Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Izzy
In the morning, we’re going to Scotland. I run after Mr. Time as the guys bring Oliver back to our house; he’ll sleep on the third floor alone where we have some security. The godslayers, our pack of gods, a new and dangerous god--our house is getting crowded.
And I have a bad feeling about it.
“Why are we waiting until tomorrow?” I demand when Mr. Time turns to me. “We could be in Scotland already. We could teleport and surprise them.”
I know the guys are asking all these questions. I can feel them fuming, but we trust him, and Mr. Time does what Mr. Time does. None of us are going to waste our breath arguing with him.
“We could,” Mr. Time agrees. “But I wanted you to feel out Oliver. I’m worried he’s leading us all into a trap.”
“You want me to figure out if he is?” I ask, surprised.
Mr. Time claps my shoulder. “You’re our trickster. If anyone can trick him into revealing the truth, you can.”
I nod thoughtfully. “Okay.”
“But be careful,” he warns me.
“I’m always careful,” I remind him.
“That’s a lie and I know it, granddaughter.
” He rests his hand on my shoulder, and the small gesture of affection sends a glow of warmth through my chest. I always wanted someone to love me like Mr. Time seems to, ever since I was a little girl lost in the foster system.
“You follow your heart even when it leads you into trouble. That’s the opposite of careful--but I wouldn’t have you any other way. ”
I smile at him because I don’t know what to say. I’m not good at taking compliments; I don’t have much practice.
“See you in the morning,” he promises, then adds, “Brenda and Beth and I will be close tonight. If he tries anything, we’ll be there.”
I nod, knowing they’ll be watching over us tonight.
As I head through the beautiful, quiet campus, a few passing vamps and shifters say hello, and I smile back and greet them.
The guys and I won over some of our peers in our classes, but now that we’ve fought the godslayers that tried to kill some of our fellow students, we’ve won over most of them.
The campus is beginning to feel like home.
But most of my thoughts are focused on how I can get Oliver to reveal how he truly feels.
And then it comes to me…I can be my sister.
We’re even identical twins; I could probably fool him without my trickster magic, if I had to.
But I can easily shift myself to look just like Thea.
And if I couple that with my ability to make people actually believe what I show them, he should easily fall for it.
When I enter the house, the guys are hanging out in the living room.
Wilder sits on the floor in front of the fireplace, his guitar in his lap.
No matter that he’s playing absently, his deft fingers still coax a beautiful melody from the strings.
Van lays draped sideways over one of the club chairs, and one of his dangling feet kicks in time with the tune without him noticing.
Aiden and Reid are leaning forward over a laptop together set on the coffee table.
More and more, they hang out as a group when we’re all in the house.
From the outside, before we came to the academy, I hadn’t realized how many small rifts had opened up between them all after they began to leave me out.
But now I can see them coming back together, and it makes me happy.
They need each other as much as they need me.
They were never wrong about that, even though they were idiots in how they went about it.
“Where’s Oliver?” I ask.
“Getting settled.” Aiden makes air quotes. “I have a bad feeling about him.”
I nod. It feels too easy.
“He says there are dozens of traps laid around the castle,” Reid adds. “Which seems convenient for his story. We need him, and we need to go in the way he says.”
“I’m going to talk to him,” I say.
Instantly, their faces take on a familiar fierce protectiveness. I raise my hands to fend off the arguments before they can even start. “You guys are right downstairs. And they can’t teleport into the academy. The gates are locked. It’s just him and me, and you guys all know I can kick his ass.”
Van snorts at that. “But would you?”
“Loki’s always ready to turn someone into a bug, believe me,” I say. “One wrong move, and he’ll be a rhinoceros beetle.”
“That’s specific,” Wilder says.
I wink at him. “That’s because I’ve got a plan.”
Wilder runs his hand through his hair, but he can’t help smiling at me, no matter how worried he might feel. “Fine. Go get him. As long as you promise to squish him if you need to.”
This is actually part one of my plan. I plan to visit him as Thea tonight, once he’s fallen asleep and will be foggy-headed if I wake him.
“I’ll go with you.” Aiden leaps from the couch.
“No,” I say, pressing my hands to his broad chest to stop him. “I love you, Aiden, but tact and de-escalation aren’t exactly your strengths.”
Reid lets out a laugh--that’s an understatement--that he smothers into the couch as Aiden turns to glare at him.
Then Aiden turns his attention back to me. “You love me?”
“Obvi--”
Before I can finish saying obviously, Aiden’s mouth covers mine. His hands wrap around my hips, pulling me close, and the two of us trade a deep, long kiss. I expect the other guys might be jealous, but when I look up, they’re smiling.
“I’ll be back soon,” I promise. My legs a bit weak after those kisses. I make it to the door though, and only once I’m in the kitchen do I let myself sag against the wall. All four of them stoke this incredible heat and lust that feels like strength and power sometimes and leaves me weak at others.
But the way Aiden leaves me reeling soon fades. As I climb the stairs a few minutes later, I feel that sense of strength replace it. It’s true for gods and for all girls: we can do anything if we have people who love us behind us.
I pass the godslayers’ floor and climb the stairs to the uninhabited third floor.
Some crazy part of me can just imagine our godslayer friends living here, and Thea and her men, too.
Maybe there’s some kind of misunderstanding and we can just fix things and I can finally have my sister back.
The thought is a beautiful one, even though I know not to get too attached to it.
I knock on the door and a few seconds later, Oliver answers.
“Hey,” I say. “I brought up some of Beth’s cooking. I thought you might want some dinner and some peace tonight.”
“After all the time I’ve spent with your sister, I could definitely use some peace,” he says grimly, holding out his hands for the food.
I want to hear everything about her, and at the same time, I don’t know that I trust him to tell me the truth, even about the smallest things.
I follow him into a big living room that mirrors the one I’m so familiar with downstairs. “Do you have everything you need?”
He plops down on the couch and gives me a strange look, as if he doesn’t know why I care. “Sure do. Except for a surefire way out of that hell hole.”
“Hell hole?” I ask.
“Thea and the other guys and me…we were taken as kids,” he explains. “Mercenaries searched for the Marked and when they found us, they paid our parents off to take us…or they killed them if they said no.”
He shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. I want to ask what happened to his parents, but I don’t want to open old wounds. “How old were you?”
“I was found last,” he says. “I was ten.”
He raises the coffee mug from the table between us as if in a toast. “And that’s why I like to think I’m still relatively sane and well-adjusted.”
“What happened?”
“I spent the next ten years of my life being raised by a maniacal dictator who punished us brutally for any infraction,” he tells me.
“And he was never satisfied with our gods. He always wanted us to be more powerful.” He snorts.
“As if we wouldn’t murder him if we could, if we were powerful enough… Well, I would, at least.”
I believe him about that. His eyes have gone dark with hatred and fear.
“How come he never found you?” he asks. “You were Marked, weren’t you?”
I absently rub my hand over the mark on my arm, the one that became visible that night in the library. “Yeah. I don’t know.”
“Lucky,” he accuses, and he sounds bitter about it.
“I’ve missed my sister all these years,” I say. “I tried to find her.”
“Be glad you didn’t.”
I nod. “I guess I would’ve ended up like her…”
“Your sister will do anything to win that maniac’s approval,” he tells me. “He despises her, and the more he abuses her, the more desperate she is to make him happy.”
Those words chill me to the bone, then fury sparks. “He abuses her.”
Maybe my sister had no choice in what she did the night the godslayers came after us, or maybe she’s so brainwashed she's lost. But either way, I’m going to save her if I can.
And no matter what, I’m going to make him pay.