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Dany didn’t leave me alone until after dinner. She even made me work through my meal, going through proposals for different teams and clubs. Our goal was to have that ready next week for students to sign up for. Alto even stopped by and gave me a gross drink to help with the headache sparring had given me. He also healed the bruising along my cheek.
Not wanting them hovering around me, the moment I was down to only Rophan in my place, I went into the bathroom. Then like a teenager sneaking out, I crawled out the window. I refused to be treated like glass and frankly, they pissed me off.
I was feeling that match, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle on my own. Instead, they treated me like a human. At that moment, if one of them crossed my path, I was going to wring their neck to prove a point. I was strong, and they didn’t have the right to tell me otherwise.
As I headed toward the front gate, wanting to see how the situation was holding there, movement caught my attention. I turned and focused just in time to see two students slipping into the woods.
That left me with a decision. Follow the students and maybe sneak into a secret party or go to the front gate to see how the situation was going. Since yesterday, the reporters had become more determined to get their hands on someone for interviews. There were guards there constantly to keep an eye out, but some students were determined to make it big. From Zen’s reports, they already prevented fourteen students from sneaking to the gate to have a chat with the reporters. Things were getting heated there too, I could feel the tension. No doubt members of the Purity Party had managed to sneak in again despite being banned from the property after trying to start trouble.
So go to the gate or stalk the students to see what they were up to? Most likely, it was a party, but one never knew. And if it was a party, I loved crashing those.
Students it was.
I turned in the direction and entered the same spot where I had seen them disappear. Tracking was something I was decent at, so it was easy to see the signs, even in the dark, of the direction they took. My sight was pretty good at night, and it was like the broken branches and trampled grass practically screamed to be noticed. Eventually the path came across one of the hiking trails. I followed that, listening intently for signs of where they went.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped at the low gravelly voice and whirled around.
“Archon, what are you doing here?”
His lip quirked up. “I could ask you the same thing. Shouldn’t you be home, resting.”
“I’m not defenseless.”
“Never thought you were.”
“Resting? What happened?” a new raspy voice asked, barely above a whisper.
I realized Ferys stood behind Archon.
“Nothing happened. People got dramatic over nothing.”
“Alto said you had a concussion,” Archon pointed out.
“Then you guys made me drink that disgusting concoction that healed it. So I’m fine.” My nose wrinkled in disgust as I remembered that black gooey grossness.
“Adeelah.” Archon sighed. I noted he didn’t call me mistress, so something was definitely up. “Dismissing the fact that you’re out here without Rophan, why are you in the woods?”
“I’m stalking students. How about you?” I asked again.
“Stal...” Archon shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Seems we’re out here for the same reason.”
I glanced at the trainee. “And Ferys?”
“He’s the one who got me. Rumors have been going around about students getting overly excited about something. He heard about them meeting tonight, so we were going to drop by.”
“Do you know where to go?”
“The general area,” Ferys responded.
I stepped back and motioned them ahead of me. “Then by all means, lead the way, dear sir.”
We silently made our way through the woods, trying to find where the students were hiding.
“You know, if Rophan was with us, he’d magic the path for us to find,” Archon said.
“Shush. He’s not here, so stop sounding like a big baby. No one likes a pouter.”
“B-baby,” he spluttered. “Pouting? I’m not doing that.”
“You kind of are,” Ferys said, earning himself a glower from his instructor.
Probably wasn’t the best move on his part since Archon could flatten him in seconds and he was his trainer. That made me like him even more. Fun kid. I had a feeling Archon was going to take these transgressions out on him later on.
“This way, I can hear them.” Ferys moved off the trail and into the woods.
Unable to help myself, I gave Archon a glance to show that I wasn’t too excited about this. I had thought it was going to be an innocent party, but if these two got pulled into it, then it wasn’t something so cute and innocent.
Archon motioned me ahead, and I followed behind Ferys. Ferys was good. He moved fluidly and quietly. I was silent, but not as smooth as he was. It was like he was part of nature. The longer we hiked, the more his predator came out, the hunt exciting him. I couldn’t feel it from him as he held himself together so well, but he still gave off that impression. His muscles rolled as he walked with an extra sway, his prey calling to him.
Minutes of walking in complete silence passed by slowly. I was growing impatient, my curiosity demanding an answer to all our questions. Was I being too easy on students that they thought it was okay to sneak around like this? If it were only just a party, I wouldn’t care. They needed to release steam and it’d be a good way for them to bond with their classmates.
But by the way Ferys stalked through the night, and Archon followed close behind, his seriousness worrying me, this was something more. Rumors of something unsavory was going around. Question was, what was it?
Ferys paused and glanced back at us, his fingers to his mouth. I nodded and made the zipping motion across my lips. His lips quirked and he shook his head at my silliness before crouching down low. I followed with Archon doing the same.
Inching forward, our attention remained ahead of us as we approached a small opening in the brush. A branch tried to get stuck in my hair and before I could curse it out, Archon’s hand went around my mouth to silence me, and he quickly worked on getting me untangled. The darn twig tried to tear a chunk of my hair off.
