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Anna
“Here is the middle of the Initiate dormitories,” she informed him, looking around uneasily. Another one of the senior level students could come along at any time and spy them. Any man would stand out like a sore thumb at Winterspell, but by now everyone knew who Damien was, and he wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.
“What?” he looked around again, dazed.
“How did you get here?” she asked. “Didn’t anyone stop you?”
“I...I don’t really remember,” he admitted. “My mind was elsewhere. I have a lot going on.”
That was an understatement.
“Still,” she said. “You can’t be here. If we get caught, if you get caught, then we’re all in big trouble. I’m stunned nobody saw you come in.”
“They might have,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t remember anything. I just remember leaving my room and then...”
“Then what?” she asked when he trailed off, looking up at her.
“The sound of your voice,” he said, catching her gaze directly for a moment and holding it.
Anna chewed on her lip. What did he mean by that, she wondered? Was it her voice, or just any voice, that would have stirred him from his thoughts?
“Come on,” she said at last. “We need to get you out of here. You’re not allowed to be here. If someone saw a man in the living quarters...”
Damien nodded. “I understand. I’ll go.”
“No, you can’t just go on your own. Not now. If they saw you leaving, they’d think...” she trailed off, fighting back the blush in her face.
“What would they think?” he asked, very clearly not understanding the dynamics of the situation.
She shifted back and forth from one leg to the other quickly. “They’d think that you were leaving my quarters because they saw you arrive with me,” she said in a rush. “So, can we please leave?”
Damien looked at her. “You would be bothered by that rumor? You don’t like that idea.”
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” she said, then stopped as her brain caught up to her mouth. “I don’t know how I’d feel, but I likely would get in some trouble, and you would definitely get in trouble, and really I just brought a whole new race back to Winterspell. I’d rather fly under the radar for a little bit, if that’s okay?”
Damien nodded. “Right. Of course. Lead on.”
Wasting no time, Anna set off farther down the hallway, away from the direction she’d come.
“Is this how we get home?” he asked.
“No, it’s that way, technically.” She pointed in the other direction. “If you take the main hallways.”
“I gather we’re not doing that.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this,” she said, looking him up and down pointedly. “But you kind of stand out. It would be best if we took you back to your area in a more...shall we say, discrete, manner.”
Damien frowned. “You’re not going to turn me into something, are you?”
She laughed, shaking her head. “No. Nothing so crude.” They reached a blank slate of wall.
“You want me to...do what?” he asked as she faced it. “Punch it?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “It’s not always about you,” she said, reaching out to press a stone, then another. She paused, then pressed a third stone.
The wall quietly slid down to reveal a passageway beyond.
“I love secret passageways,” Damien said excitedly, not hesitating to follow her inside.
Anna pushed on another stone on the inside, and the door slid up behind them. Although they weren’t completely safe, she did breathe a little easier now they were in the passages.
“Are you okay?” she asked as they walked, keeping her voice low. The small corridors tended to carry voices farther than intended.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you? You wandered through the hallways far enough to go underground in your building, and then near to the top of mine. You were ten doors down from my room, Damien. Don’t try and tell me that’s coincidence.”
The big dragon jerked in surprise. “Was I really?”
“Yes.” She hesitated before asking her next question but knew that she had to put it out there. To know the answer. “Were you looking for me?”
“No,” he said, too quickly and calmly to be a lie. “Sorry to disappoint, but I didn’t even know you were nearby. I got caught up in reliving the past, asking myself what-ifs about every situation we’ve been in since the start, and then I was just...” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I’m good now. Thank you.”
“How are you settling in?”
He shrugged. “I left. I had to. The young, they...they were asking questions. Wanting things I couldn’t provide.”
The weight of his voice betrayed him. There was something heavy that had hit him hard, she could tell. He was uncharacteristically quiet and reserved. Something was bothering him badly, but she doubted he was going to tell her what it was.
The floor began to slope downward, spiraling in a wide circle as they descended.
“There will be more of you soon,” she said, sensing despair closing in on him once more. “The Coven is organizing more patrols, sending out more teams to look for the others. To bring them in to safety.” She wanted to give him some good information, something to help improve his mood.
Damien snorted.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“Safety,” he said with mocking tone. “More like to keep us all in one convenient place if they decide we’re a threat after all.”
Anna stopped walking abruptly. Damien wasn’t ready and nearly bumped into her. She turned and stabbed a finger into his chest. “Do not stand there and pretend like you don’t know why the Coven is doing that. Or that your people wouldn’t do something very similar if this had happened in reverse. The arrogance doesn’t suit you.”
Damien rocked backward. “Sorry,” he said, subdued by her outburst. “I wasn’t really thinking. I know it’s not your fault. You didn’t deserve that.”
“No, I didn’t,” she agreed, starting to walk again. “Remember that. I could have ordered the patrol to blast you into oblivion like some of them wanted to. Instead, I brought you back here. I am not your enemy, Damien. You’d best remember that.”
“I will do better in the future,” he said, properly chastised now and acting like it.
