Sauter (Ironside Academy, #3)(37)

“My baby girl is changing,” her mother noted, a sad smile curving her lips. “I’m here, so you must be scared, but you’re wearing it so calmly.”

“Yeah, well.” Isobel laughed humourlessly. “I’ve been practising.” Her short laugh died, and she sucked in a deep breath. “Mom, what the heck are you?”

Caran looked down at herself, holding up the sleeve of her dressing gown. “A remnant,” she said, still with that gentle smile. “I’m sorry, Illy. I can’t be anything more.”

Isobel swallowed, fighting back tears again. “What happened to you, Mama?”

For a moment, the apparition wavered, Caran’s face flinching so violently that it seemed she was about to wink out of existence, but then she settled, her expression smoothing out. “What did you say, Illy?”

Isobel frowned, hugging her still-damp arms around herself. “I asked what happened—”

Her mother was shaking her head, pulling a finger to her lips. “He doesn’t like people to upset us. You can’t ask us that.”

“What? Who are you talking about?”

“Illy.” Caran’s hands hovered over Isobel’s shoulders, but they didn’t feel like anything, not even a change of temperature or a whisper of air. “I’m safe now. I’m okay. Just like all the other remnants.”

“But how are you here? How am I seeing you?”

There was a soft knock on the door behind Isobel, but she ignored it, imploring her mother, trying to lay her touch over the ghostly hands that covered her shoulders.

“I’m not.” Caran smiled again, pointing to Isobel’s forehead. “I’m here.”

“Isobel?” Kilian was knocking louder, and after a second, he tried the handle, finding it unlocked. He propped the door open and as soon as he saw her standing there hugging herself, he stepped into the room and nudged the door closed behind him.

Her mother disappeared.

“What’s wrong?” Kilian’s hands landed on her shoulders, and she almost sagged in relief at the tangible sensation, her eyes drifting shut as she swayed forward, butting her head against his chest.

“Nothing,” she lied.

He chuckled, tucking a few wet locks of hair behind her ears. “Clearly. Did you shower? I can still smell Oscar all over you.”

“Sort of. Not really. Are you offering to help again?”


Kilian forced out a laugh just to dissipate some of the tension, but there was a tight constriction in his chest. She wasn’t okay. She had been through a lot, and he had seen it all knock her down, peg by peg, so slowly that her decline was almost unnoticeable.

But this Isobel wasn’t the same Isobel from before the settlement tour.

“They took my phone,” he murmured against the top of her head. “I had a bit of a breakdown the night you told us about Aron … and a few hours later, the officials arrived to remove me from the academy. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“I don’t need you to be there for me.” She sniffed against his chest and the stubbornness in her voice was adorable.

He eased her back again, examining the pink flush in her cheeks. It was hard to tell if she was embarrassed or feverish.

“You have five surrogates,” he chided gently. “Why have you been ignoring the others if you needed them so badly?”

She sniffed again, and the colour flushed brighter. “I don’t understand why they offered.” She side-stepped him, reaching into the shower to turn the water back on.

His eyes dropped to her towel before he forced them back up again. “Blindfold me,” he blurted.

She turned, a surprised sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh falling out of those beautiful, lush lips, her eyes widening. “What?”

“I don’t want to leave. You need to shower. We need to talk away from the cameras. The others are only going to leave us alone in here for so long. So blindfold me.”

“Kili.” She made that shocked laughing sound again. Almost a scoff. “I don’t carry blindfolds around.”

His heart warmed at the way she shortened his name, heat cracking into the massive gouges the last few weeks had left in the organ. He rolled his eyes, flicking off the light instead.

She giggled. “Okay, now I also can’t see.”

“Good.” He wasn’t in a laughing mood, but he still liked the sound of hers. It was light, airy, clear as a bell. Stunning. It astounded him that she could possibly sound so pure and innocent after everything that had been done to her.

“Why good?” She was unwinding her towel, turning toward him to feel for the rack.

Fuck. Shit.

If he suddenly left the room, he might have to explain to her that his Alpha sight was a little better than hers.

“Because I’m not getting in there with all my clothes on.” The words expelled from him on a sharp breath, a little too fast, but she was too busy groping for the towel rack to notice.

He fixed his attention to her face, refusing to look lower as he kicked off his shoes and removed all of his layers except his boxers. He slipped past her as she felt her way into the shower, ducking beneath the spray just to clear his head before he retreated to the tiled bench set into the alcove, sitting down, and focussing on the spray that washed over his legs as Isobel stepped beneath the stream.