"How?"

  I laughed. "Okay, yeah that's where I'm at a loss."

  I could figure out the why and the how it was happening, but finding a way to stop a military sergeant on the faculty of the college, who was backed by a clearly well-resourced group of Hunters? That was even harder done than said.

  "We need more information," Zap said. He'd stayed relatively quiet until now but had been sitting at the edge of the room absorbing all the things being said.

  "If we're going to get more information, then you're the man for it," Vlad said, waving the piece of paper with the names on as proof.

  Zap finally reached out and snatched the paper from the shifter. "And I'm only going to be able to keep getting information if I don't get caught for committing all the crimes because you keep wafting the evidence all around the place."

  Vlad laughed instead of being offended and pulled another sheet from his pocket. "I'm guessing you're not going to think my back pocket is a secure location, either."

  "You're a nightmare," Zap muttered, and took that piece of paper too.

  Daniel was once again hiding a smile at the corner of the room.

  "So you'll do some more research?" Marina asked. "See if we can find out some more about this guy and how we'd be able to stop him?"

  "I'm not sure I'll be able to able to find out how to stop him by digging into his past and his relationships, but I'll certain get as much info on the guy as I can, and about anything similar happening nearby." He sounded excited by the prospect.

  And Marina was grateful. "Thanks." She beamed. "I'd do more to help if I knew what I was doing."

  "You listening in on his conversation is the ball that got all of this rolling in the first place."

  That seemed to please her as well, though she said, "Really it was Tom who did all that."

  I shook my head because I always wanted to make her feel better. "We did it together, babe."

  I thought I saw Colin roll his eyes at that.

  I checked my watch. "I've really got to get going." I stood up reluctantly. "I’ve got a class later. I'm already pushing my luck a little bit to get there on time."

  Marina stood at the same time. "I'll come into town with you."

  I let her wave to the others and walk outside, but then I told her, "You don't need to come all the way into town with me. You can just walk me to the edge of campus if you want, babe."

  "Really?" she asked, pouting just a little bit. "But I do always like the nice romantic cliché of watching you drive away and feeling all forlorn about it."

  I laughed and laced my fingers through hers. "I suppose that's one way to get something out of the fact I probably won't see you for another two weeks."

  "Don't remind me!"

  "Really, though, I'd feel better if you stayed on campus. With everything that's happening, I feel better knowing that you're safe, baby."

  Her cheeks were warm. "Thanks, Tom."

  I pressed a kiss to her forehead as we walked through the dorms toward the outside, almost losing my footing as I did.

  She giggled and it made me warm inside too.

  At the double doors that led to the outside of the dorm I came to a stop. "And you'd be safest if you didn't leave the building at all."

  "That's a bit over the top."

  "It's nice and warm in here." I opened the door a crack and a cold evening breeze swept into the building. She shivered.

  "Yeah okay, you've convinced me." She stepped on her tip toes and pressed a kiss to my lips. "It'd be better if you were staying and we could curl up and shield off the cold wind together though."

  I wrapped my arms around her waist. "That's definitely what I'd rather be doing right now."

  We kissed for a long while until I was forced to pull away. "I really will miss my class."

  "As much as I would be very happy if you stayed here another night, I don't want you to miss any important classes either," she teased.

  I kissed her on each cheek and resisted putting another one on her lips that would leave us both distracted again. "Be careful, baby," I said seriously. "And keep me updated on what's happening."

  "I will." She dared peck to the corner of my mouth. "I'll miss you."

  "I'll miss you too."

  I had to force myself not to look back and get preoccupied again, walking quickly toward the town and my car instead.

  I just hoped Marina listened to me and did stay safe, but I knew that if they found a way to act, then she wouldn't be able to resist being right in the middle of bringing this Sergeant Waxton down.

  As much I wanted her to always be safe, that streak that would do anything for those she cared about, or what she thought was right, was part of what I loved about her.

  12

  Colin

  I wasn't sure why the issue with Sergeant Waxton was becoming such a focal point of my life.

  I suppose it was for Marina. Marina was passionate about this and even if that had originally been because of her feelings toward Daniel, I would always get behind with Marina on whatever she wanted to do as long as it wasn't ridiculous. Seeing her face light up when I put what had been an obscene level of jealousy aside and worked to make sure that Daniel didn't end up on the front line, I knew it had meant a lot to her.

  It was more than that for me, though.

  In the past, a woman’s involvement in something wouldn't have been enough to pull me away from the sculpture I'd started while my inspiration was still running this high. Especially if she had plenty of people to help, and it definitely wasn't my specialty. However, this was Marina. And I’d found myself falling hard for her and willing to do anything that would make her happy.

  For her, I'd thrown myself headfirst into this investigation. For the first time, probably ever, I was spending time in the twin's dorm with just them. Zap was typing away at ridiculous speeds on his computer and Brian was doing the same, if slightly less quickly, on his laptop, while he sat on the bed.

  I was in charge of the incident board.

