“All you can eat,” Nico says like he’s just read my mind. Based on what I’m learning about everyone else around me…it strikes me that he might have just done exactly that.
I take a tray and dive in, letting my nose guide my way and my stomach set the menu. A huge spinach salad topped with dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, orange-yolked boiled eggs and lemon poppyseed dressing. Juicy chicken honey-roasted chicken with crispy, golden skin. A plate of smoky cured ham and sweet orange slices drizzled with balsamic vinegar thick as molasses, topped with chopped mint and pomegranate seeds. A half-moon of a croissant nearly the size of my face with a dense, sticky chocolate filling stuffed in its center.
By the time I’m ready to sit down and dig in, the tray is so full that it’s making my wrists ache.
“Why don’t we—” Nico begins, catching up to me and nodding toward a private-looking table for two over in the corner—but my sights are already set elsewhere.
“Drew!” I call out across the cantine, brushing past a group of men and women in Regime uniforms like Xander's—except, I note, less decorated—to slide into a seat next to my best friend.
“Rory,” he coughs, nearly choking on a sandwich he seems to have constructed with a piece of fried chicken, several thick strips of crispy bacon, and two donuts. “I didn’t think—”
“Neither did I,” I admit. “But—holy shit. They really did it, didn’t they? They kept their word. They let you out.”
“They let me out,” Drew repeats. His eyes close and he takes a long breath in as I raise my fingertips to the greenish bruise on his cheekbone. He lets it out nice and slowly as I gently brush them over it, like he’s being soothed by my touch. “It’s good to see you again, Rory,” he says suddenly—abruptly—pulling away just out of my reach. “I’m glad to see they’re feeding you—or, at least, that you’re finally eating again.”
“Which begs the question of what that monstrosity is.” I nod at the half-eaten donut sandwich in Drew’s hands and try not to laugh.
Drew’s never been the type not to laugh at himself, though. His own laugh is rich, if a little restrained. It sounds like it hurts his ribs to let himself do it. “You know me, Rory. I was never going to be a pro chef. Want a bite?” He offers it to me, looking around suspiciously as if someone’s about to come and take the food away from him. “I figure I might as well bulk up on all these fat-cat Regime delicacies now, while I still can—before they realize a roughneck like me has no business getting their pretty white tablecloths dirty.”
“They wouldn’t do that.” I don’t sound so sure, though. “I’m going to have to pass on your gastric bypass burger, though. Someone needs to be around to save you when it gives you a heart attack.”
“I’m supposed to be saving you,” Drew mumbles before taking another bite.
“Are you now?” I can hear Nico’s voice behind us, cocky and faux-surprised. He slides into place at the table across from me, a bowl of green olives and a plate of soft cheeses on his tray. I feel Drew stiffen and scoff next to me, suddenly annoyed—even though I don’t feel any different at all. Nico only smiles. “I thought Rory’s Guardians were the ones who were supposed to do that.”
I narrow my eyes at him suspiciously, leaning forward, as Drew shoots him a scowl.
“Drew, this is Nico Arendale. Nico, this is Drew Iver—my best friend from back home.” I feel Drew balk at that term—best friend—but what exactly does he expect me to tell people? Hey, this is Drew, we made out one night then the Regime arrested us? “What do you know about me and my Guardians?” I ask Nico instead, curious. “Before you even met me, you knew my name.”
“Everyone knows about you, Rory Bright. You can’t be so oblivious—look.” Nico pops an olive into his mouth and nods to the space just over my shoulder where a group of Regime guards are gathered—and until I turn my head to look at them, I can tell they were all just looking at me. “The whole of Aisling has been rampant with rumors ever since you arrived.”
“Aisling?” I raise an eyebrow.
Nico nods, swallowing and reaching for a piece of bread from a basket across the table. His reach places him a little nearer to me and I can smell his scent again—mint and fresh rain and old books. “Aisling Institute,” he tells me, twirling his index finger to gesture all around us before he settles back in his seat with his bread. “Magical regulation facility.”
