Initiation (46 page)

I smacked him really hard, leaving welts running across his cheek. “Want to try again?” I hissed.

“She disappeared! Just vanished. Just like she flipping did in the hall, and then again in the dining hall. What’s up with that chick? I’ve never seen that power before.”

What an idiot. He should have been able to work it out, since his own brother was behind it. Anyhow, I was glad she was safe. “Well, now that’s she’s gone, tell me why you’re trying to get me to give up mentoring.”

“I can’t. You just have to. If you don’t, I’m going to have to kill you.”

“Wait. Give up mentoring Faustine or mentoring period?”

“Man, you are dense. Faustine. I don’t care who else you mentor. You need to back away from her completely.”

“Mason, this makes no sense. Is this coming from you, or are you speaking for someone else? Is Tad behind this? Or your dad?”

“I can’t tell you. All I can tell you is that if you don’t back off, you’ll be toast. Simple enough for your tiny demon brain to understand?”

I was boiling over. Over-confident much? There I was, a fully transformed demon sitting on top of a scrawny shifter boy. One prod of my finger into his heart, and he’d be the one who was toast. It only made sense. Why leave him to try and mess with me another day? I lifted my arms and glared at him venomously. Then, I slammed my finger down toward his chest.

“
H
on, wake up!”

Lips brushed against mine.

“Hmm… mmph. What time is it?”

Quinn nudged me. “Almost time to take Faustine to her test. Open your eyes, drowsy demon.”

I took a deep breath first, enjoying the Mason-free air. It had become my routine, ever since my run-in with him at Boone Academy. I stayed on constant alert, positive he would show up sooner or later.

And it was all Ryker’s fault. If he hadn’t interfered, Mason would be gone to shifter heaven or wherever shifters went once their worthless little lives were snuffed out.

Ryker’s explanation made sense, but it sucked all the same.

“Did you really think I’d let you kill one of my family?” he asked, once we’d landed back in Jagger’s study.

I had looked around, dizzy from the sudden change in location. I had been dumped in Jagger’s lap, his face a picture of surprise and horror at unexpectedly having a demon thrown at him. Poor faery.

I transformed back instantly. Jagger relaxed, put his arms around me, and hugged me close. Then, I felt him tighten again.

“What’s going on, Ryker?” Jagger’s voice was menacing.

“Why don’t you ask your demon princess?” he spat.

“No, why don’t
you
tell me, Ryker? Now.”

Ryker inhaled sharply. The atmosphere was electric with energy. Then, he slowly let out his breath. “Fine!” He proceeded to vomit up the whole unfortunate outing. And the way it had ended.

I could feel Jagger’s fury rising with every word that came out of Ryker’s lips. What the heck happened to the whole confidentiality thing?

“Confidentiality thing?” Ryker yelled.

Oops, I’d forgotten that he could read me when I was close to Jagger.

Jagger exploded. He stood and carried me over to the sofa, lowering me onto it, and then he paced around, his hands clenched behind his back. Neither Ryker nor I spoke; we knew better.

“Stay here!” Jagger finally barked. He turned and stomped out the door.

“Nice job, blabbermouth,” I yelled. “Why the heck did you bring me over here?”

“I dropped Faustine off in your room and got Quinn to watch her. I didn’t have to do any explaining; I guess he just figured that it was one of her regular episodes. I thought appearing with you would open up a whole can of worms.”

“Oh, like dropping me off with Jagger wouldn’t?”

“Hey! Don’t put all this on me. You’re the one trying to kill my brother.”

“Yeah, well. You should have let me. He’s not your real brother anyway.”

Ryker glared at me. “Not real? Mason and I have lived in the same house since he was a baby. Granted, we might not be close, but he
is
my brother. My
real
brother.”

“Oh, all right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle your relationship. You do see my problem, though, right?”

“I do. Which is why I brought you over to try and talk it through with him, not kill him.”

“But he took Faustine! Or does that not matter to you?”

“Of course, it does. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. You know that.”

“But I’m fair game?”

He shrugged. “I’d rather you guys worked it out, especially since Jagger is so into you, but yes, other than that, you’re fair game.”

Sheesh. Well, I hadn’t expected any different, but at least I knew where I stood.

Jagger came back in and closed the door behind him. “I’m still too angry to talk to either of you. What the hell were you thinking, Cordelia? Did Quinn know?”

I shook my head. I wanted to ask him not to tell Quinn, but he didn’t seem in the mood for preventing me from getting yelled at. In fact, he’d probably enjoy it.

