5. Isla
Chapter 5
Isla
SATURDAY
T he greenhouse looked like it could fall apart any minute.
Dirt covered warped glass had overgrown plants creeping over every surface. I wasn’t sure how long it had been neglected, but enough time had passed for their growth to rip apart the metal beams. Walking further inside, I had to carefully step over vines and climb through others. The crumbling paint that fell down on me in the process was of no consequence. It was the greenery that I cared for. When I reached the center, I found a real oddity, a small room made of glass that time hadn’t touched.
I tried the door, shocked to find that it opened easily, no creaking despite the state of the building. Inside, there was a large gothic black chandelier holding candles that sparked to life when I entered. The space was oddly clean.
No dust or musty smell from disuse hung in the air. There was a black metal daybed pushed against the far wall and a desk on the opposite side stacked high with papers, books, and a small lamp that looked to be lit by witchfire.
A few rugs were thrown about to make the room seem cozy and inviting, but it definitely seemed to be used as an office more than anything else. My internal alarms, the few I had anyway, were telling me that I was trespassing. The sensation made me back up and close the door before I was found, though I didn’t leave the greenhouse itself. I was too enraptured by the call of the seemingly otherworldly plants that filled the space. My power told me that they were magickal flora, and the siren whispers caressing my skin like a lover spoke to how dangerous they were.
I’d wanted to plant magickal flora back home, but my moms always said no. They pointed out how they could easily become invasive, and once I was faced with the fact that they’d kill the other plants I loved, that was that. But still, the powerful hum of their magick along my skin made me wish I had fought harder for them.
At least I could check out some here at Greywood.
Another whiff had me crinkling my nose though. I made a mental note to ask about the lavender that was in here as well… Lots of people enjoyed the smell, but I’d take the smell of crisp grass or rich earth over that obnoxious scent.
‘You should probably find your dorm, beastie. You can play in the dirt another time.’
I rolled my eyes at Cassius’ commentary, but I didn’t disagree. This wasn’t a dorm, and I had walked off before any instructions were given as to what we were supposed to be doing.
‘You can come back.’
‘You’re just upset there are no mirrors. That means you can’t give me some judgy look for how I handled the fae who brought me here.’
Talking outside drew my attention as Cassius grumbled something about me being impertinent, which I chose to ignore. Curious, I headed for the door and walked out into the cool night again just as a woman passed by, cursing out the phone in her hands.
She was in a long Journey t-shirt that ended right around mid-thigh. Wild bright red hair curled around her face making it seem like it had a life of its own. She spun around when the door closed behind me, her bright blue eyes glowing in the night.
Wolf shifter.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” I offered before gesturing at the greenhouse. “Just did some exploring before realizing I needed to figure out the dorm situation since I’m out here half dressed.”
“More than I had on,” she growled, though the glow of her eyes dimmed now that she’d realized I wasn’t a threat. “There’s no damn signal here.”
“Figures.” I sighed, remembering my mom saying that staying in touch wouldn’t be easy. “Do you have any idea what we’re supposed to do about the dorms?”
She shook her head, sending her hair flying around her. “The asshole that brought me here said I could figure it out on my own. Your person didn’t say anything?”
“I walked off before he could tell me anything.” I grinned, picturing the way the fae had frozen when I brushed a kiss on his cheek. “If you want, we can try to figure out where we’re supposed to be going together.”
The wolf’s eyes narrowed, studying me as if she were trying to dig under my skin to detect any ulterior motive. I didn’t fidget, content to let her come to her own conclusion. Still, I was shocked when she threaded an arm through mine, taking me along with her.
“I’m Zhara-Rose by the way.”
“Isla,” I replied, looking sideways at the wolf by my side instead of where we were headed. “What brings you to Greywood?”
“Murdered my pack alpha because of a blood rage,” she answered with a feral grin. “You?”
“A few accidental poisonings. Dangerous plants are my specialty.”
“That explains you exploring the woods.” She barked out a laugh as we walked back into the cleared space that I had first landed in.
The forest was all around, although the trees were tall and large, I could see stone buildings sticking out between some of them. In the light of day, it would be a lot easier to make out our surroundings, but for now, we were stuck with the faint moonlight from a crescent moon.
“In my defense, the plants were more interesting than the fully clothed people watching us newbies stand around half dressed.”
