his evil plans. I’m sorry—I should have pushed harder on that.” I should have prodded him about exactly what he had going to “shake up” Rory before I’d laid into him. There was no way he’d cough up anything he wouldn’t want her to know to me now. Damn it. Thinking before I spoke wasn’t a particular talent of mine.
“That’s all right. I guess it’s a little much to hope that he’d hand you everything I’d want to know just like that.” She paused. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for last night.”
I looked at her with half a smile. “For what? I told you, I was simply defending my own honor.”
She gazed back at me with so much compassion in those deep blue eyes I wanted to drown myself in them. “There were a lot of ways you could have done that. You made a statement. I realize that—and I appreciate it.”
Had she leaned a little closer to me? I thought she had. I took a gamble.
“I did get a kiss out of it.” I ducked my head to brush my lips against her cheek. Her breath came out with a slight hitch. She didn’t pull away. No, she was definitely easing toward me with a tightening of her fingers around mine.
I dipped lower and pressed another kiss to the corner of her jaw, the caramel sweet smell of her skin flooding my lungs. I wanted to taste her everywhere, but this would do for now. I trailed my mouth down to the side of her neck. Her pulse thumped against the gentle flick of my tongue.
“Jude,” she said, her voice rough. I pulled back, with only a minor pang of disappointment since I hadn’t been sure she’d welcome my affection even that much. I was about to make some flippant comment to carry us through any awkwardness of the moment when she traced her fingers over my cheek and drew my mouth to hers.
Yes, thank God. I could have kept waiting, but Lord knew I hadn’t wanted to. I ran my fingers into her silky hair as I kissed her back, reining in the urge to claim her mouth with everything I had in me. Her lips were even softer than the rest of her and just as sweet, and when they parted, the breath that met mine was searing hot.
My Bloodstone scion. My Ice Queen. My avenging angel. Mine, mine, mine. The thought rolled through me with the pounding of my heart, but I wasn’t really aiming to make her mine. I was aiming to be hers. Her ally, her friend, her lover, her whatever-the-hell-she-needed-me-to-be, as long as it meant she’d have me, one way or another.
I’d assumed I’d have to fall one way or another, sooner or later, but maybe not. Not if she’d hold me up here with her.
I released her hand to slide my arm around her back, tucking her closer against me. Rory let out a hungry sound and kissed me harder. I could almost feel the power of her magic thrumming through her as if her body were a live wire. It turned me on like a shock of electricity straight to my groin.
My fingers teased through her hair, over her shoulder, and down the side of her chest, just barely skimming the curve of her breast. Rory’s breath stuttered—and not entirely with desire. A flicker of anxiety passed from her to me.
I rested my hand on her waist and forced myself to relinquish her mouth. “We don’t have to do anything.” I murmured, our faces still so close together my nose bumped hers. “If it’s too much—if you want to stop—”
“I’ll let you know,” she said before I had to keep going. She gave me a shyly sly smile. “For now… The kissing is good. Please continue.”
I chuckled and caught her mouth again.
Yes, the kissing was good. This girl was good—good enough to stake my entire future on.
Chapter Seventeen
Rory
“Do you think it’s possible?” I asked Imogen, leaning my elbows on the dorm room table on either side of my now-empty lunch plate. “Could a sickness spell be passed on through someone’s familiar?”
She tapped her spoon against the bottom of her bowl. The sweet tomato-y smell of the soup she’d eaten still laced the air. “Like I told you before, I’m not an expert at this stuff yet. And offensive magic isn’t what I’m specializing in anyway. But from what I do know, I don’t see why it couldn’t be possible. It can�
�t be what’s going on with Professor Banefield, though.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“He doesn’t have a familiar anymore,” Imogen said. “Someone asked him about it in one of my classes with him. He got a little sad-looking and said the one he’d had for a long time had passed on, and he didn’t plan on taking another one.” We’d already been speaking quietly even though we were alone in the common room, but she lowered her voice even more. “I heard from one of my dad’s coworkers that it’s because of his wife.”
“How so?”
