Entwined

Chapter 1 Felicity

CHAPTER ONE

felicity

“This is your final chance, Felicity.”

Her words are so sharp they practically have teeth, leaping across the back seat of the luxury sedan. I feel them grazing my skin with a devouring hunger, latching on wherever they can reach—sucking out any life left after weeks stuck with only her for company.

I press my knees together, tugging at the hem of my skirt. It’s gray and tight, a size too small, but something she’d basically blackmailed me into.

Elizabeth Hamilton—socialite, piranha, mother.

“Felicity,” she snaps, reaching out to pinch me. I flinch away, refusing to even look at her. She craves the reaction, and I’m petty enough not to deliver.

“Yes, Mother,” I intone dully.

“I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation,” she hisses viciously. “Your grandfather has had quite enough of your antics. If you don’t pull your grades up this semester, you’ll lose access to your trust fund.”

Translation: she’ll lose access to my trust fund.

Expectation fills the air as she waits for a response, her eyes burning into the side of my face. When it becomes clear she won’t get her way, my mother turns away with a loud huff.

The driver slows the car down. I turn to look out the window, peering up at the intimidating stone gargoyle standing alert on a carved column. Wings are tucked in tightly to its body, its stare is blank and fixed ahead as it stands guard over the wrought-iron gate.

I keep my eyes fixed on the gargoyle as we wait for the gate to open, the metal protesting loudly with the movement. As soon as it’s open, the car eases forward and up the curving driveway, leaving dappled sunlight for gloomy shadows.

A shiver works its way down my spine, uneasiness tightening my chest as the castle comes into view. Towering spires stretch up into the stormy clouds overhead, atop walls of black brick so dark the structure seems like a blight on the mountainous landscape.

Bartholomew University. The school for the rich, the elite, and the supernatural. Or, as I liked to dub it, Purgatory.

After I’d been pulled out in the middle of the semester, I was so sure I wasn’t going to have to come back. However, my grandfather had set me straight quickly, getting all my coursework from my professors to complete at home so I wouldn’t be behind when I returned.

“I’ve spoken with the dean,” my mother tells me, tone shrewd. I glance over at her, just in time to catch the derisive glare she flicks over me. “You’ll have the dorm room to yourself this semester. We all felt it was for the best after…Well, after your recent proclivities.”

The corner of my mouth twitches with amusement. We both know she’s talking about the fact that Dizzy—my previous roommate—and I were fucking every chance we got.

Thinking about my friend makes my heart ache, but it isn’t because we loved each other. If anything, she was a port in a storm, a physical comfort against the iciness that permeated every other aspect of my life.

After we were caught in flagrante delicto, Dizzy’s family pulled her from the college. But I had no doubt that it was my family that had orchestrated it.

Apparently, there was a lot my grandfather would overlook as the patriarch of our fucked-up little family, but his granddaughter engaging in obscene relations with another woman was not on that list. The lectures I’ve heard over the last few weeks were about keeping my indiscretions behind locked doors.

Except I did.

No one seemed to want to ask many questions about what Connor Thornton was doing when he picked the lock to my dorm room.

But the look of shock on his face when he’d thrust the door open was imprinted permanently on my mind.

His high cheekbones had filled with a deep slash of color, his bright green eyes taking in the way I’d been lounging back against my bed, naked with my legs splayed.

Dizzy had been lying on her stomach between my thighs, her blonde hair trailing over my pale skin.

The memory of it alone has a secret smile dancing across my lips, remembering how his eyes had flared, darkening with murderous rage as they’d locked on mine—right as Dizzy’s tongue had pushed me into euphoria.

Bold fucker should’ve knocked.

Still, that was the moment everything had gone downhill. I haven’t spoken to Dizzy since. Every message has gone unread, every call straight to voicemail. Not that I blame her. I just wish she’d give me the chance to explain, to apologize…to say goodbye.

“Felicity,” my mother starts again, softening her tone. I slide a look her way just as something sly flashes through her watery blue eyes. “You need to make nice with Connor. Your grandfather is in talks with his father, and it’s imperative that the deal goes through.”

I blink in bemusement. “What does that have to do with me?”

She sighs, her eyes tightening at the corners. “It has everything to do with you, Felicity.”

Before she can say anything else, the car comes to a stop at the bottom of the front steps. The driver gets out, pulling my two large cases from the trunk. He sets them on the ground and comes to stand at my door, hands clasped at his back.

