“Are you alright?” Julian’s concern was heavy in his words.
“Uh... yeah.” I swallowed thickly, pushing away the emotions bubbling up. “I’m going to see if I can find Tabby,” I said to both Iris and Julian. If any of the witches would tell me who’s sigil was on the wax seal, she might.
Pushing through the crowds of students, I squinted through the fire light, searching for Tabby’s familiar face. After a few minutes of searching and not finding her, I stopped one of the witches and asked if they’d seen her.
“Tabby?” the female witch I’d stopped asked, then looked around the space. “She was here a minute ago. If she’s not here, then she went into the woods. She’s in charge of the fireworks tonight.”
“Thanks.” I headed toward the woods. “Did you get that?” I said to Julian once I was far enough away from the crowd.
“Yeah,” Julian replied, then there was a pause. “There’s a light to the east of where I’m at, could be where they’re setting up.”
“Okay...” I drew out, standing in the middle of some trees, but not seeing any sign of Julian. “And where might that be?”
“Here.” Julian dropped out of a tree a foot from me, ripping a startled scream from me.
I slapped him on the chest. “Fucking hell, Julian. Don’t do that.”
He grinned at me, a full wide smile, one I hadn’t seen directed toward me in a long while.
Trying to ignore the racing of my heart, I skimmed my eyes over him.
He had traded in his slacks and button-up for our typical hunter attire, black pants and matching flak jacket. His blond hair was pulled back from his face in a messy bun, his eyes no longer hidden behind a pair of wire rimmed glasses. He looked like himself. The self I had always known.... and loved.
“Wow, you like more like a hunter than a professor for once,” I commented, pushing down the nostalgia welling in my chest.
“I couldn’t very well come out here looking like a professor.” Julian removed the earpiece he’d been speaking into. “The students might think I’m spying on them.”
I arched a brow. “But you are spying on them.”
Julian leaned toward me, his voice lower than needed sounding more intimate. “But they don’t know that.” He pulledback before I could respond and jerked his head toward the woods. “Come on, they were going that way.”
After taking a moment to calm myself, this playful Julian was hard to handle. I’d been so used to his no-nonsense personality the last year that I forgot he could even be anything else. It gave me some serious whiplash.
We walked through the woods side by side, ears listening for where the witches were likely to be setting up. Several students passed by us, but they reeked of alcohol so the likelihood that they even noticed Julian was the one walking with me was slim.
The other students weren’t interested in anything other than getting their clothes off as fast as possible. There was so much sexual tension in the woods I thought I might explode from embarrassment.
Finally, a dim light appeared after what felt like forever. Soft voices started to trickle toward us. I caught a few words here and there which to most wouldn’t have been concerning but it made my footsteps slow.
“The Durand girl is here,” a male voice stated.
I grabbed Julian’s arm, urging him to stop. I touched my ear.Listen.
“Yeah, so what?” a female voice didn’t I recognized asked. “She’s not bothering you. She’s a student, just like the rest of us.”
“Still, she’s a Durand,” the male growled. “They walk around like they own the place.”
“They do own the place.” The female giggled. “It’s literally calledDurandSupernatural Academy.”
“You know what I mean,” the male huffed. “I just want to take her down a peg or two. Show the Durands not everyone worships their feet. They’re no better than any of us.”
“Then do something about it,” a new male voice chimed in. “Just don’t let Tabby hear you. All she does is gush about her.”
Footsteps started toward our direction, closer than I expected them to be. There was nowhere we could hide and, if we ran away, it would look suspicious. We might be able to climb a tree, but they’d smell my scent for sure. I wasn’t sure if they were all witches, but even they had a better sense of smell than most humans.
We couldn’t chance it.
Without warning, Julian pushed me up against the bark of a tree, his body pressing over mine. My head tipped back. Our faces were millimeters apart, our breaths mingling. My heartbeat picked up from the press of his hips against mine, and his broad shoulders virtually hid me from sight.
