Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
B riony
“Jeez, Cupcake, what took you so long?” Fly says as I join him back out on the stairwell. “I was beginning to think you’d been chained to the wall.”
“Huh?” I say, my mind still back there in the classroom.
Fly looks at me funny. “I said, what took you so long?”
“I couldn’t find it,” I say, unsure why I’m lying to my new friend, why I’m not telling him about the strange encounter with our new professor. “Come on then,” I say, pulling Fly up the stairs, “all the good food will be gone if we hang around any longer.”
“You’re very food motivated,” he observes.
“You have no idea,” I tell him.
In the canteen, we join the back of a long line. Fly gives me a knowing look.
“By the time we get to the front, all that’s going to be left is crumbs.”
“Sorry,” I say, fingering my pen in my pocket and reliving that strange encounter in the classroom.
I can’t believe our professor – gruff, powerful, grumpy as hell – is Fox Tudor – Slate’s golden boy, the boy who was always quick with a smile, who could make even the most somber of people laugh, who nearly everyone was in love with – young, old, female and male.
I’m still lost in my thoughts, when Fly nudges me on the arm.
“What?” I say. He jerks his chin towards the seating area of the canteen and I see everyone else has fallen quiet and is staring that way too. “What is it?” I whisper to Fly, unable to see what all the fuss is about.
Fly jerks his chin again and this time I realize everyone is staring at a person. One person in particular. He’s not particularly tall and is as skinny as I am but he has the kind of face you only see in paintings – paintings of angels. I kinda understand why everyone is staring his way, but I also don’t get it. Sure, he is beautiful. But he’s not the only one.
“I don’t get it,” I whisper again to Fly, “did he do something or–”
“His collar,” Fly whispers back.
His collar?
My gaze drops to his neck and sure enough he wears a band around his throat. Although I’d hardly describe it as a collar – more like a choker crafted from golden silk.
“It’s very pretty …” I murmur, although I still don’t understand why that is causing everyone to stare.
The boy walks through the canteen, seemingly oblivious to everyone’s staring, his head held high, a little entourage scuttling along behind him.
Fly watches him exit the building, then drags his eyes back to me. He looks at me.
“You don’t know what that was, do you?” His brow crinkles. “I still don’t get how you’re so clueless about all this.” I shrug. Maybe I would know if my sister had come home. If she’d sent me more letters. All I do know are the bits and pieces I learned from Muriel and most of that focused on the hardship and pain. Two of Muriel’s most favorite subjects. “It’s a thrall collar,” Fly says.
I guess Amelia was selective about the information she did send me.
“A what?” I say, an unease rumbling through my body.
“A collar given to a thrall by their protectors. It symbolizes they are taken and, more importantly,” he says, giving me a knowing look, “protected.”
“That is really sick,” I say, frowning. I knew the realm and the system were messed up. I knew the academy wouldn’t be fair – that it would be biased and corrupted. That the shadow weavers would live in luxury while the rest of us slummed it. I guess I had no idea just how twisted it would be.
“He didn’t seem too unhappy about it,” Fly says longingly. “He seemed to be reaping the benefits.”
“I’m not some possession a group of over-privileged boys gets to own!” I spit out. Fly’s eyes go wide as if I’ve said something truly outrageous. “Just because they grew up somewhere special, just because they can do a few magic tricks, just because they’re quite pretty to look at, they think they can stroll around with sticks up their asses treating everyone else like dirt and acting like giant assholes and obnoxious dicks.” Fly lifts his eyebrows at me and glances over my head. “What?” I say, irritated that my new friend doesn’t seem to agree with me. “They are and I’d rather eat pig shit than have anything to do with them.”
“Erm, Cupcake …” Fly splutters, pointing as inconspicuously as he can behind me.
I peer over my shoulder and right at the broad chest of a shadow weaver. My cheeks burn as I lift my gaze into the pissed-off face of Beaufort Lincoln.
“Cupcake?” he spits in disgust.
“Just a friendly nickname,” Fly mumbles, “we’re not … I’m not … she’s not my type … and even if she were …” He trails off as it becomes clear Beaufort isn’t listening, he’s too busy glaring at me.
“Assholes and dicks are we?” he snarls right at me.
“Pretty ones,” Fly points out.
“Is that why you didn’t come to our rooms as you were asked?”
I go to open my mouth and tell him, yes, that’s exactly why, but in that moment, he glances over my shoulder, probably spies everyone in the canteen now looking our way, grabs my wrist and, before I can protest, hauls me out of the building.
Outside, the weather has turned stormy, the wind whipping around the buildings, driving dead leaves along the pathway and stinging against my face.
I attempt to yank my arm from his grip. I try to dig my good heel into the ground. But he’s twice my size and about ten times stronger and in the end I admit defeat and let him take me, complaining instead.
