But now what do we do?
Something changes in the air, and suddenly I look across the expansive courtyard. A woman walks beside a man, a bag slung over her shoulder. She wears dark jeans and a black tank top. Sunglasses conceal her familiar grey eyes from view, but I don’t need to see them to picture her eyes in perfect clarity.
What the hell is Esmeray doing here?
I’m striding toward her without a thought, emotions warring within me. Her brother just died here. It’s not safe, and yet, I’m glad to see her. At the funeral, I’d wanted to touch her and hold her more than I’d wanted anything in my life, but logic had made me hurry back to the school, trying to find any clues about Rayne’s death before they were gone.
When I’m feet in front of Esmeray, I recognize the man grinning at her as Harold, and I dislike him for the first time in my life. “What’s going on here?”
Harold stops short, and his face pales as he looks up at me. “A—a new student tour.”
“New student?” I repeat in shock, my gaze swinging to Esmeray.
But if I was hoping for an explanation, I’m going to be disappointed, because her sexy mouth simply draws down as if irritated.
Harold clears his throat. “This is Esmeray. She’ll be joining our campus.”
I stand in shock. Even if Esmeray had been the head of her house, I doubt she would’ve been allowed to come to the Royal Fae Academy. The only fae allowed here are light, and rumors suggest that she has both light and dark fae blood running through her veins.
“Bron,” she finally greets, drawing out my name in a cold, formal way.
I have the sudden urge to shake her. “Where’s she staying?” I’m looking at her, but I direct my question to Harold.
“Actually, in her brother’s old room…”
Holy fuck. She’s going to be staying right next to me, surrounded by the three of us. And somehow we’re supposed to keep our hands off her? Somehow we’re supposed to hide our connection to her?
I struggle to choose my words. “I was heading that way. I can show her, if you’d like.”
Harold opens his mouth to respond, but Esmeray cuts him off, setting one soft hand on his arm. “Actually, I’d prefer if my guide did it.”
My gaze snaps from where she touches him to her face. Damn, I wish I could snatch her glasses off, so I could tell if she’s doing this on purpose to piss me off, or if she actually likes Harold in some way.
It’s not just that our bond screams that she belongs to me that I find the idea annoying; it’s that I could never imagine him with her. He’s like most of the light fae here. Their goodness practically shines around them in a halo of light. It’s a sea of blonde-haired, blue-eyed fae in every direction. The women in their skirts and gowns, the men in their formal clothes. And then there’s Esmeray and us.
We belong together, whether she knows it or not.
“I—I’d be glad to take you,” Harold says, stumbling over his words.
I force a smile. “By all means, don’t let me interrupt.”
Esmeray doesn’t seem to give me another glance as she continues down the sidewalk, her black boots soundless against the concrete. But I stand rooted in place, watching her tight ass walk away. And I hate that I see other heads turn in her direction as she passes.
If she was like us, she’d feel the mate bond too. It’d be impossible to ignore. But I’d known from the day I felt our bond and she didn’t that whatever light fae blood was within her diluted it too much.
We could have no other woman but her. But she could choose any man she wanted.
And we couldn’t exactly stake our claim without making it known that she favors the dark, which would mean instant expulsion and would remove her claim to her house. When her parents passed, her lands would be given to an aunt or uncle, and she would be left destitute.
But more than that, we could never claim her as our wife. It would be forbidden. We would be like her parents. Their marriage wasn’t recognized. And if the Bloodmores hadn’t sworn up and down that the children took after their mother, Rayne and Esmeray would’ve never been considered as proper heirs. As it was, Rayne’s happy disposition and natural charm had won over everyone he met.
Esmeray wasn’t as lucky. The whispers were unkind at best.
So we could say nothing about how we felt the mate bond and she didn’t. All we could do was hope we could win her heart the old fashion way, or else we might just have to live our days in heartbreak, without the woman we loved.
Having her here was a blessing and a curse. For the first time, we had a chance with her.
But we weren’t just going to have to compete with other men for her. We also had to keep her safe. Because whoever had killed her brother had wanted something. Something I feared they’d come after Esmeray for.
Slowly, I start to walk again, following her to our dorm. From this moment on, I had two goals: keep Esmeray safe and make her love me.
I was used to being a protector, but charming a woman? Hell, I was in trouble.
5
Esmeray
The light fae named Harold leads me up three flights of stairs to the top floor in a dorm room near the back of campus. I use my new key to unlock the main door that opens into a little living room. To one side is a doorway that opens into a tidy kitchen. Four closed doors line the other side of the room.
“This one is yours.” Harold points to the second door.
I move around the couches, casting a glance to the pool table in one corner, and use my key to open the bedroom. I’m actually surprised by how much I instantly like the room. On the left is a large bed, on the right is a closet next to an open door into a tiny bathroom, and by the huge windows is a desk. Everything is painted white and looks clean, and out the window are trees filled with green leaves. It feels like I’m living inside a garden.
Tossing my bag onto the bed, I move to the window and look out into a small garden. Down below are benches and various plants and flowers.