“Containment facility, you mean,” Drew grunts into his sandwich.
“As you like.” Nico tears off a chunk of bread and uses a knife to coat it with cheese. “Eastwatch—I imagine that’s where you came from yesterday, Rory—is contained over in the eastern sector, and most of us here aren’t allowed out of the north, but it’s all Aisling, regardless.”
“Magical containment.” I turn to Drew, surprised that he has a better idea of what’s going on than I do. But then again, I guess he knew I was a witch too—so maybe this is just something I need to get used to—feeling like an idiot. “What does that mean?”
Drew shrugs gently. “Arresting people with magic, I suppose. Bringing them here, bending them until they break. Regime denies magic exists out in the cities. Keeps the roughnecks—that’s people like me,” he explains before I can ask— “From concerning themselves with why the Regime isn’t using it to feed them.”
“But your mother was a witch.”
“Which doesn’t stop him from being a roughneck,” Nico explains, smiling amicably at Drew while he pops another olive into his mouth. “His mother’s guardian must have been human. Unorthodox—but not unheard of. Shame that you couldn’t follow in your father’s footsteps.”
Nico leans over to clap Drew on the shoulder and Drew bristles like he’s about to bite him. I don’t understand why they’re already so at odds with each other—as far as I can tell, they’ve only just met. I chalk it up to male hormones and call it a day.
There’s no point in trying to puzzle out why men do the things they do. They pretend like women are the crazy ones—but here I am, just trying to enjoy my lunch, and there Drew and Nico are, growling and sniffing each other like dogs.
“So if you’re not a roughneck,” I ask Nico, taking a massive bite of my croissant, “Then what are you?”
He looks faux-offended. “I’m surprised you haven’t worked it out already.”
I shrug, letting the chocolate and buttery layers of croissant melt on my tongue. “Slow learner.”
“Guess,” he urges. “I’m sure you must have some inclination.”
“Vampire,” Drew grunts, casual as can be.
Now it’s Nico’s turn to scowl. As for me? I nearly spit out my fucking croissant.
“Vampire?!” I blurt out in surprise.
Nico pushes the word away with a wave of his hand as if he’s clearing the air. “We prefer empath, if you don’t mind.”
“So no, y’know…” I put my arm up across my mouth like I’m sulking behind a big black cape, claw at the air with my free hand and bare my teeth. “I vant to suck your blood?”
Nico laughs—but not as hard as Drew does. Drew nearly chokes on his final bite of donut burger.
“None of that, no,” he assures me. “I can’t walk through walls or turn into bats either, for that matter.”
“Silver bullets?”
“Would hurt me just as much as they’d hurt you, my dear.”
“Good to know,” Drew says pointedly.
“Can you see your reflection in mirrors?”
“I can. But…” Nico touches the part of his neck that Xander pointed out earlier, touching the few ruddy hairs just beneath his jaw that he must have missed while shaving. “Perhaps not to the greatest effect.”
“What can you do, then?” I ask, reaching across the table to steal one of his olives. “You don’t sound like much of a vampire to me.”
“He’s an emotional vampire.” The way Drew says it, it sounds like an accusation. “He manipulates people’s emotions, sees how far he can push them, then feeds on
the emotional fallout.”
“As I said,” Nico says thinly. “We prefer empath.”
I chew on Nico’s olive and think back to how I felt in the dojo when Nico first came in—immediately a little brighter. Less annoyed. And then I think to the way I felt on the way here when he lowered his lips to my ear. Like…well, aroused. Immediately. Like I wanted someone. Maybe even like I wanted him.
“But I don’t feel anything right now,” I muse aloud, then gesture to the mound of food on my plate. “Except, I guess, hungry.”
“I’m not using my powers on you right now, silly girl.” Nico raises an eyebrow. “Unless you’d like me to?”
“No.” I say it forcefully, wagging my finger at him in warning. “I don’t like being fucked with, Nico. Not by you—not by Xander—not by anyone.”
“Xander was fucking with you?” Drew looks up from a plate full of fries, his voice full of concern.
