I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No. I get it. You have a family that loves you.”
He cupped my cheek. “I don’t want to leave you. I wish I could take you with me.”
I brushed the tip of his nose with mine, eyes fluttering closed. “These past few days without you … I hated them.”
He lifted his chin, brushing my lips with his. “So, what are you going to do about it, Justice?”
I kissed him softly with every ounce of longing I’d been feeling. My lips molded to his, lingering, tasting him, memorizing the shape of his mouth. A warm feeling expanded in my chest, accompanied by that aching throb that had the L-word blooming in my mind.
I cupped his face and broke the kiss, rolling my forehead against his. “Brady …”
His hand settled on the nape of my neck. “Say it.”
I pulled away slightly to lock gazes with him. He was holding his breath, expectant and tense beneath me.
My stomach quivered because there was no denying it any longer. No running from the truth. “Brady, I l—”
The tower door swung open, and Hyde stepped onto the balcony. His gaze raked over us, and something akin to anger flashed across his face, but it was gone in a blink, and then he was staring down his nose at us.
“Is this what you call doing your duty?” His tone was frosty. “Not the time or the place.”
What the fuck? Okay, so we probably shouldn’t be kissing on duty, but that tone … The way he was staring at us … I made to get off Brady, but he held me tighter before standing and gently lowering me to my feet. He didn’t release me, but instead wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Maybe you should take your own advice,” Brady said.
Hyde tore his gaze from my face and fixed it on Brady. “Excuse me?”
My neck heated. Shit, he was referring to my moment in the tower with Hyde.
Brady took a heavy breath. “You know what I’m talking about.”
And from the look on Hyde’s face, he certainly did.
“Hyde, what are you—” Deana appeared on the tower with us. She was dressed in armor too big for her and looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Oh, hello.” She looked from me to Brady to Hyde and then smiled brightly. “Hyde is supposed to be taking it slow.”
She said the words as if they explained her presence here.
Hyde tore his gaze from Brady and smiled down at Deana. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
He was dismissing her.
Her smile fell. “Of course.” She ducked out of the tower.
Hyde took a step toward us. “What happened between me and Justice was a mistake.”
His words were a slap.
Brady’s chest rumbled in a growl that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. “Mistake?” His lip curled. “You’re lucky she has feelings for you. You don’t deserve her. Touch her again, and I’ll forget you’re my superior and rip off your arms.”
He meant it. Every word.
The fact that Brady was sticking up for me like this was fucking sexy as hell, but Hyde was our tutor. He was our boss, and if he wanted, he could make sure we were put on opposite rotations indefinitely.
I made to step between them, but I needn’t have bothered. Hyde stepped back and ran a hand over his face.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t deserve her.” His gaze settled on me. “I came up here to tell you I’m sorry and to thank you for saving my life. That was all.”
He turned on his heel and strode out the door.
Brady relaxed and pulled me into a hug. “He needs to sort out his head, but he is right about one thing. We need to keep the intimacy to a minimum when on duty.” He released me. “I’ll get us some cocoa.”
Alone in the tower, it hit me. I’d been about to tell Brady I loved him. I’d been about to admit it out loud. Love wasn’t something that had ever been reciprocated in my life, and loving someone equated with being hurt. It meant handing over your heart and hoping they didn’t trample all over it.
It always got trampled on.
Classic example, Hyde, although in his case he refused to take my heart, but Brady … Brady was different. For the first time in forever, I knew with every ounce of my being that I’d found someone who would never break my heart.
And I was ready to give it to him.
I just needed to find the right moment to do it.
Four
I stood outside Henrich’s office, pulse racing with nerves.
“Are you sure about this?” Brady said. “Making demands of Henrich is not a good idea.”
He was right. I knew that, but Harmon was my friend. I needed to do this. “I’ll be polite and respectful. I promise.”
He arched a brow.
I sighed. “I can be polite and respectful, you know.”
His expression was deathly serious. “The fortress isn’t the Academy. Henrich is bound by no rules but his own. Even the council has little say over how the Shadow Master runs the show. The council knows they need the knights more than the knights need them. Do you understand?”
He was warning me that my smart mouth could get me into serious shit if I employed it on Henrich. But I’d talked my way in and out of plenty of hairy situations to know when to curb my curses and sarcasm.
“I got this. I promise.”
I knocked on the door.
“Enter,” Henrich called out.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door.
Henrich looked up from behind an impressively large desk. Overcompensation for something methinks. But I pressed my lips together and stood up straight.
“What can I do for you, cadet?”
“I wanted to know when Harmon would be released.”
His mouth parted, and then his face shifted to an expression of sympathy. “Ah, yes, you were friends, is that correct?”
Was? Needles of ice pricked my skin. “Sir?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “I’m afraid your friend didn’t survive the vetting process.”
Didn’t survive? Had I heard him right? No. That couldn’t be right. “What?”
