Chapter 24

24

The man following me was a shifter.

I knew it the way some people knew when rain would come. No matter how fast I ran, he kept pace with me, down one hallway and up another. My breath came in short gasps and when I inhaled, I smelled wolf. Wolf and testosterone and a burning desire to catch me. To the point where my desire blotted out any other emotion including self-preservation.

He didn’t care if anyone saw him.

I had to do something, and fast, because I couldn’t keep running all night. Eventually someone would try to stop me. Eventually I would tire and the man behind me would catch up.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t draw air into my body.

Run, run. Hurry!

I pushed my legs as fast as they would go and listened to the heavy echo of my footsteps. Heard the way the man did the same. His footsteps approached closer yet, a slap of leather soles on stone.

And glancing over I saw my salvation.

A fairy sconce on the wall.

I skidded to a stop beside the sconce, remembering what Melia had told me about the secret passages.

Look for the fairies. They guide the way.

I jumped up to reach the sconce, thinking to pull some kind of hidden lever and open the door. But there were no secret levers here. There were only words. Words of power to get me inside the tunnel.

What were they? Oh my God. This was a terrible time for me to forget.

I pressed my palm against the wall.

Losing precious seconds, I tried to remember the incantation phrase. Too many wrong attempts. I heard the man getting closer, heard his boots echoing closer and louder.

Tavi, think!

“Elaphrium,” I whispered.

At last I managed to get out the right words for the spell and the stones melted away, revealing the pitch-black interior of the secret tunnel. I made it inside with seconds to spare and said the words a second time. The stone closed behind me and, though muffled, I heard the man pass by the other side without noticing my disappearance.

A dull ache flared across my back. It spread to my biceps and down the sides of my chest. I must have been tensing harder than I thought, because everything hurt. I took a moment to try and get my pulse down from heart attack territory. Shaken to the core.

The killer was a shifter.

No one but a shifter could have kept up with me, especially not when I let my own wolf out to play. And he’d stunk like one of my kind.

He had to be the killer, because no one else on campus had a reason to chase me, to single me out. Because I’d gotten the top spot and like an idiot left myself open for an attack by walking alone at night. Reason enough, right?

Still, why would someone put in time and effort to kill off probationary first-year students? It didn’t make any sense to me. I leaned my head against the stone and winced, clutching my books tighter to my chest. Dear God. Someone wanted to kill me.

Did this mean there were more shifters hidden at the academy? And if there were, then how did they avoid detection? The only other one I knew about was the detective assigned to the case. Wilson. But he hadn’t given me any other vibe beyond disgruntled and maybe a little pissed off. Also, the scents didn’t match. He certainly hadn’t seemed like a killer.

Then again, appearances could be deceiving.

Losing track of time, I caught my breath then followed the hidden passageway back to my dorm room, and climbed into bed still shaking. No one commented on the cobwebs decorating my hair. Not even Persephone, much to my surprise. She stared at me long enough that any other night I would have felt uncomfortable. Tonight, I just didn’t care.

Ducking my head to hide, I crawled under the covers and fumbled around until I found the two remaining vials of potion from Barbara.

One left, now.

I thought about it as I swallowed the contents down the hatch, watching my skin crawl and shift and dull my shifter nature, like crawling beneath a hot, wet wool blanket. The potion didn’t take my fear with it, sadly. No, that was left to me in its entirety. Apparently, my body and mind wanted me to have the whole experience of being afraid.

One vial and too much time until the end of the semester rolled around. I needed to at least make it to next weekend, when I had days off and could leave the campus.

With what car?

I’d junked the Toyota and wrote it off as a loss. Maybe I could ask Mike—

My jaw locked. No. I refused to ask him to drive me anywhere, let alone bring him near Barbara. Or the rest of my pack. He’d have too many questions. I didn’t want to be beholden to him, anyway.

I fell into a dreamless sleep and woke with the sun. Melia found me soon after I showered.

“There’s a party the upperclassmen are throwing tomorrow,” she began excitedly. She’d cornered me in my dorm so I had less of a chance to tell her no and make an excuse to escape.

I shrugged into a clean shirt, Melia standing near the windows with her gaze purposely averted. “A party for what?” I asked.

“To celebrate not getting cut from the school.” The way she said it told me I should have known already. “The upperclassmen throw one every winter around this time. It’s kind of one of those things that’s grown and grown until even the staff know the Friday night after the lottery is reserved.” She pushed herself onto the desk beneath the window, tucking her knees under her chin. “You know how it goes.”

“I guess I do,” I joked. I didn’t want her to know. I was afraid. Afraid to be around so many people with a target painted on my back. “A party could be fun.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course it will be fun. This is my fourth one and I can tell you it’s a pretty low-key affair but there’s always something exciting. Basically, we all use this to blow off a little steam and socialize. It’s like a break from the rigors of classes. There will probably be alcohol. It seems like most of the upperclassmen have the off-campus hookup and use it to dazzle the rest of us.”