“Barely.” I roll my eyes. “Earlier. We were training, and—”
“You’ve started training already?! With him?”
I knit my eyebrows together in confusion. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing here?”
“She should have started months ago,” Nico says—even though no one asked. “It’s a shame she didn’t meet one of her Guardians sooner. Everyone says—”
“Why the fuck is everyone talking about me?” I ask him—with, admittedly, more aggression than I mean to. Drew’s opposition to Xander—and to Nico—and, for that matter, Xander’s obvious issues with Nico—are all starting to do my head in.
Nico looks unphased by my outburst, though. “Apologies, Rory. I thought you knew.” He smears another piece of bread with cheese, taking his time about it.
“I guess you’re going to have to enlighten me.”
“Look around, Rory.” I do as he bids, seeing a whole bunch of Regime uniforms—and not a lot else. Apart from Nico in his casual slacks and button-down, and Drew in his t-shirt and jeans—and, well, me—we’re the only plainclothes people in the entire cantine. “Do you see any other witches here?”
I shake my head no, watching the way the golden flecks in Nico’s eyes seem to dance as he prepares to make his point.
“That’s because there haven’t been any other witches, Rory. At least, not any that have made it out of Eastwatch with their powers intact. Not since—”
“Not since your mother,” Drew cuts in. “And mine.”
“The first new witch in nearly forty years.” Nico holds out the piece of bread, dangling it just in front of my lips. “Not with just one Guardian…but with five. What I wouldn’t give…”
I look down at the piece of bread being offered to me, then back up at the golden flecks in Nico’s eyes. They look like little shards of sunshine floating in a calm, serene ocean.
I feel my breathing slow and my heart race as I open my mouth for Nico and he presses the piece of bread between my lips, onto my tongue. The bread is soft and fluffy and just the slightest bit sweet. The cheese is rich and creamy and salty. My mouth floods with saliva as I close my eyes, moaning softly in pleasure as I relish the taste…
“I’m done.” Drew slams his tray down on the table as he rises to his feet.
I look down suddenly at my own food. I feel like I’ve just snapped out of a trance—only to realize that I’ve barely eaten anything.
“I think my eyes were a little bigger than my stomach.” I laugh, a little embarrassed. “I’m not really hungry anymore.”
“You don’t say…” There’s a handsome, wistful smile playing on Nico’s lips. “Fancy a tour of the grounds? We can’t venture far out of the north sector, but…”
I return the smile. “I’d love to, actually. All of this is happening so fast—I’m dying to find out more. Drew…?”
Drew stops and turns when I call out his name.
“Wanna join us?”
I watch as he sighs and the scowl melts from his face.
“Wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to say no,” he accepts—even though I feel like he’s saying it more to Nico than he is to me. “A tour sounds fun. Very generous of you, Arendale.”
“It’s my pleasure, Iver.”
8
Rory
We spend the afternoon walking the grounds of Aisling Institute’s northern sector. Nico is a generous tour guide and a wealth of information with a story for seemingly every building, tree and boulder we see—although, I can’t tell if any of the stories are real or completely made up.
The yarn he spins about one tall, upright slab of marble we pass is almost too horrible to fathom. The way Nico tells it, after her Guardian forsook her for another woman, a witch of the Institute used powerful, ancient magic to turn herself into a slab of stone—and there she stands still to this day.
“It’s an art installation,” Drew scoffs, shoulder-checking Nico as he makes his way past.
Which sounds plausible…but when I touch my palm to the rock, I feel my marks burn so cold I have to pull my hand away.
There are a few other dormitories on the Institute’s grounds, though most look empty. Nico tells me the one I live in is named Hecate’s House after the Greek goddess of witchcraft.
“There used to be enough witches to fill up every house and then some,” Nico says, staring into the glimmering windows of one abandoned dormitory wistfully. “By your mother’s time, there were only a dozen or so.”
“How old are you, Nico?” I ask, quirking an eyebrow.
