His jaw clenches. “I think I did pretty well, all things considered.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “You act like I was rubbing it in your face. Why do you even care what we say to each other?”
I want him to tell me why he cares, to tell me how he feels. He’s so fucking guarded all the time. I want to open his floodgates and let him rush over me.
“You don’t think I care about you?” he asks.
“Do you?”
“Of course I care,” he snaps, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his temples. Well, it wasn’t the heartfelt confession I wanted, but it’s probably the best he can do.
“I care about you, too,” I say, running my fingers across the back of his hand.
“I didn’t—that’s not…” He shakes his head, staring down at my fingertips gently stroking his skin. After a few seconds, he pulls back with a scowl. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you going to fuck Rocco? Just tell me so I know how much to drink tonight.”
“I answered,” I say. “I told you I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Are you jealous?” I tease, grinning up at him, trying to lighten the mood.
“Of course I’m fucking jealous,” he says. “You’re on a date with another man.”
“If you’re that concerned about what I do on a date, maybe you should ask me on one.”
“You’re right,” he says, leaning forward and taking my hand in his, wrapping his long, strong fingers around mine. “Let’s go for drinks. Anywhere you want. Just name the place, and we’ll go.”
“Right now?” I ask.
“You’re done eating,” he says. “He had his date. Now let me have one. Please?”
He gazes into my eyes with a quiet desperation that rips my heart right down the middle. I gulp, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it through my whole body.
“Dude, you better get your hands off my date if you don’t want things to get real ugly, real fast,” Rocco growls behind me.
I jerk my hand from Thorn’s, the spell broken.
Thorn stands and faces Rocco calmly. “Your date’s over,” he says. “You took her to dinner, and now you’re done.”
“Jade picked me,” Rocco says. “Sorry that pisses you off, but she’s my date, and I say when the date’s over. Not you.”
With only a handful of tables occupied, the place is quiet, which means everyone in the restaurant can hear us. They cast furtive glances our way, a few outright staring. I feel my face warming, and I’m about done with this bullshit. I’m on a fucking date. If Thorn wants to ask me out properly, he can. Hell, if he didn’t want me going out with Rocco, he could have asked me out already. It’s not like he didn’t have the whole entire first semester to tell me he liked me. But no, that would have been too healthy and normal. He had to crash my date, disrupt things, and try to steal Rocco’s date out from under his nose.
I stand and push in my own damn chair. “Actually, I think I’ll say when the date is done,” I say. “Which is right now.”
“See, date’s over,” Thorn says.
I cross my arms and glare at him, letting Rocco put a hand on my hip from behind. “You have crossed so many fucking lines tonight, Thorn,” Rocco says. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that? Jade picked me because she likes me more than you. I know it’s hard for you to believe anyone would be immune to your name, let alone your many charms, but proof’s in the pudding, man. And I’ll be the one eating the pudding tonight.”
I pull away from Rocco and plant my hands on my hips. “Rocco, now’s not the time. Thorn, I’m sorry, but you had plenty of chances. If you can’t ask me out until you see me with someone else, you don’t really want me. You just don’t want me to be with anyone else. And I’m not into that kind of game. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I turn and storm out of the restaurant. The moment I step into the parking lot, I feel a tug at my belt and the next second, Cleo smacks into my palm.
“Damn, girl,” I mutter, casting a look around the parking lot. That’s never happened before—I didn’t even know she could move on her own accord—but I know better than to question her. It took the bitch long enough to trust me the first time around.
She buzzes in my hand, and I turn just in time to see a wrinkly little grey being with twisting horns come hobbling from between two cars.
“Oh, hell no,” I say, brandishing my spork. “Stay back, demonling.”
The thing pauses and eyes me. Demonlings aren’t inherently evil, they simply lack the thing humans call a conscience. They’re also very good at finding things and people, so if this one is stopping to chat, it means she was sent for me. If she wasn’t hired to fuck me up, she’s no danger to me. If she was sent for that reason…
“What do you want from me?” I demand. Demonlings also aren’t very intelligent, which makes them great weapons. They don’t remember people’s faces or names for long, so there’s no use interrogating them. They find people using some other sort of compass that humans don’t have. Luckily, they aren’t deceitful, so I might get a straight answer if I ask the right question.
“I have a message,” the demonling says, standing her stout little body to its full two-foot height. “Silas Hunt says to tell Jade Silva that Father went for walk and never came back.”
“What?” I ask, my heart staggering in my chest.
“Jade,” Rocco cries behind me, rushing up to steady me when I sway on my feet. “What happened?”
Thorn grabs the demonling by the throat. “Did this thing hurt you?”
“Don’t hurt her,” I yell, jumping toward them.
“I’m not hurting her,” Thorn says sourly. “I’m detaining her.”
“When did my father leave?” I ask the demonling.
“No time,” she says. “Don’t hurt me. I only relay message. This assignment has no blood. Easy peasy, says the boss. Low pay but no mess.”
“When did he send you?” I demand.
She scratches her patchy black hair with a gnarled fingernail. “Today.”
