He smiles, a sad quirk of his lips. “I know you will. Now, shall we move on to your lessons?”
He brandishes a sheet of paper from the pile on his desk and passes it over. It lists out every Monday until the end of term with a column beside the date for the material we’ll cover, and another column detailing the homework for each session.
“I’ll let you decide how you’ll work in your Latin studies. I’d tell you to let me know if the workload is too great, but I know you’d never admit it. Shall we get down to work?”
* * *
I seethe masked figure the moment we pass through the woods and wards that surround the omega residences on Friday morning. I shiver and blame it on the cold North Atlantic morning, but the way my skin crawls and my shoulders pinch together has nothing at all to do with the frost dusting the campus grounds.
“You okay, girlie?” Alyssa asks.
I shake my head and turn to her, forcing a smile. “I’m just stressed. Big surprise there.”
She rolls her eyes. “Right? Nothing like the threat of being captured or killed to make all therestof this any less stressful. Hey, did I tell you Grace’s pack came into Quill & Clover? I guess they were looking for Luca, but they spoke to Darika for a bit.”
“What did they want with Luca?”
“Information. They’re desperate for it.”
“So they don’t think he did it anymore?” The resentful edge in my voice surprises even me, and I grit my teeth. I’ve been so good at keeping Luca from my thoughts, at staying busy enough to leave myself no time to think about him.
“No, and they were honestly surprised he was still locked up. Darika said they were hoping he’d have some kind of information about who could have taken Grace. No one’s come forward with a ransom yet, despite Pack Cassidy offering millions of dollars to get her back.”
My blood ices in my veins. Expecting the Soldiers of Saint Aldous to issue a ransom for Grace brought me a small sort of comfort, but that no ransom has been demanded suggests something much, much darker.
Something I’m quite sure the figure in the distance watching me, horned head cocked, knows all about.
“Juniper!”
I know that voice from the day in the stand of trees beside the library, the voice of the alpha that cast a shield around me while his closest friend tried to rape me.
Rad, leave the bitch alone. You wanted to scare her and you have. Her scent is fucking rancid when she’s scared.
I don’t think. I draw my scribe and whirl on Jaime Brentwood, pointing the tip of the wand right at his heart.
He backs up quickly, hands raised in surrender. “I just want to talk.”
There’s nothing that the latest initiate into the Soldiers of Saint Aldous could say that I’d want to hear. The Mark of Baphomet burns in his breast, a testament to his loyalty.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I warn, my voice low.
“It’s not what you think.”
Saints, I’m sick of hearing that.
Marcus steps in front of me, his scribe held low at his side, magic whirling around the tip. “Back off, Brentwood. I won’t tell you twice.”
Jaime tries to look around Marcus to meet my eyes, but Marcus refuses him. Marcus wraps an arm around my shoulder, keeping his body between me and the senior alpha and leads me away, toward Restorative Magic.
In the distance, the masked figure stares for a minute and I swear I can feel its rage for just a second before it turns away.
* * *
Word travels fast.
Cassian finds me just as Alyssa and I are leaving Restorative Magic. He grabs me around the arm and pulls me down the hall and into an empty classroom, locking the door behind us with a complex spell. He’s a tempest of rage and alpha dominance and I flinch away from him.
“What were you thinking?” he snarls, looming over me, forcing me to take a seat behind one of the worktables. His scent rises in the air, made sharper by his fury, and every instinct tells me to fall on my knees in front of him, to make myself small and bare my neck to this alpha. “You drew your scribe on Jaime fucking Brentwood? Are youcompletelyabsent your senses?”