I liked how even though she was in her fourth year Melia didn’t lump herself in with the rest of her upperclassmen. “I like the way you think.”

I grabbed my hairbrush, running it down the length of my still-damp hair. My school blazer hung on a peg near my bunk. After braiding the strands, I reached for the jacket, sliding my arms home.

“You’ll come?” she pressed.

What could it hurt? Maybe it would give me a chance to blow off a little steam. And surely no one would try to come after me in a room full of people. There would be too many eyes, too many witnesses, too many bodies to get in the way of making a clean kill.

Which made the party one of the safest places I could be, really.

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

* * *

I managed to squeak through classes on Friday even with my attention fractured in every direction. Later, with the moon riding high and me ducking low to avoid its light, I followed Melia into one of the upperclassmen common rooms wearing our “casual clothes.” She had on black leggings, offset by a rich purple sweater hanging down to mid-thigh.

I felt like a bum in comparison. I’d gone with a light-gray long-sleeved t-shirt and a black skirt, plus my ever-present ratty Converses.

She pushed open a door on the second floor to reveal a brightly lit circular space decorated in verdant greens and natural browns. A plush leather sectional sat in the center of the room facing a massive fireplace with a mantel made of carved wood.

“I’ve never been in here,” I murmured.

Melia nodded. “This is the common room for my dorm. Nice, right? I forget this is the first time you’ve seen it. You always want to study in the library, you never hang out with me here.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied automatically.

We made ourselves comfortable, a pair of upperclassmen pressing drinks into our hands before moving off to the rest of the party. Talk about service. Taking a sip, I welcomed the little rush of heat from the spiked punch while I kept an eye out for familiar faces. Well, two familiar faces.

Mike and Roman were not among the crowd.

My brows drew down and I took a long sip. Was it wrong to be bothered that Mike wasn’t here? I really thought he’d want to celebrate the achievements of our class, not be petulant and standoffish. He’d made it through the lottery the same as the rest of us.

I guess it irked him how I’d done better than him. More than I thought it would. Or should.

Still, I was determined to have fun with or without him. I followed Melia deeper into the room, stopping to say hello to several people I knew from my class.

I did have fun. One drink turned into two. There were lots of people to speak to, more than just the perfunctory congratulatory conversation. For the first time since arriving at the school, I was included. The feeling of fitting in warmed a knot of ice inside of me I hadn’t known I was carrying around.

Standing in the center of the conglomeration of fellow halflings, I was at ease.

Even with Dawn and the rest of my shifter mates back at home, I’d never felt like I really belonged. I’d always been on guard against the chance someone would pry too deeply into my past. That they would look at me and see something wrong with me.

Here, no one saw anything. Yes, I still had things to hide, and yes, if someone looked too closely they would discover darkness and lies, but…

I clung to the but.

Melia and I danced together until my legs burned and sweat beaded along my brow. She took a break long before I did, seeing a boy she liked and dipping out to flirt with him while I continued to move, to sway. She deserves it, I thought to myself, turning in a smooth circle. She deserved to find a guy to flirt with, to snuggle with, because she was an amazing person.

Hell, I was an amazing person too! Soon I would find my own guy to flirt with, someone appropriate. My brain conjured a picture of Mike and effectively soured the rest of my good feelings toward dancing. Mike didn’t want to flirt with me. He didn’t even want to be around me.

Finally, I got too hot, my head swimming and my vision fuzzy, and decided to take a break of my own. I stumbled toward the door to the balcony, still holding my drink. There were several balconies jutting off this floor of the castle and this one was more decorative than functional, only large enough to hold a handful of people at one time.

I craved the fresh air. I wasn’t sure how it felt to be drunk, never having indulged this much in the past, but from the delicious warmth curling in my stomach to the fuzz between my ears, I thought I might be close to it tonight. Safe, though. The party continued to rage behind me and there were people everywhere. People who would watch my back and make sure nothing happened to me.

I leaned against the cool railing, letting some of the heat from my body drain away with a sigh. I deserved this, I thought drowsily. I deserved a night of fun where I didn’t have to worry about mirrors, or garlic, or crystal balls. Where I didn’t have to worry about Mike and his bad attitude, or hooded killers chasing me down the halls.

I didn’t have to worry about dead students or wolves on the hunt tracking me down in the service of Kendrick Grimaldi.

My face melted down into a scowl at the appearance of his name in my head. He didn’t belong there. Not tonight, not ever. There was no way he could find me, not even if he put his best trackers on my scent. I was long gone. A ghost in the wind.

I felt someone move up behind me and smiled. “How’s it going with Barry?” I asked Melia. “Are you making any headway yet or is he still being stubbornly resistant to your charms?” My words slurred slightly. I didn’t care.

But I certainly started to care when I turned around and the face I saw wasn’t Melia’s. It wasn’t a face at all but a black hood and mask covering the man’s features.

The killer had found me.