The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(39)

“You’re alive,” I said as I reached him, my relief short-lived. Four puncture marks in all, two in his front and two in his back, each round as a coffee mug. They almost met in the middle, and he was seeping blood and…other parts. He didn’t have long.

This death was meant for me. I was sure of it.

And Ethan had taken the blow.

“We need to win,” I said, terror fueling me. “We need to win this so we can get you to a healer.”

“I can’t feel my legs.” His eyes widened as he looked down. His arms pushed against the ground, as though he didn’t realize what he was seeing was a part of him and he wanted to get away from it.

The tail swung overhead, enough to take me out had I been standing.

“We gotta go.” I grabbed him under the arms and dragged him behind me to put distance between us and the creature. I didn’t know what else to do. “Give me a nasty spell. Nastiest you know.”

“You can’t—”

“Give me a spell!”

“Darn-at-re. A. Dis-a-trium.”

“What happened to the spells with actual words?” The T-Rex’s tail whipped the other way and it roared, sounding like it was so through with this crap. I knew how it felt. “Here we go. Give me your wand. It felt better than this one…”

“Wands…intimate.”

“Well then, we’re about to get intimate.” I snatched his wand out of his hand, looked at the stolen one in my other hand, and decided screw it.

The creature came at me, its mouth open and hell in its eyes.

“Darn-a-trium. Ah. Dis-a…trum.” That wasn’t right, but I flicked both wands, anyway.

A stream of poo-colored brown magic came out of the instructor’s wand, and baby puke green magic came out of Ethan’s. Both hit the T-Rex on its right leg, a little higher than I’d intended, but nearly at the knee. Red holes opened up in its scaly hide before an explosion of fire shot out. Heat and light and propulsive energy slapped me, pushing me off my feet for the second time and flinging me back. My head knocked the ground and black spots swam within my vision.

The T-Rex’s roar was soaked through with horrible pain. I pushed to my elbows as its body hit the ground. Half of its leg had been blown off, blood spray coating the dirt.

My stomach pinched and bile rose in my throat. These challenges weren’t for the faint of heart.

“Terrible spell work,” I heard, a pain-filled, wet, gargled whisper. A smile covered Ethan’s face, and he coughed up a wet laugh.

“Oh no.” I crawled to him, my head pounding, my body aching, the wands clutched in my hands shooting sparks with each movement. “How do I end this, Ethan? How do I end the challenge?” I dropped the wands and clutched his bloody hand in my own. “Ethan!”

His blue eyes found me lazily, the light within them dimming. “You know…” Wet coughs racked his body. “You’re pretty…hot when you…clean yourself up. I…like ’em tall.” He laughed again, as though that was a merry joke. “Good work, Johnson.” His eyes swung the other way, as though he didn’t have control over them anymore. “You win.”

A breath released from his mouth, and his body went slack in the pool of blood under us. His eyes were sightless.

“No.” I grabbed his chin with my fingers and turned his face my way. “Hold on, Ethan. Please. Please, don’t die on me! The dinosaur is down!” I looked around us, wide-eyed. The T-Rex kicked the foot that was still intact, weakly waving the one tiny arm it had left, and then stilled. “The T-Rex is down! Why is this not ending?”

Tears clouded my vision as a boot crunched against the dirt behind me. I pushed up and swung around, grabbing my knife and protecting Ethan’s body with my own.

The Sandman stopped ten feet from me, his expression unreadable. “That was meant to be you.” He jerked his head, and I knew he meant Ethan. “You were meant to die in here. You’re a Shade, or so they thought. You shouldn’t be able to use a wand.” His eyes flicked to the two wands next to me, lying deserted. “But you chose a different path than they expected. An impossible path. You should’ve been captured twice over. Or killed. And yet, here you are, with the man who was supposed to win it all…lying dead at your side. I was right, and they were wrong.”

Anger seethed through me, burning away the grief and fear, the guilt from letting Ethan and my crew down and reaching the end alone. I grabbed Ethan’s wand and stood on wobbly legs. “What do you want from me?” I hollered.

His dark, dangerous eyes beheld me. “Everything.”





Chapter 15





That last word reverberated in the air between the Sandman and I. Everything. He wanted everything from me? What the hell did that mean?

“What, you want to marry me?” I blurted out, my brain muddled from the concussion, from the unrelenting terror and the horror of Ethan’s lifeless body at my feet. “Aren’t you supposed to get on one knee for that?”

There was a split second where I thought the Sandman would laugh in my face. I mean, it was ridiculous, but so was everything else.

“Perhaps not everything,” he said.

The Sandman took a step back, his eyes locking on something or someone coming up from behind on my left. I tensed, but no warning tingles raced through my body. Friend, not foe.