Nico smiles, coy. “As old as Xander, at least.”
“You don’t have to be so fucking cryptic in everything you say, you know,” Drew says with his increasingly permanent scowl.
“But not quite as old as Drew here,” Nico jokes. “Don’t worry, old man. We’ll get you home to your prune juice and your nightly news soon, scout’s honor.”
I still don’t understand this antagonistic thing that Drew and Nico are doing, but I wish they’d knock it the fuck off.
…Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true.
Because when Drew slips his hand around mine while Nico is pontificating about the rich, storied histories of the administrative buildings, Nico’s mood sours significantly when he sees us walking together behind him.
And when Nico picks a wildflower in the field on one of the northern sector’s borders to tuck behind my ear, Drew wastes no time making a retching noise as he does it.
But that seems…well, silly, for one. Improbable, for another.
Drew is my best friend—always has been, always will be. I’d call him my brother, if I didn’t want to take his scruffy jaw in my hands and kiss him so hard that it would be pretty fucking awkward if we considered each other family.
And Nico…Nico makes me feel things. I’m still processing what all of those things are right now, but most of them leave me a little short of breath and an awful lot of them involve him taking off his pants.
All I want is for them to get along.
I fucking hate the idea that the very thing that might be forcing them apart is, well…
Me.
“It’s getting late,” Drew says, raising his gaze to the setting sun. “We should get back soon.”
Nico has taken us to the high point of the northern sector’s grounds, a hilltop covered in soft green summer grass from which we can see the entirety of Aisling Institute laid out before us. Apart from the little prison of Eastwatch in the distance and a few sets of lonely-looking buildings to the south, it looks like most of Aisling is fields and farmland.
“What do you think, Rory?” Nico grabs my wrist and pulls me close to him, eliciting—dear god, help me—a giggle, of all things, from my mouth. “Shall I walk you back?”
I look up at Nico’s seafoam eyes, his crooked nose, his handsome brow and the playful smile on his lips.
I’d like for him to walk me home very much, in fact. Maybe a little too much, even.
Then, I feel a throb of that thing that I’ve been feeling all day. Like an itch
I haven’t been able to scratch, because I don’t exactly know where it’s located.
But something tells me that Nico knows exactly where to find it—and it also tells me that whatever I’m feeling for Nico might not be completely of my own volition, knowing what Drew’s told me about empaths and their wicked ways with emotions.
“Actually, Drew and I need to catch up a little more,” I tell Nico, smiling softly. “But thanks for the tour—maybe some other time?”
“Of course.” To his credit, Nico is good. He doesn’t even betray a flash of disappointment in his eyes as he raises my hand to his lips. “May I?”
I nod and Nico hands me off to Drew. But even as we walk back and I find myself admiring the way the sunset lights up all the gold in Drew’s hair and scruffy stubble, I can still feel the weight of Nico’s lips—not on the back of my hand, but on my palm, just over my mark.
What does that mean? Is Nico another one of my guardians? It’s not the same type of searing heat on my palm that I felt when I awakened the guardian in Xander, or whatever the hell you call what happened. But at the same time, I haven’t felt anything like this with Drew either. Maybe it’s different with every guardian? I sure as fuck don’t know.
We walk in silence most of the way back to the dormitory where my room is located, and I absentmindedly trace the pentacle on my palm. It still all seems too surreal. A witch with five guardians. What did Dr. Belmont call it? Unorthodox.
That’s putting it mildly if I’m understanding correctly what this whole guardian thing is. Witches are bound to their guardians, and not just by their roles. But by something…deeper. Something that should be an awful lot like love if the relationships I witnessed between my parents and Drew’s growing up is any indication.
Then I remember the brief flash of gut-wrenching pain and sadness I felt when I touched Dr. Belmont’s marks. And there’s the Institute witch who turned herself to stone when forsaken by her guardian—something that hopeless could only stem from a broken heart. In any case I’ve seen so far of witches and guardians, it’s clear that love plays a large part.
Crimson Kisses: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Marked Souls Book 1) Page 7
