“There have been so few people in your life you could truly trust, but trust in your pack. In me. Saints know we’ve all made mistakes and probably don’t deserve you, but I promise you, we’ll try to earn your trust every single day.”
“He’s right,” Cassian murmurs, coming up behind me. “I’ve made others keep things from you and I’ve lied to you myself, but no more.”
Ian strokes his thumb over the back of my hand. “Whatever it takes, my darling. We’ll show you that you can trust us.”
How could I have been so foolish? Even when he acted like he despised me, I had Ian’s protection. I could have trusted him with my life, even then. And now, just over a year since he unlocked my magic, and emotion and magic swirled between us, I can trust him with my heart. I give his hand a squeeze, and he meets my eyes, no words needed. His own blue eyes are weary, creased in the corners with fatigue, but there is such love in his expression.
“Both of you get some rest,” Cassian insists, and that’s one promise I can make. I yank the curtains closed around us and slip into bed beside Ian, tangling together with him. His breathing eventually evens out when he falls asleep, and though I rest beside him, sleep evades me.
This war, the terror inspired by the Soldiers, has always felt close to home. Four men I love bear the dark magic mark of the Ever Ember. I nearly lost Simon to Rad’s cruel torture, nearly lost Ian to Cadigan’s powerfulagoniahex. For the first time in months, my will wavers. I vowed I’d bring Rad down, take down my father and then the Soldiers of Saint Aldous, but who am I in the face of their clever cruelty?
I’m one mage, one omega, against an army.
CHAPTER18
When I step out of the pack house the morning classes resume after the attack, I’m greeted by fat flakes of swirling snow. After a sleepless night, I’m running late, but not too late to kiss Luca, Simon, and Cassian goodbye.
It would feel like any other mid-November day if not for the anxious hush that sweeps across campus as Marcus walks me to my first class.
It’s been two weeks since the attack. The police finished their investigation and the long strips of crime scene tape have since been torn down. Every student and staff member who witnessed the attacks was questioned, and every damaged classroom repaired.
It’s been one week since Doc discharged Ian from the infirmary, and though he’s healed, he’s still weak, and could be for weeks to come. But he’s needed at Fairhaven Academy, especially in Cadigan’s absence.
In the week before classes began, he worked himself to exhaustion, creating new wards each day and preparing to take on both of Cadigan’s sections of Intermediate Casting. He worked too much, and slept too little, tormented by the Ever Ember. Theagoniahex seems to have worsened its effects, and we’re still frustratingly stuck in our research on removing the ember. He’s plagued by nightmares, even when we sleep in each other’s arms.
When I step into Cadigan’s old classroom, a shiver slips down my spine. The scorched wood and crumbling stone have been restored, and it’s as though the attack never happened at all, but I see the indelible marks it left on us in the eyes of my classmates as they look around the room, clutching their scribes a bit tighter. I stay closer to Marcus than I usually do as I walk to my seat.
Ian enters the classroom not long after, his usual fire and fervor absent. Saints, did he sleep at all? He left the pack house before I did this morning, adamant that we not arrive on campus at the same time any longer. Though we never drove together, we often left the pack house at the same time—late.
He’s my professor again, a torment neither of us was prepared for. To be so close but unable to talk and touch is a hell I thought we’d escaped when I became a sophomore.
It’s even harder to see him so weakened, to know why and what plagues him.
I want to go to him, slip into his arms and draw him out of this wretched classroom and back to my nest where he can get the rest he needs, but I can’t touch him, can’t approach him.
And he can’t linger at my worktable as we work through the spell we’re covering in class today. He can only observe and offer me a few words of praise when I cast the spell successfully. Still, I can feel the heat of his body as he stands beside our table to help Alyssa work through the spell. I can breathe in his scent and let it fill me up, calming me.
If only for a moment.
My tracker charm turns to ice against my skin and those sweet few seconds of calm vanish.
Rad.
My scent sharpens in fright, and he catches it immediately.
“What is it?” he asks, his voice so low I barely hear it.
I grasp the charm, closing my hand around it, and the cold burns my skin.
“He’s here. Radcliffe is here at Fairhaven.”
A knock sounds at the door, and Rad lets himself in before Ian can answer it.
Rad looks around the classroom, and I know him well enough to know he’s looking for any signs of the attack, remnants of the carnage carried out in this very classroom just weeks ago. His eyes light on Ian and a wide, cruel smile graces his lips.
“Professor, how good to see you back on your feet again,” he says.
Ian lets out a low growl. “State your business, Mr. Radcliffe, or you’ll be escorted off campus.”
