by Coralee June
Tears welled up in my eyes at his dark words, but I refused to let them fall. There was so much that I was still processing that I hadn’t even fully realized that the paragons were assigned to babysit me until I was nodding my head and excusing myself, feeling like a kicked puppy.
Once we were outside Headmaster Torne’s office, Quade turned to me. “You’re staying in the feral cabin,” he said with a chuckle. “Damn, that sucks.”
“I don’t need your commentary,” I replied.
“But you do need an escort,” Quade retorted. “So unless you want to be stuck in your cabin for twenty-four hours a day, I suggest you change your attitude, or we might just leave you there to rot. I don’t think Headmaster Torne will care, do you?”
Nope. He wouldn’t. “Just tell me where I’m staying. Then you two can leave me the fuck alone.”
Render tsked at me. “Headmaster Torne won’t approve of that language at all.”
I shot a look at the closed doors of his office. “Headmaster Torne won’t approve of me no matter what I do, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Render looked thoroughly bored now and glanced down at his phone. “You take her to the cabin. I have stuff to do.”
Quade rolled his eyes but said nothing as Render turned and strode away. I watched him go, feeling slightly apprehensive, though I really shouldn’t. It wasn’t like the vampire was any better than Quade.
“Come on, Devicka. You have to keep up on your own. I don’t flash like a damn bloodsucker, and even if I did, I wouldn’t carry you.”
“I wouldn’t want you to even if you could,” I shot back, though my voice felt tired, despite the potion Torne had given me. We took the long, curved staircase down three levels before we hit the bottom east wing. We passed a few students there, and every single one of them gave some sort of greeting to Quade. He offered them a winning smile in return, so put-on that I wanted to gag. The students were all dressed in their fancy uniforms, the crest embroidered on their black lapels, but it was a step up from the shin-length skirts that I’d been forced to wear at Mrs. Coxcomb’s School.
Quade stopped when a girl came up to him, trailing her hand down his arm and giggling at him about some damn thing I was too tired to listen to. He put on the charm thick and then grew a damn daisy right out of his palm, roots and all. He plucked it from his fingers and passed it to her, making her practically purr. I nearly gagged at the gesture before slinking through the crowd to get out of there. For now, people barely gave me a passing glance. The only distinguishing thing about me was that I was out of uniform and following a paragon around. I wondered how long it would be before everyone knew what I was. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Despite that, I couldn’t deny that Thibault was a beautiful school. It had both antique furnishings and modern elements. The classrooms were an open concept with bright, tinted windows allowing lots of sunlight through, but still offering protection from the sun for any weaker vampires. Only the more powerful ones could withstand its rays. A guy bumped into me as I walked, sending my amulet into a frenzy of buzzing need. Rubbing my shoulder where he hit, I kept my head down, even as he apologized, and quickly kept going. There was no way I’d survive this without draining someone. I was nervous about testing the strength of my amulet, and even more nervous about Headmaster Torne’s threat.
Quade caught up, shooting me an irritated look, and then opened the back door that led to the outside. Of course, the asshole didn’t bother to keep it open for me. I shoved a hand against it before it could close in my face, walking out behind him. Outside, tall trees towered over us and spots of sunlight kissed the grass through breaks in the branches. There was a worn path where footsteps had flattened the plush grass. Quade led me down it, and now that I was out of the crowded halls, it felt like I could breathe again.
“I’m assuming they’ll want you to start classes tomorrow,” Quade called over his shoulder. “Although I’m not sure where they’ll even put you. It’s not like you can actually sit in class with the other students.” He chuckled like this amused him and kept walking, the school disappearing behind us in the distance.
Just how far away was this “feral cabin” anyways?
“The cabin Torne put you in is meant for shifters that lose control of their animals. Not the best accommodations, but you’ve been living with humans so you’re used to squalor,” he droned on.
“Humans aren’t squalor,” I snapped. “And you didn’t used to think so when we were kids. That’s your parents talking.”
Quade’s shoulders tensed, and to my surprise, he nodded tersely. “You’re right.”
I was so shocked, a freaking twig could’ve knocked me over.
As we got further away from the school, the grass turned unkempt, and the path started curving around trees.
I tried my best not to watch Quade as he walked in front of me, but no matter how much I inwardly chastised myself, my eyes kept rising up. His arms swung easily at his sides, and I could see impressive muscles in his back with every step. He’d been a cute kid, those dark brown eyes and dark skin always striking, but now that he’d grown into himself, cute was the very last word I’d ever associate him with. He was an ideal specimen of masculinity and charm. He was the perfect boyfriend that you wanted to bring home to mom and dad. The one who had the accomplished career and would dote on his lover with practiced charisma. But behind all of that perfection was something darker inside of him, and I had a feeling I was one of the only people who’d ever seen it.
When we were little, I’d had the biggest crush on him. It wasn’t a surprise, really. His parents and my mother were always pushing us together, even back then. But despite how much I idolized him, he’d always tried to best me, and that still hadn’t changed. We were still competing, even though I’d thrown in the towel years ago. And he was going to win, no doubt about it. I just wished he didn’t have to look so damn good while he trampled me.
