Lure of Lightning, page 4
“You’re okay!” I squeak.
“Of course, we’re okay,” Clare says, disentangling herself from my grip and straightening her wonky glasses. “Screech bats are easy to deal with if you know their weakness.”
“She was amazing,” Fly adds, “I’d still be in that grotto if it wasn’t for her.”
“It was you who got us through the tunnel,” Clare insists, smiling up at our tall friend, before focusing her attention back on me. “But how about you, Briony? Thorne said you were hurt.”
“Struck by lightning,” I say sheepishly, hooking my arms through both of theirs and dragging them to sit on the edge of the bed. “I have lots to te–”
But I don’t finish my words because a giant white wolf comes charging into the room, straight at me, knocking me backward onto the mattress. Before I’ve even had a chance to register what’s happened, he has me pinned to the bed with his heavy front paws and he’s dragging his tongue up and down my face in between panted gasps.
As I protest in anger and attempt to wriggle free, Dray transforms back to his human form.
Clare squeaks. “Oh my stars, he’s naked!”
Dray ignores her, a huge grin spread right across his face, a face covered in grime and dirt, sweat dripping down into my eyes. He’s kneeling on his hands and knees, caging my body beneath him, his hands pressed to my shoulders.
“Little Kitten, you came back!” He smothers me in kisses, as excited in his human form as he was his wolf. It’s not just his face drowning in sweat, his entire body is too.
“Dray, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you sick?”
He shakes his head. “I followed you and the dragon. Or at least I tried to. He’s freaking quick.”
“You ran all the way back from the lake?!” I say in amazement. The distance is vast. A half day’s trek at least. “How is that even possible?”
“I told you,” he says, pausing to pepper me in yet more kisses, “us shifters are fast!” He growls and nips at my throat.
“Careful with her, Dray!” Beaufort snaps from somewhere beyond the door. “She was struck by lightning.”
Dray’s eyes flash with concern, and then he’s scrabbling at my clothes clearly looking for the site of my injury.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Beaufort healed me and I’m feeling pretty good.”
Relief floods his features next, followed swiftly by a smirk. “You look pretty good too, Kitten.” And he’s back to nibbling on my throat.
“Chicas, I’m all for a bit of pornography but I haven’t eaten my dinner yet,” Fly says. “Maybe you could save it for later and explain what the hell is going on?”
I swing my gaze back to my friends. Fly has his arms crossed over his chest, while Clare still has her hands covering her eyes.
Dray jumps up onto his feet and pulls me up after him.
“Come on,” I say, beckoning to the others, “we’ll go upstairs and talk in my room.”
“Is he still naked?” Clare asks from behind her hands.
“Yep,” Dray says proudly.
“It’s really distracting,” she mutters.
“Yeah, that’s what she said.” Fly chuckles.
“If you’re referring to my dick,” Dray says, “it does more than just distract her. She fucking loves my cock. She can’t–”
“Okay,” I snap, waving my hands around wildly. “Can you not?”
We reach the landing, finding Beaufort and Thorne waiting there.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out to Thorne. “I panicked and I wasn’t thinking straight. You were right.”
Thorne’s eyebrows twitch. I haven’t been very good at apologizing when I’ve been in the wrong, or admitting my mistakes. I’ve given the Princes a hard time for acting like assholes, but just as often I have too.
“I know you care about him, Nini,” he says, using that old nickname my sister used to call me and warming my insides. “I know you want to get him back. And we will, I promise you.”
I bite my lip and nod my head. I hope he’s right. Fox Tudor may be big, scary, and immortal but underneath that tough facade, I’ve seen a far softer side and I think he’s just as vulnerable as the rest of us.
“Get him back?” Clare says, averting her eyes as Dray jogs past her and down the staircase, large cock swinging. “What’s going on?”
Standing on the landing, I explain everything that has happened since the beginning of the trial – ending up in the mountains and not by the lake, facing a handful of demons, discovering Linette Smyte has no powers, facing off against Madame Bardin, her subsequent escape, my conversation with the Empress, and discovering that Fox is missing.
“You think he was taken into the demon wastelands by the Madame?” Clare asks. She seems less shocked and less overwhelmed than the last time I dumped a load of crazy information on her. Maybe she’s getting used to having a crazy friend with an even crazier life.
“Yes,” I say.
Behind me, Dray snorts, and I turn to find him jogging up the stairs in a pair of sweatpants. I scowl at him.
“Kitten,” he says, spreading his palms wide in surrender, “I know how you feel about him, but the dude is powerful. There’s no way Bardin could force him to do anything he didn’t want to!”
“She might have if she was helped by a horde of demons,” I growl, feeling sick to the stomach at the thought of it.
“Or maybe he went after her to try and catch her?” Clare suggests helpfully.
“We can speculate all we like,” Beaufort says, “but until we find him, we aren’t going to know for sure.”
I can’t help smiling at him. Despite the fact he probably agrees with Dray, he’s trying to be reasonable about this, because he knows how much Fox means to me.
“What?” he says with suspicion.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Wait,” Fly says, “what about the lightning bit? How the hell did you get struck, Cupcake? And also,” he adds, “half the academy is currently gathered out on the field gaping at a dragon – a dragon, so the rumor says, belonging to you.”
