by May Dawson
The sound seemed to echo in my ears as I ran down the long hill that led past the academic buildings down through the student parking lot. Before I reached the wooded drive, I heard movement behind me.
I whirled, braced for a fight.
Blake was there behind me, racing as fast as he could toward me. “What happened?”
I waved him off. “Another attack. Go protect Skyla.”
“She’s with the doc,” he said stubbornly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
There was no reason anyone would attack Skyla—not now—but I still worried having my little sister out of my sight. I’d never get over what happened to Blake and Skyla while I was off with the team.
But right now there was no time to waste, and I could use Blake’s help.
“Come on,” I told him, slapping him in the chest. “We’ve got to make sure the gates are closed. Can’t trust the guards. Stay with me and try to be smart.”
He flashed me a dark look, his jaw tensing. God, Blake took offense at every damned thing.
When I took off running, though, he followed.
I left the long driveway before we turned the corner that led the rest of the way to the gates so whoever was down at the guard shack wouldn’t see us.
The gates yawned wide open.
Fuck, I didn’t know where the two guards who were supposed to be manning the gates were, but they weren’t my top priority right now.
Because through the trees, I glimpsed a pickup truck racing down the road toward us.
I’d bet anything that the bed of that truck was full of wolves.
I was already moving, and I threw myself into the gates to push them closed. Blake ran to help, swinging the other gate closed just a second after I did.
The gates latched shut with a metal click. The pickup truck slid on the gravel trying to make the hard left turn into the academy’s driveway, and I saw wolves bounced across the bed.
The driver must have mashed the accelerator, because the truck gunned for me. Blake shouted desperately for me to move.
Instead I planted myself there and gripped the gate, as I muttered in Latin.
Don’t let me fuck this up, I thought as my magic flushed hot through my blood. The Latin words still felt awkward on my tongue.
“Shield,” I shouted in Latin. Golden magic rippled from my hands through the metal gate and into the high stone fence that surrounded the rest of the academy.
Blake rushed into me, knocking me down, just before the pickup truck slammed into the gates. The two of us fell together behind the concrete barrier that stood to one side of the driveway.
There was a terrible thud and then a screeching sound as the pickup truck’s engine kept whining, even though the truck had come to a stop against the gates. Blake looked at me, his eyes wide with fear.
“Stay low,” I whispered. They would be armed; I didn’t want them to know it was just me and Blake, because we were definitely outnumbered. Worst of all, the guards that opened the gate might be on our side of that fence.
“What the hell did you do?” Blake demanded.
“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” I admitted. “Stay here.”
I rose into a crouch and dared a look over the top of the concrete barrier. Half a dozen wolves prowled the fence around the academy. The pickup truck’s hood was completely dented, but that didn’t stop the driver from backing up and ramming it into the gates again.
But the gate held.
I ran into the guard shack. It wasn’t a big space, just a concrete floor and reinforced walls and a table for the radio, but there should be weapons in here.
Titus sprawled across the ground. His outstretched fingers loosely held his rifle. His eyes were open, wide and unseeing, and the look on his face was still surprised.
He looked as if he’d been betrayed by a friend.
That friend was somewhere on campus, most likely. Maybe if we were lucky, he was the one who Lex had just shot.
But I didn’t feel like we were lucky.
I swore and took the rifle from Titus’ still-warm fingers. I carried my 9mm in my shoulder holster, but at least Blake could take this one. I looked at the radio, then realized whoever killed Titus could very well be listening in.
I grabbed my cell out of my pocket instead, then called Lex.
“Yeah?” Lex asked.
“The gates were wide open, but I’ve got them shut now. We’ve got company down here.” I filled Lex in rapidly as I could.
“Got it. We’ll get you some reinforcements as soon as we can.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” I said. There had been shifters here from the Northsea pack and from Clearborn’s, but most of them had left to track down our enemies. Clearborn had called them back, but it would take time for them to return.
I ran back out to Blake, catching a glimpse of the wolves, and of a man who sighted in on me with his rifle. I dove back behind the concrete barrier again just before I heard the ping-ping of rounds striking the wall.
I passed the rifle to Blake, who hesitated as he met my gaze. The look on his face was grim, but he grabbed it.
I told him, “Time to learn how to shoot. We have to make sure they don’t make it through that those gates.”
“There’s eight of them,” he said grimly. He didn’t have to point out that there were two of us.
“You counted?”
“I can count, Chase. Christ.” Even when we were pinned down by enemy fire, my brother managed to look like I was the one who hurt his feelings.
“I know you can count. I was just asking. An accurate count is important.”
I didn’t like the idea that my little brother had stuck his head over the barriers, but what I liked never mattered much in this world. Reality kept spinning and I never liked it.
And now I needed Blake to watch my back.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said with a nod. “Six wolves, two humans.”
“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t going to argue with him, stick my head up needlessly, and get shot. It was time for me to start to trust him and hope maybe he came to trust me again too. I texted the info to Lex.
