Chapter 15 Interrupted
Interrupted
My eyes fought to focus on the person with us only then. I felt like I was suffocating, even apart from the hand wrapped around my throat.
My whole body felt hot, my vision dipped and swam, I could feel tears running down my face. I couldn’t tell if I was breathing. I stared up at pretty much the last person I expected to see, although maybe I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was.
If he had heard me, I might’ve supposed he’d only come out of irritation, rather than any sense of charity.
He’d want to tell me in person to shut the fuck up, that I was annoying him, or I’d ruined one of his shagging sessions, or I should have known better than to go on a date with an idiot like Strangemore, much less take an offered drink from the prick, particularly after what happened on our first date.
As it was, his cold, metallic-gold eyes surveyed me on Strangemore’s lap without emotion, his expression as indifferent as always.
“You raping hybrids now, Strangemore?” Bones asked. “Interesting. When did this become your new hobby?”
He folded his arms and leaned against the stone wall of our alcove. His gold eyes focused on the hand gripping my inner thigh, and the dress bunched up around my hips.
“Alright, then,” he said, his voice a touch colder. “Let’s see it.”
Strangemore took his hand off my throat, and air abruptly rushed down into my lungs.
I couldn’t control any part of the process still, but I felt my chest expand tangibly, enough that I could feel the oxygen rush into my blood, making me both more and less light-headed.
Graham didn’t let go of me, though, even with Bones there.
He wrapped his arm tightly around my chest, just under my breasts.
His other hand gripped my thigh hard enough to hurt.
I saw the gold eyes flicker. They focused again on Strangemore’s hands.
Then the expression in them slid casually back to bored.
“Are you going to show me?” Bones asked. “Don’t be a tease, Graham. You’ve only been bragging about it for a year now. Let’s see that little prick of yours. Do you think you’ll be able to make her scream your name, like you promised?”
“Get out of here, you sick fuck,” Strangemore snapped. “Why are you even here? Your boy, Alaric, isn’t going to care––”
“You think I’m here for Alaric?” Caelum leered down at my spread legs. “You overestimate the bonds of friendship there, I’m afraid. No, I’m here purely for my own entertainment. If you’re going to fuck her, I want to see it.”
“You’re a pig.” Strangemore’s voice held disgust. “What is wrong with you?”
Bones let out a bark of a laugh. “Oh, I’m the pig. You’re the one doing the raping. Can’t blame a bloke for wanting to watch.”
I stared up at Bones, fighting with conflicting emotions that only got amplified by the drugs, and by the blank, disinterested look on his face. I could hear, or possibly feel, the rage behind his words, but I wondered if Strangemore could.
I wondered that I did, for that matter, or if I was hallucinating all of it. After all, why would I think I knew him well enough to see beyond the blankness of that mask?
His eyes flickered to mine.
A lick of that sharp, green-gold flame curled through both of his irises.
Bones’s face didn’t change, and he aimed his stare back at Strangemore.
“Go on, then.” He planted himself in the alcove, making it clear he didn’t intend to go anywhere. “Continue.” He pulled a pocket watch out of an embroidered vest, and made a show of checking the time. “I haven’t got all night.”
Strangemore’s voice grew thick with fury. “Piss off, Bones. I don’t give a shite who you are, take a walk. This is private. Are you some kind of peeper?”
“Private?” Bones looked around past the alcove at the dark corridor and the stone walls. “Doesn’t look all that private to me. Practically inviting an audience, I’d say.”
He motioned a pale hand towards where Strangemore’s fingers wrapped around my thigh.
“Come on, then,” Bones jeered. “I haven’t got all night.
Were you going to rip her knickers off next?
Maybe punch her a few times to keep her from annoying the rest of us with her infernal screaming?
” He glanced around the alcove. “I suppose you could just smash her face against the stone…
that ought to be enough to knock her out.
Stun her, anyway. ‘Course, it might make it harder for all that name-screaming you promised…”
Strangemore went totally still behind me.
Laughably, I could feel him actually struggling with Bone’s words. He’d threatened to kill me if I spoke about what he was about to do, but he didn’t like Bones calling it out for what it was, maybe because he was another mage.
He actually found it offensive that Bones was accusing him of rape.
“You, of all people, know what she is,” Strangemore snapped.
But Bones had apparently lost interest in the back and forth.
He motioned gracefully with a hand, without speaking or whispering so much as a word in Sanskrit or Latin, and the suffocating binding spell around my body abruptly fell away.
Shocked, I gasped real, big breaths, in and out. My hand pressed to my throat.
When Graham’s arm loosened in surprise, I elbowed him, hard, in the chest, and wrenched out of his lap. The drug hit me with a vengeance once I was vertical, and my legs crumpled under me, nearly sending me face-first into the alcove wall.
Before I could fall, a different arm slid around my waist.
Gently… so gently, I had the sudden urge to cry… he held me up.
Bones brought me all the way back upright and carefully towards him.
I stepped back into him willingly, moving too fast. As a result, I half-tripped on my high heels so that my back collided with his chest. I found my balance after he’d steadied me again, and then I only stood there, gripping his arm in both of my hands, panting as I stared at Strangemore.