“Ahhh,” I say, chewing my cheek and dropping my gaze to the floor. “I decided to fly off on Blaze to rescue Fox.”
“From the demon wastelands?!” Fly cries. “Have you lost your mind?!”
“Yeah, for a moment there, I think I did.”
“Love can do that to you,” Clare says matter-of-factly. I nod.
“Professor Fox Tudor does not need you to go rescue him,” Fly points out. “Have you met the guy? He’s fucking scary.”
“That’s what I said!” Dray pipes up. “Plus, the dude is fucking immortal.”
“It’s Bardin and she’s working with demons. He needs me.”
“I think the others are right, Briony,” Clare says. “Fox can look after himself and the Madame has a strange fascination with him, doesn’t she?”
“An obsession,” I mutter.
“Right, she’s not going to kill him – even if she could.”
“She murdered my sister. I’m not letting her take anyone else I love from me.”
“Do you even know for sure that he’s in the demon wastelands?”
I explain to Clare and Fly about the rips in the air, about how the demons and the Madame had escaped through them before they’d resealed. Then I explain about the same strange abomination hanging in the air at the lake.
“Portals,” Clare murmurs. At Fly’s puzzled expression, she adds, “It’s like a way of traveling from one place to another. Similar to displacement.”
“Demons can’t displace,” Beaufort tells her.
“No, but they’ve found another way to infiltrate the realm,” Clare counters, paling at the idea.
“Shit, that’s not good,” Fly mumbles.
“So you see,” I tell them both, “that has to be where he’s gone. Which means I’m going to have to follow him out there.”
“I thought you lost your mind momentarily,” Fly mutters, “clearly you misplaced it permanently.”
“He doesn’t have anyone else, Fly. No one else is going to go and bring him back.”
“And what if he went there willingly?”
“Then she’s warped his mind and I’ll have to fix that too.”
“Sheesh,” Fly says, “you’re really serious.”
“I am.”
“I think the professor will be seriously pissed off if you go charging off into the Wastelands, risking your life,” Fly says. “What if he comes back and finds you gone?”
I look around at my two friends and the Princes. “You’re right.” Everyone gapes at me. I guess they’re used to me arguing with them. “I need to see if he comes back and if he doesn’t, I’m going to need a plan and for that I need your help.”
“Briony, Cupcake, I love you to bits, but there is no way I’m following you out into the demon wastelands. The professor is a nice guy and everything, kind of, but …”
“I know, Fly. I’m not asking you to.”
“Nini, if it comes down to it, you’re not going out there alone,” Thorne says. “We will come with you.”
“We will?” Dray cries.
“You want to let her go alone?”
“No,” Dray sulks, “but I don’t see why she’s so bothered by that bloodsucker.”
“Because she loves him and he’s her fated mate,” Clare says as if explaining to a difficult child.
“She’s not going anywhere until she’s recovered from that lightning strike,” Beaufort says and all my friends nod in agreement. There is no way I’ll be persuading them otherwise.
Chapter Seven
Thorne
Now we’ve come to some kind of agreement about the Fox situation, Briony’s next concern is the dragon. She doesn’t like the idea of him out there on the academy field by himself and is determined to go check on him.
“I’ll do it,” I tell her. “You need to rest.”
“I’m fine, Thorne,” she responds with a roll of her eyes. “Beaufort healed me, remember?”
“Yes. And Beaufort says you’re not 100% better yet.”
She goes to argue again, but I cut right across her. “You want to help Fox, don’t you? Then the sooner you’re properly healed, the better. Stay here and rest, Nini. I’ll go check on Blaze.”
Reluctantly, she agrees, and I leave her chatting with her friends in the warm kitchen, each of them nursing a mug of cocoa.
The relentless rain that battered the academy earlier has petered to a mere drizzle and the storm clouds have rolled away. I step out into the damp, my hair and my face wet in a matter of minutes. Usually the pathways and entrance ways to the towers would be bustling with students right after the completion of a trial. Snow, rain, and wind would not deter them. But this afternoon, the pathways are eerily empty. I suspect that’s because most of the academy is out on the field admiring a dragon; a creature not seen for hundreds of years, a creature many, I suspect, would have considered fictional.
But I realize this assumption is incorrect when the first pair of guards march past me on the pathway – Onyx guards dressed in their purple uniforms and black caps. They know who I am; everyone in Onyx does. And they nod at me wordlessly and continue on their way. I spin around, watching them go, wondering what the hell they’re doing here.
These aren’t members of the Empress’s elite guards. These are soldiers. I’ve never seen soldiers at the academy before, not even at the trials. I’ve never heard of them being sent to the academy before either. Perhaps the Empress brought them after all. Perhaps they’re on their way back. But I realize this assumption is incorrect too when I pass another group of soldiers, three this time, and then another two pairs as I weave my way through the academy. This must be because of what happened today – Bardin escaping and demons infiltrating deep within our realm. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. But an unease finds its way into my stomach anyway. Soldiers at the academy. It’s unprecedented.
