Chapter 31
SADIE
Iwas beginning to understand what Verne meant by the bond gaining strength.
It had been five days since I snuck away to see the wolves, since Oona found us on the return and Leander killed her in cold blood.
The first day was the same as last time; I was distracted, a little itchy.
By the second, my skin itched all over and a tug in my chest urged me to race out of the academy halls and into the forest. Day three, I couldn’t sleep, curled up in bed as my heart squeezed erratically, and I shook so badly that our professor for battle tactics sent me to the healer.
Day four, I used the healer’s note to stay in bed all day, struggling to eat, to breathe, but today I had no such excuse.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Paige asked, frowning at me as we waited on the sloped grassy field at the back of the academy where loose training sessions were being set up.
Reed barked instructions at people, seeming to take enjoyment from their incompetence.
Drizzle hung in the air, invisible in the dark sky except for where the moon’s rays shone.
It had already soaked through my training clothes and my ponytail, sliding down the back of my neck.
“Maybe you should take another day off?”
I couldn’t stay curled up in bed forever.
Then it would be my name at the bottom of the slayer rank list, and someone would come to drag me out of bed and throw me into one of those training arenas.
The next batch of abductees would kill me, and the cycle would begin anew.
So I straightened as much as I could, curled my hands into fists so my fingernails pricked my palm, and I focused on that sharp discomfort to keep myself grounded.
We’re not running back into the arms of a killer, I hissed at my instincts, so get used to being away from them.
But that was the thing; the longer I stayed away, my body acted like I was in withdrawals.
I wasn’t just itchy; I was sweaty and cold and shaky.
Last night, my teeth chattered as I pressed my knees to my chest, trying to sleep, trying not to think about the look in Verne’s eye when he said he wanted me for me, not just because fate had selected me at random.
Worse was when I woke up, when in the few slow moments before my mind began to work, a quiet voice ribboned through the chambers of my mind. Maybe you belong with a pack of killers, maybe fate chose well. You’re a killer too, after all.
“Paige, Oona, you’re up,” Reed shouted, her voice so naturally loud it carried across the field and made me jump.
“Oona’s missing,” a small voice said, not carrying nearly as well as Reed’s. Quiet and thick with unshed tears. Maveline. “We haven’t seen her in days.”
“Another one?” Reed grunted, shaking her head. “What a waste of a perfectly acceptable slayer. Islyn, then.”
“Good luck,” I breathed to Paige, Elix and I watched her cross the rainy field to stand opposite the tall, silver-blonde woman a few years older.
Elix held her pad so I could see it. Islyn is injured from a session two days ago. Paige will be fine.
“Thank god for that,” I murmured. Slayers were dropping like flies, and I didn’t care who went missing or turned up dead as long as it wasn’t my friends.
As far as anyone knew, the same person who killed Fioranna and Soria was responsible for Oona going missing, and I wasn’t about to tell them it was a wolf who’d saved my life.
But guilt made me jumpy, and I swore Reed could see it written all over my face.
Paige’s sparring session went quickly. Thankfully, this was only practice and not a fight to the death—those happened in the arenas—and like Elix said, Islyn was injured, which meant Paige could put her newly learned skills to use, kicking the blonde’s ankle and knocking her to the ground.
By the time three more fights had concluded, I was restless, shifting my weight. I wondered if I could skip our strategy session this afternoon and—no. No running into the forest. The forest is banned.
“Sadie,” Reed bellowed. “Get in here.”
I groaned when I saw who she’d selected for me. Lawrence Montgomery-Sutherland.
Kick his ass, Elix said with a smirk.
Paige squeezed my shoulder, looking fierce and sweaty and more like a warrior than she had last week. I wondered if I had changed, too. “You’ve got this.”
I’d rather spar against Lawrence than any of the slayers who had years of experience, but his smug face was the last thing I wanted to see on a morning where I was miserable and irritable—and hungry because I hadn’t been able to keep down my porridge.
“Surprised to see you’re still alive,” Lawrence remarked when I joined him.
