Scholar (Emerald Isle Tigers Book 3)

by Cass Reynolds

  “I only had his mind for a few minutes. I might expect him to still be dazed, but not sick…” Lily knelt beside the boy. As he looked into her face, he flinched and tried to back away. The fear in his eyes cut her like a knife. She never wanted this. For people to see her as some kind of monster.

  But now was not the time to mope. Pushing her personal pain back, she leaned forward and gently touched Finn’s forehead with the back of one hand. Probing gently, she did a cursory inspection of his mind. Oh dear.

  “Okay, yes, I did this to him. But I swear it wasn’t intentional.”

  Hecate’s eyes flashed with warning. “What is that supposed to mean? What have you done?”

  “It’s nothing permanent, I promise. He basically just needs food and rest. If he could be put under a sleeping spell for a few days, he’d be as good as new. If he doesn’t sleep… well, I don’t know how long it would take.”

  The goddess took another step forward, her voice low and menacing. “I repeat. What have you done?”

  Lily gulped, but managed to hold her gaze. She had no idea if her powers would even work on a goddess, but they definitely wouldn’t while she was already holding on to two others. “Basically I just… overtaxed his mind much more than I would have on most people. He already has a duality problem, and when I threw myself into the mix, a third option… well, it was too much. So now he has to have time to recover. But that will be extra slow for him, because he can never rest.”

  “…What?” Hecate was not proud, but she had no idea what the other woman was talking about.

  “Finn, he’s a mixed breed. One parent was a shifter, one was an earth elemental. They were both probably very strong. So now the two different kinds of magic are battling it out for supremacy. He has apparently not made a choice about what he wants to be, so his mind is constantly under stress. I would recommend he just choose one or the other – from what I’ve seen of his magic vines, he seems to favor the earth elemental side.”

  Hecate nodded, finally grasping the concept. “So when you did whatever in his brain, you threw a third power into the mix. Yet another entity trying to control his mind. Right?”

  “Right. He’s already under constant stress from his own dual nature, and when I became another thing vying for control… it was too much. So now he’s sick.” Lily shrugged, feeling powerless to help.

  “And he needs to rest… Well, I don’t think we have time for that unfortunately. Looks like you were having a spot of trouble before we showed up?” The fire left Hecate’s eyes, and she was all business.

  Right, she had to go. Lily turned back to her bags, trying to remember if she’d gotten everything. “I was, or rather I am handling it. But I’m leaving the city. Zelloth found me out, I’m a dead woman walking if I stay here.”

  Hecate clapped her hands, once again gaining that air of childlike enthusiasm. “Yes, excellent. We will help you! Where are you going?”

  Crap. Where was she going? Lily hadn’t gotten that far. “Um, I don’t know actually. I was just going to… leave.”

  The goddess made a tsking noise and shook her head. “Well, that’s going to get you killed just as fast as staying here. Do you have family anywhere?”

  “No.”

  Lily was rewarded with a look of consternation from the goddess. She barely noticed though, too busy casting her mind outward. Someone was coming through the halls, and they sounded angry. “Heads up. Someone’s coming.”

  The guileless air that Hecate had been projecting dropped once again, leaving a blank faced and steely eyed killer in its wake. This woman could change her entire persona at the drop of a pin. She was more than a little frightening.

  Even Finn managed to drag himself up from the ground as the three of them faced the door, prepared to defend themselves from whoever came through it.

  Chapter Seven

  Theron stood in the doorway of the shabby apartment, glaring at all the occupants. There was Finn, looking even worse than before. Hecate, with her “I’m about to murder someone” face. And the G.H.O.S.T girl looking stressed, probably due to the two beefy guys with vacant expressions collapsed on the couch.

  “What the hell is going on here?” He had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but it seemed like the thing to say.

  The psychic puffed herself up in what he assumed was outrage. It definitely couldn’t be an attempt to look intimidating. Nothing could make that woman scary.

  “What the hell do you care? You were very clear on how you feel about me. Now I will return the favor – get the fuck out of my apartment.” Theron reconsidered – when angry, she was a little scary. But then, he knew that she could crush his brain into a worthless pulp.

  “So you’re fine with the witch goddess and a kid who attacked you invading your place, but you take issue with me?” Theron knew he was playing with fire here, but couldn’t bring himself to care. As much as he despised her, she was still his mate. He craved any sort of interaction.

  “They at least have noble intentions. I’m not sure that you’ve ever had a noble intention in your life.” Lily glared at him with all the ferocity of a tiger. It only served to make her more attractive to him. She may look young, fragile, and delicate, but she wouldn’t take anyone’s shit.

  “I’m here to make sure my apprentice is okay – is that noble enough for you?”

  Lily scoffed, completely unimpressed. “More like you’re here to drag your apprentice away.”

  Theron opened his mouth without a rebuttal in mind, but was saved by a sudden outburst from Hecate. “We don’t have time for petty squabbles. We need to get… oh my god, I don’t even know your name.” The goddess gaped at the psychic, clearly flustered by the oversight.

  Lily threw her a wan smile. “Lilith. I go by Lily.”