“What do you think?” he asks, and I can feel nervousness radiating out of him.
I already know that I’m going to make these fae nervous. Most fae don’t hide their emotions. They allow their overwhelming happiness and excitement to radiate off them with a nauseating lack of control. They sample each other’s emotions, feeding themselves, without thought, because happy emotions are almost limitless among their kind.
Someone like me will set them off. They’ll reach out to sample my emotions and find them locked away. Not being able to read me will be like losing one of their senses. They won’t know what I’m feeling, so they won’t quite know how to react.
The smart thing would be to slowly cipher any good emotions I have out to them, to cloud their judgment, but I don’t desire such a thing. It would silence any rumors about my dark fae powers, and I want there to be rumors.
If people fear me, maybe they’ll give me the space I so desperately need to find my brother's killers and destroy them. Anything else is just a distraction.
“I know it’s a little small,” Harold continues.
I cross the room toward him, and I know he watches my fluid movements like prey watching a predator.
Unable to help myself, I put a hand on his chest. His heart races beneath his white, silk shirt. A longing unravels inside me to touch him, to make him come for me, and I hate that I know what’s behind my sudden desire.
Bron. Seeing him had made it even harder to keep my emotions hidden away. He looked so damn good, like a delicious banquet in a sea of nothingness. Bron was unlike most light fae. His difficult childhood meant his emotions raged and varied in ways most light fae couldn’t fathom. And although he too was careful about keeping his emotions hidden, I could taste them in the air. They cloaked the sexy man in a way that made my hunger grow in all ways.
Harold swallows slowly. “So…you like it?”
I tilt my head and lick my lips. “I like you, Harold.”
His gaze moves to my mout
h, and I wonder what he’s thinking. His parents no doubt warned him about women like me, about my kind. I know for a fact that most men find me attractive. And I know how to dress myself and work my body to draw them to me. But will his logic win out over his desire?
“I—“ He leans his head down, as if to sample the wares I offer.
Suddenly, I hear a door hit against a wall.
“Damn him,” someone mutters.
Harold springs away from me like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I need to go,” he says, then races from the room.
I move slowly to the doorway of my bedroom and freeze. Dwade is storming through the living room. He barely casts Harold a glance before his gaze skids across me, then back, freezing. The warpath he was on momentarily before tearing across the room has stopped. Instead, his eyes widen and his entire demeanor changes.
“Hi, Dwade,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.
Harold is out the door in an instant, and Dwade’s eyes sweep from my booted feet, up my legs, then lingers on my breasts, before stopping at my face. “Esmeray.” He says my name like he’s been waiting to say it all his life.
“Welcome to my dorm,” I say, keeping my tone light and trying not to betray the fact that I have no idea how he found me so fast.
“Your dorm?”
So he didn’t know I lived here. “Yes. I’m a new student.”
He points a finger to the fourth door. “That’s my room.”
Every muscle in my body clenches. How the hell am I supposed to figure out who killed my brother with Dwade watching my every move? “You’re kidding.”
He shakes his head, and I hate that my eyes roam over the muscles in his neck and down his massive body. Dwade was always a big boy. A giant dwarfing even my brother and their friends, but here, alone with me, he seems even bigger. But more than that, there’s something strangely appealing about seeing a light fae with neatly shaved black hair and pale brown eyes. It almost makes me imagine that he’s got a little darkness inside him.
I wonder if I could corrupt the rest of him.
“Well,” I say, choosing my words with care, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m a bit of a night owl.”
He shrugs those big shoulders of his.
Taking a deep breath, I close the door of my bedroom and lock it. Then I pause and look at him again. “I’m going to go explore campus a bit.”
“Okay,” he says.
I walk toward him, casting my eyes down. When I’m about to pass him, he surprises me by catching my arm.
“What are you doing here, Esmeray?”
My heart hammers as the heat from his touch moves through my body. “I didn’t exactly get a choice… since I’m… since I’m the new heir.”
He doesn’t say anything else until I slowly look up to meet his gaze. “I’m so sorry about your brother.”
It’s hard to swallow around the lump in my throat. “Accidents happen, right?”
He suddenly refuses to look back at me.
Hell, does he know it wasn’t an accident?
“Dwade?” His name comes out more sharply than I intended.
“It’s good to have you here,” he says, then releases my arm and heads toward his room.
I can’t seem to move as I watch him go to his door, unlock it, and disappear inside. It feels like I just watched a ghost. A memory of the boy who used to sit and talk with me for hours. Both of us tended to be quiet, but together we seemed to always have something to say. Is there any part of the boy I once knew there? Did I imagine his reaction to my brother?
Heading back outside, a troubling thought follows me as I wind down the outdoor staircase. What if my brother’s friends had something to do with what happened to him?
For the first time in my life, I find that I miss my home. At least there I had the ghosts and monsters to keep me company.
Here? I had no idea who I could trust and who I couldn’t.
