Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(33)

I’d gone my whole life without magic, but now that I’d had it, I couldn’t imagine ever being at ease without at least a little at my beck and call.

The path had veered far enough from the lake that I couldn’t make out the water anymore. I stopped and tipped back my head to peer at the intermittent stars between the leaves overhead. A twinkle here, a twinkle there. Too bad I didn’t think wishing on one was going to get me anywhere.

Maybe some of the wards Imogen had talked about were out here around the boundaries of campus. Would I even recognize one if I passed it?

As I lowered my head to study the forest around me, footsteps crunched into the brush. I stiffened, but after a moment I could tell they weren’t coming my way. A figure mostly hidden by the shadows and the tree trunks was pushing away from the path through the vegetation, heading toward the lake.

I paused for a few seconds and then slipped between the trees after them. My nerves jittered, but if someone was up to stealthy activities out here, it might be useful to know what. Then at least this night wouldn’t have been a total waste.

The ground slanted upward. As I picked my way carefully through the underbrush, trying to make as little sound as possible, the figure ahead of me completely disappeared from view. I kept following the slope up, scanning the trees, until they fell away around a narrow clearing.

I stopped in the shelter of the forest. Less than ten feet away, the grassy rock-scattered ground fell away in a cliff over the lake. The music and voices from the party carried faintly over the water, but before me there was nothing but open water framed by arcs of trees and the sprawl of the night sky.

Near me, a log stretched across the clearing to the cliff edge. I looked past it and spotted the figure I’d been following sitting on the ground with his back against the trunk of a broad maple. In the dim moonlight, I could make out enough of his form to recognize him from the breadth of his muscular shoulders and the chiseled planes of his face.

I’d followed Connar Stormhurst.

My body tensed automatically. Why the hell had he left the party and his friends to come up here?

In the back of my mind, I saw the flash of his bared teeth as he’d run off the guys who’d nearly crashed into Malcolm and Jude. But the Connar in front of me didn’t look rabid. He’d tipped his head back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes, and his hard features had somehow turned peaceful.

I had a little magic in me now, and he didn’t have any of his friends to make for a completely unfair fight, if it came to that. Curiosity nipped at my heels and nudged me out into the open.

“What are you doing up here?”

Connar startled, his eyes popping open and his brawny body shoving off the tree in an instant. He caught himself at the sight of me, holding in a crouch. His brow knit.

“What are you doing up here?” he shot back.

“Strangely enough, I didn’t feel incredibly welcome down at the party, so I figured I’d take a little hike. Somehow I don’t think you had the same problem.”

He hesitated and then lowered himself back to the ground, not relaxing against the tree trunk like he’d been before, but not poised to attack either.

“I like this spot. It’s completely away from… from everything else.”

I wouldn’t have thought Connar Stormhurst had an “everything else” he’d need to get away from, but he didn’t look as if he wanted to delve any deeper into that answer. I shifted my weight and then asked, “Do you mind if I stay for a bit?”

He eyed me. I’d never been close enough to him to make out the color of his eyes, and now I found myself wishing I knew.

“You’re not worried?” he said.

My pulse was thumping away, so he could probably taste how nervous I was, but I made myself smile. “Should I be? Are you in the habit of tossing people off cliffs for simply existing?”

The upward twitch of his lips felt like a victory. “No. Only if they really piss me off.”

“Then I’ll make sure to step well back if I’m going to do that.”

To keep a safe distance from him, I hopped over the log and sat down there. The lake lapped at the jumbled rocks along the edge of the cliff about thirty feet below us. I couldn’t make out the bonfire in the distance, only a hint of its reflected glow on the water and the dark line of the dock. The breeze licked over the bottom of my dress and my bare calves.

It was an incredibly peaceful spot with no one around and the murmur of the lake rising up from below. What made a guy like Connar seek it out still puzzled me. I glanced over at him and found him watching me. His expression was more curious than anything else, but my skin prickled anyway.

“What’s your league?” I blurted out, just for something to say.

His eyebrows rose. “You can’t guess?”

Oh. Er. “Physicality?” I ventured.

He grinned at me, and damn did his face transform when he really smiled. I hadn’t seen it before. In his usual stoic mode, he looked gorgeously distant, look-but-don’t-touch. That grin gave him a warmth that brought him to life. My heart skipped a beat despite myself.

There really should be laws against anyone being that good-looking, especially four of them in the same damn place.

“Did you each pick a different one, then?” If Connar was Physicality, Jude was Illusion, and Malcolm was Persuasion, then that meant Declan was Insight. Which made sense, given that he was TA-ing for that subject.