“What are we going to do?” Blake asked me. His voice came out gruff; he was trying to be stoic. But his brown eyes were wide. There were still faded freckles on my brother’s nose and over his ruddy cheeks that made him look young, despite the size of his tall, broad-shouldered body.
“We’re going to protect Skyla and our friends,” I said.
That was easy to say. Hard to do.
Just on the other side of the gates, a wolf howled. He was so close that the sound prickled down the back of my neck, my heart beating faster as if I were prey. It was hard to believe that not that long ago, I’d run with a pack, howling like that myself.
“Just stick with me,” I said, with confidence I didn’t feel. This was beyond what I’d learned during all those drills. I had to be strong for Blake.
He couldn’t know that I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
Chapter Three
Maddie
Silas led us into a cafe down the street. The air was fragrant with coffee and the scent of burnt sugar, and I inhaled deeply. The café was strangely almost empty, but a long glass showcased a dazzling array of sandwiches, salads, cookies, and tarts.
“Let me know if you want me to buy you a sandwich, Silas,” Rafe muttered. “Since you’ve spent all your money within fifteen minutes of arrival.”
Silas had a distinctly smug look on his face. He went up to the man behind the counter, who moved with robotic, jerky movements as he pushed a rag back and forth across the wooden countertop. It took me a second to realize that he was a robot, albeit a very convincingly human one. His expressionless face studied Silas.
Then he looked past him to the three of us. His eyes met mine, then whirred back in his head, rolling over and over and over so fast that his pupils were a flicker. The effect was quite alarming, and then he stopped and his head clicked faintly
as his gaze moved to Jensen. The entire process repeated over again.
Jensen gave me a look, and the two of us had an entire conversation with our eyes about how creepy the Greyworld was.
“Coffee and cake for my three friends, please, and I’d like a double shot.” Silas turned to us. “If you three would be so kind as to wait here and stay out of trouble, I’ll be back shortly.”
“I don’t think so,” Rafe said.
“Don’t worry so much. Even after what happened in the Fae court, I still believe we can stay out of trouble,” Jensen said, and Rafe raised an eyebrow at him.
Rafe probably never was going to get over what we’d done behind the curtain in the midst of a party. And Jensen was probably never going to stop reminding him.
“Your double shot is waiting for you, sir,” the robot said in his robotic voice.
“We’re not separating,” Rafe said.
“You won’t like it,” Silas warned.
“If you know I won’t like it, then you shouldn’t be doing it,” Rafe shot back.
“Are the cakes even real?” I frowned at the case, trying to lighten the mood a bit before Rafe and Silas came to blows. I’d expected some conflict between the two of them in the Greyworld, knowing Rafe’s alpha sensibilities and Silas’s implacable independence. But good lord, we hadn’t been here for an hour. I thought it would take a little longer for their inevitable conflict to flare.
“We’re staying in the same building,” Silas began, then saw the look on Rafe’s face and shrugged. “I tried. Come along, friends. It’ll be a party.”
He turned on his heel and said to the robot, “Double shots all around please.”
Silas went to a door in the back of the café and headed down the stairs.
The three of us followed him, descending down long, dark stairs.
Downstairs, the air was heavy with the tang of dark magic. My heart began to race, and Silas murmured, “I warned you,” as if he were so attuned to my body that he could feel my discomfort.
But Silas raised a heavy dark curtain for me, and I ducked underneath it, creeped out by the sensation of velvet sliding across my shoulder.
We were in a dark, smoky room, full of the heavy scent of blood and magic and burning tobacco. Several magicians sat clustered around a long table, rolling dice. This must be the game Silas mentioned. None of them looked up at our entrance.
In front of every magician was a golden bowl. It was only when I got closer that I realized the bowls were full of blood. A chill swept through me like fingernails tracing my spine.
“Stay against the wall and stay quiet,” Silas whispered, his voice barely audible.
He pulled a chair out from the table, the feet silent across the old wooden floor, and took a seat. Rafe and Jensen automatically closed so tightly around me that their arms bumped my shoulders. They were protective as ever, possibly even a little suffocating, but I knew their drive to protect me was something that they needed to indulge.
I smiled at the thought I was protecting them in a way, and Rafe glanced at me skeptically as if he knew whatever I was thinking, he wouldn’t like it.
One of the magicians, an older man with frazzled gray hair and glasses, leaned back in his chair, studying Silas, then said, “We’re playing an old game, kid.”
“Oh, let him in, if he wants to play.” The female magician across from him looked bored, her chin propped on her hand. “It’s his blood to lose.”
Silas smiled, that innocent smile that so easily convinced people to underestimate him. That smile was such a lie.
He held his hand over the bowl in front of him and murmured a word, and blood poured down his hand, dripping from his fingertips and pooling in the bowl. I glanced away. I hated seeing him hurt himself.
The four magicians at the table waited, absently tossing their dice in their hands as they waited for him to join. His bowl only filled halfway, and I noticed then that the bowls had various levels of blood—the one in front of the woman was brimming, as if it might run over onto the tablecloth, and the one in front of a man at the end of the table was almost dry. Sweat clung to his forehead beneath high widow’s peaks, and the look he gave Silas was sly and greedy.