“Are you going to walk behind me and stare at my ass the entire time?” he asked over his shoulder. I could have kicked myself for being so damn transparent and getting caught.
“Are you going to start walking backward?” I quipped before speeding up to get closer to him. I didn’t want to be tempted any more than he wanted to be out here with me.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. You always were the clever one,” he replied in a bored tone before brushing his hands along the bark of a tree, causing the moss to light up.
I nearly toppled over from the compliment. “Clever? Yeah, right. Mother always compared me to you. I never measured up, never will.”
I wasn’t expecting to be so honest about a disappointment I’d been harboring, but the words just spilled from my lips like acid. Quade stopped mid-stride and spun around to face me, making my steps stop short. “You sound jealous, Dev,” he said, a certain surprise to his voice.
I rolled my eyes, deciding not to give in to the bait and admit that yeah, I was jealous. I craved the relationship he had with my own flesh and blood. “You wish,” I lied.
Quade cocked a black brow but then turned and started walking again, this time matching his stride with mine. We walked side by side, and his knuckles brushed across mine, causing a spike of electricity and hunger to travel up my spine. My amulet started glowing, and I quickly crossed my arms over my chest to stop from bumping into him again.
Quade’s eyes flashed down at my necklace. “Maybe instead of wasting all that energy on being jealous, you should actually try to control your power.”
I gaped at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Maybe you wouldn’t have to be exiled away with the humans if you’d put a little effort into your abilities. You probably could have learned about this new side to your power if you’d have put the work in. Honestly, Dev, it’s a little sad that you just gave up the way you did.”
Anger started simmering inside of me as his words soaked in. I couldn’t believe he, of all people, would say that to me.
I stepped in front of him, blocking his way and forcing him to stop walking. “I did not give up. I was thrown away by my own mother!” I said heatedly. “All because she came in and kissed me before bed like she’d done every single night of my life. My Void came out on its own, without my control. I couldn’t stop it, no matter how hard I tried.”
My voice was strained, my throat fighting to not close up.
“You don’t have to like it,” he said back, his face looking angry.
I was flabbergasted. What the hell was he talking about?
“You think I wanted to be this?” I demanded, my anger now coming to a steaming, churning boil. “You think I wanted my life to be stripped away from me, to be hated by our own people? I didn’t ask for any of that, Quade. I was ten years old. I had my mother and my best friend taken away from me just like that.” I snapped my fingers, emphasizing my point.
He watched me warily like he hadn’t expected me to actually say my side. Well, fuck that. I was sick of swallowing my words. I wanted to scream my truth until my throat was raw.
“I cared about you, and you just abandoned me. I got shoved into a life with humans and was told that I would never be accepted by my own people. The council forbade me from practicing my powers at all. So before you give me your pretentious bullshit about fucking trying, maybe you should look in the mirror and ask yourself why you never bothered to try and fight for me,” I seethed. “I thought that we were best friends, but as soon as my Void manifested, that was done. You hated me, and I had to learn to hate you right back. So go on and keep hating me, but for fuck’s sake, don’t pretend that any of this is my fault.”
My chest rose and fell with quick breath, my entire body tense with hurt and anger. I never expected to say all of that to him. Hell, I’d never expected to say anything at all. But once I started, it all came pouring out.
My truth was long and painful, and words like this were usually only ever spoken inside the journal I wrote in. But he was here, and he felt so godsdamned familiar, yet totally foreign at the same time. He was my childhood and my estranged future all wrapped up into one package, and I couldn’t stand to hear his arrogant words for a single second longer.
He stared at me like he was possibly seeing me for the first time. Something indecipherable crossing over his features before it vanished again, but in that split second, the air around us shifted. He took a step forward, so small in movement that I wasn’t even sure at first if he’d actually done it. My breath caught, his throat bobbed, and my skin started tingling with something that had nothing to do with my Void’s hunger.
After all these years, I still missed him.
Another step forward, and he was just inches away, his steady breath mingling with mine. He lifted his hand, brought it close to my face, and I could feel the heat coming off of his skin even though he wasn’t even touching me.
And I wanted so badly to be touched. Aside from humans, it never happened. Supers left a wide berth around me, and I didn’t blame them. But even after having sensory overload from the past day, this was different. This wasn’t hostile or meant to intimidate or about a vampire craving blood. This was charged with attraction and want.
Quade’s eyes softened as they ran over my face. But just before his knuckles made contact with my cheek, he suddenly pulled away, like he was shocked that he’d been about to touch me with any sort of tenderness.
His nearly black eyes flickered down to my amulet before lifting up again, like it reminded him of why I should always be kept at a distance. As soon as his gaze met mine, I saw his expression harden once more into the arrogant, aloof bastard that he was. Whatever had been building between us was snapped apart, pieces of hope splintering at my feet.
“I don’t expect you to understand, Dev. But you’re still wrong.”
“About which part?”
“That, you’ll have to figure out for yourself,” he answered smoothly.