  “Awesome. Well just in case, I’m Hecate,” she waved her hand towards the guys, “the asshole is Theron, and the kid is Finn. Now, don’t you need to get the hell out of dodge?”

  “Yes, I probably should, it’s just,” Lily motioned towards the thugs on the couch, “I don’t know what to do with them.”

  “What do you mean? Can’t you just, you know,” Hecate made a twirling motion at their heads, “Put ‘em to sleep for a while?”

  Lily’s lips tightened and her skin flushed. “No.”

  “Every other G.H.O.S.T. I’ve met-”

  “I can’t, alright?” Lily’s response was sharp and final.

  Hecate sighed and shrugged. “Whatever you say. Finn, you have enough juice left to tie ‘em up?”

  The teenager gave her one short nod, and in the blink of an eye, the guys were lashed together with a teeming mass of conjured vines. He was nice enough to leave the thorns off. Lily wasn’t sure she would have been so nice.

  Theron still stood there, his face a mix of bemusement and outrage. “Care to explain why we’re helping her?”

  The goddess merely shot him a withering look, not bothering to answer. “Okay Lily, now that these two are taken care of, you ready to go?”

  Lily cast her eyes around the room with a small sigh. She tried not to get attached to any one place, but she couldn’t help it. As much as she tried to cultivate a cold and unloving personality, it just wasn’t in her. And frankly, she’d rather maintain her optimism and love for the world and have it be her undoing, than live to see her soul wither and die.

  But this was just a crappy apartment in a city she didn’t care for. She would deal. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  Theron threw his hands in the air, eyes flashing gold, skin turning a mottled red. “Why does anyone care if she’s ready to go? I repeat - what the hell is going on here?!”

  Hecate reached up and patted him on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it. We’re just going to escort the nice young lady out of the city. You feel free to go back to holing up in your lab and hating the world.”

  Lily shouldered her heavy backpack and reached for the spare duffle bag. Finn beat her there, almost falling over as he heaved it
off the floor. Even half dead, he was determined to be a gentleman.

  Of course, that may have been encouraged by the undeniable beauty of the lady in question.

  The four of them began filing out of the apartment, Theron bringing up the rear. He was still struggling to figure out how Lily had turned his own people against him, and what he was going to do about it. He didn’t feel like going back to his lab – following this lot around and expressing his general displeasure with them seemed like a better option.

  They headed down the stairs, a tense silence overwhelming them. Lily was trying to convince herself that she would be fine, and that Emerald Isle didn’t matter to her. Theron was trying to convince himself that he was just following them to make sure the G.H.O.S.T. didn’t do anything else to his apprentice. Finn was probably trying to convince himself that he wasn’t about to pass out.

  As they stepped through the doors of the building, squinting against the sun, all other thoughts came to a screeching halt.

  A large group of men loitered in the street outside. At the appearance of the foursome, the guys turned, evil smiles on their faces, twirling knives and batons in their hands.

  Chapter Eight

  Zelloth really should have sent more than twenty guys. Especially guys of this poor caliber - a couple of them had magic, but they were weak and incapable of properly using it.

  Between the four of them, they were wiping the floor with their assailants.

  At first, Theron had leapt to the front, instinctively protecting the others, forgetting that they were all powerful in their own right.

  He took two guys out with hastily shouted spells, fully expecting to be swarmed. No matter though, he needed to focus on his targets, take them down, and move on to the next. Distractions got people killed.

  His targets hit the ground, and he moved forward quickly, balanced on the balls of his feet. Try as he might to deny his other half, it was impossible to separate the man from the beast.

  He knelt down, searching one of the goons for a pulse point. His spells were not designed to kill - the stronger a spell, the more it took out of him. Death spells were just not practical when it took a tenth of the effort to knock someone out for a day.

  The guy’s pulse was strong and steady. Good. He would live to see another day, as long as some other nasty didn’t find him lying in the street… Theron shrugged. It was difficult to muster up any sympathy for Zelloth’s people - they were guilty of murder and worse.

  He quickly did a pulse check on the other guy - all good - and stood up to survey the situation.

  Finn leaned against a wall, looking sickly and grey, four guys held in his conjured vines. The boy had been through too much today. If he kept this up for much longer, he was going to collapse. Or worse.

  A glance around showed Hecate grinning from the middle of bunch of thugs. She didn’t even have a hair out of place, but her assailants were clutching as their skin as angry boils covered them. Theron was not entirely sure whether the witch goddess had come to a different decision than him – there was a good chance she would kill everyone who crossed her path.

  Lily stood off to the side of her own group. A frown marred her lovely face as she watched her own group of thugs in an all-out brawl with each other. It was weird, though – they didn’t appear to have the empty expressions that her victims normally did.

  Theron strolled over to her, very curious about this development. “What are you doing to them?”

  She shrugged, “Just amplifying any angry thoughts they have against each other. They’re too busy reliving all the past wrongs to remember they’re supposed to be attacking me. It’s much less taxing than completely taking over their minds.”

  The more he got to know her, the less Theron wanted to cross this woman. It was interesting though – every time he had seen her use her powers, she seemed very unhappy about having to do so.

  Hecate strolled over to them, her eyes dancing with mirth. She reveled in using her magic, and had no qualms about killing.