  The incident board was completely over the top, but it added a level of humor to it for us that took the edge off just how serious this all was. I'd insisted on printing off some photos just to make it look more realistic, and because my artistic side couldn't allow the board to look unaesthetic. So there was a picture of the Sergeant in the middle, and then another of Daniel, and some of the other students that had been convinced to join the Army, especially the ones that had been killed.

  Every time I looked at their faces, I regretted asking them to be pinned up. They were all so young and full of life. They were at a top college. They would have had the whole world ahead of them, but they'd been brainwashed into doing something else and ended up dead.

  It was when I was looking at those photos one afternoon that I realized exactly why this had become so personal to me.

  I'd managed to avoid being targeted by the Sergeant at all even though the superhuman speed and strength of the Fae would be an excellent addition to his front-line squad.

  But if I had ended up in the man's office, I was no more likely to be able to avoid whatever magic he was using on students than anyone else who had been there. I could have suffered the same fate. And it was something that I'd been fighting against my whole life.

  When I'd been in the foster home, it had been the natural path that I would do something like the Army, or something that utilized the natural speed and strength I'd been given as a Fae. It would have been the easy path. No one encouraged or expected the foster kids to go to college. Sending them toward the easiest thing that might become a stable job was always the path they took. If they could keep the number of people who didn't end up on the streets or unemployed or in prison to a minimum, then that reflected well on them, so there was no nurturing. It was a shove toward an easy job they thought you'd be able to hold down.

  When I'd said that I wanted to study art, I'd been regularly laughed at, even though I spent all my days creating sculptures and paintings out of whatever materials I could find. It was obvious when people at the home had first seen my artwork that they'd been impressed, but it was a reaction they'd tried to hide as quickly as possible and did their best to dismiss my dreams as unrealistic.

  It had been a shove in their face when I'd gotten my place at Sleepy Hollow on scholarship. I'd made it happen because I'd never given up despite their constant discouragement.

  The prospect that some bastard Hunter could have used a magic trick and dismantled my dream with a click of the fingers made me so furious that I could barely comprehend it. And when I'd pinpointed exactly why this had me so riled up, it only made my rage even more intense.

  I was determined to bring Waxton down.

  I was festering on that thought when Zap turned around in his chair and looked like he was barely containing his excitement. "I found something."

  My eyebrows shot up and I hurried over to his screen. The printer was working, and a picture of a face was printed off. The same man was on the screen. "Who is this?" I asked, picking it up.

  "Waxton's brother." We'd all dropped the Sergeant from his name at this point. We refused to give him the respect of his title. That was if we used his name at all and didn't just refer to him as the bastard.

  "He has a brother?" Brian asked from where he'd appeared at my side. "I don't know why I'm sounding so surprised. Is he important?"

  "He's a supernatural," Zap said. "The only one in the family. He was hard to track down. Lives in the middle of nowhere deep in the Catskills."

  "You're kidding," I breathed. "It's so close. We've got to go and talk to him."

  "Right," Zap agreed, though I had the feeling that he might not actually be joining the party that ventured into the middle of nowhere to track down the supernatural related to Waxton. "I can't find much information. I don't even know what kind of supernatural is, or if he's friendly at all, but he's definitely the brother and he's definitely supernatural. I don't think he speaks much to the bastard, though I can't confirm that for certain."

  "I'm going to go and tell Marina about this," I said, standing up from where I'd been crouched over the screen and cracking my back, then wincing. Researching was even worse for my posture than crouching over a sculpture all day.

  "I'll stay here and see if I can dig up any more information on this guy," Brian said. "Now we've got a name. Joe Waxton. I might be able to get something more."

  "I'll do the same."

  I texted Marina as I left the dorm to see where she was, and discovered she was heading back to her dorm after having dinner in the dining hall. I told her I'd meet her on the way and intercepted her path just a few minutes later.

  "Hi," she said, beaming up at me.

  My heart fluttered in the same way that it always did when I saw her.

  "Hi, baby." I gave her a swift kiss on the lips and then laced my fingers through hers. I was too excited to get lost in the thought of kissing her right now. I needed to tell her what we'd found. "Let's go for a walk. If you don't mind?"

  It was a mild evening compared to a lot of recent ones and I was finally starting to feel spring in the air. I knew Daniel wouldn't be glad to see more sunshine, but in actuality, I couldn't wait for the long summer nights again where I could lay and do my studying under the trees in the quad. Especially since I’d get to share that with Marina this summer.

  "You look excited," she said, and my excitement was clearly boosting her mood as well. She'd looked a little pensive when I first ran across her. "Did you finish your sculpture?"

  "Even better." They weren't words I'd thought would be coming out of my mouth at any point during my college career. "We found out that the bastard has a relative nearby." I kept my voice down until we were at the outskirts of the campus, walking away from any prying ears.

  Her eyebrows shot up. "You've been researching?"