He moved over to the window and gazed out at the peaks. “I guess I should be grateful that you’re okay,” he finally whispered, turning around. His face had softened somewhat. “Why? Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?”

“It’s not that, Jagger. I trusted you not to let me go. I felt like I had to give it a shot, to find out more about Mason.”

“And kill him,” Ryker mumbled.

“Enough with that. Okay, I admit that was maybe a bit of an overreaction, but he needs to be stopped. At the moment, it just seemed like the obvious solution.”

“So now what?” Jagger looked from me to Ryker. “The harebrained scheme was a total bust. So what will the crack A-team do next?”

“Nothing.” Ryker folded his arms.

“But–” I protested.

“You’ll do nothing, like Ryker just said.” Jagger glowered at me. “I know you’re worried. I’ll handle it from here.”

“How?”

“The main thing, for now, is to protect you, of course. Revenge is for a later date. I’m going to ask Professor Bern to put a protective spell on the school. Maybe even a confinement one that keeps Mason out. I take it that you won’t have any issues with that?” He raised his eyebrows at Ryker.

“Nope, none at all.”

So that was that. Although Jagger had sounded confident when he’d said all that stuff about protecting me, I remained on alert at all times–even when asleep. For months, the first thing I did when I awoke, even before I opened my eyes, was to take a deep Mason-tracking breath. The results were always the same–fresh Mason-free air.

I opened my eyes and smiled at Quinn. He’d practically moved into my room after Jagger blabbed the whole Mason episode. It served Jagger right.

I put my arms around him and snuggled into his chest. He was so warm and cuddly, making it difficult for me to get out of the bed into the cold winter air.

He held me tight and kissed my head. “Mm, I don’t want to get up either, but we need to get in gear. I’ve got to get Audrey and Viola to class, and you have to get Faustine to her test, remember?

“Yeah, one more minute…” Yep, it was time for yet another test. I was getting bored with the whole thing. We’d gone from months of Faustine disappearing in the middle of the tests to months of Faustine transforming and beating the crap out of the test chamber. The only thing that differed was the stimuli. No other powers had manifested during the sessions. The basic aim wasn’t to weed out those other powers, however, but to get Faustine to take control over her transformations. So far, she totally sucked at that.

She’d been taken out of a lot of academic classes to make room for the specialized lessons to learn to control her physical vitals. The theory was that if she could do that, she’d be able to learn to control her transformation. But she’d sucked at those classes as well.

The one benefit of the tests had been an improvement in her self-confidence. Faustine had even asked for a mirror to be put into the test chamber so she could see herself in her demon form. And, boy, was she impressed with herself. She walked around the Academy with her back straight and a proud smile planted on her face. She very rarely mentioned to anyone that she was part human anymore, having accepted her demon side so fully that she completely identified with it. I thought it was only a matter of time until she asked to be called
Your Highness
. I snickered.

“What’s so funny?” Quinn asked.

“Oh, nothing. I better get up. Do you know how many vamps are being introduced into the Initiation program this afternoon?”

The first merge had been seamless. Audrey and Viola were a hoot, and had BFF-ed Faustine, Martha, and Chun in no time. Of course, we were always careful to make sure that Faustine wasn’t left alone with them. We wouldn’t need to protect her much longer. The demon princess could take care of herself. In fact, Faustine’s only issue was that she might go berserk and harm them, or someone else.

“Rumor has it that this second merge is going to be a large group. A lot of them were held back last time, even though they seemed to be ready. That was probably for Faustine’s benefit. So, possibly thirty, maybe even more. I was talking to Dax earlier. He thinks his group will join with another one this afternoon, and I’ve already been told that Audrey and Viola will join a group, though I’ll still mentor them.”

“Wow, big day!” I forced myself out of bed and into the shower. By the time I got back to my room, Quinn was gone. However, I wasn’t alone. Faustine was there waiting for me.

“I’ll be ready in a jiffy,” I told Faustine.

“No hurry, we’ve got plenty of time. Well, twenty minutes or so,” she said, looking down at her watch. “So, what do you think will happen today? Same old?”

“That’s kinda up to you.” I hated sounding like a nagging mom, but she really did need to make an effort. Maybe it would spur her on to more exciting stuff.

“Whatcha mean?”

“I don’t know.” I paused, trying to think of something sensible that might actually help her. “You know all that stuff you learn in the relaxation classes? Maybe pick just one of them and concentrate on doing that when you transform.”