My only forewarning is the brush of linen against leather, and then fingers are squeezing ruthlessly into my jaw and cheeks. She digs her nails in, forcibly turning me to face her, mouth twisted into an ugly sneer.

“You will not fuck this up for me,” she whispers harshly.

“If my father blames me for any more of your failures, you will regret it. So, paint the sweetest smile on your face, and play nice with the Thornton boy.” She squeezes my face until I’m sure her dagger-like nails have sliced through skin, her eyes bright with malice.

“But you know how to play nice, don’t you, Flick? ”

I wrench out of her hold, opening the door myself and scrambling out of the car while the driver watches, unmoving. Bending at the waist, I peer back in at my mother, finding her mask rearranged into something more pleasant now that she has an audience.

“Yeah, Mommy, I know how to play nice.” I waggle my eyebrows suggestively. “Something tells me you won’t like how I twist the rules of this game.”

My name is a banshee shriek on her tongue, but I cut her off by slamming the door closed. The driver looks discomfited as he clears his throat.

“Do you need help with your bags, Miss Hamilton?”

I stare back at him, mouth flattened into a line. “I think I can handle it. Thank you.”

He looks like he might argue, but then shakes his head, turning and striding back around the car. I step back as the engine roars to life, watching as the car peels away.

I wait until it’s out of sight before turning to face the steep stairs, straightening my shoulders, preparing to enter the first level of hell.

By the time I reach the top of the steps, my clothes are sticking to my sweaty skin. The weight of the suitcases has my arms trembling, my hands cramping from where they’ve been curled around the handles. Relief washes over me as I drop them carelessly to the ground.

I push the heavy doors open, stepping inside, and it’s like walking into a chiller. The sweat rapidly cools against my skin, leaving me shivering, the thin blouse doing nothing to ward off the chill.

I grab my luggage, dragging them inside just as the door slams shut, making me flinch. I’ve had almost two years to get used to the quirks of the castle, but several weeks away has dulled my memory of how things work.

“You look like your mother.”

My heart jumps wildly, a shriek of fright leaving my throat. I whirl around, searching for the owner of the sneering voice, but there’s no one.

“Who are you?” I demand haughtily, owning every ounce of my family’s heritage and acting like they didn’t just make me almost pee myself.

Movement from the left has me freezing just as a masculine figure steps out of the shadow of a doorway.

He’s impossibly tall, with a black hoodie pulled low over his head, obscuring his face.

He takes another step closer, and I stumble back, realizing just how big he is.

He must be at least a foot taller than me, with wide shoulders and thick thighs, encased in dark wash denim.

“Who are you?” I demand again, but my voice wavers, uncertainty filling me. He doesn’t come any closer. His head is tilted down, ensuring I can only see the curve of his sharp jaw, covered in dark bristles, and full lips that lift in a smirk as I watch.

As the silence stretches between us, my heart flutters like a caged bird in my chest. My eyes drift downward, locking on his hands, my breath hitching in my throat. They hang loosely at his sides, but they’re covered in swirling ink—runes.

I know of only one species that walks around with that kind of artwork etched into their skin, and nothing good can come from a warlock seeking me out.

I clear my throat, lifting my eyes and forcing my expression into one feigning indifference. He doesn’t move, and although I can’t see his eyes, I know his attention is fixed on me.

“Well, I nee—”

“You’ve got a long walk to your dorm,” he observes, tipping his chin at the suitcases. “Why did they drop you off here?”

My teeth clack together as I clamp my mouth shut, but the words come spilling out anyway. “I didn’t tell them.” My tone is both defensive and petulant, and not at all the unaffected vibe I was going for. “I’m fine,” I force out, infusing strength into my voice. “I don’t need help.”

A deep, raspy chuckle leaves him. The sound drifts through the air towards me, subtle and sneaking, and then a stroke down my spine, like the touch of icy fingertips.

It tucks into the waistband of my skirt and tugs, almost making me stumble over the suitcase lying haphazardly behind me.

A startled yelp leaves me, arms flailing as I catch my balance.

That smirk of his widens into something wicked.

“Good thing I wasn’t offering,” he tells me, cocking his head to the side. The black hoodie shifts, and there’s a flash of yellow—

No, not yellow.

Gold.

He turns on his heel, striding away without another word.