Henrich steepled his fingers. “He died last night. It’s a blessing. He was compromised. If he hadn’t died, we would have been forced to end his life.”
The look of pity on his face was pure fabrication. He didn’t care, he didn’t give a fucking damn. The world went still and silent, and then a buzzing filled my head. A red haze descended over my vision, and then my body was hurtling across the room over his desk, and my hands closed around his throat.
I squeezed. Die.
His eyes bugged, and satisfaction surged through my veins, but in the next instant, I was being hauled off the Shadow Master. A scream of pure rage ripped from my throat.
“Enough!” Brady pinned me against him. “Enough.” His tone softened. “She’s distraught. Not thinking straight …”
“Attacking a superior officer is a dischargeable offense,” Henrich said.
The bastard, the fucking bastard. “Do it.” My voice was a harsh command. “I’m sure everyone would love to know how a Shadow Master took credit for a cadet’s work. How he lied to his knights and got his favored knights to lie for him too, and how he killed an innocent cadet.”
Henrich’s face contorted in anger. “You think anyone will believe a cadet’s word over a Shadow Master’s?”
Tension rippled through Brady’s body. “No, but they might believe the word of a troop of second years and the principal of the Academy.”
Henrich’s gaze flicked to Brady. “Stonewall?”
“I appreciate how hard it is to do what you do,” Brady said. “How you rely on the confidence of your knights. You want them to look up to you. I get it. But taking credit for destroying the virus was low, and if you take any adverse action against Justice, I’ll personally ensure the truth comes out.”
Henrich looked from Brady to me and then back again. “Grief can make us act out of character. I understand that.
You’re relieved of duty early, Justice. You can start your half term now.” He smiled thinly. “Pack your bags and head back to the Academy. Take some time to grieve and I’ll see you after the break.”
His words barely registered. “I want to see Harmon. I need to say goodbye.”
“His body was shipped back to his family this morning. I’m sorry.”
The rage inside me cracked, and sorrow flooded me. My knees buckled, but Brady held me firm and steered me from the room before I could break down.
Harmon was dead.
He was dead, and I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.
Hot tears blurred my vision, and then a ragged sob broke from my throat. Brady wrapped his arms around me and held me together while I broke.
* * *
I dropped my pack in my room at the Academy and stood hands on hips. Half term was around the corner, and my shifts were over thanks to Henrich’s order. Brady would be coming to see me before he left. We’d planned to spend the day together, just the two of us.
In the meantime, I needed to speak to Brunner about getting these cuffs off. I needed to find Kash and ask him if he had any intel on Payne. I needed to do whatever it took to ride out the pain in my heart over the loss of Harmon. But the sun was about to come up, and the Academy residents would be asleep. I’d gotten so used to being up during the day that my body was wide awake.
Did Thomas know about Harmon?
Fuck this. I couldn’t even get a message to him. I hated the impotence of my situation.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Larkin said from the doorway.
I couldn’t even summon the energy to be pissed at him for reading my mind again. How could I be mad at him for doing what came as naturally as breathing to him?
“I don’t know what to do, Larkin.” I turned to him, blinking back the fucking tears. “I’m not a crier. This sucks.”
“You need a distraction. At least until you can take action on that long to-do list running through your head.”
“What do you suggest?”
He seemed to consider the question for a moment and then ran a paw over his coiffed hair before tugging on his ear. “Come with me.”
He ducked out of the doorway and into the corridor beyond. With a sigh, I followed. But he wasn’t heading to the main foyer, he was headed the opposite way, to another door at the far end of the corridor—the one that led to his quarters.
He opened it and vanished into the gloom beyond. “Come on, I don’t bite.” His head appeared around the door again, and he grinned, showcasing his sharp, pointy teeth. “It’s against the rules.”
Gooseflesh broke out over my skin, my body warning me that something extraordinary was about to happen. Right now, extraordinary sounded just peachy.
I stepped through the door and onto a narrow flight of steps. They seemed to go on forever, and there was no sign of Larkin.
“Hey!” I stood with my hand braced on the wall. “Larkin?”
“Come on, slowpoke.” His voice drifted down to me as if from a great distance.
What the fuck?
I started to climb the steps. The world tilted, my wrists burned, and then I was stepping into a circular room surrounded by huge, arch-shaped windows. Gauzy drapes blew in the breeze. But something was wrong. It took a moment for it to register, but when it did, my breath came out in a gasp.
The light of dawn was in front of me, to my left were the orange and purple hues of twilight, and to my right, the silvery light of the moon.
I turned on the spot. “How is this possible?”
Larkin peered at me from his spot on a cushy sofa, and I noticed his outfit for the first time … Wait a second, there was no way he’d been wearing purple silk pajamas all this time … Had he?
Larkin smiled. “Should have been paying attention, shouldn’t you? And to answer your previous question, this room exists in-between.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that this room is neither here, nor there, nor anywhere. It exists on a different plane altogether.”
