Chapter Seventeen

“S o we work quite well together.” I point out changing the subject.

“Surprisingly, you’re right.” He agrees as we walk past the broken houses and back towards the tavern. “I still don’t like you though.”

His words should hurt me, but it’s the way he says them that makes me smile like a looney. I think I might be growing on the fucker. “Right back at ya.”

“I’m not sure that’s something you should sound so pleased about,” he points out.

“Maybe not, but maybe I know something you don’t,” I sing-song back at him purely to wind him up.

He eyes me out of the corner of his eye, and I try to suppress my grin as he turns his head towards me and narrows his eyes. “What do you know?”

I simply shrug, knowing that it will wind him up more, and that’s absolutely one of my favourite things to do.

He lets out a deep sigh like I’m the most infuriating person he’s ever come across and then changes the subject, “I haven’t seen Poca about recently. Is he staying invisible to us?”

I’m surprised that he’s still wanting to talk to me so much so that he’s starting a new conversation, but I’m not willing to question it and risk missing out on this chance to maybe get to know him a bit better. I’m not stupid enough to think that he’ll carry it on for very long, and I’m sure he’ll piss me off enough at some point to make me insult him.

“No, he hasn’t been around. I’m not sure where he is, but as I said before, it’s not unusual for him to go for periods of time. I’ll only get worried if I summon him and he doesn’t come because that means he’s been blocked from me somehow.” I explain.

He looks at me sharply, “Speaking from personal experience?”

I nod once, not wanting to talk about it in depth. Thankfully he lets it drop, maybe because he doesn’t want to push but more than likely because we can hear the guys behind us.

Storm pauses to wait for them, and we both turn around to watch their approach. They all look tense, but Loki is trying to make up for it by being his usual jovial self and Killian is playing up to it and teasing him as Loki complains that his stomach is eating itself. A lovely image.

While the others are all smiling at their banter, Reaper is stoic, and when I try to catch his eye to see if he’s okay, he studiously ignores me moving to Storm and bending his head close to talk to him. I immediately feel the sting of rejection, and I can practically hear the slamming of the gates between us as he puts his barrier back up.

Before I can dwell on it too much, I’m swung up into Loki’s arms as he buries his head in my neck and squeezes tightly. I allow myself to wrap my arms around him too. I was so damn worried when he hit that tree.

“Are you okay?” I ask, not even bothering to hide the thread of worry in my voice.

“Aw, Love, were you worried about me?” he asks, leaning back slightly so he can see my expression. When he realises I really was, his smile softens, “I’m okay, Love. It’ll take a lot more than that to really hurt me.”

I nod, feeling slightly mortified that I got emotional, well as emotional as I get anyway. All softness fades from his expression as his eyes fall to my neck, anger flaring within them as he lets out a low rumble. I tilt my head slightly.

“How bad is it?” I ask.

“Well, it’s not great. I don’t blame Reaper for ripping his fucking arm off.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath; when he opens them again they’re no longer deadly but still not exactly calm.

By now, all others have started walking ahead again. So Loki and I are left behind slightly. Killian looks back at me being held in Loki’s arms and gives me a soft smile, one full of meaning. However, that meaning escapes me entirely.

“Let’s heal you up before Reaper catches sight of it. We don’t want to go through that again so soon.” Loki says, placing me gently on the floor and then looking at me for permission as he brings a hand up to my neck.

“Sure, and don’t worry, I’m not going to bother asking what you meant with the Reaper comment,” I assure him when he immediately looks worried that he’s put his foot in it.

“Thank you, Love.” He replies as his hand warms on my neck and his eyes start to glow green, which, considering they’re usually purple, is a strange thing to see.

“Do your eyes usually glow green when you heal?” I ask since he healed my back last time, so I couldn’t really see his face.

“What?”

“From the shock in your voice, I’m guessing no.”

“No, they don’t. They go red when I feed but otherwise, they stay purple.”

“Odd, come on, let’s catch up with the others,” I say, wondering whether now a good time would be to bring up the fact that my magic has been playing up recently.

“Come on, guys, the tavern guy is so grateful we’ve dealt with it; we get a free lunch before we head back,” Killian calls from the door and all thoughts of letting him know about my magic flee as we both bolt towards the door.

We both rush past a highly amused Killian, “You guys are as bad as each other when it comes to food.”

We both decide to ignore him, throwing all sense of propriety out the window as we take our seats at the table.

“You guys alright?” Mayhem asks.

