He inhales sharply, and I don’t blame him. It looks like I have a fucking third degree burn on my hand in the shape of a cross. There’s even blisters in the red, raw skin.
His gaze snaps to me, and I dare him to say a word. I dare him to ask me if I’m a dark fae. But instead he says, “The other hand too.”
I’m confused, but I give it to him. Looking around the room, everyone else seems transfixed, and the professor seems caught in his own boring story. No one’s looking at Bron or I.
When I glance back, my skin’s tingling again, but this time the feeling is pleasant, not painful. Bron’s eyes are closed, and he holds his big hand out inches from mine. It’s hard to catch my breath as a warm feeling spreads from my hands down my body. My nipples tighten, and heat grows at my core.
He pulls his hand away, and I’m shocked to see the skin of my hands looks a hell of a lot better. More like his skin. Just a little pink and irritated, not a blistered mess.
“How did you do that?” I whisper.
He releases my hand and shrugs.
I sit back in my chair, but can’t stop staring at him. Powerful fae have unique abilities, but I guess I’d never seen Bron as powerful. Yes, his house was almost equal with my own, but he always seemed like the kind of guy to never take any of this too seriously. How had he learned an ability as rare as healing?
And why the hell did a light fae’s powers turn me on? Usually I liked my men dark, dangerous, and sexy. Bron was the closest that a light fae could get to those things, but healing shouldn’t have been on my list of things that got me wet.
I jump a little when the bell rings, and I grab my bag.
But when I try to hurry out, the professor grabs my arm and hauls me around. “Show the class your hands.”
The temperature in the room seems to drop.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on,” he hisses, “show them and prove to everyone what you are.”
I look out at the room. Every gaze I meet immediately looks away. So everyone believes I take after my father? That they’ve let a dark fae in?
The professor shakes me a little. “Show them!”
“Take your hands off of her!” Bron is out of his seat, breathing hard. “Take your goddamn hands off of her unless you want to lose them!”
“Come on now, Bron. You made the mistake of befriending her brother, don’t repeat that mistake.”
Mistake? How dare he speak about my brother like that! I slowly open my hands and reveal them to the class.
“Apparently you’re the one who’s made a mistake,” I say, drawing out each word.
The tension fades and the students are no longer looking at me, they’re looking at the professor, and they’re not happy. I guess it didn’t matter when they thought he was assaulting a dark fae, but god forbid he hurts one of his own kind.
Professor Ericson drops his grip on me.
I’m about to square off with him when Bron is suddenly at my side. His entire body seems to swell, and the professor’s eyes widen, before he takes a step back. “You’ve got your proof. Now if you ever put your hands on her again, I want you to remember that she’s a Bloodmore, and also that the House of Drake and the House of Silver and the House of Luther are their trusted allies. Our families, and the Ash family, rule the East, as allies. So if ever we should think you’re targeting one of our allies, our families will have to step in, and believe me when I say that they’ll reduce you to rubble.”
Bron places his hand gently on my back, turning me toward the door, and then he’s rushing me outside. Part of me wants to reach back out for the miserable professor and break his fucking arm, or his fucking leg. Anything to remind me that I don’t need a big man stepping in to save me, but a random limb breaking might not be the best way to prove that I’m not a dark fae. Still, I resent Bron stepping in. How many times could I have used his help over the last few years? Where was he then?
I stop, and it forces him to stop too. “I don’t need your help.”
“Esmeray--”
“I mean it. This is my battle. Let me fight it.”
“Your battle?” His jaw clenches. “This shouldn’t be a battle. You’re a god damn child who just lost her brother and got sent to a place where you’re suddenly expected to jump into your brother’s shoes. There shouldn’t be a fucking battle. There should be a school full of people doing their best to make things easier for you.”
I shove him, and his eyes widen in surprise. “I was a child when you left. I was a child when you didn’t visit or call. But I’m not a fucking child now, and if you think for one second this place isn’t a battle ground for me, you need to grow up!”
Whirling on my heels, I’m shocked when he drags me back against him, breathing hard. “Your hands--”
“Thanks for that, but I don’t want or need your help again.”
Hurt reflects in those stunning hazel eyes of his for a second before fury replaces the hurt. “Don’t think I can’t sense the way you feel about me.”
“I can want you and hate you at the same time,” I say, jerking free from his touch.
His hand drops, and I sense him standing still as I leave the hall and head outside.
For a second I’m overwhelmed by emotions that don’t feel like mine: surprise, maybe even admiration, and arousal, before the emotions disappear. I glance back through the glass doors, but I can’t see him from where I stand. Were those his emotions pouring out? I push the thought aside. How he feels or doesn’t feel isn’t what matters. What matters is that I’ve learned more already.
My brother wasn’t the person I thought he was.
And Professor Ericson was most definitely added to my list of suspects.
It’s a start to unraveling the mystery of what happened. I only hoped I’d learn more, and soon. The anger and helplessness I was trying so damned hard to hide was like a volcano bubbling. I needed to find the person responsible for my brother’s death and unleash this fury on them, before it was too late.