Silas wiped his hands together, a sheen of magic between his palms, and they were instantly clean and healed. He scooped the dice from the velvet tablecloth. “Shall we?”
They began to roll at the same time. They counted out loud. The game seemed simple enough; they were racing to break one thousand. Silas rolled three sixes each time, obviously manipulating the game with magic, and so did the woman across from him. She smiled at him, as if she was curious which of the two of them would slip first.
I thought about how I’d play the game, how I’d manipulate the dice while they were still rolling to make sure they turned up on the six’s edge, and I realized it wasn’t as simple a spell as I’d thought at first. It would take intense concentration and subtle power to control three dice simultaneously and win round after round.
“One thousand and two,” Silas said, and she was just a beat behind him, already saying the same words.
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you counted correctly?”
“I’d stake my life on it,” Silas said cheekily, and suddenly I knew he had. Anxiety tightened around my chest like a vice; the stress was worse because I couldn’t do anything. He leaned back, slinging his elbow over the seatback. “Funny how that’s the only kind of cheating that isn’t allowed.”
The man at the end gripped the table suddenly. The old man scrubbed his hand across his face, looking away, but a small smile slithered across her lips.
Suddenly this didn’t seem funny at all.
Then the man tumbled out of his seat and sprawled onto the floor.
I took a step forward before I realized what I’d just done. Jensen grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back beside him. My heart was pounding in my chest. Silas’s face betrayed no emotion.
The robot creaked into the room. His vest and shirt rode up when he bent to pick the old man up, revealing cheap-looking gray skin. His maker hadn’t bothered to make him look so human.
He slung the man over his shoulders and carried him back out.
I had a feeling his magic, his power, had stayed in the room, in those bowls. Silas had implied that was what they were really playing for—power.
“He should have folded,” the woman said. She ran her fingernail absently around the rim of the bowl, fixing Silas with a seductive look that made me uncomfortable. A second before, she had looked as if she might begin to lap up that blood. “He thought you’d be an easy mark.”
“Maybe I am,” Silas said easily. He had already picked up the dice.
“I’ve lost enough so far today,” the old man said. He left the bowl on the table and headed out of the room, moving slowly.
His bowl slowly drained, and the levels in Silas’s bowl and hers rose evenly.
Rafe pinched the bridge of his nose, as if he couldn’t stand to watch, as she and Silas began to roll again.
Rapidly, their two bowls evened out, and then they were fighting neck and neck. She beat Silas to the draw, and he nodded his head, smiling blankly.
She started to smile, but he won the next two rounds, and an unpleasant expression crossed her face.
“Again?” Silas asked, cupping the dice in one long-fingered, agile hand.
She suddenly leaned forward, cupping her chin in her hand again, and I didn’t like the sudden change in her posture or attitude.
“Not you,” she said very softly. “There aren’t supposed to be spectators. Only players.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s not one of the posted rules.”
“This is my place. I think I’m entitled--I’m adding a rule.”
“I don’t think so,” he told her, rising from the table. “I’ll take my funds and be gone, then.”
“Not so fast, Silas Zip,” she said, and my heart stopped in my chest. She knew his identity
. “My man upstairs isn’t quite ready to pay-out. And either you walk away with a pay-out, or you go away all-in… like our friend upstairs.”
Silas sat back down and leaned forward, mirroring her posture. “I don’t think I’m interested in playing that game.”
“Not you,” she said. She twisted in her chair, her red lips twitching in a smile as she looked over the three of us. “Which one of you will join me at the table?”
“They’re not playing,” Silas said.
“Then I hope you can get out of town in a hurry, because I can have the police here for you very soon. And before you snap my neck,” she said, her voice growing hurried as if she read the murderous intent in Silas’s easy smile, “my man upstairs will be very hard to get past if I’m not here to unlock the door from below.”
My eyes had grown adjusted to the gloom, and I noticed the small things then, like the brass frames on the air intakes in this windowless chamber. One of them shuttered closed then, sealing with a clank.
Silas sighed. “You’re going to be tiresome about this. I hate when people are tiresome.”
Rafe started toward the table, his expression grim. “Oh, Silas, if I survive this game, you are—”
I stopped Rafe with my hand on his arm. My voice came out low and calm. “I’ve got more power.”
Rafe stopped and looked at me, anger flaring in his eyes—a cover for all those protective urges and alpha tendencies—and Jensen sighed. Maybe there was a better way I could have phrased that, but I didn’t have time to baby male egos today.
She hooted with laughter. Charming.
“I’ve got this,” I promised.
“It’ll be fine,” Silas promised, although he was smiling wider than ever, and that was a bad sign. He played the idiot when he was nervous sometimes, inviting people to misunderstand what a danger he was.
But if worst came to worst, we’d just fight our way out of here. She was stuck down here too.
“Good luck, Sunshine,” Jensen told me, and I smiled at him over my shoulder as I started forward.
“You’ll have to teach me the game,” I said as I tried to choose a seat. The dead man’s seat was the one nearest Silas and furthest our new friend, so I took it for practical reasons.