“They’re hungry. They only ate four hours ago but are behaving like it’s been decades.” Killian fills them in as he catches up to us much more sedately.

Everyone around the table chuckles as Loki and I practically dive on the food. I’ll never turn down food, and I have a feeling that Loki and I share something similar in our past that is the reason behind the way that we both approach food. I’m happy to let everyone think it's amusing though. I jump slightly as a hand gently squeezes my knee and I glance over at him; his eyes meet mine, an understanding in them that confirms my previous thoughts.

Lunch is delicious and consists of a massive bowl of stew filled with meat, vegetables, and the most delicious dumplings I’ve ever had. My favourite part was the freshly baked bread and home-churned butter, which I absolutely had to dip in the gravy. By the time we’re on the way back, I’m so fucking full that I seriously consider taking a nap. I know Revel will look after me; we’ve done it before when we’ve had to keep moving and can’t afford to stop for the night. The only thing that stops me is that after the fight that was far more dangerous than we were told and the fact that it’s more than obvious now that the Headmaster is up to something, it wouldn’t surprise me if something else got thrown at us on the way back just to make sure that whatever he wanted to achieve he did.

I still don’t have the vaguest idea what his motives could be.

“There is no way in all of the realms that rogue was a level one.” Rival mutters, riding next to me. You can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to put all the obscure puzzle pieces together.

“I would’ve said that it was at least a level eight. I’m fairly sure it used magic to throw the sound of the stick-breaking so we wouldn’t know what direction he was coming from.” Mayhem adds, looking like his mind is going just as fast as Rival’s, and I’m willing to bet that as soon as we get back to the castle, we’re going to lose them to research, so they can work out exactly what level it was.

“That fucker had to have known,” Killian growls, his horns sparking much like his brothers. The brothers seem to be mending their relationship slowly, and I know it means a lot to both of them.

“We’ll see what we can find out when we get back. Shadows are good for spying, brother,” Storm’s lips tilt up ever so slightly at the corners into a dangerous grin, as his horns start to glow with the strength of his anger.

That seems to be the end of that conversation, and despite the rush to leave this morning, none of us seems to be in a hurry to get back, as we take it easy. I’m in no rush to get back to the academy and feel strangely free. I don’t have my father's timeline to stick to; I haven’t just had to do something that I shouldn’t have to do, and I’m not riding back into a situation that I know will cause me physical and emotional pain.

However, the sedate pace is making it extremely evident that Reaper is avoiding me, he’s riding right at the back of our procession, and whenever I turn around to see if I can catch his eye and make sure he’s okay, he studiously avoids looking in my direction. The thing really frustrating about it is that I don’t actually know what I’ve done wrong, and I truly care, which is a new concept for me.

And you had a moment with him before you left, and you don’t know how to deal with feelings ; the bitchy voice in my head reminds me, and I vehemently tell her to shut the fuck up.

I’m hoping that he’ll talk to me when he’s ready. I don’t know how to do this.

I’m starting to recognise where we are, so we must only be ten or so minutes away from the academy, and I’m looking forward to a shower and possibly even a nap. Rival has moved up to ride next to Mayhem and Loki, and I’m acutely aware when the horse hooves speed up behind me, I’m expecting Reaper to ride past me and join the others, so I’m surprised when he pulls his horse next to mine and keeps pace. I stay silent and look ahead, not wanting to spook him and sensing that he has something that he needs to say.

He waits until the gates of the academy come into view before he starts talking.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice far quieter than usual, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see him gazing at my neck, where the vamp held me.

“I am, thanks to you. Loki healed the damage it did to my neck.” I pause and turn to look at him, “are you okay?”

Almost predictably, he stays silent, and now that I’m looking at him, his eyes remain focused on the gates ahead like he can’t wait for this conversation to be over.

I wait him out. If he doesn’t want to tell me, that’s fine.

Finally, he speaks, his voice hesitant, “You’ve probably guessed that I’m a shifter?”

He phrases it like a question, so I answer it like one by simply nodding. I don’t want to scare off his desire to talk to me by saying anything out loud, no matter how illogical that sounds.

Seeing my nod, he continues, “Well, if I shift, I lose control, and people get seriously hurt. Seeing you being held like that angered my beast, so much so that it almost triggered my shift. If the guys didn’t know me so well and knew how to keep me calm, I would’ve transformed, and then there’s a very good chance that you all could’ve died.” His voice lowers so much that I’m not sure I’m supposed to hear the next part, “you make me feel protective, and I’m not sure I can risk it.”

