Chapter Six: Arlo

Marisha Raintotem opened the door when he knocked. Holly was already there, arms folded, back against the wall, her gaze locked on his. A jolt of excitement went through his spine, but he controlled it with a small smile, nodding toward her, and then inspected the table with the bones now laid out in the proper order.

Two other individuals waited in the room as well. Professor Z'Hana and Principal Eldan. Eldan had strange, gray eyes and wore a perpetual frown. He was an older supernatural who perhaps had seen a few too many things he did not wish to keep seeing. The room itself was old-fashioned, with large black drapes covering the windows, grooved wooden surfaces, and several tables like the one that now displayed the bones of Charles Suntooth. There were chairs, heavy with dust and neglect, stacked up on the sides of the room. In short, it look like a room that wasn't used often.

"I'm still not comfortable with this type of study being allowed to students," Eldan said in a gruff, cold voice that reminded Arlo of his grandfather's, which almost made him stand at attention, straight and unwilling to show any weakness.

"As they discovered the remains," Z'Hana reminded the principal, "and extracted information from it, I'd say that they are exactly who we need right now. Isn't that the case, Raintotem?"

The necromancer inclined her head and looked toward the students. "Tell me, in your own words, what you were able to learn from the remains." Marisha stared at the two students, her yellow-eyed glare challenging them to speak.

After a brief hesitation, Holly piped up with her version of events with the psychic echoes. When she finished, all eyes drifted to him. He cleared his throat and recounted the experience as best as he remembered. "He seemed confused as to where he was at first," Arlo remembered. "And the last thing he mentioned was a friend, one I believe he was supposed to meet. He got agitated when the subject of his friend was brought up. He wanted to see his friend. We never found out the name. My magic ran out at that point."

Marisha Raintotem nodded, taking note of the information. "It's good that you were still able to find the soul, though I imagine that at this point, you need some time to replenish your magical reserves?"

Arlo nodded unhappily, wondering if this meant the principal might eject him from the room. The principal had made it pretty clear he didn't want mere students there at all.

All this authority made Arlo nervous. For all his efforts to branch out into his own life, he didn't want to embarrass his family. He wanted them to see him as a Sixclaw and a necromancer. He was determined to get something out of enrolling at Dreadmor Academy, his chosen home.

"We've already informed Archon of the discovery," Eldan said, his frown deepening. "Thankfully, they seem more grateful and puzzled than angry and accusing. They sent over their records of the investigation and are contacting the Suntooth family now. They are fine with letting us interview the remains since we are the Academy with the highest number of students and alumni relating to necromancers and mediums. Though it is not unusual for them to appear at the other schools, it is just… ours are the best." He finished that with obvious pride in his voice.

"Lostwithiel Academy might want to challenge you on that," Marisha said with a wry smirk. "But I digress. I have dipped into the notes on the investigation myself as well since my division handles cold cases within the region. Supposedly, everyone who knew anything was interviewed, but no one knew where Suntooth had intended to go because he lied about his destination and whom he was meeting. Most likely, he didn't want his family to know or his friends. Though they were not forthcoming in their notes – we didn't have any solid suspects."

Arlo shivered. He'd first heard about Charles Suntooth's disappearance when he was barely six years old. That kind of thing made the rounds of werewolf circles since the Suntooth family was an up-and-coming family that had recently come into an obscene amount of wealth.

When someone like Charles Suntooth went missing from Archon Academy, it made the news. It caused some embarrassment to the academy for not being able to solve the case fast enough, but all the leads dried up in the end, and there were simply no new leads to follow. The case fell into obscurity, except when someone referred to that poor, lost Suntooth heir. The Suntooths, in the meanwhile, were still very much up-and-coming and still without answers. Now, answers were waiting to be extracted from the lost heir's remains.

Marisha turned to address Holly. "Since Arlo is likely exhausted, you approach the remains. Try to tap into your psychic senses and tell us out loud what you're able to detect."

