Haunted Read online

  “You know what I mean,” I said, sinking down until only my eyes and scalp were the only parts of me that weren’t wet. I even made sure to drop my wings into the steamy waters, tucking them close to my back and trying to process everything that’d just happened.

  Professor Cross bound himself to me; we went on a field trip; we were attacked by razor wolves.

  And then … Talon was eaten, the queen showed up out of nowhere, and I was put into a magical sleep coma. How the hell was I supposed to figure out any of this? My life wasn’t this interesting. I exorcised rogue spirits and lusted after my childhood friend/the crown prince. That’s what I knew; that’s what I was used to. But all of this? It felt like something larger was at play here, and I didn’t like it. I mean, the shadows that attacked on All Haunts’ Eve, the dreams of that woman in the melted mask, the country of Vaenn going dark … it was all related.

  I sunk the rest of the way under the water before popping back up.

  “Why aren’t we going to school today?” I asked as I brushed the water from my eyes and looked at my handler’s surprised face. “The Royal College doesn’t cancel classes unless the country is at war and under siege. That’s what the official rules say anyway. My mother told me they didn’t even take a break during the invasion of Scythia. So why would they call off classes now?”

  “They didn’t,” Jas said softly, blinking big blue eyes at me. “I just assumed you wouldn’t want to go?”

  “If the guards’ll let us out of the house, I want to go,” I said, my mind straying back to Talon again. But I couldn’t go after him with the campus on lockdown. Anyway, the forest behind the school where we were attacked was probably still crawling with guards. As far as I knew, the razor wolf pack had already been annihilated or driven out of Amerin altogether.

  But I wouldn’t forget about the red-haired thief. No flubbing way.

  “Alright then,” Jas said, but like she wasn’t entirely sold on the idea. “If that’s what you want …”

  “It’s what I want,” I said, ducking back under the water again. Although I was pretty sure it was not what most of the guys wanted. Still, if I was going to save face here, if I was going to fit in and have a normal career at the college, I needed to show up to class. Doing well at the academy and learning everything they had to teach me … that was essential to my success in everything, really.

  Resurrecting the guys, marrying Airmienan (hah), and even rescuing Talon.

  If I gave the queen reason to watch me, then I’d never get off campus to find him.

  And I wouldn’t be able to rest unless I did.

  Swiping my hands down the front of my white Royal College uniform, I took a seat in the back row of Professor Cross’ classroom and waited while he had a long, in-depth discussion with the flubbing dean of faculty (there were four associate deans at the university besides the dean) as well as several other professors from the history department.

  During our two day absence, my hour one class, Historical Studies in Relations to Politics, had been reassigned to a substitute. At least I got to sit there with the rest of the students, fidgeting and sighing and gossiping. There was an air of excitement about the place—how could there not be with all the extra guards on campus—but nobody seemed to know what, exactly, it was all about. And certainly no one was looking at me, which was nice.

  As I dutifully ignored Professor Cross’ discussion in the back of the room, I noticed a gold-blonde head in the front row and felt my eyebrows go up. It was Felixa of Haversey, the only other person in this room (well, her and her handler) who had any idea about what’d happened up on that mountain. As if she could sense me watching her, she whirled around, her blue eyes widening in surprise before she—

  “Yep, she’s coming over here,” I groaned to Jas, putting my face in my hands and wishing with all my heart that Vexer was here by my side. He’d tell Felixa off with a little growl, shift those big, beautiful wings of his, and then take my hand in his while I tried my best to catch up with the lecture. The Royal College moved fast. Missing two full days was a pretty big deal.

  But, of course, Vexer and Trubble were back the house. There was always the risk that a shadow whisperer could show up, but I felt that leaving made it less likely. I wasn’t trying to protect or hide anything, right?

  I’d just have to trust Dyre’s brother. I mean, he had a vested interest in keeping me out of trouble and on the case. I already knew he was betting on me resurrecting his brother for him.