  "I've been spending a lot of time with the twins on it," I admitted. "And Zap found something important. He has a supernatural brother. He lives deep in the Catskills. It's pretty nearby. We could go and speak to him." I used the word could, but even if Marina decided that wasn't a good idea, I would be going, and whoever wanted to join me was welcome to. Nothing was going to stand in my way of getting rid of the bastard, and as quickly as possible.

  Before he could ruin any more lives.

  I wanted to make sure that we found out enough information that we'd be able to get any of the contracts that people had already signed voided to. To get people who were on the front line sent back to the college where they belonged.

  Just getting rid of Waxton wasn't going to be enough.

  "That's great. I can't believe he's got a brother who’s supernatural. What kind?"

  "We haven't figured that out yet, but the twins are on it. I'm sure they'll come up with some more information. So, you're up for going and paying him a visit?"

  "Of course. He might be able to tell us why the bastard did this in the first place."

  "The fact he lives in the middle of nowhere in a cabin rather than anywhere near his family gives me some idea."

  Marina's face screwed up. "Yeah I can see that."

  "We'll find out when we go and speak to him anyway. Hopefully he'll be able to shed some light on it. You never know. It might be the key to figuring out what to do about the bastard."

  "You're tense again," she said, frowning up at me. "You're taking this one really personally, huh?"

  I lifted one shoulder, but as we walked, I ended up explaining to her exactly why this one meant so much to me. It all spilled out even though I hadn't been intending to tell anyone about it. It was too personal.

  I still wasn't really used to sharing something this close to my heart even if I was romantic. I liked being mushy, not revealing. There was a big difference.

  But Marina listened with an open face and even though I could tell that she was felt sympathy, it didn't feel like patronizing sympathy. It was just what you had to feel when someone you cared for had been hurt.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I can see why this one is getting to you. But we'll get him, and we won't let him do this to anyone else."

  "Yeah," I agreed. "I believe you." I knew that I wouldn't. This was one thing I would definitely succeed at.

  Marina came to a standstill and I hadn't realized that we'd ended up back in front of the women's dorms.

  "You know, Laurie has gone to the library to finish her project and I know that she'll be gone for at least a couple of hours yet," Marina said.

  I raised a brow and she flushed a little. "I thought, well, since we haven’t had much alone time in a while—" She grinned..

  We ascended in the elevator and pushed open the door to her dorm. It looked the same as always, tidy and contained. A small gathering of pictures were stuck with Command Strips to her closet door. There were pictures of all five of us, including me. And individual ones too, of her with each of us. Instead of making me red with jealousy, it made me smile instead.

  She caught me looking and smiled too.

  We lay on the bed, her in between my legs and with my arms wrapped around her waist.

  "I know it's been kind of hard to find the time to have a proper date recently," Marina admitted. "I've been so stressed with this Waxton situation and then trying to prep for finals as well."

  "I'm not mad that we haven't found the time for that, sweetness," I assured her. "I mean, it sucks, but it's always going to suck when I can't spend every waking moment with you. And sleeping ones."

  She giggled and gave me a slight punch in the arm before pressing a kiss there to soothe the non-existent pain. "You're so sappy."

  "Always, with you."

  We sat in silence for the longest time, but it was the perfect reprieve. We kept our thoughts away from the situation with Waxton and on each other instead. I could see all the dates that we would go on when this issue was resolved. We'd go and have a meal, go and walk around campus hand in hand when the sun started to grace us more often with decent temperatures. Maybe we'd even go back to the Catskills. Marina had been so excited to see the cryptids. I was sure I'd be able to find somewhere else that we could visit where she'd be able to see some different ones as well.

  I could just picture the smile that would light up her face.

  I leaned in and kissed her, slowly, lingering on her lips for a moment and then moving to her neck. I removed her sweater, and drew her back to me, spinning us, so I could look down at her beautiful face. I wanted this to be slow, sensual and memorable. We had house as she said, and I intended to make the most of every second.

  I skimmed down her body, places kisses everywhere as I removed the rest of her clothes. “So beautiful,” I murmured.

  Marina moaned as my tongue dipped into her wet pussy. “God, Colin…” She gripped my hair and held me gently as I licked her, making her come with a scream of my name.

  I loved hearing her say my name and I was determined to have her scream it more. I worked my way back up her body, kissing her softly, passionately. I reached for my jeans and pulled a condom from my pocket.

  “Let me?” she asked shyly.

  I handed it to her and watched her slid it down my cock. I shuddered under her touch and grabbed her hands, holding them down at her sides as I slid into her. I wrapped her arms around my waist and then bent down and kissed her as I pushed into her.

  We set a slow, sensual pace and after an hour of her moaning my name with each climax, we came together. Afterwards we cuddled together, under her sheets.

  I pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she smiled, but her eyes were closed, and I knew she must be nearly asleep.

  I was content to just hold her now, to look at her peaceful face and be glad that she was getting a rest from the stress for a little while.

  I had no idea how she'd managed it, but she was a magnet for trouble.

  It was because she cared too much. She was too astute. She rushed into things because she could see there was something wrong and knew that it needed to be fixed, and if she didn't fix it, then who would?

 

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