“Speak for yourself, witch.” A smooth voice came from behind us, and when I turned around, there were two incubi there, completely naked. Neither of them moved to cover themselves up.
“We were pulled out of our fucking graduation party to be here,” the other griped as he rolled his head, cracking his neck on both sides.
“Cliché much?” Zhara-Rose complained, gaze bouncing around attempting to look anywhere but them.
“Do you know where the dorms are?” I interrupted before any kind of argument could start. “Or do we all get to sleep outside after being kidnapped from our homes?”
“We tried those buildings,” the first incubi who spoke to us said after a beat of silence. He gestured to the left. “We were just heading across to the other side when we heard you both chatting over here.”
“We can join you if you don’t care about our… state of undress.” The second one shot us a lazy smile as he raised his eyebrows in question. “I know wolves don’t care, but…”
“I have six siblings,” I said. “Your little dicks won’t scare me.”
Both men started to sputter in indignation, but Zhara-Rose threw her head back and laughed, leaning into me so hard we almost fell over.
“Little?!” the quieter one managed.
“You’ll take that back right the fuck now,” the louder first guy demanded.
I couldn’t really see them that well in the darkness of the night, but once the moonlight hit them just right, I could tell both men had flushed cheeks. Mid-length black hair fell across their distinct cheekbones, somehow highlighting their identical five o’clock shadows. Matching gold and green eyes glared at me, waiting for me to apologize. I shot them a grin of my own and tugged Zhara-Rose with me.
“We never said you could come with us. I’ll just let everyone know it’s probably because of the cold, boys. Nothing to be ashamed of. You can’t help it.”
“You’re paying for that!” the first one growled.
The second guy started laughing, and the smooth honeyed sound made me smile and wave back at them as we hurried toward where the dorms had to be located.
Zhara-Rose was in tears by the time we got to three buildings situated by each other. Each had a small sign in front of it, labeling them as first-year dorms.
“That was so mean,” she managed when she was able to breathe again.
“What? It is a bit chilly. I bet they show up just fine in a warm room,” I said with as much of a straight face as I could muster. But I couldn’t hold back a chuckle when Cassius muttered some not-so-nice things in my mind.
“What building are we supposed to go into?” I asked, shivering when a cool breeze whipped through us. “Think they assigned rooms?”
“Nope!” The loud voice behind us made us jump. We looked around to find a tall angel standing there with a bright amused gaze. “Claim your rooms before they’re all taken up. Two people to a room, four to a suite. You share a bathroom between the lot of you. Better go before the nice ones are taken.”
“Well, this should be fun.” A long arm wrapped around my shoulder at the same a shoulder gently bumped Zhara-Rose’s.
The incubi had caught up to us.
“Maybe we can show you a good time in the warmer indoors,” the one beside me whispered.
I arched an eyebrow in challenge. “I doubt it. You’re not really my type.”
“Who said we would room with?—”
“Co-ed rooming is fine,” the bright-eyed angel managed with only a slight cough. “Better hurry though. I think the first three floors are already claimed.”
Unwilling to argue more, I just glanced at Zhara-Rose. She shrugged, not seeming to care about the incubi claiming us as suite-mates or us being roommates.
“Which building?”
“They all look the same to me.”
“The one by the forest has the biggest rooms,” a familiar voice called out, making everyone around me freeze. The angel who’d been helping us blanched, all good humor drained away, as my “kidnapper” glided up with a smoke on his lips.
He looked different than before, but I would recognize his power anywhere. Illusion magick had been used to make him appear more human-esque, but he was still much taller than most high fae. While he had the same bone-white, iridescent hair, his eyes were covered up by a dark pair of sunglasses. Why is he wearing them in the dead of night?
“Is that so, Bones?” I tilted my head as I contemplated the man.
The incubi choked, and Zhara-Rose remained frozen. The other students around us scurried away, fear rolling off of them strong enough that I was glad I wasn’t a shifter. They probably smelled like fucking food right now.
“Sticking with that name, witchling?”
I shrugged. “You never told me anything else to call you. Guess we should check out the one by the forest then.”