“Surprised to see your nose isn’t shoved up Thane’s asshole,” I retorted. The full-blooded, short-haired, black vampire was from a family as old and important as Reverie’s, and Lawrence had attached himself to the guy’s side like a barnacle. I was sure Thane was delighted.
“Stop fucking about,” Reed grouched, muscular arms crossed over her chest as she waited for us to fight.
Lawrence’s mouth twisted and he turned to say something to the tutor.
Idiot. I lunged forward, grabbed his dominant wrist in both hands and threw all my weight into twisting it.
I would have been happy with knocking him to the ground, but a horrid snap sounded, and a keening wail poured from Lawrence’s smug mouth.
“Don’t just cry about it,” Reed coached. “Get revenge. Hit her back.”
And here I thought she was on my side. I jumped back, watching Lawrence like a hawk as he nursed his injured arm at his side, swinging out messily with the other.
I let him throw hit after hit, dancing back to avoid the blows.
This wasn’t just easy; it was fun. For the first time since I ran from Leander in the forest, my blood pumped through my body and the shakiness left my limbs.
My skin stopped itching, and cold, drizzle-laced air filled my lungs to capacity.
God, it felt good to breathe again.
“She’s toying with you; do something, Lawrence.”
I probably shouldn’t have given Reed my middle finger without glancing away from my opponent, but she laughed, so I took that as a sign she wouldn’t kick me out of class.
I no longer wanted to leave, the siren song of my blood pounding, my body under my control again.
Besides, I needed to do good—or average—in all my classes so they wouldn’t put me in one of those fight-to-the-death arenas.
It wasn’t like I had a backup option now; I couldn’t flee a death battle into the forest when the forest held killer wolves.
Probably serial killer wolves; Leander had murdered Oona so easily, and with little fuss.
Lawrence’s left fist drove into my gut and I grunted. Yep, that was my fault for being distracted. I honed all my focus on him and caught his hand when it sailed towards me again.
“Want me to dislocate this one for you, too?” I chirped, enjoying the pain dulling his stare, baring his teeth. Looked like he’d spent too much time around these vampires and slayers; his human veneer was wearing off. I knew mine was, too.
He ripped his hand free, and I smirked, swinging aside to avoid his next strike. With my enhanced senses, it was easy to see his attacks coming.
“Go, Sadie!” Paige yelled from the sidelines, and it sent a rush of energy up my spine.
I pretended to pause, to listen. “Aw, sorry, buddy. I don’t hear Thane yelling for you. Are you okay? Do you need an ice cream tub to cure that broken—”
I danced back with a laugh. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Lawrence gritted his teeth and put more conviction into his next swing, and my blood sang as I threw my hands up to intercept the blow, the fight becoming a challenge.
When he drove me back, the drizzle-slick grass nearly sent me flying.
It carried me three paces back in a rush and sent my heart leaping into my throat.
I felt alive. What an idiot I’d been for avoiding classes when it was training like this that brought me back to life, that finally allowed me to push off the burning itch of being away from my mates.
I let Lawrence get another clumsy blow in, allowed the flat of his hand to connect with my forearm and gritted my teeth against the rattle of pain up my arm. And before he even moved his hand away, I used it to twist him onto the floor in a move that Reed only taught us a few days ago
“Nice, Sadie,” she praised from the sidelines. “Come on Lawrence, fight back.”
I chose to ignore the second part of that, putting my boot on his chest and keeping him in the slick grass. I didn’t have the greatest balance in the rain, and it would’ve been easy for him to knock me down to the ground, but either he knocked his head or the thought never occurred to him.
“Fine,” he spat. “I yield.”
“No, you do not,” Reed snapped. “Get up and fight her.”
His eyes flashed with an anger I’d seen on the faces of customers so many times that I could read the exact path of emotion.
Disbelief at the audacity to tell him what to do, followed by a swift desire to put me in my place.
But Lawrence couldn’t put Reed in her place, so I was the next best option.
I saw his plan, and before he’d even reached for the boot I had balanced on his chest, I was pushing down, driving him into the grass, not stopping until something snapped.
“Alright, Sadie,” Reed called, “that’s enough. You’ve made your point. Lawrence, I expect you to put in extra hours training and to win your next session, am I clear?”