  “What in Hellim’s Hell are you doing here?” Felixa asked, sitting in the seat beside me and locking gazes like she was a basilisk, intent on turning me to stone with her stare.

  “Attending class?” I asked, like it was a question. Her brunette handler was now sporting a headful of raven-dark hair, taking the seat beside her and holding both their heavy book bags on his shoulders.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I was there, remember? I saw everything.”

  “You were knocked out by a wolf,” Jasinda said, and although I couldn’t place Felixa’s location or actions during the fight, I knew Jas had taken note for a reason. “And he,” she continued, referencing the handler whose name I couldn’t remember for the life of me, “was too busy defending your comatose body to notice shit.”

  I cringed at Jasinda’s cursing, but at least I didn’t lose any feathers.

  “Where the … fudge have you been the last few days?” Felixa growled at me, and I knew then that she really was fishing for information. She’d seen the start of the fight, but she hadn’t witnessed the sleep whisperers putting me and Jas under, hadn’t known the queen was there or seen Dyre die. She really was in the dark about all of this.

  “We had injuries that needed to heal,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “Obviously the Royal Flesh Whisperer fixed us up, but it was that bad that we needed days of rest.” I lifted my chin in a way that would make Airmienan proud and sniffed derisively. Felixa didn’t even remotely look like she believed me nor did she make any move to get up and return to her seat.

  No, she sat there until Professor Cross moved to the front of the room and sprinkled silver spook dust over his own head.

  Huh.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the dean of faculty watching him with narrowed eyes. Even though he was bound to me, he was still teaching the class? I turned back to the front and listened as he made up some ridiculous excuse for his absence and then smoothly transitioned into an introductory lecture about the class.

  “The substitute wasn’t particularly well-prepared, so for the last two days, all they’ve talked about are the ingredients the students found during the orientation assignment. Useful information, but not part of the curriculum,” Matz said, turning around in the seat in front of us to relay the news. Jasinda could barely look at him, reminding me of my own fateful kiss, of Vex’s mouth dragging me out of that strange nightmare and back to the world of the living.

  Without thinking, I touched my fingers to my lips and both Matz and Jas turned neon red and looked sharply away in opposite directions. It was an effort not to roll my eyes.

  Instead, I focused hard on Professor Cross and took notes in the leather-bound journal Jasinda had purchased for our classes. It was spelled to open only when I touched it. I should be excited to open the damn thing up, to finally get started on my Royal College experience and yet, it was tainted from whatever’d happened up on the moment.

  “Don’t be discouraged. Everyone hates this class,” Elijah whispered in my ear. Felixa bristled at the sight of him, but she kept her eyes focused on the front of the room, scribbling so many notes I figured she must be making them up. Professor Cross wasn’t even talking that fast. “Just remember, it only gets better from here.”

  He flicked his tongue against my ear, making me both shiver and blush before he disappeared again. I took a quick glance around to see if any other spirit whisperers had noticed me getting my ear licked by a ghost … and found the dean of faculty staring
right at me.

  Great.

  My second day of school and one of the associate deans just caught me kissing a ghost.

  Talk about a crappy start.

  At lunch, I sat with Jasinda in the courtyard closest to our house. There were six of them in total, and each one catered to a specific year. Pretty sure this one was the sixth year courtyard, but I didn’t particularly care about that because every time I checked my schedule, I heard Talon’s voice reading it aloud.

  “Lunch Hour—very descriptive—is followed by Hour Five: Spirits and Shadows. Seems redundant, but okay.”

  My head was resting on my forearm, but I paused to lift it up and look across the table at Jasinda. She was picking cherry tomatoes off the top of a purple salad—made with only purple leafy greens from the Royal College greenhouse. The food here, it really was top notch.