  Theron raised his eyebrows at her. “Did you…?” She was well aware how he felt about her violent nature.

  “I didn’t kill them, no. They will just be in a great deal of pain and discomfort for several days, but the boils will heal.”

  “Well color me impressed.”

  She patted his cheek again. Sometimes she was the most irritating woman. “No one else was killing anyone, although I’m surprised that Lily’s group escaped without casualties. I don’t want to be the misfit psycho of the group.”

  The tiger shifter shot Lily a glance. Considering that she was a G.H.O.S.T., he doubted Hecate was the only psycho. He even had to admit that he himself might not escape the psycho label.

  Lily piped up, her voice flat. “My group probably won’t escape without casualties. The things I brought to the forefront of their minds will fester. I expect a lot of backstabbing in dark alleys for anyone who survives the brawl. But for the moment they’re still distracted. Shall we leave?”

  Finn joined the group on shaking legs. His opponents were neatly wrapped up in his vines, laying in a pile on the ground. Once he got out of range, his magic would dissipate and free them, along with the two in Lily’s apartment. Theron took one look at the exhausted teenager and wordlessly took Lily’s duffle bag out of his grasp. He wasn’t doing it for her, he was doing it for Finn.

  Chapter Nine

  Everyone was exhausted from the fight and the trek to get outside the city’s borders. The foursome stumbled across an abandoned farmhouse that seemed fairly intact and booby-trap free, and almost wept with happiness. Finn was already passed out in one of the bedrooms, and Hecate had wandered off into the woods, muttering something about rare mushrooms.

  And so this left Lily and Theron, staring each other down across the broken coffee table. Animosity shimmered in the air between them, as well as more than a little attraction. Neither one of them was about to admit to wanting the other, but with a tiger that could smell lust and a psychic that could read minds... they were both fully aware.

  Lily was the first to break the silence. “Why did you come along?”

  “You know,” Theron played with his thumbs and avoided her gaze, “I couldn’t just leave my apprentice to fend for himself.”

  “What about Hecate?” This was curious, his concern over his apprentice but not his lover.

  “Oh, I know she can protect him just fine, from thugs and the like, but… she’s a bad influence to be honest.”

  Theron had completely missed the inflection. Lily hadn’t even considered the possibility that Finn needed protection; kid had mad power. And she didn’t even know Hecate, but was completely on board with the idea that she was a bad influence. Still, she struggled to come up with neutral topics of conversation. “Why do you say she’s a bad influence?”

  The shifter shrugged, looking even more uncomfortable than before. “She encourages his wild streak. Teaches him new things to do with his earth magic, pushes him to expand the limits of his power. I’d rather he just… ignore that side of himself.”

  “You’d rather he go full shifter?” This seemed very inconsiderate, but Lily wasn’t surprised. Shifters tended to have serious superiority complexes.

  Theron rose half out of his seat, features contorted into a furious grimace. “Excuse me? What the hell are you saying, ‘go full shifter’?!”

  “I mean… because he has both kinds of magic.” Lily was taken aback at his outburst, completely clueless as to the source of his rage. “You’re a shifter, it makes sense that you’d prefer your assistant to beat back the elemental side of himself and revel in his tiger.” His expression only got more foreboding as she spoke. Lily started stuttering, worried that he would have an aneurism or something. “L-look, I don’t know why you’re so angry about this.”

  “How do you even know he’s a tiger shifter?” Theron’s voice was low and menacing.

  Lily just stared, stunned that such a well-respected scientist an
d mage could be so stupid. “You- you do know what I am, right? Like, more than just the acronym?”

  “Fuck. I don’t even know what the acronym means.” He paced around the room, running his hands through his hair angrily. He hated it when he looked stupid. And this was completely his own doing – he was so completely opposed to her kind, that he refused to learn anything about them.

  “Seriously?” Lily didn’t know whether to be amused or offended by his ignorance.

  “Yes, seriously! I don’t know one goddamn thing about you, besides the fact that you volunteered to be science experiments, and you mess up people’s mind. Walking time bombs, the lot of you.”

  She stared at him, mouth hanging open in shock and outrage. “Where the hell do you get off?! You call me a walking time bomb, when you’re so tightly wound I’m surprised your tiger hasn’t ripped you open from the inside out. You’re a monster, wrapped up in a pretty human package. And what do you even mean, volunteered? What happened to me… the things they did…” Lily hid her face in her hands, trying to hold back the tears and the memories, “And then you have the fucking gall to tell me to my face that I volunteered?” She spat the words at him through her fingers, unable to even look at him.

  The room was filled with a deafening silence. The scientists who ran the G.H.O.S.T. program had always claimed that their subjects were volunteers, eager and willing to leave their humanity behind in exchange for the power they were offered.

  He had never questioned their narrative.

  If this was true though, that Lily had been experimented on, turned into what she was against her will… well, that would be even worse than what happened to him. His curse was pure magic, given to him in a flash of light. One instant he was human, and the next he had transformed into a fearsome tiger. Words from the god filtered through his mind, explaining what had happened. It was instant, and there was limited pain. At least, until…