“It’s really tragic. She was in a car accident down by New York City years back. A drunk driver came out of nowhere. She was hurt so bad she couldn’t call for anyone to help, and the Naries who showed up couldn’t do enough to save her. The worst part is, she was pregnant, but not far enough along that they could rescue the kid either.” She grimaced. “Anyway, he and his wife got their familiars together—cats that were sisters. I guess for him it was one last connection to her. When his cat died, he didn’t want to get another one.”
“That’s awful,” I said. “The whole thing about his wife, I mean.” A pang of sympathy ran through me. Banefield had always seemed so warm and easy-going with me—other than when I’d gotten on his case about Shelby and her tree, anyway. The poor guy.
My mind slid back to my own parents with a flash of memory: Mom’s defiant face, blood on the kitchen tiles. I closed my eyes for a second as my own grief welled up the way it did here and there without warning. Breathe into it and breathe it out.
I was going to get justice for them. That was the only reason I’d stayed here at the university. Maybe Banefield would help me, whether he realized he was doing it or not—if I could help him first. I owed him either way.
“What about—” I started, and cut myself off at the squeak of the door. Shelby slipped into the dorm room, her face brightening at the sight of us. My jab of resentment at the sight of her was chased by a pinching of guilt. It wasn’t her fault I couldn’t talk about anything magical in front of her.
“One more week until the concert,” she said, coming over to the kitchen with springier steps than usual. “We’re going to knock your socks off.”
I had to laugh. “I can believe it, with all that practicing.”
She peered into the fridge and sighed. “I should have gotten more food yesterday.”
“I’ve got some sandwich fixings left if you want,” I said. “Although then I should probably get some groceries too.” I checked the time on my phone. “I’ve got class in ten minutes, but when I’m out at two, you want to make a trip of it?”
“Sure.” Shelby beamed at me, and even the little bit of resentment I’d felt faded away. Maybe I couldn’t talk to—or around—her about one important part of my life, but she was a good friend, and she obviously appreciated my friendship a lot too.
I glanced at Imogen, who would have been an even closer friend if betrayal hadn’t soured the pot. She gave me a wry smile as if she suspected my internal dilemma.
She had answered a lot of my questions about the whole magical illness thing, even been willing to look Banefield over herself. And she hadn’t acted too weird about whatever commotion I’d been making during my repeated sleep episodes. Maybe we weren’t going to be best buddies now, but I could still enjoy her company without giving away anything too personal.
“Do you need anything in town?” I asked. “We could make it a group trip.”
She hesitated, and my gut clenched. Her gaze darted away from me. Oh. Apparently she was starting to rethink associating with me, at least outside this dorm room, after all.
“I stocked up not that long ago,” she said, getting up. “But thanks.”
I tried not to let her retreat faze me. Maybe she really just didn’t want to make the walk. Shelby hummed an energetic tune at perfect pitch while I cleared my dishes and retrieved my sandwich materials from behind the illusion that concealed them, careful not to let the Nary student see. I focused on that upbeat sound as I headed out for my afternoon seminar in Illusion.
So, the sickening spell couldn’t be coming through a familiar. I’d have to find another angle. If I could have at least seen Professor Banefield… I’d heard he’d been moved to his quarters for comfort but was still too sick to even think about returning to regular work.
An idea tickled up in the back of my head. Maybe it didn’t need to be me who saw him.
I wasn’t so distracted by working out logistics that I forgot my duty to my league when I stepped into the classroom. My gaze darted across the faces of the five students already in the room as I murmured “Franco” with the intake of my breath. I got a burst of imagery from an argument with the parents here and hit a wall there, but the girl in the middle of the room gave me a flash of a scheme to shift into mountain lion form and leap through the room the moment we were all focused on the lesson.
I caught her eye and stepped up to her desk, bringing the best authoritative tone I could to my voice. If I was going to cut down on the chaos at Blood U, I needed to do it in a way these people would respect.
“I’m usually a cat person, but I think you’d better stay in human form,” I said, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “No credits for Physicality today.”
