38. Titus
Of all the people to catch Felix’s eye, it had to be her.
Most people have enough common sense to see Felix and, at the very least, steer clear, if not run the other way altogether.
I’d been tempted to let her learn her own lesson, but that wasn’t so simple, not when a lesson like that could cost her life.
I swore I’d never let him kill an innocent again, and as much as I might not like Wren, it’s easy to see she is, in fact, innocent in so many ways.
Which is why I’ve spent the last week pushing my luck and using my powers to keep tabs on her. If I were found out, the repercussions could be terrible, which is why I need to ensure nobody catches me.
Should be simple enough with my magic stores, but I don’t love the idea of using them for her.
It’s for Julian.
“It would be easier if you just let her come to me.”
Felix.
I felt him move through the shadows, but I’d hoped that if I ignored him, he would simply go away like he usually does. That doesn’t seem to be the case; nothing seems to happen the way it should anymore.
“Yes, so you can kill her too?” I sneer, turning to see him looking right at me as though my shield doesn’t even exist.
Felix and Julian are the only ones who have enough magic, let alone know what to look for.
Felix wouldn’t have known if not for me showing him when we were kids, but back then, we were close before he took her away.
Before he was a monster.
It doesn’t matter, though. He might be able to see through this, but I’ve gained a lot of new powers since then, and while I might not be able to beat him, I can keep Julian safe and his little girlfriend, too, if that’s what he wants.
I feel the shift in his mood like a physical thing as his eyes bleed red and his fangs fully extend.
“I would never hurt her.”
“Just like you would never hurt—” I cut myself off, unable to finish my sentence, but that’s fine; he knows damn well what I’m referring to.
Who.
Some things are impossible to forget, even if you want to.
“That was an accident,” he says, the same lie he’s told since the day it happened.
Even if it were true, it would change nothing. It might actually make it worse, because that means he could hurt Wren without meaning to.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket to find a message from Dimitri.
She’s headed to the library.
“Wow, a group project, huh?” I lock my phone and shove it back in my pocket with a groan of annoyance, both at him and her.
Why can’t she just stay away?
More importantly, why can’t he?
Felix doesn’t do people. Even before, he was very reserved, only ever really talking to me and our sisters, maybe Julian when his family came to visit for council matters.
What is it about this damn girl?
“You can’t keep her from me,” Felix says, even as I move into the shadows, using our father’s power to track the mortal. I ignore him because something deep in my gut tells me he’s right, and I fucking hate that.
I walk out of the shadows near Dimitri’s class in an attempt to cut her off, only to find no sign of her.
Someone needs to put a leash on this girl.
The second I have the thought, I shake it off. That’s dangerous; even I can admit that, and I don’t even like women like that.
My ability to shadow walk is limited, unlike my brother’s and father’s. I inherited more of my mother's skinwalker abilities, which serve me well enough that I’m not mad about it, but in these kinds of situations, it can get annoying.
I have to have seen my destination, and the shadows I walk in need to be deep and relatively close, only about three hundred feet, which sounds great until you learn the academy sits on about three thousand feet of land.
Usually, it wouldn’t be a big deal, though, as I don’t mind walking or even running. Shadow walking takes more magic than it’s worth most days, which means I have to feed more, but right now I need to be discreet and quick.
Which is why when I walk out of the next set of shadows down the hall from where I just saw my brother, I nearly walk right into her. I quickly back up into the shadows again, coming out down the hall while holding my breath.
She notices, though, because, of fucking course, she does.
I’ve been watching her for a while now, and as much as I don’t enjoy this, it’s impossible to miss things. Like the way she’s always on alert, or how she jumps at sudden noises and movement.
Things people might not notice if they weren’t paying attention, but that’s all I’m doing, and the more I look, the more I find.
Like the way she always reaches for that pendant on her neck whenever anything happens. Good, bad, happy, mad, it’s in her hand. If I didn’t know she was a dud, couldn’t sense the lack of magic in her, I might think she was a witch using a talisman.
Well, that and if talismans were possible anymore. The last witch with enough power to do something like that was burned at the stake a few hundred years ago, thanks to our council.
That’s what fear of races does: creates chaos and senseless violence.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t broadcast what I am, and Julian never shows off, despite him possibly being the strongest fae born in a million years.
It’s safer to be underestimated.
The queen and her daughter were a perfect, terrible example of that.
Jealousy killed them and left the king heartbroken, something everyone in our kingdom suffers from.
“What are you doing?”
Shit, today is not my day.