Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
B riony
My cheeks blaze hot as I watch Thorne Cadieux march back up the line to his own kind.
The man has said not one word to me, has stubbornly avoided making eye contact with me, making it abundantly clear that while Beaufort may have chosen me as their thrall, he isn’t happy about it. In fact, he despises the idea.
And yet, here he is declaring to the entire academy that I am theirs, that he’ll kill anyone who harms me.
Which just goes to show how out of touch and dumb these men are. Do they have no idea how the real world works? No idea that saying all that bullshit grew the target on my back tenfold? Everyone seems to hate me already, now they’ll hate me even more.
I can hear them whispering all around me and taste the animosity in the air.
Hot tears of frustration prickle behind my eyes and it takes all my strength not to give into them.
“Is everything okay?” Clare whispers in my ear, sliding up alongside me.
I shake my head. I’m too darn frustrated to speak. That and I don’t trust my voice not to break.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
What’s wrong? What’s wrong?!
What’s wrong is that nothing is working out the way I planned.
I want to melt into the background and disappear and now there is no doubt that everyone knows who I am.
I want to stay as far away from shadow weavers as I can and yet three of the most powerful want me as theirs. Even Thorne, who I was convinced disliked me.
I want to hate and despise them with every bone in my body and yet, I can’t deny I feel some strange attraction to them. One that whispers through my body whenever they’re close to me.
Dray outside the classroom. Thorne just now standing next to me in front of the line.
Why?
They represent everything I loathe.
The gruesome twosome come striding out onto the field, whistles hanging around their necks, sinister smiles pinned on their faces.
“We’re racing again,” the slightly taller one declares. There’s some moaning. My legs still ache from the last run and I bet I’m not the only one.
“Gentlemen first today,” his twin declares before blowing his whistle.
I stand alongside Clare and watch as the men race away into the mist, Beaufort, Thorne and Dray at the front of the pack, fast, powerful and agile.
If I didn’t know they were bond brothers, the closest of friends, I’d never have guessed it. Their demeanors and their looks are so different. Beaufort smart and pristine, his hair styled perfectly, his tracksuit zipped right the way up to his neck, his gait controlled and powerful.
Dray’s appearance is so laid back, it’s verging on horizontal. His tracksuit hangs open and his shoelaces are untied. However, despite the casual persona, there’s an eagerness in the way he runs, an excitement, an energy that can’t be contained.
Thorne is impossible to read. His face is blank most of the time and though he looks more put together than Dray, there’s still a scruffiness to him – stubble covering his cheeks and chin, his hair shorn in that haphazard manner. And then there are those gloves he always wears, like he doesn’t even want his hands to give him away.
In a couple of seconds, all three are lost to the mist. It’s so thick today, it’s like pea soup, swallowing them up into its depths.
I wonder how the hell we’ll find our way through.
I guess I’m about to find out because in the next minute, the whistle is blown again and we’re off.
“You don’t have to run with me,” Clare says, her cheeks already puffing and her face red.
“It’s fine. I’d like the company. Unless,” I say, “you’re worried running with me might land you in trouble.”
“Are you kidding?” she pants, “after what Thorne Cadieux just did, no one will ever touch you again.”
“Hmmm,” I say, “I’m not so sure about that.”
“If you’d accepted the collar,” she says, stumbling slightly, “you’d definitely be safe.”
“How is a collar any different from Thorne’s warning?”
“Well, it has magical properties I guess,” Clare says musing on the question.
I slow my pace, so she can catch me again. “Magical properties?”
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what they are exactly, but they protect the thrall from danger.”
“Bullshit, I bet there is no magic.”
“That’s what people …” she raises her hand, struggling to catch her breath, “say. Honestly, Briony, please just go ahead, trying to keep up with you is going to kill me.”
“Really? I’m going slow.”
She gives me a little push. “Please just go.”