The great golden dragon still stands on the wet field when I finally reach it. But the crowd of admiring students Beaufort said was lingering there earlier has dispersed. Now there’s a handful of teachers and a ring of soldiers. I spot one of the Titan twins near the pathway. He’s still dressed in the clothes he was wearing for the trial, his whistle hanging around his neck, although there’s no sign of his clipboard.
“What’s going on?” I ask him.
He drags his eyes from the dragon. I’ve never considered the man intelligent. He often looks baffled and bewildered by life despite his arrogant persona. Tonight, though, there’s even more confusion in his eyes.
“They say the deputy headmistress has fled the realm,” he says. “And that girl from Slate...” He jolts in realization. “Your thrall – can wield light and ride that dragon.” His head swings back towards the creature and he points its way. “Is it real?” he asks me.
“It’s real,” I say.
“Where did it come from?” he asks me.
“It’s a long story,” I explain. “Why are the soldiers here?”
“Sent by the palace,” he explains, “to retain order.” He sniffs. “As if we can’t control our own students.”
“Have they said who will take over from the deputy headmistress?” I add.
It must be the first time the Titan twin has considered this question, because he shuffles on his feet and puffs up his chest. “I could do it.”
To prevent myself from saying something rude, I simply nod and push my way through the handful of teachers to the circle of soldiers. Blaze stands at the center, seeming unperturbed by the situation, cleaning one of his front paws with his giant tongue. A tongue that’s length is nearly equal to my height.
He spots me, or perhaps he smells my scent, and his head swings my way. He gives a low rumble I’m beginning to suspect is his way of saying hello. The soldiers are obviously less convinced this sound is a friendly gesture, all of them taking a step back from the dragon.
“Hello, Blaze,” I tell him.
The nearest soldier sniffs. “Don’t talk to the dragon,” he says. “You don’t have permission.”
I turn slowly towards the man. He’s a foot shorter than me and a little skinny. His magic is prickly in the air but weak.
“What are your orders here, soldier?” I ask him.
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information,” he says with deluded self-importance.
I nod slowly, then turn my gaze back to the dragon. He’s watching me with those golden eyes.
“Go back to your cave, Blaze,” I instruct him. “Briony will call you if she needs you.”
He tosses his head and snorts.
“You can’t talk to the dragon!” the soldier yells at me.
“I already did,” I reply.
I can feel the soldiers bustling around me, feel their magic crackling. My own pulses in response, a warning I’m sure each of them feels in their bones. The dragon paws the ground and then stretches out his huge wings. With another rumble, he flaps them once, twice, and then he’s lifting into the air. The soldiers look at each other, panicked, clearly unsure what to do.
“Where’s he going?” the first soldier says in alarm.
“Somewhere safe,” I tell him. And before he speaks again, before any of them can attempt something they might regret, I march away.
I’m halfway back to our tower when I change my mind – and my route – heading for the tower where Fox’s lodgings lie instead and making my way down the cold stone steps to his room.
It’s been sealed back up again, but I use my magic to break through the spells easily, and then I step back inside his classroom. It’s a mess from where the Empress’s guards ransacked the room looking for clues. I pick my way through discarded books and toppled benches and find my way to his private apartment instead.
There, I hesitate for a moment, hand on the handle, knowing I’ll be violating his private space. Then I open the door and step inside.
The room is nowhere near as bare as that prison cell Briony had in her academy tower, but it’s nowhere near as luxurious as the rooms we occupy in ours either. There’s a bed, a desk, a fully stuffed bookshelf, a wardrobe. I cast my eye over it all. No photos. No pictures. No reminders of home at all.
This room has been searched too. The covers stripped off the bed, the contents of the wardrobe tossed onto the floor, the drawers upended. If there was anything to find in here, the guards would have found it already.
But I want to be sure.
I strip the leather glove off my right hand, hang it on my belt, and then I do the same with the left. I close my eyes and let my shadows race from my fingertips. I feel them streaming across the room, swerving and swooping like angry bats, rummaging through the discarded possessions that litter the professor’s room and searching. They alight on one object close to the wardrobe.
I snap open my eyes and walk that way. It takes me just a moment to find the object they’ve found. My heart hammers in my throat. I’m not as convinced as Dray is that the professor is our enemy. I recognize something in him. I’m certain he has feelings for Briony.
I also know that sometimes people choose power, greed, and money over love. That they cast it aside. That they give in to other desires. I’ve seen it first hand.
I crouch down, find my shadows spinning around the object in question. A small box. Plain, wooden and rudimentary. The lid has already been prized open but the contents remain inside – of no interest to the soldiers. A letter. A picture. A lock of golden hair. I recognize it immediately. The lock belongs to Briony. I take it into my hands and lift it to my face, inhaling. I don’t have the olfactory powers of Dray or the professor, but I still catch our mate’s scent buried in the strands of silky hair. Yes, Briony.
Maybe Briony is right. Maybe we should trust the professor.
When I return to our tower, I find our mate has been instructed by Beaufort to go to bed and rest. Of course, Briony would never accept an order like that from Beaufort, so it seems she’s taken her two friends, Fly and Clare, up to her bedroom with her, leaving Dray and Beaufort alone in the kitchen.