He turned and started walking away again, but this time, he was heading in the direction we’d just come from. “The feral cabin is a hundred feet that way,” he said, pointing through the thick trees. “Stay there until one of us draws the short straw and comes to escort you to breakfast tomorrow morning. Until then, I suggest you grow thicker skin. You’re gonna need it.”
He disappeared down the path, leaving me behind like he couldn’t wait to get away from me. It shouldn’t have hurt—not after all this time. But it did.
Chapter 6
The feral cabin was more like a shack. It had a squeaky twin bed with an impossibly thin, stained mattress. Chains attached to a metal wall were the only decor, and the bathroom only ran cold water, much to my dismay. I slept alright though. It wasn’t terrible, and if I was being honest, I was thankful to not have to share a room with someone that would ultimately fear and hate me.
My sleep schedule was completely off thanks to the draining experience, the time difference from being back in the US, and an overwhelming anxiousness that had settled in my gut. Unfortunately, I woke up totally disoriented and in a sheen of slick, cool sweat. And after tossing and turning for a couple of hours, I realized I wouldn’t get any more sleep until I ran off some of the energy building up within me. I was my father’s daughter, after all, and risk demons were notorious for having to blow off steam.
I’d always been like this. A product of my father’s demon bloodline. When I got anxious, the only thing that helped was getting an adrenaline rush. I was always climbing the tallest buildings, taking the largest leap. I couldn’t help it any more than my father could help feeding off the humans that he tempted. Taking risks was in my blood.
Giving up on sleep, I got out of bed and pulled on a pair of old sweatpants and sweatshirt from the bottom of my bag. The moment I went outside, it felt like I could breathe more easily in the cool night air. Energy coursed through me, and the urge to take a risk was almost as demanding as the Void. I was stuck between the two natures of myself, both competing for my attention. I spotted a tall tree, jogged over to it, and gripped a low hanging branch before pulling my body up to perch on it.
I grabbed the next branch and pulled myself up that one, too. Higher and higher I went, as dying leaves fell from the branches. Each movement jostled the decay. It was fall in Washington, where the school was located. Everything was in a state of transition. The grounds, the trees...me.
I hadn’t climbed in a while, so my arms shook with the strain as I kept going higher. Good. It added to the risk.
I pulled up the next branch, but it snapped the moment my hand grabbed hold of it. The weight of my body shifted at the lack of support, and I had to grab hold of the large trunk to stop myself from falling. “Shit,” I panted under my breath, but I plastered a smile on my face.
When I was a little girl, my mother used to catch me climbing trees in the middle of the night. She didn’t understand my need to test the limits. It wasn’t until Dad explained to her that it was his risk blood running through my veins that she stopped punishing me for it.
I missed my father. It had been a few months since I’d seen him, and I wondered what he would say about me being at Thibault Academy. He never much liked my mother’s way of doing things. He was never parental, but he loved me in his own way. Out of everyone, he cared about me the most, despite being mainly absentee.
Everyone else always wanted something from me. Reed wanted me in LA with him. My mother wanted me to give her back what I’d taken. The supers wanted me gone. Judge Braxton wanted me here. I was always told what to do and how to live. So sneaking away and taking crazy risks was one of the only ways I ever got to feel a sense of freedom.
I reached out and grabbed another branch, wrapping my soft hands around the wood before pulling myself back up. My hands cracked and bled from the rough climb, but I relished in it. Another step. Another pull. Splinters dug into my palms. The scrapes burned and pulled.
And still, I kept climbing.
This, I could control. Here, I was in charge of m
yself.
The risk was freeing. The pain was grounding. I felt alive when my lungs expanded with the cool, fresh air and real as I left hot prints of blood on the bark as I climbed. Pretty soon, I was standing on the top of the world, watching the grounds below, the full moon casting its white light and black shadows. I breathed in deeply, a small smile playing on my lips, letting the breeze push my light blonde hair around my face. My heart had the steadying thump thump thump of the physical push and delicious risk as I stood on a thin branch, overlooking the world.
I was considering climbing back down and finding a new tree to climb when a sudden movement to my right made me go still. I crouched down on the branch, eyeing the shadows on the ground below. From up here, voices traveled up to me, the sound carrying in the night.
“I can’t believe Judge Braxton is doing this,” a sinister voice growled. I’d heard that voice before.
“I can. Her power is curious. I think it’s smart to learn how it works so that we can effectively defend ourselves,” Quade responded in a pompous tone that made me want to jump down from this tree and beat his ass.
My hands curled around the trunk of the tree. They were obviously talking about me.
Someone scoffed. “Defend ourselves? Haven’t you noticed? She’s a nobody. She’s weak,” Render’s voice broke through, and I watched as four shadows stepped into the clearing below me.
“Weakness can be strength in the right light,” a singsong voice added before crouching low in the grass to poke at something. I squinted, trying to see who it was, my ears straining to catch every word.
“Weakness can also get you killed. She’s a liability. You know what her kind has done to shifters in the past. She’s already stolen powers from two, my brother included! And I’ve read that Voids get hungry. Feral, even. It’s not safe to have her on school grounds,” that familiar, gruff voice replied.