“Besides,” she said, giving him a bone. “The Coven are generally good people. They can be a bit stuffy about rules and the like, but they aren’t assholes. I can’t see them doing anything to harm you or your people unless you give them reason to. If for no other reason than having you as allies makes them more powerful than their peers.”
Damien made a questioning noise. “Peers? What do you mean? I thought they were the rulers.”
“Of Winterspell, yes,” she said, remembering that he didn’t know anything about her world. “But Winterspell is just one of the magic schools around the world. There are others, some that are much, much older. The Covens that rule them have more power over the others through prestige, size of their schools, bloodlines. You name it. Winterspell is near the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak.”
“You mean it’s not that powerful.”
“Not in the grand scheme, no,” she agreed. “But if all of a sudden, we’re the only ones with dragon shifters as allies, then that would change the power dynamics a lot. Or so I assume.”
Damien was silent for a bit as they walked, the air growing cooler. They were well beneath the surface at this point, and after a bit of hesitation, Anna took them down a side hallway that she hoped would bring them up into the building currently housing the dragons. It had been a long time since she’d explored these parts of the tunnels and passageways that wound throughout the buildings, concealed from regular comers and goers.
“Can I ask you a question?” Damien said at last.
“Sure.”
“What does the Coven want us to be allies with them...against?” Damien sounded concerned, and more than a little suspicious.
“In our main purpose of existing of course.” She smiled, feeling like a teacher. “Winterspell isn’t up in the mountains for no reason. We’re here because the border between our world and the Abyss is thinnest here. Winterspell and its sister schools are all positioned like this, where the boundaries are easiest to fray, and where the creatures of the Abyss come forth easiest.”
“I see,” Damien said. “You...fight, these things?”
“Yes. To send them back to their home plane, the Abyss. All sorts of creatures. From goblins and trolls, orcs, ogres and vampires. To the faeries and all manner of magical beings. If there are legends about them, then they exist in the Abyss. From time to time they grow more powerful, or the borders weaken, and they emerge into our world. It’s the job of any Winterspellian to send them back before they get out among the rest of humanity.”
“That’s very brave of you,” he observed. “Have you fought any?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “I was part of a group on patrol two years ago on who came across a minor faery. I didn’t even get to cast a spell before the others attacked and sent it packing. That’s about all the combat I’ve seen. Until today, I guess,” she said quietly, remembering the fight at the portal.
“So, you’re not hiding away up here then?” he inquired. “But you’re here for a purpose?”
Anna shrugged helplessly. “No, I guess it’s a bit of both really.”
“So, your people aren’t aware of what you can do?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, looking over her shoulder, wide-eyed. “Can you imagine what they would do if they found out we could use magic? They would hunt us down... experiment on us. It would be horrible. No, it’s just easier to hide from those who don’t understand us, who don’t understand what we can do.”
Damien’s hand patted her shoulder gently. “I’m sorry,” he said tentatively. “Nobody should have to hide, especially when they have gifts as wonderful as yours.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you think so, Damien.”
Halting, she pointed at a blank slate of wall and reached out to hover her hand over one stone in particular. “This will take you to your building. I’m not sure if it’s in your section or not. I’ve not come this way in years, but it’s far better than where I found you.”
Damien winced, but he also smiled widely. “Now I know where to find you, I suppose.”
“Why would you want to do that?” she asked, confused.
“You’re the only person I know here,” he said. “Sometimes it’s nice to talk to a familiar face. Especially one so...pretty.”
Anna’s throat clenched tight. What was she supposed to say to that? How should she respond?
Damien then swept forward and lifted her up into a hug. Anna instinctively put her arms around him as well, feeling his muscles under his clothing. Her feet cleared the floor and she felt herself break out in goosebumps.
Nobody would ever dare accuse Anna of being small, and she’d never really experienced such sheer masculine power as this. In Damien’s arms she felt small and, dare she say it, dainty. He just held her there as if she was nothing, and it was truly something else.
But the best part of all was the feeling of safety that washed over her. A secureness in the knowledge that with him, she was protected. That the strength would never be used against her, but only to keep her safe.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and my people,” Damien whispered into her ear.
She could hear the emotions in his voice, a cascade of feelings she somehow knew wasn’t in his nature to naturally share.
Then he set her down, pressing the stone she’d indicated on the wall. A section of stone began to slide noiselessly downward, revealing the hallway beyond. Damien flashed her one last smile and prepared to step out.
“Wait,” she said at the last minute, reaching out to grab his arm.
“Yes?”
Anna bit her lip. What was she doing? Was she really planning to go through with this?
“Meet here tomorrow evening. Eleven.”
Then she stepped back as the hidden doorway slid closed. She stared at the blank wall for a long time before turning away, heading back the route she’d come.
What had come over her there at the end, telling Damien to come meet her again? A secret rendezvous? What was she, a sixteen-year-old city-girl sneaking out to meet her crush?
You’re just asking for trouble, Anna. Remember that.
