Page 42 of Wolf Trial

Her embarrassment snapped into rage, but the look on her face was brittle, as if she was one move away from breaking. Now that I knew what vampire magic took the form off, now I knew to be worried of blood and bitten fingers, I was ready for her. She wouldn’t get the best of me a second time.

She sank her weight onto her heels, ready to launch at me, but another figure passed through the trees, and light flared in a pool of blood in a man’s palm.

The light made him into a skeletal, ghastly creature. Pale skin, rough features in a square face, grey hair clipped close to his skull. He was tall and stocky, dressed in a black robe edged in red like a stereotypical vampire and not the soldier his appearance and countenance reminded me of. I’d seen him around the academy, striding with purpose, and the other slayers had jumped out of his path enough times to tell me he was not a tutor to be fucked with.

But I didn’t know his name until Reverie said, “Professor Beaufort.”

Oh. The professor leading the investigation on Fioranna’s murder. The one Mortem said would execute her killer on the lawn for everyone to watch.

“Reverie,” he said, as cold as this forest at night. His eyes were like chips of silver when they snapped my way, the moonlight turning them inhuman. And of course he was inhuman; he was a vampire, but without the red irises in most vampires. “Sadie.”

I blinked. “You know my name?”

“I make it my business to know the names of everyone in my academy.”

“You mean Mortem’s academy,” I replied, and wished I’d kept my mouth shut when his eyes flashed a dangerous warning.

“Quite,” he agreed. “You’ve been missing for a whole day, Sadie.” Judging by the way he said my name, he didn’t like me very much.1 “Where have you been?”

I couldn’t hide my fear when my mind flashed back to the drop off the cliff. I knew it wasn’t too far away. “Someone beat me up and dumped me in the forest,” I said, meeting his eyes. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I couldn’t find my way back. And then I heard wolves howling so I hid for hours.”

His head tilted as he considered me. There was something in that look that I didn’t like at all, and my skin crawled. But then he gave Reverie the same look. Searing, calculating. As if he was contemplating something.

“Professor Beauford?” Reverie asked with an unease that matched mine. It was nice to see her afraid, but I would’ve appreciated it a lot more if I wasn’t equally terrified right now. The instinct that had been screaming at me to run from her Lord father returned with ferocity. Not surprising. Anyone with a brain knew Professor Beaufort was dangerous. That was why he was the lead investigator. I sensed he was also judge, jury, and executioner.

“Head back to your room, Reverie,” he ordered, his attention swinging from her to me and seeming to sharpen. “I need to collect Sadie’s statement about her absence.”

Don’t go, I nearly blurted. I was ready to throw my pride out of the window and grab her hand. But she was already scurrying through the trees, desperate to escape the professor or maybe the memory of her father’s words. Which left me alone with an extremely dangerous vampire.

Oh God, had he already realised I wasn’t human anymore? Had Lainsz’s bracelet failed? Or did it never work at all? I didn’t care what he said about protecting the others, he would happily see me dead. And now I was going to be murdered by a vampire professor, all because an insecure bully tried to get one over me by pushing me off a cliff, and Lainsz gave me a faulty charm.

Maybe it would’ve been better to break my neck. It would’ve been quick. Something told me Beaufort’s methods would be slow and excruciating, and drive me to madness long before I finally broke, and he killed me.

He took three steps closer, deferring the safe distance between us so quickly that I flinched. He knew, I could see it. I know he was going to kill me, like everyone in this damn academy killed wolves.

I was about to blurt that I didn’t ask for this, that it was done against my will and I never wanted to die or become a wolf. I’d promise to leave this place and never come back if he’d just let me live. But when he lifted his hand, it was at that moment that Reed strode into view, her bulky frame and mean face such a relief that I almost sobbed.

Sure she was hard ass, at least a sadist and possibly a serial killer, but at least she was a known quantity. She might push me to my death in the arena, but she wouldn’t execute me.

Unless she knew I was a wolf, too.

I was such a fucking idiot to come back, blinded by revenge. I should’ve run as far from the academy as I could get. I should’ve found a vent, I found a way home no matter what it took.

But when Reed met my eyes, it wasn’t condemnation or hatred I saw. She was surprised more than anything, her eyes performing a perfunctory sweep from my head to my feet. Examining me for injuries, I realised.

“How unexpected to see you again, smartass. Where the hell have you been?”

“She said she was attacked and left in the forest,” Beaufort barked before I could speak.

“By who?” Reed demanded. “Were they human? Vampire? Or did one of those bastard wolves find their way into the Academy grounds?”

I wrapped my arms around my middle, mostly to hide the way my hands shook. It shouldn’t have been surprising that she hated wolves, but it just drove the final nail in my coffin. I wasn’t safe here. I wasn’t safe anywhere, and I didn’t have a way to get through a vent.

“I didn’t see who it was,” I said, not daring to look at Beaufort. “They hit me from behind, and something froze me in place, magic maybe. And then they pushed me over the edge.”

Reed grunted. “Well, at least you’re back. Now there’s only one slayer missing.”

“Wait.” I looked between them, the back of my neck burning, crawling. “Someone’s missing? Who?”