by Lan Chan
I startled up in bed, choking and sweating like nobody’s business. The blankets lay twisted on the floor on my left. Early morning sunlight broke through the gap in the curtains. The unfamiliar room made my already throbbing head pound harder. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was. Something warm and sticky made my nose itch. Swiping at it, my hand came away tinged pink.
“Shit.”
Fumbling for the Fae lantern, I flicked it on with the press of my thumb and stumbled out of bed. My ingredients trunk was still out in the hall because it was too heavy for me to lift alone. Instead, I found my backpack beneath a mountain of hair products and wigs. Unzipping it, I took out the enchanted wooden spell case and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the vials of health elixir were intact. Uncorking a single vial, I downed the sugary concoction and thought of pleasant things. Charles’s deep laugh that broke through the shell of his anger, the lack of stink in the fresh air of the Reserve, the familiar and comforting sight of the Academy, and just because I was alone and these were my pleasant thoughts, I allowed myself to bask in the intoxicating scent of Max’s T-shirt.
After a few seconds, my headache eased. A minute or so after that, so did the furious beating of my heart. My hands shook as I slumped onto the edge of the bed. Raising the vial up to the early morning light, I glanced ruefully at it. This was the extent of my kitchen magic. This and the food I could cook. If I forsook all of the rest, this was where my limits lay. How was this going to help me when Lucifer came?
The ghost of my great-grandfather’s voice reverberated in my head. “You wish to be strong? Embrace who you truly are.”
I shuddered, remembering that first ritual that I had seen in my dreams about three months earlier. That had been enough. The sickening queasiness made my head light. Covering my ears with my hands, I pressed in like I could squeeze the memory of Dani’s screams out of my brain.
Shaking myself, I gathered my things and crept to the bathroom with the intention of washing away the nightmare. In fact, I stepped into another one entirely. The evidence of masculine inhabitants was everywhere. It was disgraceful. It wasn’t that it was dirty so much as messy. There were clothes in piles on the floor even though the laundry basket was sitting right there in the corner. There was a pair of muddy boots in the bathtub and a scrawled message on the mirror that said: this is not a lodge. Shayla’s handwriting, of course.
Seeing the mirror made me frown. It was only then that I realised there was no mirror in the spare bedroom. I reached out eagerly and pressed my fingertips against the glass. There was no familiar light that scanned my palm. No robotic voice asking me what I would like to see. Sigh. I guess I was still banned from the MirrorNet.
Irritation made me kick the pair of jeans on the floor next to the shower into the wall. Somebody thumped on the door. “Yo!” Charles said. “Don’t move any of my stuff!”
Heaven forbid I make the place messier.
After showering, I felt marginally better. If only because when I came out, the smell of toast filled the air. Pulling on my sneakers, I went downstairs into the kitchen and stopped dead. When I’d been in there the night before, everything had been clean and neat. Right now, it looked like a poltergeist had had a field day. The grill over the fire was smoking and there was blackened bread and crumbs in the sink.
“You want something to eat?” Charles asked.
He sat at the table with an oblivious smile on his face. “What happened to the electrical wards?” I asked, moving slowly into the room. I drew a protection circle around myself just in case.
Charles shrugged.
Breathing out slowly, I tried another tack. “Why aren’t you wearing a shield amulet so you don’t break the appliances?”
“Forgot.”
It was a wonder Shayla hadn’t smothered him in his sleep. “And who do you suppose is going to clean this up?”
Another shrug. “One of the inner circle will sort it out.”
I could feel the nerve in my jaw twitching. “And would that person be a female?”
“I don’t know! What is this? An interrogation? Do you want to eat or not?”
“Well, when you put it so enticingly, no. I’ll just grab something in the dining hall.”
He glanced sideways at me, his expression grim. “What are you talking about? Did you not see the Academy? They don’t provide meals anymore.”
It took a moment for it to sink in. Shoving aside the sliver of grief, I rallied. I’d spent the last six months as a fugitive. Andrei and I had camped out in places and eaten many sub-stellar meals. So why was it that the thought of the Academy without the comfort of the dining hall made me want to weep?
Maybe because you’re too soft? Anastasia’s mocking voice said in my head.
Suppressing a snarl, I went to the cooler and opened it up again. I wasn’t sure why, considering it had been almost empty last night. And it was the same empty this morning. “What have you been eating?”
I could feel him shrugging again even though my back was turned. “Dunno. Stuff. Mostly someone brings food over or we eat with the circle.”
My breath was heated when it came out of my nostrils. Pretending to be interested in the shrivelled contents of the crisper, I asked, “Who brings stuff over?”
There was a quiet pause. When I turned back to him, his expression was unreadable. “What’s wrong?”
He picked up a piece of toast and bit into the corner of the least-burned side. “I’m trying to figure out how much to mess with you,” he said, eyes twinkling. My heart almost stopped. One day soon, every female in all of supernaturaldom would lose their minds over him. “But I’m not gonna lie, Soph. The females come by a lot.”
He stood and walked over to where I was leaning with my back against the cooler door and joined me. My head barely reached past his shoulder these days. “If you’re not going to consider this mating thing then I can’t do anything to stop them. And neither can you. So you’d better figure out a way to get that look off your face.”
