Chapter 19 Avery
AVERY
Ididn’t see Elijah for the next two weeks.
Not in our shared class, not in the hallways of our dorm, and not in the dining hall or anywhere else on campus.
I finally asked Aiden about it during one of our tutoring sessions, and he assured me—tersely and without embellishment—that Elijah hadn’t gone far and was fine.
My meetings with Aiden had been less tense and sexually charged than our first session together, mostly due to his deciding to teach me the driest fucking rune theory imaginable and his deliberately keeping the desk between our bodies at all times.
I pretended I was listening instead of sneaking glances at his forearms and hands, while he pretended my apathy wasn’t making his eye twitch behind his glasses.
Heath and Wyatt had been almost as elusive as Elijah.
They made it to class most days and were often in the dining hall, but we rarely had reason to directly interact.
A few times I’d considered approaching one of them to see if they would give me more information on Elijah than Aiden had, but my better judgment stopped me each time.
The Blackwell Quad was consuming too much space in my brain, and I didn’t like or understand it.
The tempo of classes had picked up, which kept me busy. Most of my free time was spent staying on top of my assignments or working out with Ian.
The structure of Guardian training over the past few weeks had shifted, too, which accounted for my lack of quality time with most of the Prime Guardian candidates, not just Heath, Wyatt, and Elijah.
We were starting our first individual challenges against the SWIM, and it was going to take some time to get through all the trainees.
Cash had emailed out a schedule, and small groups went in shifts every afternoon until each of us had gone several rounds alone against simulated wraiths of escalating difficulty.
I’d had a thoroughly enjoyable time completing my challenges, and after managing to take down two Rippers all by my lonesome and not “die,” I was sitting comfortably inside the top quarter on the individual Guardian leaderboard.
Ian had rocketed to the top slot on the Support Squadron rankings, and not even Cash the Dickhead could come up with a reason why he shouldn’t have been allowed in the program.
Tales of my meteoric rise in the program continued to fan the flames of loathing for the segment of the student body that saw female shifters in male-centered spaces as barbarism or whatever, but no one had attacked or challenged me again.
I’d been allowed to go about my business unmolested, and I’d begun to think that just maybe I could have a regular college experience after all.
“It’s been quiet, hasn't it?” I asked George, who was curled in a ball and half buried in the pile of pillows next to me on my bed. “Maybe the school is getting over the Guardian thing and the does-she-or-doesn’t-she-have-a-beast thing, and everything will be totally normal from here on out.”
His forked tongue darted out of his mouth, and he made a soft hissing noise.
“If normal is what you’re going for, you may want to ditch the sparkly purple python that’s been following you around like a puppy,” Mallory drawled from where she sat at my desk, pouring over a biology textbook.
Ian snorted. He and Brody were sprawled out on my rug, Brody on his back and scrolling his tablet while Ian used Brody’s stomach as a pillow, a pharmacology textbook in his hands. “Come on, Mal—leave my boy alone. He’s giving us major street cred among the beasts that roam these halls.”
“Is that why it’s been quiet?” I cooed at George, tickling his chin. “No one’s bothered me since the first week of school because you’ve been such a faithful companion?”
George had joined Wyatt, Heath, and Aiden in the dining hall most mornings but would inevitably end up in my lap or curled up at my feet.
He usually spent my morning classes with me before heading off, probably to take a glorious midday nap.
I’d also found him sleeping in Aiden’s office when I arrived one evening for tutoring, so I got to stroke his pretty scales while Aiden tried his damnedest to make our lesson as unsexy as possible.
If George was keeping the haters away, I had no complaints.
Though I might’ve liked to see Elijah, too, just to make sure he was okay.
And to tell him I was sorry that the story of his mother’s murder had thrown me for a second.
Because the fact that her body rejected magic after an attempt to kill her? It was eerily similar to my own mother’s story.
“This curfew bullshit blows,” Ian griped. “There should be an exemption when the beginning of the lunar cycle is on a weekend.”
Brody ran an affectionate hand through Ian’s blond hair. “I’ll take you out next weekend. I don’t trust you or Avery not to go looking for wraiths if we sneak off campus now.”
This cycle’s nightly curfew had started sundown last night and would end at sunrise Monday morning. It was currently Saturday night and the New Moon, and Brody wasn’t wrong. I was feeling extra itchy for my swords.
