Chapter 24 #2
“What if I command him to leave?” Eryn offered, voice shaking.
That would be the ideal situation, but I wasn’t sure she had the strength to control him like that. One day, with more practice, possibly. But not tonight.
“You hate that aspect of your magick,” I reminded her. “My plan will work.”
Positioning myself beside her, I readied to push her aside.
“One.”
Eryn fell back before I could call my next count.
I heard her land on the ground but was too busy jumping in front of her to see if she was okay.
Dalton lunged, fangs bared, and I instinctively threw him away with a strong push from my shadows.
He flew back and landed in a crouch like a damned cat.
Black swirled around me in a whipped frenzy, the threat to my bond too much for me to reign in my magick.
Pulling out my dagger, I held it behind me for Eryn, hoping like hell she wouldn't have to use it.
“You don’t want to do this, Dalton,” I told him. “Whatever he has over you, I can help.”
My offer fell on deaf ears. I knew he was going to attack before he sprung.
Eryn scrambled behind me, trying to get out of the way but it was too late.
I sharpened my shadows into a spear and aimed.
A strike through the chest should take him down long enough for us to get the girls out of here, but for the first time in… ever…Ez and I weren’t in sync.
As Dalton ran at me, I threw my shadow spear in a perfect arc for the center of his chest. Ezra’s magick ran like a wave across the ground to lock around the vampire’s feet and encase them in ice.
He was doing his job, protecting me. Unfortunately, that small move changed Dalton’s trajectory, and my spear struck his heart—a true death for any vampire.
Amber eyes widened and disappeared in a cloud of dust before my mind could catch up with what I saw. Oh, fuck, this was bad. We’d killed an heir. It didn’t matter that he struck first or that I hadn’t meant to do more than incapacitate him. We had no proof. It was our word against…a pile of dust.
“What the ever-loving hell was that?”
Rani stood off to the side, her cellphone held up in a shaking hand as she stared at the three of us the way prey stared at a dangerous predator.
The whites of her eyes were wide and filled with fear, and none of us moved as we tried to figure out what to say.
Did we lie? I wasn’t sure what story I could spin to cover all that she witnessed, but we had to do something.
Eryn wouldn’t have enough energy to erase this memory, and I doubted Rani would let her close enough to try it.
“Someone better start talking because I swear to God, I’m going to scream.”
“You’re already screaming, babe,” Ezra joked, palms up. He took an easy step forward, and she shuffled back. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
She didn’t look like she believed us, but she at least put her phone down. Glancing between the three of us and pausing on my shadows that I hadn’t bothered to put away, she waved a hand in the air.
“So…go on. Explain.”
This was going to be a long fucking night.
Eryn
This wasn’t a conversation to have outside.
There weren’t any other students roaming around, but that could change at any moment.
Words like “magick” and “supernatural” shouldn’t be discussed where just anyone could hear them.
Rani didn’t want to go back to the dorm, though, and I couldn’t blame her.
The fact that she wasn’t running away from me, screaming about murder, was as much grace as the gods granted.
“So…you’re not human?” she asked, eyeing me like I had a pair of horns hidden in my curls. “And you feed on…dreams? But I’ve seen you eat pizza.”
I kept my smile light, like the one I gave the children at the library I used to volunteer at. Rani scowled, and that smile faltered.
“My kind are called nightmares, but it's a very old term and has no relation to our dispositions. We use the excess energy from human dreams to fuel our magick. No actual harm comes to them and siphoning the excess energy has actually been proven to reduce anxiety for the human. So, we’re really helping when you think about it…”
I trailed off as she watched me, and tried not to wince. This was where I lost her. I was sure. Who wanted to be friends with a creature that nommed on humans? No matter how benign.
My voice was soft, “...I eat normal food.”
“You said you and your parents were the last,” she continued, trying to understand all I had spewed at her. “Because you’re so powerful and can control minds and stuff.”
This time I did wince. “Yeah. And stuff.”
Rani’s look turned shrewd. “Have you ever fed on me?”
“No!” I shouted. “I swear. Usually, it's on the night janitor in the library. He sleeps on the job a lot.”
Her nose wrinkled as she envisioned the balding man.
“And those two are witches.” She pointed at the boys hovering nearby. Ezra waved. “Which is a completely different type of…supernatural.”
“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” I babbled. “But I swear you’re safe. It’s me they’re after and—ouch!”
Rani smacked my arm and held her finger up threateningly. “You’ve been in danger the entire time I’ve known you.”
“Not the whole time.” She bared her teeth, and my shoulders slumped. “Yes.”
“And that time I thought you had food poisoning—it was real poisoning?”
“She was also stabbed!” Ezra called over, and Kaiden smacked him on the back of the head. “What? She still has the stitches.”
I thought Rani would explode. Her cheeks were nearly as red as her hair.
“I promise you weren’t in any real danger with me around.” My babbling was back. “The hunters were never interested in you, and they don’t see humans as more than an inconvenience at the best of times.”
“I’m more upset that my best friend almost died more than once, and I never knew about it!”
My eyes welled. “I’m still your best friend? Ouch! Stop hitting me!”
“I don’t care if your skin turns pink and you have to dance naked under the full moon every month. I just want to know what’s going on with you.”
I didn’t know any humans who were aware of our world. With no evidence to base it off, I thought she’d run screaming at the idea of other beings out there. I should have given Rani more credit.
“You really don’t care?”
The smile she gave me was warm and true. “Bitch, I’d dance naked right beside you.” That smile slipped into a snarl as she glared at Ezra. “Not a fucking word about seeing me naked or I’ll castrate you faster than you can say witch trials.”
Ezra pouted but wisely kept his mouth shut for once. I offered to walk Rani back to the dorm and still have our sleepover, but she shooed me away.
“Now that I know how dangerous it is, I won’t bother you as much about shacking up with your bond.”
She wiggled her eyebrows, and I scrunched my face in a mock frown. There was still a lot to explain to her about that, about everything, but it didn’t have to be right now. Right now, I was content to know she wasn’t going anywhere. Thank the gods for best friends.