Holly stepped forward slowly, and Arlo felt a small stab of worry for her. The principal was eyeing her with a look that he didn't put much stock in the power of psychics and mediums.

Looking small and vulnerable, Holly started to dig into her powers. She closed her eyes and threaded a hand through her dark hair in an anxious gesture. At first, nothing happened. The communication seemed ineffectual. Her hand reached out to touch the skull of the fallen Suntooth victim. Instantly, she grimaced. "I… feel anger here," she said through gritted teeth. Something was warping the air around her. It was not as visible as necromantic magic, but visible, nonetheless. "Despair. Desperation. He… he was tricked, I think."

This information caused the principal's eyebrows to shoot up, and he leaned in closer, hanging onto her words as did the others.

"He… it's hard to pinpoint exactly, but I get the sense that he was seeing someone his family wouldn't approve of. There's a lot of hidden guilt and secrecy… the emotions are all over the place. The person…" She paused. "A transfer student?" She shivered as if a cold wind had blasted over her. "A female student who went to Archon, then transferred to Dreadmor. The one he was seeing. He…"

A longer silence followed this time as Marisha hurried to jot down the information. Then, with a tremble, a terrible vibration shook her as if something wicked had grasped and locked her in its arms. Since she seemed unable to move – she let out a whimpering grunt before her head rocked back, and her eyes changed to a shimmering golden color. "He – he's strong. I…" she sputtered before collapsing to the floor.

Marisha glared cautiously at the fallen medium while Arlo took a half-step forward. He noted her yellow, glowing eyes, so different from her usual green. Holly scrambled to her feet, her eyes darting from side to side. "Where," Holly snarled, "is she? Where? Where?" Her hands twisted into a representation of claws, and her eyes locked on to Marisha. "Where! She betrayed – they all – they said it was safe. They said it was safe!"

"Charles," Marisha said, the only one not disturbed by the scene. Arlo, however, was already examining his powers, wondering if he might be able to bind whatever now possessed Holly to the bones instead.

"Who is this she you talk about?" he asked the possessed Holly. "What is the name of the student who transferred from Archon to Dreadmor?"

"Emilia Gold," Charles hissed through Holly's lips. "She betrayed me!" Then Holly's upper body slumped, and she rocked on the balls of her feet. "Or did she? They locked us in. They said it was safe!"

"What was safe?" Marisha urged. "Did you go somewhere? Near Dreadmor?"

"They said it was safe. THEY LIED!" Charles/Holly spat out the last words, then lunged at Marisha. Only at that point did Marisha's hands begin to shimmer blue. Holly took one more step before falling as if her legs had been cut out from under her. Arlo rushed to Holly now before anyone could protest. With trembling hands, he turned her on her back, heart in his throat, not sure what to do or how to help her and not wanting harm to befall her.

Marisha seemed to wrestle against something, her hands like claws shuddering in front of her before they relaxed, and the blue glow faded. A faint glow lit up the bones until it evaporated without any more attempts to return.

"That was… quite something," Z'Hana said.

"Quite," Marisha agreed. "The psychic should be okay. I wrested the spirit away from her, but because it had full possession of all her faculties, she was unconscious when it was removed. She may have a bruise on her knee and cheek from falling."

Arlo lowered his ear to Holly's lips, where he heard faint puffs of breath.

Okay. She was still alive, as Marisha said, but not reacting to his efforts to bring her around. He not only felt protective of her, but he also felt his inner wolf pressing against his skin, beckoning to get out.

He hadn't anticipated those urges. His father had warned him about them. Sometimes, the inner wolf got overly protective, and you needed to sort through it carefully so you didn't end up suckered and exploited by others. It was a tactic some of the wealthier families liked to employ – a young, pretty, naive woman or man trying to tug on those inexplicable lupine heartstrings.

I need to be cautious here. I shouldn't allow myself to get carried away…though the resolve and conviction behind that thought felt as weak as cold tea.