“Hey, my leg. You’re hurting me.” He pauses, gazing down at my ankle.
“You hurt your ankle? How? It wasn’t–” His expression darkens.
“No, I sprained it during the assault course.”
“Why hasn’t it been healed?”
“It’s been bandaged. A sprain takes time to heal.”
“Not if magic is used. Why didn’t you go to the clinic?” I look at him blankly and he scoffs in annoyance. Then motions with his fingers. “Give it here.”
“Give what–”
“Your leg.” He crouches down and before I know what he’s doing he has my ankle lifted into the air, his hands wrapped around my leg.
I peer down at him – his blazer stretched across his broad back, his hair thick and dark.
A warmth radiates from his palms, a warmth that spreads from the injured part of my ankle, right along my leg, up my thigh and towards my …
“What the hell are you doing?” I cry, trying to yank my leg away.
“Healing your leg,” he says, not letting go. Instead, he closes his eyes, his mouth moving silently and I notice how full his lips are.
More heat, a tingling sensation. I bite my lip because … because it feels good. Really very very good. The kind of sensation you could close your eyes and sink right into. I peer down at him some more, his large body crouched before me, his strong hands wrapped around my ankle, his handsome face taut with concentration. Something flutters low in my belly. It’s … really damn pleasant.
He releases my leg. “There, try it.”
Swallowing down whatever the hell I was just feeling, I rest my weight on the leg. No shooting pain. No cramping. Not even a slight ache. I have to admit, it’s as good as new.
“Thank you,” I mumble reluctantly, unable to meet his eyes.
“You’re welcome,” he says, standing to his feet.
He hesitates, then takes me by surprise a second time. Cupping my face in his hand. For the briefest of startling moments, I think he’s going to lean down and kiss me, press that full mouth of his against mine. My belly flutters all over the place.
But then he brushes his thumb under my eye.
“I should have done that before,” he murmurs, before marching us around a corner and off the path.
“Where are we go–”
“Somewhere we won’t have the entire academy listening in to our conversation,” he snaps.
He backs me right up against a wall, planting his hands either side of my head and leaning in towards me.
“I’m going to miss my lunch!” I protest because I don’t know what he’s going to do – if this time he really is going to kiss me – and I don’t know what else to say.
“Thralls are given the privilege of eating in the shadow weaver dining hall.”
“Is that meant to entice me?” I spit.
“Entice you?” he says, top lip curling. “It’s just a fact. You know what else is a fact?” I glare at him. “You failed to show up when summoned.”
“Summoned?!” I say in outrage.
“I told you, seven o’clock in our rooms. It was an instruction, not an invitation.”
“Well, maybe it should have been an invitation and then maybe I would have come. You know, you didn’t even ask my name. You didn’t even give me yours.”
“You don’t know my name?” he scoffs, like that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.
“Oh, I suppose I should, should I? Because you’re so fucking special.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Yes, I am. So if I tell you to be somewhere, you damn well be there.”
“I don’t want to be a thrall. Anybody’s thrall. Least of all yours!” I push at his chest, my hands meeting a solid wall of muscle beneath his blazer, a solid wall of muscle that does not move. That something in my belly flutters all over again. Why the hell does he have to be so hot? Why the hell does he have to smell so good?
“You just said you don’t know who I am,” he says, scowling, his face inches from mine.
“Oh, I know enough. I know what your kind is like.”
“My kind?” His frown deepens, cutting heavy lines between his brows. “You mean your betters. Strong, powerful, elite.”
“Yes, your kind. Cruel, callous and conceited.”
“You know a lot.” I scowl at him, lifting my chin in defiance. “Then you should know this: you don’t get a say in this. So be at our rooms at 8pm tonight, understood?” Those silver eyes meet mine and his magic hisses in the air.
I want to tell him to go to hell but in that moment, trapped by the cage of his strong arms, his magic fierce and threatening and his eyes even more so, I can’t find my voice.
He pushes off the wall and strides away.
Only when he’s almost around the corner do I find my voice again, calling after him. “No, no way.”
But the wind howls, carrying my voice away and I doubt he even hears me.
I lean back against the wall. My heart pounds in my chest, and my stomach won’t stop fluttering.
I close my eyes and catch my breath.
It’s been so long since anyone touched me with anything close to kindness, with gentleness, with care. I’d forgotten how good that could feel.
I can still feel his touch against my ankle, against my cheek.
I shake my head.
Shadow weavers aren’t kind. They aren’t gentle. They are cruel and they are selfish.
And as one of the most powerful, Beaufort Lincoln will be one of the worst.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t lost interest. In fact, he just healed my ankle and told me to come to his rooms again.
But, so what?
If this comes down to a battle of wills, he’s going to learn just how damn stubborn I can be.
Because there is no way, no way in hell, I am going to belong to anyone – let alone a shadow weaver – let alone three of them.