The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(45)

“She can’t stay here. We’ll all get thrown out!” Ethan roared.

Orin was on him in a flash, a cloak of black spilling out and around him like a shroud of darkness.

I’ll admit it, I took a step back, dragging Wally with me. Ethan took several steps back. His face paling at a rate that made me think there would be no blood left in his head.

“She can stay here. She is part of our team. And if you haven’t noticed, we already have a female in our midst, so what’s one more?” His voice deepened with every word until the last was barely a growl.

“Fine, whatever.” Ethan snorted as if he hadn’t just about pissed his pants. Because as Orin ghosted backward, I was almost positive there was a wet spot at the front of his sweats. Ethan pushed past us and headed to the bathroom. “Idiots, my team is full of idiots and bleeding hearts.” The bathroom door slammed behind him.

I made sure my knife was strapped into its belt sheath and went to the door.

“You have fifteen minutes before curfew,” Pete said.

Wally shook her head. “Just let it go, Wild. They aren’t worth it.”

I shrugged. “Can’t let it go. Where’s your old room?”

She reluctantly told me.

This distraction was exactly what I needed. I couldn’t figure out what was happening to the missing kids. But I could stop Wally from being picked on again.

I stepped out the door, Orin drifting silently beside me as I jogged down the long hallway. Fatigue and body aches rolled through me. The lineups at the healer had been long, and I’d thought to go in the morning when it was quieter.

“I don’t understand you, Shade,” Orin said. “You are protective of us in a way that is not normal, not even for a Shade bound to guard someone.”

“Normal is boring.” We rounded a corner, and the sound of talking reached us loud and clear.

Orin put a hand out carefully and laid it on my shoulder. “They are talking about Wally.”

Shivers radiated out from his touch. My ears buzzed, the whispers becoming words.

“Who does she think she is? Telling us death stats like we need that?”

“Gods, she is so weird. I hate necromancers. Uppity bitch.”

“I could have drained her right there, no one would have noticed. With the other students missing, we could have hidden the body.”

Laughter flowed through my head, catty and cruel, and the anger it sparked in me was intense. Orin’s hand slid off my arm and he shook his head. “They wanted to kill her and hide the body.”

He could have downplayed the threat, pretending it was a joke, to protect the other vampire, but he hadn’t. He’d stood by Wally.

Warm fuzzies tingled up my spine. “For a vampire, you’re a pretty good guy, I think.”

He shot me a look, eyebrows raised. “For a Shade, you aren’t bad yourself. And I agree with you. This threat needs to be…handled…or they will come for her again.”

I wanted to ask him why, but there wasn’t a chance. A trio of girls hurried toward us, stepping out of the shadows. They weren’t dressed all in black like Orin. There were no obvious tells other than the upside-down, bedazzled pink crosses on their sweats. No doubt they’d decorated those themselves.

I stepped fully into the light, and Orin stepped with me. The girls slowed, noses wrinkling in perfect unison. They were pretty, their faces done up with perfect black eyeliner and deep red lipstick even this late at night.

The lead girl curled a lip. “Oh, gross. Awful Orin, what are you doing here? And with that dirty Shade?”

I let a slow smile slip across my lips. “Oh, we’re here to have a chat with you…bitches.”

Orin chuckled. “That’s so polite, Wild. I would have called them far worse. Rat drinkers. That’s what they are. Especially Lucia there.”

The trio of girls tensed and hissed as a unit. The lead girl, I was guessing Lucia, stepped forward. She could have given Ethan a run for his money with her ability to look down her nose at us. “Get out of our way. You aren’t worth messing my hair over.”

“You hurt our friend,” I rolled my shoulders, loosening them. “There’s a cost to that. A price you are going to pay.”

There was no moment of tension like there’d be in a movie, only a blur as she came for me. Orin had moved so fast, I couldn’t see him, but I had no trouble tracking her movements. I stepped back as she reached me, then grabbed her by the arms and jammed my foot into her gut. I flipped her over my head, and she sailed through the air, screeching as she plummeted over the stair rail and down into open space.

I didn’t wait—I jumped up, grabbed the rail, and leapt after her, shouting as I went down. “You got the other two?”

“That I do,” Orin shouted back as several screeches lit the air. I landed in a crouch two stories down, but the vampire was already up, her bedazzled pants catching the light. She sniffed the air, her eyes partially closing. Scenting me. Crap.

“You aren’t what you—”

I shot forward, driving my fist into her nose, shattering it before she could get a bead on the fact that I was no boy. Damn it, I hadn’t even thought of that before I’d decided to come after them.

It only meant I had to finish this fast for reasons other than our curfew.