“Get out of my face, dude,” I snarl back. I’m freaked out enough that I want more personal space, not less.
Jamie puts a hand to his neck and he drops it when he can’t feel the pendant.
“Yeah, Anastasia Blackwood took her pendant back.” I pause. “And she took Maeve and Tobias.”
I wait for the shout. The call to action. The assault on me as the bringer of bad news.
“Where?” breathes out Jamie as the colour drops from his face.
“I don’t fucking know!” I retort as my anxiety rises into anger. “There was a spell—spells—a fight. They disappeared.”
Ash jumps up from the sofa, sore head forgotten, and is straight into my face too. “Tell us what happened, Andrei. Now.”
“Move back,” I growl. “Out of my face. Both of you.”
Reluctantly, they shuffle backwards.
I’m unsure I have all the facts straight, since I'm half-expecting to wake from the weirdest dream ever. What did I see? The bullet stopping in front of Jamie’s chest as time froze. The man taking the pendant from Jamie. Anastasia attacking Maeve. Maeve slicing her own hand open. And whatever the hell Tobias did that sent waves of energy away from the barrier around them until voices broke through.
I tell Ash and Jamie all this as if I’m reading from a storybook—because the whole situation sounds like a bloody story. Yeah, I expected something tonight. A run-in with shifters. Vince. But not witches.
“And you said the witch is a Blackwood?” asks Jamie hoarsely, dropping onto a seat nearby. “Are you sure?”
I nod. “I recognised her.”
“What did they say—Anastasia and the man? Did they see you?” Ash urges.
“I couldn’t hear what they said. And if the witch saw me, do you think I’d be here now?” I say with snark. "We need to leave."
“Did they take Vince?” asks Jamie.
“I didn’t see where he went.”
Jamie swears and pushes fingers against his temples.
“He’s not Vince,” mutters Ash. “We found evidence of what he’s doing and now the hunter has gone. Along with Maeve and Tobias.” He drags a hand across his head. “Fuck!”
I know the guys are traumatised, but their questions irritate me. They're wasting time. We need to trek back to the car and return to the academy. Explain to Theodora. Find Maeve and Tobias.
“Do you think Tobias is connected to what happened tonight?” asks Jamie.
I gawk at him. “You think he’s working with Blackwood witches?”
“No. But they must work with Dominion and— “
I stride over and stare down at him. “From what I saw, he didn’t want Maeve hurt. He held her and protected her.” I swallow. Mostly. “I think that’s the reason Anastasia took them both.”
“Yeah? Bit of a coincidence he brings us here and a Blackwood witch appears,” retorts Jamie.
“Why won’t you trust the man who gave you the Blackwood pendant to save your life?”
“Because I’m bonded to Maeve and I can sense there’s something strange about Tobias. She told me they have a connection that I don’t think is healthy. What if he’s influencing her?”
“You know what, Jamie? Fuck you.”
Jamie’s mouth parts and he stands. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
“The man helped you! Us. He helped free me from Ravenhold. Why won’t you trust him?”
“Because he shouldn’t be with Maeve,” he blurts. “She’s blinded by him. You’ve seen how she is around him. How they look at each other. It’s wrong.”
“If he’s about to save her life from the Blackwoods, I think it’s very right.”
“Well I hope you’re right,” he replies, and my hackles rise at his scorn.
“Stop fighting,” says Ash weakly. “Someone could come back here. We don't know where Vince is. Move.”
I blink. “Agreed. Are you physically up to walking back to the car?” I ask Ash.
“Yeah. My head doesn’t hurt badly. The blood makes things look worse." He wipes and stares at his hand. "Jamie won’t be able to move as fast as us, though.”
Jamie is back to blank staring and shaking with the fear we all feel.
“We’ll keep to the woods and side-roads, Jamie,” I say more gently. “Be on alert. Keep away from the main roads.”
There's tightness in my chest and the world grows distant. I want to throw up as I struggle to keep my focus on staying present and getting through this shit.
“What do we do to help Maeve?” asks Jamie in despair. “Where the hell is she?”
“We go back to the academy and tell Theodora what the fuck happened.” I drag open the door and peer out. The night is as black and still as the time we arrived, but the reality couldn’t be more different.
Maeve’s terrified face crosses my mind again, and a pain I’ve never felt before gouges through my ribs and eviscerates my heart.
Where the fuck is she?
Is she alive?
Chapter Two
JAMIE
We debate who should drive the car back and my suspicion rises further when Andrei tells me Tobias gave him a spare set of keys. I attempt to rationalise why—Tobias split us into two groups; handing out a second set of keys makes sense.
I’m too shell-shocked and we don’t trust Ash's skills due to the knock on his head.
Andrei isn’t the best driver and I won’t sit in his passenger seat again any time soon.
“You need to wake Theodora,” says Andrei as we climb from Tobias’s car. “You’re the one who has connections to her.”
I want to protest, horrified at the idea I'd wake up the academy head, but this isn’t a normal situation. Every minute could count, and she needs to know that Tobias and Maeve have disappeared.
I’m too stunned to accept what’s happening, fuelled by panic and adrenaline.
“Do you think Vince came back?” I ask Ash.
Andrei huffs. “Only if he's bloody stupid.”
“I don’t see his car,” says Ash. "But it wasn't at the farmhouse. Are you sure you didn't see him drive away?”
"No!" I snap back. "Maybe they took him too. Obviously, they're all connected."
I hesitate as we make our way over to the staff quarters. Nobody else roams the campus at this hour, even though this is the hemia vamps' favourite time of day. I'm buzzing as if I'd drank six coffees. How the hell did that bullet miss me?
Coach lights illuminate the arched doorway to the staff building and we push our way inside. Ash and Andrei wait at the bottom steps as I slowly walk up the spiral staircase, gripping the wrought black stair rail as I do. Theodora could be awake, but she’s unused to students knocking on her door at one a.m.
I visited her quarters before, a few weeks before I began studying here, with my family. Their closeness to her means my role as the academy ‘favourite’ is inevitable. I'm the student who's allowed the cottage key whenever he asks; a quiet space for him to study undisturbed if the library isn't enough. But still, I hesitate before I knock on the head professor's door.