Chapter 43

43

SYLAS

I bathed her after that, until I was sure I'd left none of myself behind, and then carefully toweled off her hair and carried her to bed.

"I thought you didn't want me sleeping?" she teased, as I gently set her down.

"That was before."

"I'd ask before what, but I think I know." Her lips curved into a soft smile and for a moment time stopped—not because of me, but because of her, because she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Statistically, it should've been impossible, but it was still true. "But you have to go into work, don't you."

"I do, I'm afraid."

"Can I go with you?"

"I would rather you stay here." But it didn't seem safe to leave her. If they'd been watching us take Nolan, surely they would already know about her, by now .

"I already know what it is you do—so why?" she asked, pushing herself up in bed.

I slowed time at once.

She deserved an answer, but I needed time to think.

Why would I hesitate? I wasn't ashamed of what I was—or what I enjoyed doing.

And she and I both knew that eventually I would kill her.

But . . .

I found that until then I did not want her to shy away from my hand, not when her submission was so sweet. And if she saw what I was truly capable of, within her human frame of morals, how could she grant me any grace?

From here, though, I was only a blink away from seeing the threads of fate that bound us together, and now that I was no longer covering her, I could see even more of them than there'd been before, so many streamers of our future, sewing us together—I brought myself back to her reality, still undecided, when she said, "Don't be afraid," and then laughed at herself. "I'm like an angel!"

"Are you?" I asked her. "I have never met one." That only made her laugh more.

"No, silly. Definitely not. But—if you think I'm about to give up that," she said, pointing back toward her bathroom, "you have another think coming."

Her motion made the hourglass mark on her arm visible. Our time was limited, I did not want to leave her alone again, ever—it was decided.

"Put on clothing you do not care about, then. And sturdy shoes," I said, and she was out of her bed in an instant.

A few minutes later I took her to the dimension where I'd left Nolan. She was wearing jeans, a loose navy sweatshirt, and the boots she seemed to favor.

Nothing else had happened to Nolan in the interim, because I'd surrounded the perimeter for our activities, but I was surprised that none of his magical brethren had made an attempt at rescue.

"So what do you see when you look at him?" Mina asked quietly, when we wound up behind the magical cage I'd left him in. It pulsed like a glowing heartbeat in the dark.

"The same kind of power that binds you and I. Only I believe his threads link him to Ella, after your story."

"Is threads what you call them?" Mina asked, gesturing at her chest.

"What did they look like to you?"

"More like . . . a map. Or a circulatory system."

"Ahh. Well, all three of those things can be true. The point is the connection between one choice to the next, one person to the next, not so much the symbology."

"Who's there!" Nolan shouted, returning from whatever shock-ridden place he'd been, suddenly realizing he wasn't alone.

I felt dangerous things inside me start to soar at the sound of his voice. To think that this human man had hurt my queen—then I felt Mina's hand on my arm. "Easy there," she whispered, before walking straight up to Nolan's cage. "Good morning, motherfucker."

The boy looked between us both, stunned. "Make him let me go, Mina! "

"How do we fix Ella?" she asked, ignoring him, squatting down on both her heels so that her head was even with his, as he was sitting on the ground.

He looked between us in panic again. "I can't. They'll kill me."

"And just what do you think we're going to do?" I asked, in my most ominous voice.

"Sylas," Mina briefly reprimanded, then returned her attention to Nolan. "Who's they?"

"The rest of the wolves!" he said, sounding exasperated.

"You know I never bothered with any of that bullshit," she said with a snort. "Here's what I think, Nolan. I think your dear old alumni association used you as bait. Because they were watching you, and they followed you, but they're not here to save you, so I think they've cut you off for good."

I was so pleased that Mina'd come to the same conclusions I had about his predicament that I almost missed her next sentence.

"Whereas I just might be inclined to make my boyfriend here give you a second chance."

I was surprised into stillness, all over again. "I am your boyfriend?"

Mina looked over her shoulder at me and beamed. "Well, I wasn't going to fuck anyone else in the next few days. Were you?"

"Absolutely not."

And probably never again.

"Okay, then," she said with a laugh, then turned back to her classmate. "So save yourself here, Nolan. I'm in a good mood right now, don't ruin it. "

"But I want to kill him," I said, inserting myself in their conversation. And after learning what he'd done to Mina. "He doesn't deserve to live."

"Yes, but I still love Ella more than I want sheer revenge," Mina explained, without taking her eyes off of him. "I want to know how everything works. But if there's no more information forthcoming," she said, and I took an eager step forward.

"It's all for the Golden Wolf," Nolan said, deciding that helping—and possibly living—was the easier path. "You saw it when you were down there." He sniffled, and then reached up with his hand that still had intact fingers, to pull the collar of his T-shirt down and show off a wolf head design imprinted on his chest.

"Yeah, I'm well aware you all give each other shitty tattoos," Mina said, completely unimpressed.

"It's not just a symbol! It's magic! We sacrifice the girls to him, and we get powers!"

Mina made a disgusted sound. "Why is it always girls? Why can't you sacrifice carrots? Or, I don't know, other dudes?" she asked, as Nolan gave her a traumatized look.

"It's how it's always been!"

"Oh, do not tell me any of your ancient fucking Knights Templar bullshit. You're a fraternity, not a videogame."

"We're ancient!" the boy protested.

"Hardly," she said, then began rubbing her own temples. "Just so I'm clear though—your whole frat's in on this? How many people do I need to kill here?"

I watched Nolan suffer with the realization that he was a coward, before fessing up. "No—only some of the guys, every few years. We get picked by the outgoing upper classmen, we step up, and as long as no one fucks shit up for us like you did, everyone else relies on trickle down. Bros before hoes and all that—we get each other jobs, cosign loans, that sort of thing."

"And Ella?" Mina pressed.

"I don't know. No one's ever tried to save one of the girls before—she's in the wolf's mouth now, whether you like it or not—there's no getting out."

Mina grimaced. "I guess you get honesty points for telling me shit I do not want to hear. Then again, you're not half so lucky as you should be, right now, are you? Maybe us killing Logan fucked shit up." Nolan's expression changed, and Mina pounced. "They didn't tell you? You honestly thought it was a car accident too?" She came perilously close to the edge of the cage I had him trapped in. "So who's in charge of this year's class?"

"Who do you think? Trent, of course," he spat, and Mina's nostrils flared, then she stood casually and made a show of popping her back. "So? Can I go home now?" Nolan asked her.

"Huh?" Mina asked, like she hadn't known he'd been waiting for this moment—and I watched her gut his hope like a fish. "Oh, no—I fuckin' lied. Baby, he's yours," she said, turning her head back to me.

"Baby?" I repeated, stunned by her word choice.

She caught my face between her hands, and rose up on her toes to briefly kiss me. "Just trying it on," she said, with a wicked smile. "Go get him...king."

I touched every piece of her body as I flowed around her to go do so at once.