by J. L. Weil
A bitter laugh snuck out. “Sarcastic and funny. You’re like a triple threat.”
“Except, I’m not a threat.” Yet…I added to myself.
“Listen, Brianna, I got a taste of the amount of power you keep in check. I can help, you know, tap into all that power. There is more to magic than gimmicks and hexes. I can show you.” There was an undeniable eagerness in her voice.
“I already have a mentor,” I said dryly.
She tipped her head, copper curls falling to one side. “Your boyfriend, as hot as he is, doesn’t have the amount of juice you do. His abilities are limited. I, on the other hand, can show you magic you’ve never imagined.”
“Thanks, but I’ll take my chances with Gavin.” I trusted him. We’d been through some serious crap together. Amara, I barely knew, and not to mention, she had unleashed a group of walking corpses on me. I wouldn’t call that exactly trustworthy.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” she insisted.
Man, I was starting to think this witch didn’t understand the word no. “It’s mine to make. Why would you want to help me? What’s in it for you?” I shot back.
“As sisters, we support each other. Our circle makes us stronger. Haven’t you ever heard of camaraderie?”
My stomach tumbled over. I tried to swallow, but a god-awful lump formed in the back of my throat. “I don’t get along well with others.”
Fire crackled in her eyes. “I’ve heard some pretty lame excuses, but yours take the cake.”
“Okay, how about this. No. Is that plain enough for you?” I gathered my books and drink. Amara and I were done here. I had nothing else to say to her.
“I don’t take no. Eventually, I’ll wear you down.”
I jerked my head up. “How? By threatening me?”
She shrugged. “I’m used to getting what I want.”
“I don’t know what you think you’ll gain from having me in your coven, but I promise you, there is nothing you can do or say that will change my mind. I’m not here to gain power or join a coven. I just want a degree.” I stood and started for the door.
“We’ll see about that. I can be very persuasive,” she said, following me out the door and across the yard to the science building.
I said nothing as I power-walked. She was hot on my heels. Throwing open the door, I briefly contemplated casting a quick spell to lock the double doors, but she’d probably undo it faster than I could conjure.
Her bombshell-red lips curled. “You can run, Brianna, but you can’t escape your destiny.”
“I’ve already meet my destiny,” I replied coldly, turning the handle to room 103.
Everyone turned to look as Amara and I burst into the classroom, making enough noise to start a stampede. I wanted to duck under a table. I could feel my cheeks starting to burn. Being the center of attention sucked. Amara however, seemed to thrive on disruptive nature.
“Ladies, is there a problem?” Professor Burns asked, as we had walked in on his lecture. Class had started.
All I could think as I slinked to my seat was, only one. Amara.
Chapter 7
A dark cluster of clouds moved in front of the moon, mirroring my current mood: glum and despondent. North Carolina was having unseasonably cold weather for this time of year. I hunkered down in my UNCW hoodie as the wind whipped around me. Gold and rust colored leaves fell from the trees, spiraling to the ground.
Austin let out a stream of hot air. “Christ, it’s colder than an Eskimo pie.”
I shivered. “Don’t even think about suggesting another shortcut,” I warned him.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into going to the library.”
I matched our footsteps, keeping my arms wrapped around me. “Do you want to actually pass a class?”
“Why do think I am trudging it across campus in this kind of weather? If I don’t pass all my classes, you can kiss my sorry ass goodbye.”
His parents were stickler about grades. If he didn’t hold at least a 3.0 GPA, he would be paying for college out of his own pocket.
Austin pulled his Neff beanie down over his ears. “Can’t you do something about the weather? I mean, this is ridiculous.”
I frowned. “I am doing something.”
Tipping his head back, he glanced up at the sky. “Wow, Bri, what the heck is up your butt?”
“You know I can’t always control it.”
“Well, whatever it is, can you hurry up and get happy? I want to see the sun. And I really hate knowing you’re in a rut. Do you want a hug?” Whether I did or not, Austin didn’t give me a choice. His arms wiggled through mine. “Or maybe a big, fat slice of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream? It works for me.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. His body heat chased the chill. “I wish it were that simple. I miss Aunt Clara and Tori. I know it’s only an hour away, but lately it feels like I’m living on the other side of the universe.”
“I know what you mean. We should take ourselves on a little road trip this weekend,” he suggested.
I nodded. He was right. I really needed a weekend at home, in my own bed.
“Maybe we can even get that slice of pie.”
I laughed.
In spite of the weirdness that was my life, I felt at peace the moment I stepped into the library. Books of every shape, size, and color lined the walls. Dusty ones or new books with their seams still intact, it didn’t matter, I loved them all. There was this little breath of happiness that filled me, taking a way a sliver of the homesickness.
The library was deader than Amara’s corpses, just the way I liked it. Despite Austin’s procrastination and grumbling, we got to work. His study ethics were very different than mine. Earbuds in, he repeatedly tapped the end of his pencil with the beat of his playlist.
“How do you retain any information like that?” I whispered.
“Huh?” he answered in a volume louder than his inside voice.