“I don’t have a look!”
“Uh huh.”
“It would be a lot easier if I just moved into the human precinct.”
“Well, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
“But that’s not fair. I haven’t agreed to anything. He can’t force me to be here while his harem comes calling. It’s against the custom.”
He pressed his shoulder against me, and I found my head lolling against his arm. “Not when the inner circle don’t accept you. Have you ever seen that happen?”
He knew that I’d grown up in a wolf pack. Wracking my brain, I tried to think of an occasion when one of the wolves chose a mate and the pack hadn’t accepted them. The closest thing I could come up with was when one of the dominant wolves had mated with a gentle gazelle shifter. But that was more about concern for her than it was about outright hate and fear.
“No,” I conceded.
“Maybe if we weren’t about to face off with the Hell dimension without Durin and the alphas. Or if you weren’t going around pretending to be a criminal.” We both paused but I didn’t make a fuss about his assessment of my lies. Too clever for his own good. “Maybe if your great-grandfather didn’t slaughter all those shifters, they might let it be.”
“None of this would be an issue if your brother would just stop being so stubborn!”
“He’s insane about you, Sophie.” There was a mild note of disgust in his voice. I chose to believe it was due to the situation and not personal. “He’s not going to give up.”
“Then I’ll just have to make him understand.”
He snorted. “The only way that’s going to happen is if you can convince him you want to be with somebody else. And you’re not a heartless bitch like that so...” he trailed off into a shrug.
The distaste coated my tongue before I could shake myself. “Why can’t I choose to be with somebody else? Is that so unbelievable?”
He rolled his eyes, his nose flattening into
a semi-shift. “Those idiots in your year level have been prowling around you for years. Didn’t some Fae moron from Pantheon Academy ask you out? Why didn’t you say yes?”
I decided I hated shifters who were too perceptive. But he wouldn’t stop talking. “Even if you wanted to say yes, you wouldn’t. Not without settling this.”
“If somebody else came along, I would have every right to say yes.”
“But you won’t.”
The absolute certainty in his voice both warmed me and irritated me.
“You think I’m weak too?” I said, knowing what everybody believed. They didn’t seem to see the contradiction in me being a murderer and me being unable to make a choice that would hurt Max.
Charles turned and leaned his forehead against mine. He cupped him palms against my neck in a comforting grip like I was a child who was hurting. I’d seen him do it a hundred times to Dani when she was upset. “The problem is that you think you’re weak,” he said. “And you’re too scared to take what you want because it might hurt somebody else.”
Something flared in the depths of my being. “You would never dream of saying something like that to Lex,” I whispered.
He pushed off the fridge and left me standing there. “I don’t particularly want to get my head caved in by a tiny human. I’d never live it down.” His grin at the thought morphed into a small grimace when he realised I wasn’t grinning back. “She doesn’t always come before you, Soph.”
Forcing my face to brighten, I gave him my best smile. He didn’t buy it, but he said nothing. Lex didn’t always come first. Not in the small things. But she was looking down the barrel of a fight with Lucifer. How was I ever going to justify my own happiness against that? I had a mission that had to be completed. I couldn’t afford to get sidetracked.
Until I could figure out a way to transmute the power in her blood, nothing else mattered. I dug the heels of my sneakers into the tile floor.
His stomach rumbled and I burst out laughing. In an effort to move the topic away from dangerous territory, I struck a deal with him. “If you can get this fridge stocked, I’ll do the cooking. But I won’t be cleaning up.”
“Urgh, fine. I’ll just wait until Gwen comes.”
I would have picked up the toaster and thrown it at his head if we weren’t going to be late to the Academy.
The house was a tiny fixture behind us before I allowed myself to ask the question brimming on my tongue. “He didn’t sleep at home?”
Charles shook his head, not making a big deal out of it. “He’s alpha now. He’s hardly anywhere for too long.”
Telling myself it wasn’t disappointment that was whipping through my gut, I tried to focus on the here and now. Unfortunately, that proved to be just as unpleasant. “They know I can see them, right?” I asked Charles. “Even though I’m just a measly little human with my dull senses.”
The them in question were the shifters who had come out of their homes to gawk at me with disapproving eyes turned shades of yellow and gold. It was like a procession, a line of aggression that stood between me and the vulnerable mates and children they were trying to protect.
“Now you’re looking for sympathy?” he asked. “You gotta pick one.”
“Shut up.”
He chuckled.
Both of our chagrin died when we reached the portal sector and a shadow peeled from the line of trees to come to stand a few metres in front of us. There was nothing particularly striking about Noah. His jeans were just plain blue. His T-shirt was black and blended in with his dark skin. His eyes didn’t spark with the same distrust as that of his packmates. But somehow, his innocuous presence was more disconcerting than all of them combined. His existence was a constant reminder of the stigma that chased me through supernatural society. And I had no right to feel uncomfortable, because his pack was the one that had been slaughtered.
“Hi,” I said. He gave me a polite nod and turned around. Behind his back, Charles imitated being hanged. I slapped his arm.