I sigh. Shit, this is impossible. I sink down, but Rocco catches me and hauls me back to my feet. “Keep it together, Cinderella,” he says. “Let’s just see if she has anything else to say.”
“Her father left, and you don’t know what time,” Thorn says to the demonling.
“You think he ran away?” Rocco asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. Dad’s not about to cross Silas. He’s terrified of him and magic in general.”
“Would anyone want to hurt him?” Thorn asks gently.
My throat is tight, but I force myself to swallow past it. All those years, Dad said magic was dangerous. Turns out, he was right. A month after messing with it, and he’s missing.
He also said the city was dangerous. Since when does he go for walks? The thought of how bad it must be to drive him out on a walk makes my heart break a little. I was told he’d be protected. And now he’s gone. Maybe attacked at random on the way home by any desperate human or supernatural out looking for food or money or shoes.
Or maybe not.
“Lilith,” I whisper. “She wouldn’t want to hurt him, but she wants to hurt me. She might know that he’s the way to do that.”
“How would she know that?” Rocco asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “How does she even know about me?”
“You have her magic,” Thorn says. “When you die and go to the spirit world, you can’t take most of it with you. It stays in this world. But you might still have a tie to her, since she was powerful enough to retain some magic even after death.”
“Could she know about my dad, though?” I whisper, tears threatening.
The sorcerer’s share a concerned frown. “I don’t know,” Rocco says at last. “We should go back to the Academy immediately.”
“No,” I say sharply. “We need to find my dad first.”
“Jade, we don’
t have any information,” Thorn says, his eyes sympathetic. “It won’t help to go running in and getting ourselves killed. Let’s return to the Academy, where we know you’ll be safe. Then we can make a plan.”
“You’re right,” I admit, even though every fiber of my being is screaming for me to run after Dad before it’s too late. But if Lilith took my father to get to me, that’s exactly what she’ll want, maybe even what she expects. I’m not about to make things easy for her.
If something happens to my father because I didn’t do anything, I’ll never forgive myself. And I will make that bitch from hell pay if it’s the last thing I ever do.
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t know what we can do right now,” Darius admits. We woke him when we got back from our date. He came to the door in a robe, which he’s still wearing as we stand in his living room area. His hair is mussed, and if I wasn’t freaking out right now, I’d be swooning over how adorably unkempt he looks. But I can’t think about anything but Dad—not the professor’s sexiness, and not how rude it is to show up in front of him with my date.
Some things are more important than manners, and my dad is one of them.
“We have to find him,” I say. “Can’t someone do a spell and see where he is? Or hell, I’ll hire a demonling.”
“We don’t allow those on campus,” Darius says, rubbing his jaw and frowning at me.
“I know where to find some,” I say. I almost blurt out that I’ve been practicing a little dark magic, too, so I might be able to summon one here if I learned that spell.
“If we go to Silas’s, he’s liable to try to make you stay,” Thorn says. “He just lost his collateral.”
“I’d like to see him try,” I growl.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Darius says, holding up a hand. “Thorn, can you attempt to see where he is? Jade, try to think of something you might have in your room that belonged to your father. An item that is meaningful to him can sometimes work wonders to help find a person. Rocco, keep watch for a few minutes. I’m going to change, and then we’ll pay Silas a visit.”
When he ducks down the hall to change, I stare after him, wishing I could follow. Wishing he could make me forget all this, and I could wake up in his arms and find that it was all a dream.
“I don’t have anything of my dad’s,” I say, tearing my eyes away from the door through which the professor disappeared. “He’s not really sentimental. We moved a few years ago, and he didn’t bring any mementos to remind him of Mom. He said it hurt too much to see them around.”
“I’m sorry,” Thorn says, slipping his arms around me and pulling me into his chest. I rest my forehead against him, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat and letting it calm me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Maybe we can go by his house on our way. We might not find anything meaningful to him, but he probably has something you could use. A hairbrush or something.”
“If there’s any chance he did run away from Silas, he won’t go back home, right?” Rocco asks. “I mean, it’s the first place Silas would look, right?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble. Silas would probably look here first because like me, Dad has only one person. He’d come here if he ran away. Which is just another reason I know he didn’t run. Someone had to have taken him.
“If someone took him to get to me, then walking into his house might be just what they expect me to do,” I say.
“It seems they’d expect you to go to Silas,” Thorn says.
I have to admit that’s true. If anyone knows that Dad’s the way to get to me, then they know he’s living with Silas.
A few minutes later, Professor Darius emerges wearing street clothes, which makes him even hotter if possible. I want to curl up in his arms even more, let him comfort me, but I can’t do that in front of three students. I’ve had enough guy drama for the night, anyway. It’s time to kick ass now.
“Let’s go,” Darius says, grabbing his snake-head staff. We all file out the door and toward the parking lot. “Were you able to see anything, Thorn?”
Thorn scowls and shakes his head. “Nothing. Someone’s got him hidden with magic.”
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath. “When I find him, someone’s going to pay. With blood.”
“It’s what we expected,” Darius says, resting a hand on my lower back for a moment. “I’ve laid protection spells on the car and on you. Since ours were laid first, we should be protected.”