Dimly, he noted that Marisha was still talking in her calm, placid way to Z'Hana and Eldan.

"If there are any more of the dead, you will need people who can sense that type of presence: mediums, necromancers, and psychics. I won't be here after tomorrow since I'm currently involved in a high-profile investigation, and I'm booked up for a week. The other nearest necromancer is currently in Peru dealing with an excavation of an Incan site; the rest are also overseas." She didn't reveal the reasons why – but the meaning was clear.

Use the powers of the people you have here.

"If you intend for us to use these two," Eldan said, his frown deepening, "I would point out that they are not the most experienced. I would much rather have a professional who has gone through years of training handle this. I also don't want the academy to be liable for any… accidents."

Arlo decided at that moment that he really didn't like the principal. He acted like a tiresome bureaucrat, concerned only for the image of the school and not for anything else. He certainly didn't seem to care that one of his students was currently slumped over, unconscious and cradled in the arms of a Sixclaw werewolf.

"The more they practice, the more efficient they'll become," Z'Hana said with a dark glare. "They seem to be already picking up on things well, but the medium, in particular, is going to need some assistance from possession. A necromancer can help against that, but I believe we may have something in our school that might help or that we can request from Lostwithiel."

The suggestion to involve Lostwithiel Academy seemed to incense the principal more. "Absolutely not. I hate dealing with them. You may check our own artifact reserves. If we have something that can protect the medium, then we can investigate this issue ourselves. The sooner we begin, the better. I don't want Archon people crawling over my space and accusing us of being lax."

Arlo didn't think Archon Academy would be that unreasonable. After all, Dreadmor did have a fairly good explanation for why an investigation might not commence straight away. Necromancers and certified mediums weren't exactly a common resource to be summoned with the snap of a finger.

Now, Marisha turned to Arlo and the unconscious medium. "It was, overall, a fantastic effort on her part." Her meaning Holly, of course. "Thanks to her, we have a name, Emilia Gold. We have a suggestion that multiple people were aware of something happening to Charles Suntooth. We still don't have a location, but I should imagine it won't be too far from the well. It's not easy to carry a body unnoticed, and you can't drive a car up to the well. So, we can begin to extrapolate from there." She folded her arms. "Which teacher will be overseeing them?"

"I will, I suppose," Z'Hana said. "I went with them to the village before we met up with you."

"Good. Give them at least a day to recover. Give them some time off lessons if need be. And they'll be on the way to solving a fifteen-year-old mystery."

After being dismissed from the morgue, Arlo carried Holly to the infirmary, where a couple of other students lay, partially concealed by curtains, and he handed her over to the nurse on duty with a brief explanation of the circumstances that led to her condition.

"Possession coma. Been a while since we've had one of those." Nurse Fila bustled around Holly, giving her a visual checkup. "Happens if they contact a powerful, angry spirit – and if they haven't had enough training. First-year student looks like. What have you people been up to?"

"Nothing intentional," Arlo said, not liking her attitude either. It wasn't as if he and Holly had wanted this to happen. They weren't troublemakers. But people now eyed him discreetly, as if they expected him to go ahead and conjure up some undead army on a whim. "When she wakes up, can you let her know Arlo is worried about her?"

"Sure thing. If you want to get her something for when she wakes up – you can leave it by the side of the door here. We'll make sure she gets it."

He did end up buying something – a small box of chocolates, believing it to be a gift safe enough to appear friendly. At the infirmary, he met Skyla and Lujan, who were also worried about Holly, and gave them a shorthand version of everything that had occurred: too much excitement for one day; a body in a well, long forgotten; a spirit full of burning resentment still loitering around the body after all that time, a spirit he'd fought with and which had possessed Holly after her attempts to dig deep and understand the motivations and the circumstances of the spirit.

All of it didn't seem fair, somehow. Weren't the first few weeks of school meant to be relaxing? Or was this the type of experience to be expected with those of their kind, with their kind of powers?