Because as much as I wanted to pretend being a dark fae didn’t matter, there was a reason that people feared us.
10
Esmeray
It’s my last class of the day, and I’m fuming mad. Did Dwade really think after all these years I can’t tell when he lies? I can. The damn man doesn’t have to open his emotions to me, because I can read his feelings just as clearly on his face. And he was a man who rarely lied, so when he did, you could see it in his eyes.
The dagger hidden in a zippered area in my brother’s bag seems heavier as I march up the steps to my class and tear down the hall. I can feel concerned glances as I walk by. For some reason, I pause and look around. There are a dozen light fae hanging around, but every gaze is on me. When I stretch out my senses, I feel sickening waves of happiness followed by uncertainty. But what’s more, I’m pretty damn sure all of them are trying to sample the emotions I’m hiding.
I draw myself up taller and smile, then tear the wall down around my anger. A couple students stagger. I hear a couple of gasps, and the atmosphere changes from one of uncertainty to one of fear. My lip curls. That’s right, taste something other than your sunshine shit. Not everyone walks around with butterflies in their hair and glitter exploding from their asses.
Just as quickly as I lowered my wall, I yank it back up, then tear into the room, not caring that I’m leaving behind a hall full of people who probably feel like they’ve been punched in the gut. Every one of them is likely certain now that I’m a dark fae, but even their kind get angry, so that’s not proof of what I am. It just makes them nervous.
As I stomp into the room and snag a seat, I glance across the room and see that Lucian is already seated. He lifts a brow when I look at him, and I’m tempted to reach out and squeeze one of his organs. Not enough to hurt him, just enough to remind him that I could. Yeah, he saved me from that iron demon. Yeah, he looks like sex-on-a-stick, that dirty blond hair of his messy, unlike the other perfect fae. And that sc
ruff of beard of his tempting to touch.
But I jerk my gaze away.
If Dwade knew what happened to my brother, if he was involved in what happened to my brother, Lucian was too.
I hated all of them for making me distrust them. Wasn’t it bad enough I didn’t trust this world or anyone in it? I had to be uncertain about them too?
A man enters the room a minute later. He’s old for a fae, with blond hair weaved with grey, large glasses, and an easy smile. Unlike most of our kind, he doesn’t seem confident as he yanks a pile of messy papers out of his bag and dumps them onto the table. He gives a watery smile to all of us, as more students trickle in and take their seats. The bell rings, and a couple of women walk in and give him sickly sweet smiles before sitting down.
I watch it all, intrigued. Biology and Science of the Supernatural was my last class of the day. After Professor Ericson, all my teachers had been professional and polite, but they seemed to look at me too often. I felt that I made them uneasy. But would this man be the same way?
“Well, uh,” the professor says, straightening his glasses. “Today we will be discussing mates.”
That’s it. He doesn’t introduce me or himself like the other classes, just launches right into it.
I settle back in my chair, deciding I like him a little.
“What do we know of mates?”
A second later, Mary Ann enters the room. Every muscle in my body tenses, and I’m surprised to see that her face has the puffy quality of someone who’s been crying. The professor doesn’t acknowledge her, and she sits next to Lucian. Which bugs me, for some reason.
If she was actually my brother’s mate, like she claims to be, she’d know his friends...
The professor clears his throat. “So, uh, what do we know of mates?”
A fae male raises his hand and the professor nods at him. “We know that every light fae is capable of having a mate. No one knows why, although many suspect our lives are like the tangled lines of our magic, and that some lines have tangled together with other fae… We just don’t know it until we meet those people. And we also know that sometimes a female can have more than one mate. Two is uncommon. Three is even rarer. And I think there’s only been a few cases in history where a woman had four.”
“Very good,” says the professor. “What else?”
A female fae wearing a giant pink bow in her curly blonde hair raises her hand, then drops it when the professor nods in her direction. “We know the dark fae don’t have mates. Again, no one is sure why, but we suspect it’s because they lack the ability to love at all.” She looks back at me and a smugness comes over her expression. “In fact, many people believe that comparing dark fae to light fae is like comparing fish to birds.”
The professor humphs under his breath. “Actually, biologically dark fae are nearly identical to light fae. The only obvious difference comes from the emotions we feed off of. So it is possible for dark fae to have mates. It’s simply suspected that because there are so few of them, it’s unlikely that they’ll meet their mates. Now, do we have any students who have found their mates in the classroom?”
Pink bowed girl lifts that hand of hers again. “Professor Windrawl, Mary Ann found her mate!”
It’s like a blow to the gut. But what surprises me more is that the overwhelming swell of happiness that seems to pour from these people like diarrhea finally stops, replaced by…sadness.
“Really?” Professor Windrawl’s gaze swings to her.
Lucian jumps in like her freaking knight in shining armor. “Rayne Bloodmore was her mate.”
Those waves of sadness intensify, tears sting my eyes, and the ground shifts under my feet. I’m grabbing my bag and heading out of the classroom. I hear the professor say something, but I can’t stop. My own sadness was hard enough to ignore, I couldn’t handle the raw emotions radiating off of everyone else. It made me feel like something important inside of me was breaking.