Once he got me free, his hand still remained on my mouth. I took the only option I had at the time, and licked his palm. He stilled next to me before removing his hand and giving me a smirk, finishing the look off with a raised eyebrow.
I shrugged and moved to catch up with Ferys as quietly as I could. Ferys shifted to the side enough for me to see into the meadow. A dozen students milled around, but there was no sign of a party to be had. My stomach dropped as any hope I had that the teens were only being teens disappeared.
“Are you sure we’re alone?” someone asked. I recognized the nervousness in his voice.
Jayson. Damn. This was the last thing he needed. This stress could push him over. And he was practically a baby. How did he get pulled out here?
“Yes, we’re fine,” another student said.
They mumbled among each other, and I used the time to commit them all to memory, drawing up all the information I knew about each of them. I was so busting this little powwow. By the time I was through yelling at them, they were all going to sniveling at my feet.
“Okay, time has past. Let’s get this started,” a slightly older student spoke up. He was a senior and one of the shifters. I also recognized the vampire by his side. The two of them were eighteen. “A ‘benefactor’ so to speak has promised to train us to fight if we pass his trials.”
Oh, they weren’t just going to be sniveling at my feet anymore. They were going to be a gooey mess of regret once I was through with them.
“He promises we’ll be stronger, that the humans will never be able to hurt us again. All we need to do is past his tests.”
“What tests?” a female asked. She was a junior, her siren’s voice soothing as it kept everyone around her calm and relaxed.
The senior shrugged. “Nothing dangerous. We have a chance here to showcase our abilities, to prove that we can be part of the elites. Once we pass all his tests, he’ll begin training us. He made a good point. If you look at the curriculum, we won’t become strong, we won’t be able to defend ourselves against attacks. The humans are biding their time, waiting for us to lower our defenses, then they’ll strike. We need to be ready.”
“Is this really a good idea?” Jayson asked. Good boy. Question them, push them. Don’t be a sheep.
“I lost my baby cousin to the humans. I lost my father, and my mother is stuck in a bed still. They will attack us. No matter how much they talk about the Unveiling being over, that peace is here, we all know it’s a lie. The humans are learning about us, finding our weaknesses, and readying themselves to use that weakness against us. I want to be ready for that.”
There were mumbles of agreement, and my heart grew heavy at their naive viewpoint. They didn’t know anything, they didn’t understand at all what was really going on. Someone was playing with their heads, twisting their thoughts in a way for them to seem righteous. This wasn’t about self-defense at all. If I met the person filling their heads with all this nonsense, I knew what answers I was going to find.
“Two days,” I whispered. “That was all it took to reach this point. Two fudging days.”
Ferys and Archon both placed their hands on my back, one high up, and one low. They rubbed it as I glared out at the students. Their touch helped, pushing some of the stress out of my tense muscles. But it wasn’t enough.
I wanted to find whoever was orchestrating this and I wanted to destroy them until not even their particles were left in this world.
The meeting was short and sweet as they talked about the tasks. It seemed they didn’t know too much. Only the two seniors seemed to know the information and were acting as the go-between for the students and their so-called benefactor. It was more of a call to arms right now, as everyone got worked up for whatever injustice they’d built up in their mind.
Apparently, what I did and was doing wasn’t enough.
Apparently, I was setting them up to fail in life.
Apparently, I didn’t care as much about their life as I pretended to.
Apparently, people were moving to remove me from my post.
Their words and crass response hit hard as they talked about the school lacking in training and me as their barricade. I was set up as the bad guy. At one point, they mentioned needing to work on those on my team to turn against me, and it pushed me far enough to want to charge forward and remind them that they were only kids. Children. Just because there was a ‘teen’ attached to their age didn’t mean they knew everything in the world.
Only Archon’s hand on my shoulder kept me still.
Finally, they ran out of steam and dispersed, leaving the three of us hiding there, looking out at an empty field.
“Did that really happen?” I finally asked, my voice dull even to my ears.
“You mean did students just plot your downfall?” Archon asked. “I think so. I’m still a little confused.”
I turned and stared at him. “Two days. Not even two days and this is already going on? How? Who? Why?” My frustration bubbled out of me as panic stole my breath.
“I’m guessing by what they said and your reaction, this was never meant to happen?” Ferys asked.
I shook my head. “No. Some members of the council have been pushing for it, but they aren’t getting anywhere. The students have plenty of self-defense classes to choose from to learn whatever skills they want. Plus there are some clubs that focus on some of the martial arts. There’s no reason for this to be happening, not like this.”
“Let’s get back,” Archon said. “We’ll need to meet with Zen. Do you know all the students?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“Good. Zen will be able to come up with a good game plan on how to handle this. The students aren’t who we should be concerned about.”
“Even if they practically condemned Adeelah?” Ferys asked.
I cleared my throat as my thoughts got back on track. “He’s right. It isn’t about the students. Come on.” Standing up slowly, I ignored the little ping of discomfort in my muscles from crouching for an extended period of time.
