Page 74 of Wolf Trial

“No fucking way?” Paige demanded, teeth bared like she was the wolf shifter. “Since when?”

“Serendipity,” I said suddenly, grabbing Elix’s arm and stifling a cry at how the movement stretched both stab wounds. “Is she—okay?”

Elix bit her lip and flipped her folded paper to a prepared sheet. Serendipity’s in a coma, but the healer says she’ll live. We don’t know what Beaufort did to her, or how much the hag drained.

I read it once, then again to be sure I hadn’t missed out a word. “How much what?” I asked, interrupting whatever elaborate threat Paige was about to deliver to my—uh, to the wolf. Not my mate. Not my anything.

“It’s not just limbs and eyes the hag took,” Paige explained, dragging her death glare from Lainsz, her eyes softening on me. I wasn’t sure I deserved it; the kindness of that look. I’d been lying to her and Elix, and while it was out of necessity, it was still a bitterness I’d tasted everyday. “She drains life. Her victims get weak and—”

“She gets stronger,” I guessed. Pretty sure I’d seen this Buffy episode. Or was it Doctor Who?

Rogue’s sister was in a coma. God. “Is Rogue—okay?”

Elix sighed, her chest rising and falling hard. She didn’t have a prepared reply for that, it seemed. Even Paige shifted on her feet, reluctant to answer.

“Who the fuck’s Rogue?” Lainsz demanded, suddenly right behind me. Something corrosive burned my middle. I might have thought it was acid reflux if I hadn’t felt this before from Lainsz. Jealousy. I turned enough to give him an affronted look. What right did this wanker have to jealousy?

“None of your business,” I took great pleasure in replying.

“She’s not going to tell anyone you’re a wolf,” Paige said eventually, chewing her bottom lip. “That’s all she said.”

Well, that was something. At least my species hadn’t been exposed, but I didn’t know how I’d go back to the academy now. Maybe something to think about when I didn’t have two furious stab wounds.

“Rogue may not expose your species,” a cool, female voice said from the trees to our left. All four of us startled, Lainsz racing outside with a knife already in his pale hand as a figure peeled away from a tree.

Mortem. Shit. Double, triple, quadruple shit. “But the same cannot be said of Lawrence Montgomery-Sutherland.”

Cold raced through me, blood draining from my face until I felt dizzy. “He told you.”

“The moment he arrived back at the academy,” she confirmed, coming one step closer. Only one. She was dressed in tactical black, her outfit all leather from her trousers, boots, and sleeveless jacket, to the gloves she always wore. “It seems Mr. Montgomery-Sutherland was watching as Beaufort attempted to feed Serendipity to his grandmother.”

“And ran to snitch at the first opportunity,” Paige snarled, taking a protective stance in front of me. Elix did the same.

“Precisely. He was sitting in my office waiting for me,” Mortem confirmed.

“You can’t fight Mortem for me,” I hissed at my friends.

Elix held her paper over her shoulder. Watch us.

I groaned. I was going to get my two best friends killed and—my mind ground to a halt. Jumped back a few steps. Honed in on her wording.

“I’ll kill you—” Lainsz began, but I surged forward to grab the back of his shirt, thankful he was actually wearing one. The neckline cut into his throat, and he whipped around to growl at me.

“Yes, yes, you’re very impressive, very scary. Could you do me a favour and shut up for a minute?”

“Excuse me?” Lainsz demanded, nostrils flaring.

“Go back inside,” I said slowly. “The grownups are talking.”

Pure murder shone in his icy eyes for a moment before they caught on something behind me and victory replaced it. Which meant Leander and Verne were here, and I didn’t have much time before this became a bloodbath.

“He was sitting in your office waiting for you,” I repeated Mortem’s words, catching Verne’s eye and silently pleading for him to trust me, to give me a minute. He shook his head, he and Leander moving past us, so I spoke at a thousand miles an hour. “That meant you weren’t in your office. Because you were in the forest, fighting the hag, weren’t you? You’re the other wolf.”

Leander and Verne paused only a few feet away, and I exhaled a rough breath. Lainsz was allowing me to hold him back, which was odd, but I didn’t let go.

“You’re a wolf?” Paige blurted, staring at our headmistress. “Seriously? You’re the head of an academy of wolf killers, and you’re hiding in plain sight?”

“That’s preposterous,” Mortem said crisply, about to argue her way out of it. But she didn’t miss the way I stared at her gloves. Her jaw clenched. The wolf in the forest had black markings on all four legs, as if they’d been charred, blackened.