If I’d have been smart, I would’ve just put up my walls and stopped feeling the other students’ emotions. I didn’t know why I hadn’t just done that, but my feet keep moving until I head to a random tree in the midst of the perfect grass. Collapsing against the tree, I close my eyes.
Is this what it is to be around people? If it was, I didn’t like it.
I wanted my ghosts and my monsters. I wanted the fog and the darkness. But most of all, I wanted this terrible aching in my chest to stop, even if I had to rip my heart out to do so. So far, a heart has done me nothing but harm all my life.
My eyes shoot open when someone sits down beside me. To my shock, it’s Mary Ann, and she has tears streaming down her cheeks. “That bitch, Brittany, brings him up everywhere I go.”
I’m so surprised I speak without thinking. “Since when do light fae use the word bitch?”
Those tear-filled eyes swing to me, and she’s wiping at the tears on her face. “My parents always said it was so important to be happy all the time. But Rayne…he said it wasn’t normal. He said it was okay to be sad or mad.” She looks away from me, but the tears continue to flow. “He was the only person who made me feel like it was okay not to be a ray of sunshine all the time.”
I hate it that I know what she means. “He made me feel the same way.”
She wipes at the tears again and her gaze meets mine. “He talked about you all the time. I mean, all the time. I feel like I know you as well as I knew him.”
“He never spoke about you,” I say, and try, and fail, to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“Rayne had a plan.” A sad laugh explodes from her lips. “A whole future with the three of us. He thought we’d be best friends.”
I don’t know what to say, so I curl my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs. Mary Ann doesn’t seem like my brother’s type. Even if she lets the occasional curse word fly, she’s just as likely to be responsible for his death than anyone else. So…why did I feel myself starting to trust her?
“So…what’s it like living with the boys?”
I shrug, not wanting to tell her anything about me.
“At least you know they won’t hit on you.”
I lift a brow. “Why’s that?”
She lowers her voice. “So, you know how the Royal Fae Academy works, right? Parents can send their kids starting from the age of six. The younger schools are spread out in the woods. Some parents will send them all year, some just for the summer, etc. Many of the students here have known each other from a really young age, including Rayne and his friends, even though they didn’t go full time until a few years ago.”
Yeah, I knew. My parents hadn’t sent Rayne for anything but the summers when we were kids, but slowly he went longer and longer until the year they decided he’d go pretty much year-round. I think it’d been when he turned seventeen. I’d only seen the guys a couple times after that, and Rayne only for the occasional holiday, so I just nod.
“Well, Rayne and his friends were all about the ladies until around the time they turned twenty. All of the sudden, they just stopped dating. They stopped so much as looking at women.” She smiles as she talks. “Your brother even tried setting them up, but they didn’t take the least bit of interest. Some people said they must have found their mates, but they denied it. Your brother, on the other hand, didn’t realize I was his mate until…one night. It was just eight short months ago. But that night, the mate connection hit us like a storm, and there was no separating us ever since. Until…” Her smile fades, and her entire face falls.
I look away from the pain in her expression. I had enough of my own that I didn’t need to see hers too. She doesn’t say any more, and it gives me a chance to think. So, Lucian, Bron, and Dwade had been ladies men until they were twenty? That was the last time they visited, other than the night my brother died, and at his funeral. That trip stood out to me for some reason, probably because it was so strange.
Hell, maybe they had met their mates and decided they didn’t have enough fucks le
ft to give for me.
The idea pissed me off.
I stand. “Is the cafeteria open yet?”
She stands too. “Yeah, I think for early dinner-goers.”
“Good.”
It takes me a minute to realize that Mary Ann is walking beside me. I stiffen and stop, turning to look at her. Does she think we’re eating together? Or that we’re friends?
She looks uncomfortable. “I know you’re new here…so maybe I can tell you more about everyone and how things work.”
I want to tell her no, but some self-awareness realizes it’s because I’m angry with her. Or maybe angry at Rayne, if she’s actually his mate and he didn’t tell me about her. But I push down my turbulent emotions. If I’m ever going to find out anything useful, I need to try to be less closed off. Mary Ann might be just what I needed.
“Okay then. Lunch together.”
She gives a small smile that actually reaches her eyes.
I try not to feel guilty as we head across campus. I’m not using her exactly. But something inside of me feels uncertain. With my monsters and ghosts, I tried never to lie.
But with my own kind…I had to lie. They were just…too dangerous.
As we walk, she speaks, sounding slightly more relaxed. “So, did Rayne ever tell you why he was fighting with the guys?”
Every muscle in my body tenses. “They were fighting?”
“Yeah, just before he died.”
“Why?” My head feels light as I ask.
“It was something about what Rayne was researching. They wanted him to stop.”
They never told me that. My hands curl into fists and the rage within me beats against the walls around my emotions. For the first time, I realize that I’ve added them to my list of suspects in earnest. And if I discovered they were responsible for this, I would have to kill them.
Everything about my brother’s death and Bron’s appearance in our home town changes, holding new meaning. And even though I’m starving, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep a bite down.
I feel…betrayed.
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