I blow her a kiss and leave her to suffer in peace, picking up the pace and racing through the mist and across the moorland, hoping I am running in the right direction. It certainly feels like I am.
The air is dank and cold, the tip of my nose and my toes freezing, but it feels good to be out here, pummeling the earth with space to think.
I’m so damn irritated about last night, seething about that bullshit display just now and confused, really damn confused. A confusion I can’t even understand, that I can’t pinpoint.
I need to find a way out of this situation. Trashing the Princes’ kitchen didn’t work, being bratty and bitchy didn’t work either. I need a better plan. I just haven’t come up with one yet. One that has them leaving me alone.
The mist is so dense, I don’t meet any of the other runners out here, I don’t even hear them. It makes me uneasy. It would be damn easy for someone to jump me right now, and, despite Thorne’s pretty sinister warning, I’m not sure how the hell he thinks he’d prevent it.
However, I make it right the way to the trees without being attacked. Waiting for me under the first few branches is not a group of girls with vengeance or murder on their minds, but a giant white wolf. Sitting all primly and properly, as if he’s been waiting for me. And maybe he has been, because when he spots me, his ears perk up on the top of his head and his tail thumps the ground in excitement, then he’s leaping onto all fours and bounding towards me.
“Hello, fellow,” I say as he barrels into me. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.” He licks at my hands. “Come to protect me from those girls? Actually, they haven’t been bothering me. It’s Odessa I need to worry about,” he makes a cute little bark, “yep, she’s already tried to kill me and broken my nose and I haven’t even been here a week.”
I lean over to stroke him and he buries his snout in my crotch and has a good old sniff.
“Yeah, I probably stink. I’m actually in the middle of a run. One I should probably be continuing.”
Although the affection – even if it is from a wild wolf who could probably maul me to death at worst, at best will be giving me fleas – is nice, I miss Baxter. I miss our snuggles. I miss how happy he always was to see me. He is the one thing I do miss from home.
Is that why the Princes are having this strange effect on me? A bit of tenderness from Beaufort and my insides seem to be spinning. Is it because it’s been so long since anyone touched me like that?
The wolf whines.
“I know,” I say with a sigh, “this is nice, huh?” I rub my knuckles against his broad sternum, feeling the compact muscle that lies beneath his fur. “But you probably have a pack for kisses and snuggles. Where are they?”
The wolf slurps his long tongue over my hand, then jumps up and drags his tongue over my face too.
“Okay,” I laugh, “maybe just a tad forward. This is only our second date, remember?” I stroke his ears. The wolf obviously doesn’t understand, he licks me several more times, then drops back down and buries his snout right between my legs again.
“Jeez,” I say, trying to push him away, “that’s a bit personal, boy.” He keeps his nose at the apex of my thighs, having another good old sniff. His warm breath heats my most intimate of places and then he darts his tongue out and licks there too. “Right,” I say, “and now I really do have to go.”
He whimpers as if he doesn’t like that idea, but then drops down on his stomach and rests his head on his paws. He is a huge scary wolf with razor-sharp teeth and even sharper claws and yet he looks adorable. It is very hard indeed to turn away and start running again.
I don’t even bother with the changing rooms this time. I head straight back to my tower, diving into the freezing cold shower in the bathroom and then returning to my room to get changed.
By the time I’m dressed, it’s lunchtime. I consider skipping it. Walking into the canteen alone because Fly and Clare are probably already there, is not appealing. Everyone will be gossiping about me. I’ve been invisible for so long, being thrust into the glaring-hot spotlight like this is alarming to say the least (as well as dangerous). But I’m going to have to suck it up because after that run, I’m famished.
It’s worse than I predicted. The canteen falls deadly silent as I enter and you could hear a pin drop – in fact you could hear the head of a pin drop.
Luckily, I have two new friends – who may not be good for snuggles – but can be depended upon to help me out.
“Briony!” Fly calls from across the room. “Over here! We got you some lunch and saved you a seat.”