"They do keep your type busy," Lujan noted with a smirk. "Seems it's far more exciting to be a necromancer than it is to be a wind mage. Though I am proud to have my powers."

"If you used them for more than just stealing other people's drinks, maybe you'd have a better time with them, too," Arlo pointed out, which simply caused the other werewolf's smile to widen.

News spread fast at Dreadmor, and some unknown students approached him to ask him for information – none of which he planned to provide to strangers.

Only later, when back in his room, staring out to the night and the globe lamps dotting the gardens, did he finally get a message from Holly, thanking him for the chocolates and reassuring him that everything was fine.

"Are you sure? If you feel anything like how I felt the other day… you're going to be super out of it."

"I already was super out of it," she texted back.

"What did it feel like? The whole… possession thing?"

A pause. Several times, she typed and then stopped typing. He waited impatiently for her to send something, flopping back on the bed, holding the phone above him so the pale light illuminated his face.

"A part of me was aware," came the response. "I just didn't have control of my own body anymore. This is something I've read about – something that is considered one of the major dangers of being a psychic, a medium that hasn't been fully trained. But even psychics who are properly trained might encounter a spirit that is too strong if they go into a dangerous area… so I don't know if I'm feeling that awesome about my powers at the moment. Feels more like a liability than anything else."

Arlo typed back furiously. "Your powers are awesome. Anyone who disagrees can fight me," he replied. "But they want us to continue helping them. I think the idea is that we're going to go and try and find out how the body ended up in the well. They need people with our powers – and we're not going to have anyone like a necromancer or medium watching over us while we do it."

She typed back. "What? Seriously?" He sensed her outrage from how fast the letters appeared – and the typos that emerged. "No way would they be putting us out there again to investigate. We're first-year students. It's been, what, way less than a month since we even started here. What the actual hell are they thinking?"

"I don't think they're thinking, exactly. But I'm sure we can do it. I don't believe we should have any issues."

Holly exclaimed, "That's not the point! It's stupid! It was a complete accident that we found that body. I wish we hadn't found it."

Arlo's heart ached at that comment. He didn't know how to comfort her, how to reassure her that everything would be okay. A part of him wanted to find out where she was right now, go running over, and just… what, hug her? Feed her more chocolate? Go for a late-night walk in the gardens?

"You don't have to come along. I can go alone," he said instead. "I'm sure they'll understand that it's not fair to put you through all that and force you to deal with these things."

"Like hell, I'm leaving you alone! That's even worse!"

Oh, okay, he thought. Maybe he shouldn't have suggested that. "I just – I don't think it's fair for you to be put in that position."

"It's not fair for you, either."

Those words caused a strange stirring within him– one he wasn't quite prepared for. "No fairer for you. I wish we could've kept things simpler. I was enjoying our day together."

"Me, too. I was hoping we'd go to the cinema. I was hoping…" She let it trail off.

What was she hoping for? Don't just leave me hanging!

He glared at his phone. "Hoping for what?"

"I don't know. I thought, maybe the setting would be… romantic."

Romantic?

His brain whirled crazily, trying to process the word, causing him to see the situation in an entirely different light. "You were hoping for romance?"

"No! That's not what I meant. Just… I wanted to get to know you more. See if – see how things went."

His heart gave a treacherous little stutter, and he stared, dumbfounded, letting a foreign feeling wash over him, one that sent shivers of delight through his body. "I didn't consider you might be thinking that way." He paused. "Actually, that's a lie. I did consider it. I just didn't want to add any kind of false hope."

No response came from her for a moment, but the notification was clearly received and read. Perhaps she needed time to process these words, just as he was doing right now. His hands were clammy from sweat and nerves.

Then she wrote: "I also didn't want to feel any false hope."

An admission?

He perked up. "That's normal. So… you're not dating anyone?"

"No, are you?"