“It just feels wrong to be lying in my bed, reading about Slavic folklore, while our neighbors back home may be under attack,” I said.
“Dad told us on our last Sunday-night video call to take a few cycles off, Aves,” Ian replied. “They can handle it.”
I knew that, but it didn’t make me want to climb the walls any less.
“We can always go down to the study room and see how Allen and Chance’s D&D campaign is progressing,” Mallory said, tossing me a teasing grin over her shoulder. “It’s always the highlight of the nights we have curfew.”
Over the past few weeks, I’d learned that Allen was adorably nerdy and extremely obsessed with Mal. I loved it.
Maybe I should go down to the D&D room to see if I can catch myself a nice nerdy boyfriend. Plenty of males around here weren’t Primes or part of a quad on the hunt for a central bond, after all.
If I had other male distractions, maybe I’d stop thinking about how much Heath seemed to care when I was injured, or the feel of his rough, possessive hand against my bare skin, like he was trying to erase Dr. Lee’s touch.
Or about how Wyatt’s green eyes had blazed with desire and his powerful body trembled when I’d grabbed him by the throat.
Or about how Aiden pointedly avoided looking at me when I had his class but rarely took his probing hazel gaze from my face during our tutoring time together.
Or about how Elijah’s jovial-but-dangerous edge thrilled me and sparring with him had felt like we’d been doing it for years.
Who was I kidding? D&D wasn’t going to do it.
I slid off my bed and toed on my fuzzy boots. “Mal, I’ll walk you down to see Allen if you want. I think I’m going to go outside and just… get some air.”
She slammed her textbook closed. “Sure. If you’re leaving, I should go anyway, so Brody and Ian can get it on or whatever it is they do in their private time.”
Brody coughed, and Ian aimed a beatific smile at Mal. “So thoughtful.” His smile faded as he turned narrowed eyes on me. “Aves, I see you drifting toward your swords like you think I don’t know what you’re up to.”
“Can I please just… go walk the perimeter so I’m able to pretend I’m doing something?” I asked. “I’ll take George. He needs some exercise anyway. He’s been loafing around in here all day.”
Ian stared at me. I stared back.
Are you going to be difficult? his eyes asked.
You bet, mine replied with a twitch of my brow.
He let out a defeated sigh. “If you so much as put a toe outside the wards without me, sister dearest, I will steal three pairs of your most revealing underwear and deliver them to Wyatt.”
I gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“He would,” Brody added, nodding sagely. “I wouldn’t help him, though, Avery! I like my balls where they are.”
Ian tilted his head to give Brody his most suggestive grin. “Care to show me where, exactly?”
“Well, that’s our cue, Mal,” I announced, slinging my swords over my sweatshirt before glancing at my bed.
“Come on, George. Let’s go see if these wards are really worth the silver they’re etched on.
” As George began to unwind and slither off the bed, I pointed a stern finger at Ian and Brody. “Do not fuck on my rug.”
“You know, you’re very quiet for such a large snake,” I said to George as he slithered silently through the grass next to me.
He was able to blend into the thick brush that grew outside the manicured lawns of the main buildings, the cloudy moonless night allowing even his shiny purple scales to appear dark and dull.
“Is this how you hunt? Or do you just lounge around and wait for your daddy to feed you dead things?”
If a snake could roll its eyes, he would’ve. He hissed softly and picked up the pace, his long, thick body winding like a corkscrew through the dry grass.
“That wasn’t me being judgmental, George!” I called out, hurrying after him. “I don’t go out and kill my own food, either, you know? I show up to the dining hall and someone hands it to me. No need to exert ourselves for a meal when we don’t have to.”
The echo of a beastly screech sounded in the distance.
If I concentrated, my sensitive ears could just pick up the muffled shouting of men in response.
I’d been walking the perimeter of the campus for about half an hour, and this was the second time I’d caught the sounds of wraith battle in the distance.
There were several Guardian posts in the surrounding area, and they were out doing their jobs.
Frustration welled. On the one hand, I still resented the Guardians for leaving the city-dwelling shifters high and dry, but on the other, I itched to be out there with them, slaying wraiths, my blades singing, riding the adrenaline of the kills, which was a high like none other.