I glanced up only once, staring at Bones’s face, but he didn’t take his eyes off the other mage. The look on his face was…
I blinked, and looked away.
I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t pretend I knew why he was there.
Whatever his reasons, I was grateful. His reasons didn’t matter.
I refocused on the mage who’d attacked me, but Strangemore wouldn’t meet my gaze, either. He stared up at Bones, outrage now shining in his violet eyes.
“You fucking royals,” Strangemore snarled. “You’re just going to pass her around between you, then? Not let any of us have any fun?”
My eyes returned to Bones’s face, almost against my will. I noted the vein throbbing at his temple, the tautness of his face and long jaw. The indifferent stare remained in his gold eyes, but the muscles on his neck stood out.
“You mind waiting for me in the corridor, Shadow?” Bones asked politely, his voice as bland and indifferent as his eyes.
He started to turn with me, to bring me closer to the stone entrance, presumably so I could use the wall to support myself, once I’d let go of him.
“I want to have a little chat with your ‘date.’ If you don’t think you can get back to the party on your own, wait for me, and I’ll bring you in a moment. ”
Before he could let go of me, I laid a hand on his chest.
Bones flinched, but those gold eyes dropped to meet mine. That fire continued to coil and flare in his irises, but some of the mask dropped as he stared at me.
“Don’t,” I told him, softly.
The mask hardened back around his features, so quickly it bewildered me.
“Don’t what, Shadow?” he growled.
“Whatever it is you think you’re going to do.”
“Whatever I think I’m going to do?” he sneered. “You’re worried for your new boyfriend, Shadow? Even now?”
“No, you idiot. I’m worried about you.”
His eyes flinched.
Again, some of the cold leeched out of them.
I couldn’t in any way read the expression that replaced it.
I hesitated at his stare, replayed what I’d said, and realized all the different ways he might have taken my words.
Was I worried about him? Yes. Should I be worried about him?
I honestly had no idea, or whether his stare came from sheer surprise that I would have the audacity, or because I’d actually confused him.
I couldn’t deny that some part of me worried he’d rip Strangemore apart with his magic and leave the alcove a bloodied mess, not unlike––
“You should go, Shadow,” he said. In my mind, he added, I’m giving you an opening to go without me. To find your friends. You should take it.
Without him? What was that supposed to mean?
And why should I even want that? What made him think I felt at all safe wandering around here on my own, still drugged? Why wouldn’t he just go with me?
“I need your help,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” he growled back, annoyed.
If you go outside, and speak aloud either “Home!” or “Malcroix!” a vortex will open up that you can use to get back to the party.
Bones’s mental voice hardened as he glared at me.
You should go without me, Shadow. Find your friends.
I’m not going to be trustworthy with you right now, either.
“I won’t make it outside,” I insisted. “I can’t walk on my own.”
I honestly wasn’t even sure if that was true, but it didn’t matter.
I was afraid to go without him.
He had to feel that, right? I knew he probably wouldn’t care about my being afraid, but he must realize I wasn’t going to leave him alone to do whatever he wanted to do to Strangemore. If he wanted that without an audience, he was going to have to knock me out himself.
When I met his gaze, a frown touched his lips.
Gods, why was he being so pigheaded about this?
Was he really that determined to get into a fight?
Honestly, I still wondered that he’d bothered to show up at all, even if my screaming annoyed him.
He’d pretended I was dead for nearly a year.
Him approaching me in class to shut me up about Alaric made sense, at least. He’d been protecting his friend.
But why would he bother with any of this?
Maybe it was just a line too far, even if it meant protecting me.
Maybe he just hated Strangemore.
Or maybe, yeah, it was a line too far and he hated Strangemore.
Either way, I couldn’t let him get in trouble for me.
I was grateful he’d come. If he’d been anyone else, much less any kind of friend, I would have thrown my arms around him already.
As it was, I definitely didn’t want to venture back into the castle corridors alone, without him, and barely able to walk.
I didn’t want him brought up on murder charges, either.
I swallowed, then turned towards Strangemore.
“If you’re thinking to teach him a lesson, don’t bother.
” I aimed my slurred words haughtily at Bones, despite my stare at the other mage.
“You know he’ll go running to the faculty if you lay so much as a finger on him, and I fully intend to report every part of this to any and every school and law enforcement official who’ll listen.
Including my cousin in The Praecuri, if no one else will do anything. ”
I felt a slight twinge of satisfaction when Strangemore’s glare turned murderous. I glanced at Bones, and he met my gaze unflinchingly.
I saw another wave of that green-gold flame flare in his irises.
I was still struggling to make sense of what I saw, when his mouth firmed.
Without warning, he bent down.
Again, with a gentleness that startled me, he wrapped his arms under my knees and around my shoulders and hoisted me carefully up to his chest. He arranged me briefly in his arms, then, without another look at Strangemore, walked us out of the alcove, and veered left into the corridor filled with those black-stone statues and torches.
I leaned into him, rested my face against his chest, and closed my eyes in relief.