The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(21)

Fear ran through me. Possible options rolled through my head. But killing him and hiding the body wouldn’t work. Even if the school didn’t care—and that director might not—I knew his daddy would. He clearly had the power to call for a widespread investigation. I wouldn’t have a chance.

The best I could do was plead for mercy.

But before I could, Gregory stepped forward with a photo held high.

“You give her away, and I give you away, old lady lover,” he said, and chucked the picture onto the floor.

It fluttered to the ground, landing picture-side up. Ethan knelt beside an older woman, her hands cradling his face as their lips pressed together for what the angle indicated had been a deep kiss.

“Oh man, that is quite an age gap,” I said without meaning to, grimacing. “She’s old enough to be your grandmother. I’d make a lewd joke, but quite frankly, I don’t want the image it’ll bring.”

“Where the fu—” Ethan bent and snatched up the picture. “It was nothing.” His face turned bright red. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“You know that,” Gregory said in a dangerous hiss. “But will all your elitist buddies know that?”

“It’s my nana,” Ethan spat, his hands balled up. “It was her eightieth birthday. It’s just a bad angle.”

“It sure looks like a bad angle,” I said, doing what I could to hold back a snort.

Ethan scoffed. “That photo is, at best, embarrassing. I’ll get razzed about it for a minute, big deal.” He huffed out a laugh. “There’s not a chance you can make anything out of this. You’re a nobody goblin with nothing. After the next few trials, maybe you’ll be a nobody goblin who has been handed his hat. You can’t take any prize money if you don’t stay in the trials. If you leave, that’s a larger share for me. And let me assure you…I can make you leave.”

“He might be expendable,” Orin said, suddenly in the bathroom doorway. I hadn’t noticed him move. “But the girl is not.”

Ethan startled, and I realized Orin had caught him by surprise too. Ethan backed up a pace so he could see everyone.

“Even cheating, you wouldn’t have finished the trials thus far,” Orin went on, his face slack and hands at his sides, showing no emotion. “Wild has used the assets at her disposal, including you, to make us win. She has played this group like a fiddle, making it stronger than the sum of its parts. She is what they are looking for when they hope magical factions will work together, not you. Without her, you will not win all five trials. With her…we all have a better chance.” He shrugged, unconcerned. “It would be in your best interest to help her keep her secret, to help her stay to the shadows, where her kind belong.”

I shifted in thankful anticipation. Even if he’d jumped the gun a couple of times—I didn’t belong in the shadows; that was where weirdos lurked—that was a really great argument. Better even than the blackmail photo.

Ethan hesitated, a flicker of fear in his eyes. “What’s it to you, vampire? Everyone knows you creatures don’t play well with others. You certainly never did in school.”

Orin’s eyes fluttered to half-mast while still pinning Ethan. “I need to join a faction, and if we win all the trials, I’ll likely be courted by the best. I will have my choice, an enviable position. It will set me up well.”

Ethan stared at Orin for a moment, and he was probably wondering what I was—if Orin felt that way, why had he been so blasé about the trials thus far? Still, the argument Orin had made for me stood.

“The vampires will eat you for lunch when you go through their house,” Pete said, edging closer. “They’re not fond of outsiders cheating in their domain, and trust me, they’ll know. You’ll need Orin, and he won’t give you the time of day without Wild. And me. We haven’t done my house trials yet, either. You don’t stand a chance without me. Not a chance. Think the unicorns they bring in will be the docile creatures you’ve practiced on? They won’t be.”

I felt my mouth drop open, and suddenly I couldn’t focus on anything beyond what Pete had just said. “Unicorns?” I turned toward him with palms out. “Unicorns are real?” Glee and stress made me giddy, and I had to fight to keep myself from clapping my hands together. “Oh my God, are you serious? Do we get to ride unicorns?”

“In the wild, they are ferocious beasts,” Gregory said with distaste. “Even the docile ones have intense attitude.”

I threw up my hands. “Do you honestly think I care? Unicorns, man!”

“If no one knew you were a girl before, you would’ve just outed yourself,” Orin said, his voice dry.

Ethan took a step back, the wheels in his head nearly visible as they cranked and worked over the problem at hand. He knew Pete and Orin were right. Maybe he could have made it through the Shade trial by himself, but without Gregory, no way would he have gotten the gold in the last trial. He wouldn’t have been able to find those gems, even with his maps and instructions.

“Face it, bro,” I said mockingly, in a deeper voice, “you need us. All of us, the dick-less ones included.”

He huffed out a breath, shaking his head, and pushed past me. He took the bed next to the window looking out at the rear grounds. The shoddy portables squatted across the large expanse of lawn, one of them housing a group of five liable to be in a very bad mood.