“Fuck.” He drops his forehead to mine, still breathing hard. “You’re amazing, and that was seriously hot as fuck.”
I’m then spun around so that Soren can steal quick sipping kisses from my lips. I step back and smile, smoothing down my top and fluffing out my hair.
“So I guess Madame’s office was a bust, but maybe we could try to find Leif while we’re here?” Soren’s eyes dart between mine for a moment, and then he slowly nods. “You can give us the tour.”
It’s such a contrast to how he was acting until all of an hour ago. It’s like the barriers between us have melted and I can’t stop myself from grinning wide and taking his hand.
“Let’s go.”
20
Echo
Walking around the academy with two of my mates on either side of me, my hands clasped in theirs, is a totally different experience from when I was here as a student. I remember hurrying along from class to class, feeling inadequate and adrift, like I didn’t know quite where or how I fit. It’s the strangest feeling to walk the same route without that sense of nausea and discomfort that plagued me for years. I’m probably still buzzing off the high from getting both gorgeous men off and the high of my orgasm, but it feels like more than that. I was an untethered boat, floating out to sea. Right now, though, I feel like my feet are firmly on solid ground. Instead of it feeling like I’m restrained or like there’s a cage around me, like Jet always warned me, it feels good.
I’m content.
Happy.
Secure enough to walk around without the shadows of this place dragging me down. When I tell the guys that, Brogan smiles and presses another kiss to my temple. But Soren frowns down at me, although it’s more thoughtful than angry.
“What did you think would happen? What was it you were afraid of that made you run?”
“Well, when I was in my second year here, Jet told me about this friend of hers that left the academy right before I joined. She was a destiny weaver too, and she wound up being placed somewhere she hated.”
“And where was that?”
I shake my head. I don’t know too many of the details, considering that when we leave, that’s it. They don’t want us to hold on to any connections we’ve formed. But somehow Jet found out, and it caused a significant mental scar for her.
I huff a humorless laugh. “If they could make us all forget everything, wipe our memories of everything apart from weaving, I’m sure they would.”
“Jet stayed in contact with her?”
“Right.” I nod and then notice Soren’s less than enthusiastic expression. “Look, I know you don’t know Jet and I know she’s not an easy person to get along with, but she’s my best friend. My sister. And she made being here bearable for me.”
Brogan kisses the top of my head, pulling me into his side. “I’m grateful to her for that.”
I smile, but Soren seems to need a little more convincing. “And why did you decide to… go when you did?”
I shrug. “Jet was due to graduate and you should have seen her. She’s not someone that fears anything, but that afternoon she was terrified.
“I don’t know exactly which part scared her so much, but I think more than anything, it was a control thing. She’d had her family taken away from her and before that, her home life was… messy, so she didn’t exactly trust in the powers that be to get it right.” I shrug because I don’t really know how to articulate any of this. “She’d look after me when I was scared and lonely and sad. She’d made everything a lot brighter, even if I had to sit through hours of her epic speeches about how messed up this place was. It’s apparently a pretty rare weaver gift.”
“Because they were preparing for you to join our garden.”
“Right.” Crap, I’d never thought about it that way. “Anyway, I walked in on her when she should have been getting ready for her ceremony and found her curled up in a ball just staring at the wall, miserable, like she couldn’t see any way out of what was going to happen next.”
“But you could,” Soren says.
“I had the solution, orasolution, anyway. I’d discovered that I could travel to different places a few months prior, so I took the opportunity and we got the heck away from here. It took me a while to get the hang of the world-hopping thing, but I did it. Orwedid. Jet was by my side the whole time, even though I might have been leading her straight into hell or to the moon or something.” I take a deep breath, swallowing hard as I lead them toward Leif’s office. “Anyway, we grabbed a couple of changes of clothes and left.”
I skim over the absolute terror I felt. It was like walking off a cliff in pitch darkness, not knowing if we were going to land on something soft or onto jagged rocks. And all the months that followed, where we were constantly looking over our shoulders, the near constant pain of being summoned back.
We pause in the hallway close to Leif’s office, just in time for classes to end and for the crowds of weavers to spill out into the corridors. The three of us watch them quietly for a moment, tucked away from the mass of movement. The scene is nothing like how my old high school used to be, back in the human world. Back there, this would have been absolute anarchy, people yelling and jumping on top of each other, teasing each other and laughing to burn their excess energy between classes.
“It’s kind of quiet, huh?” Brogan says.
There’s a hum of noise but everyone makes their way toward their next class in an orderly fashion, keeping their heads down, ready to learn and absorb. Like good little weavers.