“I didn’t realise Noah would be here,” I said.
He shrugged. “Well, you kind of went and had me enrolled in other classes so...”
To my dismay, my lack of forethought meant that Charles waved goodbye when we hit the Bloodline portal field. I watched him walk slowly towards the Run. Noah kept a wary distance between us, but no matter where I stepped, I felt his eyes watching me. It gave a whole new meaning to the term being stalked. I was so busy concentrating on the hairs rising on my neck that the scream of glee took me by complete surprise. Next thing I knew, a pair of stout arms wrapped around me and I was being tackled.
12
Death by constricting hug was not the way I wanted to go out. But I couldn’t stop myself from hugging Diana back. Not until I felt something in my spine twinge. “Okay,” I squealed. “I think my bones are breaking.”
She eased away reluctantly but hooked my arm with hers. “How?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to question it in case she disappeared.
“It’s a new year,” she said, her eyes crinkling.
“Di. I’ve looked everywhere for you.”
She tugged me out of the way of other students coming through the portal and made us start walking towards the Potions lab. “Well, you weren’t looking hard enough.”
I tried to grind my feet into the grass, but she was too strong.
“Diana!”
She broke into a jubilant laugh. “I missed you so much.”
Despite her evasiveness, I squeezed her back. “Don’t try and change the subject! Where have you been?”
“Does it matter? I’m here now.”
“We’ll get to the now in a moment. Where. Have. You. Been?”
She bit her bottom lip. I pulled away to get a better look at her. Unlike the shifters, she hadn’t allowed anyone to touch her hair. It hung in a thick braid down her back. A thinner braid circled her crown. The light smattering of freckles on her nose was intersected by a new scar that cut in a clean line. So, not the claws of a shifter or a vampire but a knife of some kind. Even though her eyes danced when she looked at me, there was something wary in her posture.
“I’m not moving another step until you tell me where you’ve been.”
“I could say the same to you,” she countered.
Calling her bluff, I recounted the same thing I’d told the Council. Her eyes widened. “Are you daft? There’s no way you’re going to be able to tame her blood.”
I dismissed the doubt even though it was as legitimate as my own. “Stop stalling. Where have you been?”
She bit her lip again. I wouldn’t take my eyes off her. Finally, after the first warning bell had rung, she relented. “We’ve been guarding the Sisterhood.”
“We?”
“The guys and me.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? They would have been a target once they were wiped and placed back into the human world. Just like your parents.”
“My parents? You know where they are?”
She stilled, her eyes darkening like she was on the verge of saying something but was making a decision.
“Diana!”
She reached out and grabbed my hand. “They’re fine. They’re safe.”
“Where?”
She shook her head. “It’s better that you don’t know.”
I almost spat fire. “Are you kidding? How is it better that I don’t know where my parents are?”
She squeezed my hand. “So they can’t be used against you.”
“What?”
“You’re claiming you can transmute Lex’s power. People are running scared of what’s coming. Do you think some of them won’t think to try and use you?”
I paused, mulling it over. “They’ve always condemned what my great-grandfather did.”
She peered at me as though wondering if I was slow. “Agatha freaking Hathaway is now on the Council. She’s an almost-convicted criminal. The only reason why she hasn’t been caught is beca
use she murdered all the witnesses. And they’re turning to her for advice. That’s how scared people are.”
“The shifters hate me.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “They don’t hate you. They’re half insane from what’s happening to Durin.You’ve been away for six months. Give them some time to remember who you are.” Her hand clenched against mine, proving that her thoughts weren’t as light as her words.
I dug my heels in. “I want to see my parents.”
She shrugged. “I want a lot of things. But it’s not going to happen.”
I flung her hand off. “Di!”
She stepped up to me then, the affection and humour sliding off her to be replaced with something cool. A side of her I’d never seen before. A side that I somehow knew had seen death firsthand. “I know it’s hard,” she said. “But this isn’t about what we want anymore.”
My mouth opened and closed uselessly. “Why are you being like this?”
“Why am I being like what?” She started walking again and I had to trot to keep up with her.
“Like this crazy soldier. If I didn’tknow any better, I’d say it’s almost shift–” I stopped dead so that she had to backtrack. Looking her right in the eye, I asked, “Who gave you orders to protect the Sisterhood?”
Without even blinking, she grinned. “Max.”
Tearing my hair out on the first day of class probably wasn’t a great idea. Noah’s looming presence in my periphery only added salt to the wounds. She went on. “He got to your parents before the Council could. And the Sisterhood. None of them were wiped.”
“I...you disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
Her grin widened. “They’re pretty good at hiding themselves when they need to.”
Something horrifying hit me. “He would have been punished.”
She cocked her head to the side. “He’s a big boy. And before you ask why he did it, spare us both the insanity.”
“He doesn’t have the right to do any of this!”
“Maybe it’s not just about you,” she said, though her salacious smile said otherwise. “Maybe wrong is wrong and some of us aren’t afraid to call it out. The Council has been broken for a long time. And now they’re frightened on top of it. Da says that hotheads making decisions at a time of war will get us all killed.”
