A Gift of Three (A Shade of Vampire #42)(9)

Without saying a word, I scrambled to my feet, inwardly begging myself to cool my blushes. I dusted off my training uniform without looking up.

“Hey, Field,” I muttered.

Phoenix’s footsteps crunched on the gravel as he came over to join us. He was trying his best not to laugh.

“Are you all right?” he asked me, his concern somehow making it worse.

“I’m fine,” I replied quickly, “glad to be put through my paces.”

“Liar,” he replied, slinging his arm around my shoulders in a half-hearted apology while turning his attention to Field. “Want to have a go? I’m warning you, I’m feeling pretty spry.” Phoenix cracked his neck from side to side, grinning with all the cockiness of someone who had just landed his opponent on the ground.

“It’s so tempting,” Field replied. “Someone’s got to knock you down, but it can’t be me today—I’m on my way to see Maura. Tomorrow?”

Phoenix nodded. “Challenge accepted.”

At the mention of Maura, I started to back away, leaving them to discuss their training session. My boots scraped at the ground in frustration.

What is wrong with me?

I mentally kicked myself for not appearing more composed in front of Field. It just wasn’t okay to behave that way—partly because it made me look like a total idiot, and partly because he was with Maura. I needed to get over my stupid crush and get that into my head. I couldn’t compete with his girlfriend, and I didn’t even want to try: I really, really didn’t want to be that kind of girl, swooning after someone else’s boyfriend.

Maybe I’d be a bit more satisfied if I had Maura’s composure, her normal human looks…and her lack of hair. I wasn’t bad now, but growing up… Ugh. Thanks to my father’s wolf genes, my hair had been out of control. It had just grown everywhere, like an unstoppable curse that chipped away at my self-esteem from early puberty till I was about fifteen. That was when I’d begged Corrine to intervene. After a short episode of pleading, the witch had saved the day. She’d created a potion—not the nicest-tasting stuff, but who cared?—and after taking it every day for six months, my hair problem had disappeared, leaving it only in the places it should be. Things were so much better now, though I still sometimes acted like I was covered in hair. Like if I ever stood in direct sunlight—luckily not such a huge problem when we were in The Shade—I worried that everyone could see nonexistent fuzz on my face.

It was all right for my older brother, Jovi. He was hairy, but it just looked cool on him, mainly making him appear older and more dark and brooding than he actually was.

Field and Phoenix looked like they were finishing off their conversation, and I prepared myself for another ass-kicking. I watched the two men as they said goodbye—they were kind of similar in many ways, both dark-haired and muscular, with dark stubble covering their jaws, but Phoenix always appeared more arrogant and proud because he’d inherited Tejus’s distinct features. Though Field’s face was just as chiseled and stark, there was something gentler about his appearance. I supposed he was more traditionally handsome than Phoenix, and the dimple that appeared on his cheek when he smiled… that drove me to distraction.

Field waved in my direction before heading off, and I returned it, smiling as brightly as I could. He leapt into the sky, those dark dagger wings of his expanding so that he looked like some deadly avenging angel, before he shot up into the air and disappeared from sight.

“Oh, Field,” cooed Phoenix, “you’re so handsome—fly away with me?”

“Shut up,” I hissed, “he’ll hear you!”

“He’s gone.” Phoenix shrugged. “But your face could still fry a pancake. If you’re so into him, why don’t you just talk to him?”

“I’m not into him,” I replied, biting my bottom lip in annoyance.

“Sure,” Phoenix drawled. “Totally immune to the charms of Field. Got it.”

Enough talking.

I flew at Phoenix, pre-empting his flying kick by grabbing onto his boot and spinning him over. The moment he tried to land, I knocked his back leg from under him and sent him sprawling across the training ground.

Finally.

“Still feeling spry?” I asked with a grin.





Serena





[Hazel and Tejus’s daughter]




I flicked through the campus website tabs on my laptop. There were so many to choose from, but browsing was more of an indulgence than an actual exercise in choice. I already knew that I wanted to study English at Brown, but as Corrine repeatedly reminded me, it wouldn’t do any harm to broaden my search. Today I wanted to check the tour schedules. If I was going to get Mom and Dad to take this seriously, I would need facts and dates—not just vague concepts that I’d hedged around before.

I knew Mom would be all for it, but that Dad would be harder to work around. He didn’t like the idea of me leaving The Shade, and with college being a year away, if I was going to get into any of them, I needed to start planning seriously. Education in The Shade wasn’t strictly curricular, but I knew that universities tried to get a diverse range of students in, and you didn’t get much more diverse than me…I didn’t imagine that they’d have any applicants with the extra-curricular activities I had on their résumé.