  “I can’t stop thinking about Talon,” I said, sending out little magic feelers for the other spirits attached to me. Elijah, Airmienan and now Professor Cross and Dyre. They were all keeping themselves hidden except for Mr. Cross. No, he was making small-talk with other staff members and making me ridiculously uncomfortable with the idea of having a gods-damned (bye, bye feather!) teacher attached to me for the rest of the year. I hadn’t had a chance to give it much thought yet, but holy Haversey’s boobs! How was I supposed to do anything fun with a freaking staff member latched to my soul?

  Come to think of it, he deserved a good tongue-lashing. He’d bound himself to me without asking, without any consideration as to how it’d make me feel. Just because he was a teacher, and just because we’d gone through shit on the orientation day assignment didn’t mean he was off the hook.

  “Talon,” Jasinda said, giving up on trying to stab the last cherry tomato with her fork and popping the shiny red veggie into her mouth with her fingers. “I’m sorry about what happened to him, Brynn, but he’s gone.”

  “He’s not gone,” I growled, causing Jas to raise her eyebrows at me. “He’s inside the belly of a razor wolf.”

  “Yeah, and far beyond our reach,” my handler continued, reaching out and pushing my own salad a little closer. I hadn’t touched it and I was starving. But I was also too overwhelmed to eat.

  “He’s not beyond our reach,” I continued, sitting up straight and glancing in the direction of the snow capped mountain where we’d lost him. I didn’t see any soldiers or whisperers up there now, but it made me wonder. What the flub was the bleeding queen doing up there in the first place? I’d seen her just before that sleep whisperer knocked me out. “He’s right out there, just a sword slice away from being rescued.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Dyre said suddenly, reappearing on my right side. Jasinda jumped and fingered the spirit charm around her neck, but I just glanced over at his scowling face and tried to remind myself that no matter how abrasive he was, that he’d saved my life. Just like Talon, he’d sacrificed himself for me. “Did you see how much trouble we were in up there? I died, Brynn of Haversey. I am dead and I have a fucking brother and a dying kingdom that need me.”

  “Then why’d you do it?” I asked him, watching him tap his katana on the surface of the table. It went through it several times before he finally got it together enough to make it bounce off like it was real. “I saw you look at me just before. You had a choice and you picked me.”

  “What kind of prince would I be if I put myself first?” Dyre scowled, turning away from me and leaning his, admittedly, really nice butt against the edge of the wooden picnic table. He went through it though and fell half inside the white stone that lined the streets of the faculty and sixth year apartments. Up through fifth year, all students shared a room with at least one roommate and stayed in the dorms. But during sixth year, they got to move into posh digs on the same street as the staff.

  I stifled a small smile and pretended that Dyre's smooth move hadn't totally flopped.

  “A living prince?” I hazarded as he stood up back up and cursed in Vaennish under his breath. “Your life has gotta be more important than mine …”

  “That's stupid,” Dyre growled, giving me a look through narrowed eyes. I could almost imagine the copper color shining through as he stared at me. “You have a resurrection spell to perform. If you do this successfully, you become the most important person in Europia. Maybe the whole world.”

  A slight flush colored my cheeks as I glanced around and wondered how many spirit whisperers were watching us. Yes, we were in the shade of a large oak tree, but Dyre really should've been acting as careful as Air. The queen hadn't said anything about his death to me yet, but I'd imagine she wouldn't want the world knowing the last living royal from Vaenn had died during an Amerin college assignment?

  “You should hide yourself,” I muttered, just as I spotted Felixa flouncing into the courtyard. She sat at a table bathed in bright sunshine and locked her eyes on mine. I had no idea how she could see me through the shadows and yet, somehow she did. When I flicked my eyes over to where Dyre had been standing, he was gone. “I'm not giving up on Talon,” I muttered, and I swear, I heard Air curse somewhere in the direction of the pond on the other side of the willow tree. “He gave his soul up to save my life.”

  “Yes,” Jasinda said as I dragged my eyes away from Felixa's and refocused them on my handler. “He saved you because you have a higher purpose. Don't throw both his and Dyre's sacrifices aside.”