I could lick his face because it’s a seat right in the corner which means, although I still have to walk across the canteen with everyone staring, at least I can hide away once seated.
“You’re popular,” Fly says, with a wink, pushing a bowl of soup towards me as I take the spare seat.
“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it.”
Clare gazes around the room. “I don’t understand why more people aren’t sucking up to you.”
“Yeah,” Fly agrees, “Odessa, Julian and Gillian all have little bands of adoring fans.”
“I have you,” I say, smirking.
“Cupcake, don’t get a big head. We adore you, obviously, but not in an unhealthy or self-serving sycophancy way.”
“Trust me, I’m not getting big-headed. Although, I do have one fan.”
“You do?” Clare says, pushing her glasses up her nose, her face still flushed from the run.
“Yep,” I say, unable to stop from smiling, “although he’s a little unusual. Not strictly a student.”
“Oh my god!” Fly gasps, hands flying to his mouth, “a teacher?”
“No,” I say, “a wolf.”
Fly’s hands fall away from his mouth and my two new friends stare at me, unblinking.
“A wolf?” Fly says flatly. “What kind of wolf?”
“I have no idea,” I say, moving lumps of vegetables around my bowl with my spoon. “He lives out in the forest. Today’s run is the second time I’ve met him. The first time he saved me from an ambush. He’s really friendly.”
“I bet he is,” Fly mutters.
“What does he look like exactly?” Clare asks, eyes flicking to Fly.
“He’s gorgeous. Really beautiful. And big for a wolf. There are wild wolves out in Slate Quarter. Sometimes when the weather is really bitter, they venture closer to the town. They are always quite scrawny. This wolf, he’s huge, and his coat is like snow – pure white.”
“Oh Briony,” Fly says, dropping his cutlery down on the table.
“What?” I say. “I like animals, okay? And he wasn’t aggressive. He made me feel safe.”
Fly and Clare exchange glances again. “Should I tell her or should you?” Fly says.
“I will,” Clare adjusts her glasses. “Briony. He isn’t a wolf.”
“I know what a wolf looks like, Clare.”
“There are no wild wolves out here in this part of the realm,” Clare says. “There haven’t been for hundreds of years.”
“Well, you can ask the girls who tried to ambush me. I’m not seeing things.”
“He’s not a wolf. He’s a shifter,” Clare says.
“And by the sounds of things, Dray Eros,” Fly adds.
I nearly spit my mouthful of soup out across the table.
“What?!” I shake my head. “No … no …”
“Yes,” Fly says. “Possibly one of the other shifters but I’ve heard Dray’s wolf is pure white like you described.”
“But … But … he sniffed my crotch,” I mumble, my face now as flushed as Clare’s. “Oh my stars, he licked it!”
Fly roars with laughter. “That perverted son of a bitch.”
“I don’t think you should call him that,” Clare whispers nervously.
“Well, he is!” I say pushing my unfinished bowl away. I no longer have an appetite. “I can’t believe that was him.” I groan and bury my face in my hands. “I petted him like a dog.”
Fly keeps right on laughing. “I bet he loved that.”
“Why was he even in his wolf form?”
“I guess he likes to run that way,” Clare says.
“And are there other shifters?”
“I hear there are a handful among the shadow weavers. All of them male. There are no female shifters in this year group.”
“And … are they all wolves or are you going to tell me that raven that nearly shit on my head this morning was also some asshole shadow weaver?”
“As far as I know, only wolf shifters, but I guess, in theory, there could be others.” She chews on a piece of bread. “Although not the ravens. They belong to the academy – story goes they’ve been here since the first foundation was laid.”
“They give me the creeps,” I say.
“Me too,” Fly agrees. He shivers, then begins to chuckle again. “I can’t believe you got it on with a wolf.”
“I did not get it on with a wolf.”
“That is definitely how rumors start,” Clare warns.