"Single as a Pringle, as they say."

"I don't think they say that…"

"Humor me. Where are you now?"

"My room. Other wing, of course."

He debated the idea before deciding to just go for it. His emotions spiked all over the place, still trying to make sense of the whole conversation, still, in a way, trying to avoid that rising sensation of hope. "Do you want to meet?"

Several times, he watched her type something, delete it, and then retype it before he got a simple response. "Yes."

"Cool. Outside?"

"No, I don't want to go outside now. Your dorm is closer to the entrance of the wing than mine… perhaps I can slip through without anyone noticing…"

"What would you like to do when you get here?"

"I hope you have breath mints."

That's all she wrote. He shivered and instantly went to freshen up, change his top, brush his teeth – everything possible not to embarrass himself when she came over. He didn't really have a plan for what might happen, but there was a growing, intangible excitement in his gut that spread through his body.

He heard a soft knock at the door as he furiously splashed water on his face. He stumbled over to open it, and she looked wild and oddly excited. She closed the door behind her.

"Do I have this wrong?"

"What?" he managed, half-strangled, heart beating rapidly.

"Sometimes I feel like – like you're interested. Sometimes I don't know. And maybe I'm being too forward… about the breath mint."

Something in her eyes compelled him to go to her and lightly press her against the door. She made no effort to escape, no expression of discomfit. If anything, her eyes brightened, and her lips parted.

"Is this okay?"

She nodded, eyes flicking from his lips, then back up to meet his gaze. For a moment, he wondered if he should continue if things were moving too fast. But the way she looked at him, the way her breathing audibly quickened, overrode his doubts. He pressed his body into hers. Cupped her cheeks. Gave her plenty, plenty of time to say no, to back away. She trembled like a bird but tilted her head up, a better angle for their lips to meet. He tasted hers, soft and slow, still trying to read her intent. Still unsure.

Her response was to kiss him back, to reach up to his shoulders and tug him just a little bit closer. Electricity buzzed within him, taking him by surprise, making him cling to her and sink into that embrace, those lips questing for his. With closed eyes, it was easy to get lost in the kiss, to be acutely aware of all those hormones inside going crazy from the stimulation. She let out a little gasp, and he gave her enough of a break to catch her breath and kiss her cheek to her ear.

"Mmm…" She seemed to like him playing with her ear, and she practically melted into a puddle on the spot. His own body trembled with desire, and he already felt heat gathering between his legs, blood rushing from one spot to another. For now, he continued with the kisses, clinging to her as if drowning, his inner wolf bursting with lust.

"Wait, wait," she whispered, and he steadied his kisses, letting her slowly push his lips away. "This is intense."

"I… is that an issue?" he asked against her fingers. She shook her head, a soft laugh curling her mouth, half embarrassed, half horny, and utterly adorable.

"It's, uh, not, but… I'm not really… experienced with this sort of thing. It's been… well, I've never..."

"We don't have to do anything more than kissing," he said, though a part of him groaned a little. He really wanted to pick her up and toss her onto the bed right now. He also wanted to respect her, not spook her, not when things were going so well. The last thing he wanted was for Holly to feel awkward, to feel coerced, just because he happened to feel horny, even if he did happen to feel horny as heck.

"Plus, you're not a bad kisser, you know," he murmured against her cheek.

"I could say the same for you," she murmured back, wrapping her arms around him once. Heat surged through his limbs. Desperate for physical contact, his hands kept trailing over her cheeks, ears, neck, and any exposed skin that shivered under the glide of his fingers and palms. She reacted so sensitively, and her breaths came out in little shallow huffs of arousal, indicating how turned on she was.

To have someone to touch, reacting with such desire and want – it fanned the flames within him, and his inner wolf pushed hard for contact, for kisses, for everything. Everything in her body language suggested she was receptive to his touch, but he didn't want to take it farther than she felt comfortable with.