  “You want me to leave Talon out there, knowing his fate?” I asked, feeling this hot, angry little spark flare to life inside of me. I pushed my salad away and raked the fingers of both hands through my white hair. “You want me to leave the guy I had my first kiss with to spend two hundred or more years trapped in some carnivore's belly?”

  “You're awfully stuck on that first kiss thing,” Elijah said, appearing by my side and sitting down. He was the only one besides the professor who could freely show himself. Everyone knew he was dead anyway. I wondered how that would work then, if I were to resurrect him. Everyone would know. And once they did, word would spread far and wide.

  Remember that Double Blessed whisperer who was promptly killed when word got out?

  I would be promptly killed three times as fast. Five times. Ten.

  Now that I really thought about it, other countries would go to war over something like this.

  That's when I started to feel really fucking sick inside.

  A black feather drifted down to land on my salad as I stared blankly ahead, a sudden surge of fear and panic spreading through me. The queen wanted Air's death kept secret for a reason—and not just because he was the last living heir.

  Because she didn't want anyone to know what I could do.

  She wasn't going to let Elijah or Talon or anyone else that was supposed to be dead come back to life, was she? My heart started to pound inside my chest and I felt suddenly dizzy. If I did this, if I actually completed this spell, my life … wouldn't ever be my own again, now would it?

  “I need to go home for a minute,” I said, shoving myself up from the table and heading directly for the front door of our house. I fumbled the key out of my pocket and unlocked it, shoving my way in and slamming it behind me. It was close enough to the courtyard that my spirits didn't have to follow me.

  But Air did anyway.

  “Are you alright?” he asked as I ran for the staircase and darted up it, slamming into Vexer's hard, warm chest and coming to a sudden stop with his hands on my shoulders.

  “Everything okay?” he asked as Air came up the steps behind me and paused on the landing. I glanced back at him and then over at Vex's gray eyes … and Trubble's bronze ones. They were impossible to ignore, curled up as he was around the big man's shoulders.

  “The queen is never going to let me go if I actually figure this resurrection spell out.” The words escaped in a rush, just as I heard the front door open.

  “Brynn?” Jasinda called out just before I heard her footsteps on the staircase behind me. “I had to throw our salads in t
he compost bin. What are you doing in here? I thought we agreed it was best not to come back here today?”

  “The queen is never going to let go of me,” I repeated, pushing past Vex and moving into the room with Air's coffin. I hadn't come in here since moving in, but as I stood there and stared down at his not-so-sleeping face, it finally dawned on me how naive I'd been. “If I successfully complete this spell, she'd be a fool to let me go …”

  “Let you go?” Air asked, pausing on the opposite side of the room and giving his body a look. He never went near it either. It made all of this shit feel too … real. It was so easy to pretend like being dead didn't matter if we were talking or screwing or hanging out. But this? This was hard, cold reality. “We'll be married. You'll be queen.”

  “Your mother is never going to let me be queen,” I scoffed, putting my fingers on the glass of the coffin, smearing it with fingerprints. “I mean, not the queen, but I guess if I was a part of your harem, that'd be a good place to keep me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Air asked as the bells in the tower rang, signaling the end of lunch. He was looking at me like a crazy person, but then, he'd never been able to see his mother's faults.

  “Felixa, she said she was promised as your first wife, Air.”

  “Felixa is full of shit,” he told me as Eli slipped through the wall and into the room. Dyre and Professor Cross at least had the common sense to stay out in the hallway, but Jasinda and Vexer squeezed in to watch. “I don't want a harem, Brynn. I only want you.”

  “You're saying Felixa was never promised to you as a wife?” I whispered and Air made a frustrated sound low in his throat. Gods, he was beautiful in that dark tunic and breeches, just as ethereal as he'd been the night of All Haunts' Eve. And it'd be the last outfit he'd ever wear if I didn't get this spell right.

  “My mom made promises to Felixa's family, sure, but I don't care about any of that, Brynn. I'm the only heir that she has left. What is she going to do if I refuse Felixa? Disown me?”