“Sshh,” I scolded, putting my finger to my lips.
His eyes widened in understanding, and he pulled out the cord from his ears. “Oh yeah, like there is anyone to disturb.”
“There’s me,” I said drily.
“That’s because you’re the only idiot dumb enough to traipse around in this kind of weather, and I’m the moron who agreed to go with you.”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, where’s hotpants at?” Austin asked, referring to Gavin.
My lips twitched at the corners. “I would pay to see you call him that to his face.”
He drummed his pencil against his lips, contemplating. “It might be worth the risk of being zapped by magic.”
I grinned. “He’s meeting Jared to see if they can dig up any info on necromancers and Amara’s sorority.”
“Boy is paranoid, but again, he has a right to be. Seen any corpses wandering around campus lately?”
I exhaled. “No, thank God.” “The one time was enough for me.”
“Does hotpants still think it was she-who-may-not-be-named?”
“For sure. I just can’t figure what her angle is. She’s wants my power, but for what? That’s what has got Gavin on edge.”
“Which is precisely why I’m sticking to you like white on rice, girlfriend.”
My gaze tapered. “Did Gavin ask you to come with me today?” I inquired, suspecting that my overprotective boyfriend didn’t want me to be left alone. This had his signature all over it.
Austin turned his head to the side, running his hand along the back of his neck. “I know nothing about that.”
I pursed my lips. “Uh-huh.”
The two seats across the table were suddenly no longer empty. Willow and Ophelia occupied the seats, making themselves comfortable in their matching KZG hoodies. Austin and I looked at each other with the same WTH glances.
I cleared my throat.
Smiling slightly, Ophelia dropped her backpack on the floor. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I replied. �
��Ophelia, right? We meet at the party the other night.”
She nodded. “Yeah, when you dumped your drink over Amara.”
I had a feeling, that one incident was going to follow me through all four years of college. “Um, that was sort of a misunderstanding.”
Her shoulders gave a shrug. “We get it. Amara can be a bitch sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” I repeated, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice.
“Okay, maybe once or twice a day,” Willow amended.
“Or more like every hour,” Austin mumbled, eyes staring down at his open textbook.
“True, she isn’t the easiest person to get along with, but she’ll be the first one to stick up for you.”
Austin nudged me with his elbow. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
I scowled, more or less ignoring him. “Let me guess. She sent you guys here to convince me to join your sorority?”
Willow winked. “That obvious, huh?”
Amara had warned me she was relentless. “I’m pretty sure nothing Amara does is subtle.”
Willow put up a hand. “Before you say no, all we ask is that you come by and check out the house, meet some of the girls, see what we’re all about before you make up your mind about KZG. I’m sure you have this preconceived notion of what you think our sorority is like. We’d like you to give us the chance to show you we’re not a cult. We’re sisters. A family. We help each other. We support one another.”
I believed Willow and Ophelia truly believed that, and maybe it was true, but I’d gotten a glimpse of the darker side of Amara. She had a game plan. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole sorority was part of a larger scheme. My gut was telling me not to trust Amara.
They read the doubt on my face. “No parties. Just the sorority sisters,” Ophelia added.
“You guys have a really strange way of recruiting members,” Austin rebutted. “Unleashing an army of—”
I kicked him under the table. Austin, Gavin, and I knew what Amara had done in the graveyard, but I wasn’t sure if her sorority sisters knew the kind of magic she conjured. “What Austin is trying to say is that Amara and I haven’t exactly gotten off on the right foot.”
“Well, you must have done something to impress her. She’s never works this hard to get someone into the cov…sorority,” Willow corrected.
Clearly, they weren’t sure how much Austin knew of my world. “I hope Amara appreciates the friends she has, and I’m sorry you wasted your Saturday.”
“There’s nothing we can do to change your mind?” Ophelia asked, one last attempt to get me to change my mind.
I gritted my teeth and shoved my books into my bag. “Austin, let’s go.”
Chapter 8
Rush week.
Someone shoot me now.
It was hard to ignore all the house colors every other student wore, and the clutter of streamers and flyers being handed out at the dorms.
But I was doing my damnedest.
The only way Amara was going to get me into house KZG was kicking and screaming. Now that the thought crossed my mind, I wouldn’t put it past her. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was following me as I exited the math building.
Paranoid much?
Any anxiety I was feeling dissipated the moment I set eyes on Gavin. He was lazily leaning against the brick building, looking so content. Faint traces of stubble shadowed his jaw as he lifted his head up, and when he looked at me like that, his eyes most definitely twinkled. He had a disheveled-from-sleep sexiness I couldn’t resist. You would think that after a year, I wouldn’t get giddy and excited every time he looked at me. I did. Fireflies zoomed in my belly, warm and charged.
My lips curved. I stood on my toes and pressed my lips to his. “Is it your turn to babysit me?”
Gavin tipped his head down, smirking. “First off, wanting to spend time with my girlfriend is not babysitting.”