"I'm not comfortable," she whispered, and he stopped instantly, biting back on his desire.

"Okay. We'll stop –"

"Oh, no. I didn't ask you to stop. Just that I was uncomfortable," she said, her green eyes boring into his, the pupils blown with lust. "We have a better place than this, don't we…?"

He searched her eyes for hesitation before letting out a soft growl, scooping her up, and proceeding to go through with the fantasy of throwing her onto the bed and crawling on top of her. The kisses grew heated, and at this angle, their bodies pressed and ground against one another, stimulating all the erogenous zones he knew of and a few that he wasn't even aware he had.

"God," he hissed against her neck, "you feel so good. I could stay like this forever…"

"I hope not," she replied, "because you're wearing far too many clothes at this point. Let me feel your skin against mine."

His heart picked up in pace from those words, beating in a frenzy against his ribcage. Not wanting to kill the momentum, he plucked away at his clothes, the shirt coming off in one bundle while hers took more effort to remove. His hands trembled, trying not to use too much force, wanting to keep her safe and content in his company, trusting his guidance and touch. Her skin felt criminally soft on her stomach and her sides.

"May I?" his fingers slid under her bra, questing for the straps.

"Yesss…" she arched up to give him easier access, and after a little fumbling, the bra unclasped, revealing her breasts, which he now pressed against his chest as he bent to kiss her hard on the lips, his tongue warring with hers. The raw nerve shock of tongue-to-tongue contact sent waves of desire that hardened between his legs, chafing against the restricting materials below. His hands slid along her hips, and she let out a shuddering gasp when he breathed hot air onto her neck, relentless in his efforts for pleasure.

He did not take off his pants, not until she reached for them herself. He wanted to be sure. He'd take the lead, but always with her desire in mind. They'd spent twenty minutes just kissing, rubbing one another, sinking into taste and touch and scent, listening to the tune of their shallow exclamations of pleasure, and taking joy in the physical vision of one another.

Now she relieved him of his pants and boxers, then her own, leaving them both completely bare, at one another's mercy, with silken touch and the heated friction from skin-to-skin contact.

"We can keep it like this," he hissed his mouth now between her breasts, kissing a trail to one peak and then the other. "We don't have to make this about me. Right now, everything is for your pleasure." One hand briefly dipped between her legs, testing the arousal. Definitely aroused there.

She gave a throaty chuckle, hands grasping his sandy hair. "I want you." The fingers tightened, but not enough to start pulling roots. "Outside and inside."

He growled, heat building up in his length before he took the invitation and sheathed it inside her. Careful and slow, making sure her body accommodated the contact. She arched briefly, stiffening in shock and pleasure before she wrapped her legs around his hips as if to thrust him further inside.

Everything blurred together in a blaze of arousal, tickling electricity across their bodies, the way they pressed into one another, the way she felt around him, and the heat built up in an unbearable pressure as he thrust, bedsheets falling away, breaths mingling until the heat shot out of him like an arrow, connecting with her, pleasure so temporary, yet so incredible.

Her inexperience meant she didn't quite know what worked best for her own pleasure, which he, quite happily, spent the next hour helping to find what made her tick, gasp, and tremble, and then cascade into the envied female orgasm, which seemed to arrest her entire body and lock the muscles in her throat, leaving her incapable of speech.

"I didn't…" she managed after a dreamy, languid stretch under him, legs entwined with his, "think I'd be so eager to go that far. I imagined… getting awkward and having to ask you to stop."

"I think you underestimated your own desires," he said, grinning like an idiot. Cuddling up to her, spent for an hour or two. "For the record, this has been a lot of fun."

She flushed, half swatting at him and then curling up, all shy. It was an odd time to get shy, but whatever.

She giggled as he nuzzled into her neck, kissed it, and then tickled her soft stomach before they got into a tussle that he allowed her to win. She straddled him, rather satisfied with the new position.

"More?"

Oh. Oh god. She wanted more...