The girl shrank back in her chair with a stutter of fear to my chest and a glitter of frustration in her eyes. Professor Burnbuck looked up from his desk and tipped his head to me as I sat down in the corner. “Credit to Insight.”
A guy who’d been at our league meeting caught my eye from across the room and let out a short but appreciative whoop. I was proving my strategy worked. At least I’d made progress in one area, no matter how minor, today.
Declan’s smile when he greeted me at the aide’s office door looked weirdly stiff, and everything he said as we got started on our tutoring session was a little more abrupt than usual, as if he were getting it out quickly before he accidentally said the wrong thing. At first I thought maybe it was because one of the other teacher’s aides was consulting with a student at the other end of the room. But even after they left, he didn’t relax.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
His gaze jerked to mine, with a tensing of his jaw that told me something definitely was. “No, everything’s fine,” he said.
I eyed him for a second and then pretended to let it go. But a few minutes later, I said casually, “Can you test my wall right now? Give it a good shove? I think it’s strong enough, but it’s so hard to tell.”
“Of course.” Declan fixed his gaze on my head and murmured his casting word that I still hadn’t been able to make out. At the same time, I whispered my own.
He had to let down his defenses to try to attack mine. Maybe he’d get a glimpse inside my head while I did this, but that was a fair trade for a quick peek at whatever was pinging around at the front of his.
I fell into his mind with the rush of sensation that was becoming familiar. Only a few scattered images flitted by before he launched me back out again with a slam of his wall—Declan wasn’t any slouch—but I’d seen enough: a sliver of a memory of Jude leaning in to kiss my cheek in the hazy light outside Ashgrave Hall.
I hadn’t known Declan had been in our audience the other night, but he must have been with the bunch of Insight league-ers who’d been heading back to the dorms. Apparently the moment had stuck with him.
“What was that about?” he said, not just abrupt but sharply now.
“You’re acting strange, and you wouldn’t tell me why. I’m just practicing my skills. Isn’t that what a good fearmancer would say?” I gave him a tight little grin. “Do you have a problem with me and Jude being… friendly?”
Declan ran his fingers through his hair, but he looked as if he’d relaxed a little having the subject out in the open. “It’s not really any of my business, is it?” he said, and looked up at me again.
The brilliance of those hazel eyes sent an uncomfortable shiver through my chest. It wasn’t
any of Declan’s business, and I shouldn’t have cared whether it affected how he thought about me, because he’d made it abundantly clear that nothing anywhere near that friendly was ever going to happen between him and me. I couldn’t deny that I was still attracted to him, though.
How greedy was I? The memory of kissing Jude the night before, alone in the piano room, came back with a rush of heat—I didn’t regret that for a second. But I wasn’t sure I’d have turned Declan down if he’d gone for a kiss himself. Imagine having both of them. Two mouths on me, two sets of hands traveling over me…
Okay, Rory, back to reality. Clearly that interlude with Jude had woken up all kinds of desires that weren’t happy about being kept bottled up. I wasn’t going to throw myself into an orgy. Not that Declan was offering in the first place.
Another, much more unnerving thought struck me. “Do you think he’s being real with me? He hasn’t— You guys have your meetings in the basement all the time. If he’s said something—”
Declan cut me off with an emphatic shake of his head. “I don’t know what he’s thinking or why he decided to change his, er, approach, but he hasn’t said anything when I’ve been there that makes me think he’s got ulterior motives. It’s not part of any bigger plan, anyway. Malcolm is definitely very pissed off about the whole thing.”
That matched up with what Jude had told me. He’d sounded like he was telling the truth. And the way he’d looked when I’d first peeked into the room, when he’d had no idea I was even there, his expression so lonely and lost… That hadn’t been the face of a guy celebrating the culmination of a plan. That’d been the face of a guy who’d crossed a line with his friends he wasn’t sure he could ever cross back over.
And he’d done it for me.
“You know,” Declan said tentatively, “no matter how much he means whatever he’s said to you right now… He doesn’t have any siblings. There’s no immediate family for the barony to pass on to. It’d cause a whole lot of chaos if he threw his position away—and I’ve never seen any indication that he’d want to do that.”