I had to have heard that wrong, but he rides off before I can reply, bypassing all of the others and heading straight through the gate at a canter.

Well fuck. I can see why it was so important to calm him, but I don’t really understand why that meant he wanted to ignore me. I should probably be terrified of his explanation, but in reality, I’m just not. Maybe that’s my absolute lack of normal fear response, but he doesn’t scare me. In fact, the only emotion I’m feeling is complete frustration, and that’s simply because he said all that and still didn’t tell me what he was.

When Reaper canters pass, the rest of them all look back at me questioningly, and I shrug, not sure what to say. Mayhem’s eyes dart between us, and he stops his horse, letting the others follow Reaper as he waits for me.

“Are you okay?” he asks me gently.

I decide to answer him honestly because I know I’m never going to figure it out, and maybe he’ll be able to help me understand. “Yeah, I’m just not sure why he needed to ignore me.”

He really thinks about his answer before he replies, which I appreciate, since it means he’s not just giving me a generic answer.

“He really cares about you; it’s easy to see. He doesn’t let anyone get close to him; none of us do. We’ve been a unit for so long that we don’t let anyone else in, and yet here you’ve come along, barely with us for a week, brought our best friend and brother back and just fit like you’ve always belonged with us. If he hurt you because he lost control of his beast, it would kill him. It doesn’t mean that ignoring you is the right thing to do, but he is probably trying to put some distance between you, so his shifter isn’t triggered by any sort of threat to you.”

I think I’m in shock. I swallow down the lump of emotion that’s stuck in my throat thanks to him saying I belong with them. I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere.

“He didn’t have the same reaction when the assassin attacked? He doesn’t when Storm and I go at it,” I ask curiously, despite myself.

“Something has changed between you both since then, he knows you better, and as for Storm, Reaper knows that he would never harm you and that you are never in actual danger no matter how vicious your verbal sparring gets.” He pauses, letting me absorb it all for a second before he adds, “can I ask you a question?”

The curiosity burning in his eyes is a dead giveaway that my answer is important, and it makes me infinitely curious.

“Yeah, sure, go for it,” I reply.

“Are you scared of him now?”

“No,” I reply without hesitation, “not even for a second, and maybe I should be. Maybe I will be later when I really think about it, but I’m not.”

He looks contemplative for a moment as we make our way to the stables, “I had a feeling you were going to say that. Just promise me that you will be careful, his beast is something else entirely, and not even we can calm him when he comes out.”

I nod and then add, my voice sad, “Poor Reaper, that has to be so fucking difficult fighting against a part of you all the fucking time, worrying about what could happen if he can’t keep that control over that part. It must be exhausting.”

Mayhem looks at me, astonished, like he’d never really considered it properly, and guilt quickly follows. I leave him to it as I dismount Revel and lead him into his stall. My mind is still stuck on Reaper, so when I come out of the stable block and see him talking to the others, I immediately make my way over to him. He sees me coming, but it still shocks him when I wrap my arms around his waist; I look up at him as he looks down at me curiously, his arms wrapping around me hesitantly.

“I just wanted you to know that I’m not scared of any part of you. I can’t even begin to imagine how exhausting it must be fighting against a part of yourself, and I think you’re truly amazing, both of you.”

He stills at my words, his eyes widening with astonishment at my acknowledgement and a rumbling purr comes from his chest that seems to shock him as his yellow eyes start to glow slightly.

“My beast liked that you acknowledged him. Little Warrior, that’s the first time he’s not tried to force himself forward or acted in anger.”

My smile widens, and after the emotions, I’ve just shared, I can’t help my snarky reply as I step back, “I’m just that fucking amazing, I guess.”

Loki’s snort of laughter makes me jump as I’d completely forgotten that the others were still near.

“You’re certainly amazing, Darling,” Killian agrees, pulling me closer as we all start towards the main building, his tail wraps around my thigh as we walk and it’s done it enough that it doesn’t making walking difficult.

“Where are we off to now?” I ask, ignoring Killian and making him chuckle.

“We need to give our report to the Headmaster. We do it verbally first and then write up a report too.” Rival explains.

“Well, this should be interesting.” I snark.

We get a lot of looks as we walk the halls, and I hadn’t really considered what we looked like until we got here. We’re dishevelled, dirty, and no doubt looking tired as hell. Eventually, we get to the Headmaster’s office, and this time we’re shown right into his private office, although the receptionist gives our attire a disdainful look.

The first thing I notice is the smarmy and proud smile on his face, which immediately falls as his eyes land on Reaper and me. Seriously, what is that all about?