Exhaustion hit me like a lead weight, and my hands shook from the leftover adrenaline. Cuts throbbed along my arms and legs.
No one moved.
Everyone waited.
I dug my spoon into a pile of mashed potatoes and brought it to my lips.
After a couple bites, everyone started to eat, like they’d been waiting for my permission.
“Shit, Aran.” John nudged me with his arm. “How long have you been planning that?”
I hid my smile behind my hand.
Luka grinned at me from across the table and winked. I fought the urge to smile back. He’d given me the idea when he’d called me a little dictator.
Malum raised his eyebrow at me, and silver eyes shone with pride. My stomach swooped, and little pinpricks of pain danced across my spine. Orion and Scorpius looked smug.
I focused on my plate and said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
In my peripheral vision, a little girl with a ferret wrapped around her neck beamed with approval. In my head, I heard her say, “Good work.”
This time, I couldn’t hold it back.
I grinned from ear to ear.
Chapter 44
Corvus Malum
HUNTING
Rebirth—Day 57, hour 22
I gently picked up my Revered’s arm and scooted from underneath him as I crawled out of bed.
The blinds were drawn, and the bedroom was dark.
Most of my teammates were asleep.
Scorpius mumbled and reached for me, and I held my breath, sure I’d been caught. He spread out in the space I’d left and cradled Orion against his chest.
They looked young holding each other. So perfect. A Protector nestled against a Revered.
I rubbed at my chest. They weren’t the only two people I wanted in my bed. Lately I’d been dreaming about blue curls and haunted eyes.
Arabella should sleep with us so we could protect her.
The night she’d spent wrapped in our arms after the party was the best night of sleep I’d had in my entire life. I knew my mates felt the same.
The feeling of wrongness while watching her sleep in the twins’ bed each night was getting worse. She didn’t belong with them. She belonged with us.
The problem was—ever since I’d had to make the impossible choice in the fourth challenge, she’d been putting distance between herself and the three of us.
I could see it in her eyes.
We’d lost what little trust we’d gained.
My stomach rolled, and I tried to calm my racing heart.
As I stared at my mates, I wanted nothing more than to climb into bed beside them, but John and Luka had just tiptoed out of the room, and I wanted to know where they were going.
The showcase was tomorrow, to see if we could lead alongside the shifters, and my mates needed to rest.
I needed answers.
Pulling myself away from my precious mates, I hurried after the twins.
I peeked my head into the marble hall as John disappeared around the corner. Silent like a predator stalking its prey, I moved swiftly through the shadows.
I breathed shallowly through my nose and kept my flames contained.
The academy was eerily silent.
Everyone slept.
The grand crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling had been dimmed, and curtains were drawn across the stained-glass windows. Black marble floors were voids that swallowed any light. The only sound was the occasional creak and moan of wind battering the academy.
John took another turn far ahead, and I picked up my pace.
A few halls later, the twins stopped in front of a door, and I recognized the royal student quarters.
Was it some type of inside job? Were they working with a student to sabotage us? So many possibilities, each one worse than the last.
I breathed in shakily.
My bones ached as the urge to release my flames and punish them intensified.
They darted inside, and I debated my next move.
Before I could decide, the twins dragged a man dressed in pajamas into the hall.
I squinted.
Recognition dawned. It was the pathetic student from the hall that Arabella had stabbed in the dick.
Anger burned in my chest, and my hands lit on fire.
He’d called her a whore.
That word was carved into her back. She’d been much too merciful with how she’d treated him; he didn’t deserve to live.
I would have made an example of him with my fire, but she’d looked so proud of herself when she sat down that I couldn’t make myself interfere.
It had been intoxicating.
The way she’d grinned from ear to ear.
It had made me realize that I hadn’t seen a genuine smile on her face since the Legionnaire Games had begun.
My chest panged at the thought.
The twins dragged him down the hall closer to the corner I was hiding behind.
John held him up by the shirt front and whispered menacingly, “We’ve asked around, and it turns out you’ve been doing more than running your mouth. You’ve also got a little operation going.”
The student stopped struggling, and his eyes widened. “Now, man, it’s not what you think. It’s harmless fun.”
John smiled. “So you admit you’ve been stealing Aran’s underwear and selling them to perverts? I’ve heard people will pay good money for a little piece of the infamous queen. Right?”
My jaw dropped.
Fire exploded across my head, and I stepped out of the shadows to reveal myself. “He did what?” I asked roughly.
John nodded over at me. “Glad you could join us, Corvus.” From his lack of surprise, he’d known I was following them.
I focused on the waste of space kneeling before John.
“Is it true?” I asked.
The idiot must have sensed how much danger he was in, because his eyes darted back and forth like a wild animal’s, and he wet himself. “P-P-Please, it’s not that big of a deal. W-We can talk about it. No one was hurt.”
“False,” Luka growled. “You will be hurt.”
Darkness shimmered in the air around the twins and expanded until it formed a floating shape that resembled a doorway.
John lifted the man off the ground and chucked him into the darkness.
The flailing body disappeared.
Luka nodded at his brother and cracked his knuckles. “I will find out who he sold them to.” He stepped into the darkness and shimmered out of existence.
As soon as Luka was gone, the doorway poofed away like it had never existed.
John wiped at his sweaty brow and brushed off his hands as he walked by me casually and headed back to our room.
“Care to explain what you just did to him?” I said as I followed behind him.
John sighed loudly. “All you need to know is that the student has been taken care of. For all intents and purposes, he’s dead.”
I arched my brow incredulously. “But Luka survived wherever you sent him?”
“Yep.” John popped the p obnoxiously but said nothing else. He’d picked up the mannerism from Arabella.
When we got back to our room, I rounded on him. “I want answers.”
John glared back at me. “You’ll find out soon enough. Right now, I’m too tired for this shit, and I need to sleep. Wouldn’t you rather both of us explain everything with everyone present?”
“No,” I snapped. “I want to know. Now.”
John shoved past me and said, “Too bad.” He sauntered into the room casually like a flaming devil king wasn’t enraged behind him.