Lawrence might have replied if I didn’t see red.
Anger and hatred hit me. It took control before I could tell myself this was instinct fucking with me, the way hormones messed with me the week before my period.
There was no voice of reason, not as I gazed down at Lawrence and saw every person who’d ever mistreated me, everyone who’d ever had the entitlement to demean me, belittle me.
I looked at Lawrence and saw everyone I’d ever hated.
All my exes, my long period of bosses who thought they were God and I was an ant that needed to be stepped on.
I saw my gran who took me in when I had nowhere else to go and then sold me like I was cattle.
I saw the pack who made me think I might have a different future than a lifetime of killing and training and becoming someone I didn’t recognise, only for them to turn out to be killers.
Deadly when they were meant to be safe. Unpredictable when they were supposed to be reliable.
It wasn’t just me hurt; it was my wolf, too.
As much as she loved Leander slaughtering her enemy, it had shaken her how easily he snapped Oona’s neck, how quickly he’d flipped from the irreverent joker, the man who looked at us with gentle eyes, as if he would never hurt anyone, least of all us.
Now even she didn’t know if he was safe to be around, or if it would be our neck under his hands next time.
The idea of her mate, our mate, doing that was abhorrent, but if Lainsz wanted us dead, what was to say that Leander didn’t, too? And Verne.
It wasn’t fair. That the people my wolf was supposed to trust above others was so untrustworthy. Exactly like I was supposed to be able to trust Dad not to leave, and Gran to take care of me.
It wasn’t really anger, not deep down. It might’ve had the heat of lava and the ferocity of a wildfire, but beneath its hardened core was pain. I was hurt. Again.
Despite my better instincts, a part of me had begun to trust them. To trust the serial killer who snapped a neck as easily as breaking a twig underfoot.
“Sadie,” Reed snapped, her furious shout breaking through the red haze that had come across my vision without me even realising it. She grabbed my shoulder, dragging me away from Lawrence. And I saw the mess I’d made of his face, my boot no longer resting on his chest but pressing on his windpipe.
I must’ve been kicking him, because his nose was broken and blood was everywhere.
I shook, staring at him, feeling more out of control than ever before. I was such a hypocrite, judging Leander for killing when I could kill just as easily, accidentally or otherwise. A life lost was a life lost, and I had no pedestal to stand upon. If he was going to hell for his crime, so was I.
“Walk it off,” Reed ordered, giving me a shove across the rain slick grass
Elix caught me before I could face-plant the ground.
“Are you okay,” Paige demanded. “What did that wesselly prick say to you?”
I shook my head, still lost the rage, the pain l. I didn’t want to take it out on my friends. “I’ll be fine. I just need some air.”
She squeezed my shoulder, reluctant to let me go. Elix squeezed me in a brief hug and stepped back, but I sensed her eyes on me the whole time I walked around the corner of the academy, worried. Strangely, unfamiliarly worried.
Had I completely fucked up back there? I’ve been so lost to their anger, not even seeing Lawrence. Did I let the wolf out? Did I show strength that a human shouldn’t have?
I flicked a quick look over on my shoulder as I walked, half expecting to see Reed running after me with handcuffs in her hands, ready to throw me in the dungeon.
I didn’t know for sure Lunova Academy had a dungeon but no way did a building have towers and turrets and gothic flying buttresses, and not have a dungeon somewhere.
I froze when a different voice came around the corner, rough and male and unfortunately familiar. I pressed myself to the wall, making sure there wasn’t a window nearby full of students glimpsing my cowardice.
Careful not to be seen, I leaned around the corner and my suspicions were confirmed. Beaufort. I was ready to hear Morton’s crisp reply, but there was only silence, and then Beaufort’s voice.
“Grandmother wouldn’t like it,” he muttered.
I shook my head, watching him storm away from the academy and towards the back of the grounds. Jesus. Even the professors were lunatics here.
When he was out of sight, I hurried around the corner and through the academy to the House of Sun training room. I wanted more of that bright, alive feeling, and at least here, I wouldn’t hurt anyone else.