Although I directed the statement at Zhara-Rose, it was Bones who acted on it. He took a long drag of his smoke before he closed the distance between us. The angel stumbled back a step, but Bones wasn’t coming for him. He stopped right in front of me. With a flick of his fingers, he pulled out a black metal card and held it out to me. I studied the offered item but didn’t move to take it. His sunglasses were too dark to make out his purple eyes behind the lenses so I couldn’t tell what he was up to.
“Fifth floor, seventh door on the right. Best room in the building.” His long fingers brushed the swell of my breast as he tucked the card into my top. “You may call me Bricriu, Isla Hallowes. I’ll be seeing you around.”
With that, he walked away. Even though everyone stared after him, he gave them none of his attention. Once he was gone from view, they switched those nosy eyes to me, staring with various stages of shock, disgust, and fear.
“Guess we have our room,” I declared flippantly, snagging the card he’d tucked into my camisole.
“How do you know him?” the incubus beside me hissed the moment we walked through the front door of Doyle Hall.
“He’s the one that brought me here,” I told him with a nonchalant shrug.
The inside of the building was pure chaos, which thankfully distracted the incubus from more questions.
High ceilings and large, oversized fireplaces warmed up the space. The bottom floor looked to be a huge lounge room filled with antique furniture. A bank of computers was set up along one side, the workspace also occupied by large tables for studying. The upper floors were open to the lounge, making it easy for students to see their dorms and the others socializing downstairs.
Up a large staircase, I could see students running to claim suites, calling out to other students. A few upperclassmen seemed to be in the crowd as well, directing people and calming down a few shouting matches that started further up. All kinds of supes were in the building—wolves, demons, and I thought I even spotted a vampire in the mix as well.
“Think we’re stuck with stairs?” I asked.
“Yes,” Zhara-Rose replied. The curious look she shot me promised that I hadn’t escaped the topic of Bones. “You seemed to get along with him pretty good considering he just kidnapped you.”
“I’ll happily tell you about it once we get to our room,” I shouted to be heard above the crowd.
As a unit, we pushed through the throng of people, steadily moving to the large staircase and up a few floors until we got to the top level. It was empty up here. For whatever reason, no other students were trying to claim the upper rooms.
We tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Looks like we need to use the card to open it,” one of the incubi pointed out.
Reaching out, I swiped it over the small back square. Interesting combination of old architecture, modern technology, and magick at Greywood… This would be an experience to say the least.
He opened the door, and my lips parted in shock at what Bones had led us to. Zhara-Rose gasped as the men whistled at what we uncovered. The entire floor was its own giant suite.
“Damn. Whatever you did with that fae, keep it up! This is amazing.”
“Since we’re rooming together, do we get to know your names, or should we call you twin one and twin two?” Zhara-Rose challenged. Her chin tipped up, and she crossed her arms in front of her.
“Aizel. Echo.” The man closest to me pointed to himself, then to his much quieter brother. “We’re twins from the Calliope line.”
“Zhara-Rose. No pack,” she replied in a clipped tone, but I could sense she was on edge, ready for them to reject her at the mention of no pack. Lone wolves weren’t common, especially one so young. I didn’t know much about wolf society, but I knew enough to understand that being packless was one of the worst punishments a wolf could endure.
“Men are the outcast gender of our people,” Echo rasped quietly, somehow correctly reading the wolf’s stiff posture. “Greywood could be a good place to start over.”
Zhara-Rose released a long, shaky breath, but her back relaxed.
“And your friend introduced you, Isla Hallowes. Friends in high places.”
I shrugged and repeated what I’d said earlier because I wasn’t sure what else to tell them. “Never met him before tonight. Another fae gave me the invitation to go here a day or so ago.”
“You must have left quite an impression to have him give you the key to this place,” Zhara-Rose commented, walking further into the suite.
She wasn’t wrong, but I honestly had no idea what I had done to make him so interested. His toothy grin in his full fae form flashed across my mind, soon followed by the heated red, orange, and gold of the fae that had appeared in my garden before him.
‘Only you could draw this kind of attention in the span of a few days . ’
‘Not on purpose.’
‘With you, it’s never on purpose.’
Cassius’ statement would have been funny if not for the ominous tingle down my spine when he said it.
I was unused to drawing much attention, but fate, it seemed, had different ideas in store for me. I wasn’t sure how to take it that two powerful fae men were showing an interest in me, and something told me that they were just the beginning.