I looked down at my cuffs. “I don’t understand … How can I be here? My cuffs are supposed to stop me from porting.”
“You didn’t port, you slipped. At least that’s what my people used to call it. The ability to move from one reality to another.”
Wait … What? “How in the hell did I do that?”
He chuckled. “Don’t get excited. I opened the way and held it for you. No one can get in without me.”
He’d opened a doorway for me. A doorway to a place in-between. How could he do this stuff? “So, no one can find you in here?”
He smirked. “Precisely. I don’t use it often. It can be addictive.”
“Does Hyde know about it?”
He nodded. “Hyde and Brunner, and now you … You can keep a secret, can’t you?”
“You wouldn’t have brought me here if you thought I couldn’t.”
He grinned again.
The enormity of what he could do hit me. He could open doorways to other realities. “What are you?”
“Bored.” He patted the sofa. “Sit.”
I noticed the huge flat-screen TV for the first time. Wait a second, had that been there a moment ago? Damn it, this place was nuts.
The blank screen lit up, and the starting credits for Lunar Creek began to roll.
“Popcorn?” Larkin held out a bowl.
What the fuck?
“Don’t question it. Just enjoy.”
Fuck it. I sat down and took the bowl.
“Oh, by the way,” Larkin drawled. “The peach-scented weaver with the amazing hair stopped by a few times looking for you. He asked me to tell you he wasn’t leaving for half term until the day after everyone else and to find him if you were still willing to be his date.”
The weaver ball. Did I want to go? I wasn’t so sure any longer. “Thanks for passing that on. Now, you’re going to need to fill me in on the last season of the show.”
Larkin grabbed a pawful of popcorn. “Well, last season the merfolk rose to terrorize the town; this season, Melody, the fool, opened an ancient text buried in the library vaults and unleashed soul-sucking wraiths.”
“So, what—”
“Hush, it’s starting.”
I settled down with the bowl. In the periphery of my vision, Larkin sat forward eagerly, his orange eyes aglow with the reflection from the TV.
It was no easy feat opening doorways to other realms. Larkin was more than he seemed. Much more, and I was determined to find out what.
Five
Brunner looked up from her paperwork as I entered. “Miss Justice. Good to see you.” She smiled, but the action didn’t sit right on her face today. She stood and rounded her desk to take my hands in hers and give them a squeeze. “I was about to send a goyle for you.”
“You were?”
Why was she standing? And why was she touching me?
“Yes. Please, sit,” she said.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“Please, sit, Justice,” she said again.
I settled in the chair by her desk.
Brunner perched on the edge of her desk and looked down at me with a slight frown. “I have some good news and some not-so-good news.”
Oh, God. “Give me the not-so-good news.”
“Payne won’t be coming back.”
A weight settled on my chest. “He won’t?”
“I received word from the head of the Payne family earlier today. She’s asked for us to pack up his belongings and send them to Mirage Hills.”
Mirage Hills … The name of the gated community where the weavers lived.
“What about Payne? Have you heard directly from him?”
She shook her head and then reached for something on her desk. An envelope. Crisp and white.
She handed it to me. “Payne left this for you.”
I took the envelope. My name was written across it in neat, forward-leaning script.
<
br /> “Please, read it,” Brunner said softly.
“Now.”
She nodded. “It’s what Payne wanted.”
I took a deep breath and then opened the letter.
Dear Indigo,
I’m so sorry that I won’t get to watch you graduate or reach your full potential. I’m sorry we won’t get to take that trip. I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.
I want you to know that the last few weeks we spent together were some of the happiest of my life. I wouldn’t give them up for the world. I knew what exposing your mother’s secret would mean. I knew what claiming you would mean, but I did it because I wanted to. I wanted to call you my daughter.
I may not be with you in the flesh, but I’ll be with you in spirit. Always.
Payne x
My gaze flew up to meet Brunner’s. “What does this mean? What have they done to him?”
“I don’t know,” Brunner said. “The weavers have their own laws. I wish I could tell you more.”
Icy anger trickled through my veins. “It’s fine.” I swallowed it down, tucking it away to use later because there was nothing Brunner could do for me on this issue. I’d have to deal with this myself.
I looked up at her innocently. “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?”
Brunner’s frown deepened as she studied me, searching for a crack in my armor. She wouldn’t find one. I would not lose it. I would not break down again. Harmon was lost to me. But Payne … There was still a chance to save Payne. A plan was forming in my mind.
Brunner’s body relaxed a little. “The Nightwatch council has granted my petition.” She stood and rounded her desk. A drawer opened and closed. “They sent me the key to your cuffs.” She retrieved a blue box and flipped it open to reveal a silver disc.
I sat forward. The key. My key. “I can be free?”
Shadow Warrior: The Nightwatch Academy book 3 Page 3