And even though I’d planned to keep a distance from Dwade, Bron, and Lucian, I’d never imagined I’d be adding their name to my list of suspects. But I was. A fact that killed me.
6
Esmeray
It’s late at night as I sit on the tall wall that surrounds the school. Outside the wall, a forest spreads out around us, enchanted to discourage humans from accidentally stumbling onto our world. A ghost of a young fae woman sits beside me on the wall. I could tell that she was initially frightened of me. Knowing I could see her meant that I was a dark fae, which scared her, but her curiosity at having someone who could see her slowly seemed to overwhelm her nerves.
“Why do you sit out here when you should be sleeping?” she asks, her question hesitant.
“Because.” I search for the words. “I don’t need a lot of sleep. And…I like the nighttime. The moon paints the world in a kind of peaceful glow that the sun destroys.”
The woman slides a little closer to me, looking out at the moon. “I never thought about the night like that.”
A strange peacefulness settles between us. Not quite like we’re old friends, but like we’re two people who want to be alone with someone.
“You’re new to the school?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I’ve never heard of a student coming in partially through the year.”
“There were…special circumstances.” The last thing I want to talk about is my brother’s death, but I also know enough to realize that ghosts often hold the secrets of a place. “My brother, Rayne, died recently. I took his place.”
She lets out a slow breath that makes goosebumps erupt on my arms. “I knew Rayne. Everyone knew Rayne. He was so handsome, so kind, really the best.”
When I feel a tear run down my face, I wipe it away. “He really was.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I draw my knees up, cautious to keep my balance on the top of the wall. “It’s okay.”
“Such a shame,” she whispers.
“They said it was an accident. That he found a sword, locked away in the cellars of the school, and sliced open his stomach with it…himself.”
The ghost turns to face me, and I regard her confused expression in my peripheral vision. “They said Rayne was playing with a sword?”
I nod, trying not to alarm her with any quick movement.
“But I heard…I heard he had angered someone.” I stay silent before she continues. “He had started digging into things they didn’t want anyone to know about.”
Now I do turn. “Who didn’t? What kind of things?”
She frowns. “It was something about the fae. About the past. About the dark and light fae.”
It’s hard to breathe. “Why would anyone care if he looked into that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but I know that there were whispers that he was angering people.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She nods, and lifts off from the wall, before pausing. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
When she fades away, I can’t seem to move. An old memory stirs at the edges of my memories, and as much as it hurts, I can’t help but let it in. I was six, I think. Dwade, Bron, and Lucian would often sneak over to our house that summer. With their lands bordering our own, they often ran wild through the woods only to appear on our property. Their parents didn’t like them associating with the mixed breed children, but they couldn’t openly stand against it. To lose favor with my parents was too dangerous a thing.
So that summer Rayne and I would wait, sitting in the trees, and watch for any sign of them each day. He always had a book in his lap, swinging his legs on the tree branch as if he was sitting on a bench. I never read. It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but I enjoyed watching him read. I would see the emotions flashing across his face and wonder at how a book could make him…feel. Sometimes his walls would be down, and I’d open myself to him and feel everything he felt. It connected us in a strange way, and when he was finished with a book, he would expl
ain it to me, his voice so filled with wonder at the story.
Wonder at something on page. Not something he could see and touch.
I envied him. Not just that he enjoyed his books, but that he could feel like that. It was another reminder that I wasn’t like him, as much as I wanted to be. When he told me the things his heroes experienced, I found it interesting, but I cared as little about them as I cared about most things.
It was ironic that the one person I never seemed to have trouble caring about was gone.
Ironic or terrible?
I sigh and force the thoughts away before they can pull me under. Turning, I leap down from the wall. If anyone was out, they might be surprised by just how agile I am. All fae are agile, but the dark were more agile than most. Still, it wouldn’t be enough to give away the truth of what I am. Even so, I remind myself to be more cautious next time.
I’m halfway across campus when a shadow man steps out of the shadows of a tree. I pause and regard him with interest. He’s easily ten feet tall, with a long, stretched out body, red eyes, and sharp teeth dripping with drool.
“Hello,” I greet. “I have a shadow man at my manor. He stops in occasionally to chew on the walls. Do you chew on the walls here?”
He’s breathing hard. “Something dangerous waits for you ahead.”
I tense.
“Be cautious, dark queen.” He moves back into the shadows, instantly fading away.
My heart races as I move more cautiously across campus, stretching my senses out for a long moment. Whatever the shadow man warned me about, it had to be dangerous even for me. He wouldn’t have wasted his time warning me otherwise. But all I sense is the students and the teachers safely inside. Nothing at all sinister.
Many people would call me arrogant, but I’m not a fool. Just because I don’t sense danger, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. So I quicken my pace, scanning my surroundings with every step.
I’m nearly to the stairs of my dorm when the iron demon separates from the shadows and my stomach drops. The creature has the shape of a man, only his flesh is a deep dark silver, and where his eyes and mouth should be are only glowing embers like flames. His mouth sits in a permanent mockery of a smile, and two horns, like small deer antlers, sprout from his head.
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