My arms went around his neck. “You know, nothing has happened since the night of the party. Maybe she isn’t up to anything. Maybe she was just feeling slighted and vindictive that night.”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “Maybe hell has frozen over.”
I looped my arm through his, doing a mental eye roll. “Fine. I get it. You’re still skeptical.”
Putting an around my shoulder, he tucked me into his side as we started walking to the dorm. “Give her time. She’ll dig her own grave.”
The warmth of him quickly seeped into my bones. I smacked him on the chest. “Funny. Maybe you should quit school and become a comedian.”
His sapphire eyes sparkled under the waning light. “Who would keep you out of trouble?”
He had a point. It felt good to be nestled up against him, safe, after I’d slogged through two classes today. “Trouble does seem to find me no matter where I hide. Have you figured what she’s up to?” Like many of our conversations, we someone how circled back to Amara.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
I made my steps match his long strides as he ate up the ground. “That’s a good thing, right?”
Brows knitting, a bothered expression settled on his face. “Not necessarily.”
The wind whined and groaned in the distance. Wait, what? It wasn’t even windy. If the wind wasn’t making those noises, then…
I stiffened, jerking to a halt. “Did you hear that?”
The muscle at his jaw ticked. “Yeah, but I’m really hoping it was some drunk frat douche.”
I snuggled closer to him. “Me, too.”
The moan sounded again, but this time was followed by a high-pitch scream.
Shit.
Every inch of Gavin’s body went on high alert. I placed a hand on his arm, needing to touch him. “Drunk or not, someone is screaming in fear,” I said, knowing I couldn’t stand here and pretend I didn’t here them. I spun around. The air was stale in my lungs as I listened to pinpoint which direction it was coming from.
My eyes brightened, narrowing in the direction of the grassy section behind the library, toward the…
You’ve got to be kidding me. The cemetery! Again!
Now I positively knew what those groans were—the dead being raised.
My eyes were large as saucers when I turned back to Gavin, peering at him. “We need to do something.”
His gaze was steely. “Yeah, we do. I need to get you out of here.”
“Gavin!” I protested when his fingers wrapped around mine, tugging me down the path away from the screams.
“Hell, no. You’re not running straight into a graveyard filled with zombies.”
I dug my heels in and planted my weight, refusing to take another step in the wrong direction. “You’re going to have to drag me, then.”
“That can be arranged.” Stealth-mode Gavin appeared. “You’re going to the dorm.”
“I’m not leaving,” I shouted. Little good it did.
He moved. His shoulder dipped as he placed his hands on my hips to hoist me over his shoulder. “Why do you always insist on arguing with me? Just once, will you do as I ask?”
Not today. “I’m not leaving you alone. We both know you can’t walk away,” I said, dangling in the air. I grabbed onto his shirt, my hair flying in my face.
“I didn’t think so,” he answered himself, and took a step or two away from the cries.
“It could be someone we know. It could be Austin.”
He paused, and I knew I’d won. Then he huffed, his chest rising and falling heavily underneath me. “What are we waiting for?” he grumbled, sounding resigned. His fingers ran up to my hips.
“Thank you,” I said a soon as my feet touched the ground. If there had been time, I would have kissed him.
He angled his head at me, eyeing me with disbelief. “You know, you won’t always get your way.”
My lips twitched. That was debatable. My amusement was short-lived. Another long and tortured scream rang, louder and more frantic. “Hurry. We’ve got to stop them before the
y hurt someone!”
“If they haven’t already,” he said grimly.
And that was probably what Amara wanted. I had a bad, bad feeling about this. We were walking into a trap, but what else could we do? We couldn’t let those things run around. If we didn’t stop them, there was no telling how many people might get hurt…or worse.
It was always the or worse that made me prickly.
Chapter 9
I wasn’t fond of the dead….or the cemetery, for that matter.
Together we raced toward the cries. As I ran, I conjured my magic, preparing for the worse. When I reached the edge of the hill, I stumbled and came to a dead stop, Gavin skidding beside me.
It was almost too much to take in. The entire lot not far from the school campus was covered with about a dozen monsters, with more scratching and clawing out of the ground. And in the middle of monster mash pit was… I craned my neck, trying to get a better look without drawing attention our way. The dead hadn’t noticed the arrival of two witches, and it would be in our best interest to keep it that way, get the jump on them.
To my utter relief, it wasn’t Austin being cornered by the dead. It was Willow. Seriously.
There was no time to process the surreal fact that Amara put one of her own sorority sisters in danger. Then again, it shouldn’t have surprised me.
Right now, I had to fight, to put the skills Gavin had taught me to good use. I couldn’t allow Gavin to deal with the monsters himself. For a panicked moment, I realized I didn’t have a weapon, and then I remembered: I was a witch; magic was my sword.
Breathe…in…breathe…out.
The therapeutic exercise didn’t really help.
While I was having a semi-breakdown, Gavin jumped right in. When he fought using magic, it was as if he became a different person—a different version of himself. The one standing in front of me now was fierce and cold, a warrior. It was a calculated move, putting himself in the line of fire and giving me time to collect myself.