“Unless it’s Lilith,” Rocco says.
Darius grimaces. “Yes, if it’s truly Lilith’s doing, I’m afraid I’m outmatched.”
“Maybe the four of us aren’t, though,” I say. I have to believe that.
“Your magic is still very low,” Darius murmurs, a frown creasing his brow.
“Well,” I say, widening my eyes at him. “It’s not like anyone is offering to help me recharge.”
He swallows and takes his hand off me, much to my irritation. I need this. I need magic. Yes, I can get a little by myself, but to really build it or release it, I need help. Tonight was a chance, but it looks like that’s not going to happen now. I wonder if Lilith somehow knew that I have no power. If our magic is really connected, maybe somehow she can tell… Or maybe someone told her. If she has a spy on campus, they could have told her how to lure me out. Not just how, but when.
My mind immediately flashes to Elowen, and then I feel ashamed. She’s my friend, and yes, she made a grave mistake, but I’ve forgiven her. I didn’t think she’d do it last time, and maybe it makes me a fool, but I don’t think she would now, either. Topher also seems a good suspect. I mean, he suddenly appeared, he’s a master at Dark Arts, and what do we really know about him?
But then, what does he really know about me? Nothing about my dad whatsoever.
It could be a coincidence that Lilith struck now, right after I got out of the infirmary, but somehow, it doesn’t feel like it. Something’s fishy.
Just as we step into the parking lot, a shadow looms over us, stretched across the asphalt like a spectral demon. I scream and spin around, grabbing for Cleo.
Ryker stands there looking amused. “Taking a little unauthorized field trip?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
“Ryker,” I say, barely able to hear myself over the ruckus in my chest. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t miss out on all the fun, could I?”
“You scared the shit out of me.”
“I noticed,” he says. “I forgot how piercing your scream is.”
“Very funny,” I say, crossing my arms and glaring. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, striding past me toward the car. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“You’re injured,” I say, hurrying to catch up.
“I’m still your guard,” he says.
I look to Darius, who shrugs. “He’s assigned to guard you when you leave campus, Jade,” he says. “Headmaster Orville assigned them all guard duty. It’s not really optional.”
“There must be an exception,” I say. “He’s hurt.”
“The only exception is when you’re on campus, where it’s safe,” Thorn says. “Otherwise, we’re compelled to obey the headmaster.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say. “You mean, you’re actually magically bound to do his bidding? Like, hypnotized into following the rules?”
“Sort of,” Rocco agrees. He opens the door of a black SUV, and I step inside while Darius climbs behind the wheel. “We can appeal if we really don’t like an assignment, but we’re required to follow laws just like everyone else.”
“So you couldn’t walk away from this assignment even if you wanted to,” I say, feeling somehow hurt by this realization.
“Nope,” Rocco says with a smile. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with us, Cinderella.”
“More like you’re stuck with me,” I mutter.
“You sure you’re up for this, man?” Rocco asks his brot
her as Ryker slides into the passenger seat beside the professor.
“A hell of a lot more up for it than you are,” Ryker mutters.
“I told you he had the hots for you,” Rocco says with a smug smile.
“I had an exception until I recovered,” Ryker says. “Time’s up.”
“If I recall correctly, you got to make that call,” Rocco says. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, bro. We’re all dying to bone Cinderella here.” He throws an arm around me and pulls me in, kissing my forehead.
“Get off me,” I say, but I find myself smiling for the first time in hours, and when I push Rocco away, it’s a playful shove.
“Cut it out,” Ryker snaps. “We’re on an assignment. Pay attention. This is dangerous.”
“Ah, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Rocco says, leaning forward to squeeze his brother’s shoulder. “We’ve all got needs. At least you’re not as lovesick as Thorn here.”
“What?” Thorn growls.
“Don’t even worry about it,” Rocco says. “I’d have done the same thing. I admire you, really. It took a lot of balls to do what you did tonight.”
“What did you do?” Professor Darius asks, but he doesn’t sound as amused as Rocco.
“Nothing,” I say. “He just came along to guard us when we left campus, apparently because he’s magically compelled to protect me.”
“That’s not why,” Thorn murmurs, his fingers brushing my knee.
Rocco laughs and lays a hand on my other knee. “Thorn here crashed our date and made a scene in the restaurant,” he says. “Apparently he can’t handle seeing Jade having fun if it’s with another man.”
“That’s not true,” Thorn growls.
“Okay, stop,” I say, pushing both their hands off me. “Look, this is not helping. I don’t need to hear this right now. I don’t want any fighting, okay?”
“We’re not fighting,” Rocco says with a grin.
“Fine,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Let me just make this easy for you. I like all of you. Yep, there it is. Every single one of you. Even you, Ryker, though I don’t know how I manage it. But if you can’t get along, then I’m not going out with any of you. I’m not going to be the person who fucks up your friendship, or brotherhood, or whatever you have going. I’m just not. So now you know. You can do whatever you want with that. Call me a slut, tell everyone in school that I’m a whore who wants all the dick. I don’t care. I can take it. The question is, can you guys handle it?”
Academy of Sorcery: Term 2: Fallen Master Page 10
