Unforgivable (Their Shifter Academy Book 4) Read online

  The water began to vibrate. I was so close.

  When the door flew open, I looked up with a gasp.

  Rafe stood outline in the doorway, his big frame limned by light. He hit the switch by the side of the door, and the overhead lights came on, making me blink.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  I shushed him, my finger to my lips, and looked back down at the scrying bowl.

  “Oh, I think fucking not,” he said. Rafe was not the kind of man to be shushed.

  The water had gone still and dark. There was nothing left there.

  I looked up at Rafe, feeling myself settle into being resigned. Rafe’s anger was nothing compared to the pain of losing the men I loved.

  I leaned back, studying Rafe’s irritated face. His gaze swept over the scrying bowl, the candles. He turned the lock so the bolt would close, then shut the door behind him.

  “Let me work through the list,” I said, “because I think I know your standard M.O. well enough now to fake being cadre myself.”

  Rafe crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Northsea?” I asked myself in a fake deep voice, then answered in my own voice. “I’m doing magic, obviously. Why the hell would you break the simple rules you’re supposed to follow? Because I’m trying to find Silas.”

  Rafe shook his head faintly as he came toward me, looming over me. “Okay, so you’re cadre now. What are you going to do with the witch practicing forbidden magic in the dorm in the middle of the night?”

  “Yell at her, I’d imagine.” I picked up one of the candles and blew it out, still looking at him. “Beat her, maybe.”

  Rafe pulled back as if I’d hurt him, but I wouldn’t have been entirely surprised. Hell, I wouldn’t have entirely thought he was wrong.

  If someone besides Rafe had come through that door, I might pay with my life for being a witch. I wouldn’t blame Rafe for being furious.

  And the truth was, I wasn’t going to stop just because Rafe scolded me. Rafe knew that. Given his protectiveness, he might feel desperate to make me stop.

  Clearborn knew that I had magic, but said my gift wasn’t to be flouted. I wasn’t sure if he could save me if my secrets were revealed, or if he’d even try. After all, Duncan tried to murder Chase to expose me as a witch, at Garmond’s request. Garmond must have known there were limits to Clearborn’s protection.

  “I should’ve checked the door,” I said, my voice calm.

  Rafe dropped to the ground beside me, cross legged, as I reached for another candle. He caught my hand as I lifted the candle, then blew it out for me. When his lips pursed, his high cheekbones swelling, my heart lurched. He was so handsome. Sometimes when I looked at him, it physically hurt that he wasn’t mine. Not yet.

  “You should’ve checked the door,” he agreed.

  “And you hate magic,” I said.

  “I do,” he said. “I happen to hate hurting you more than I hate magic, Ms. Northsea.”

  I stared at him skeptically. “I’m waiting for the part where you scold me.”

  “Or punish you?” One eyebrow quirked above his dark eyes. “Like you suggested a minute ago?”

  “It wasn’t a suggestion.” My tone came out horrified. If I never saw that goddamn tawse again, it’d be too soon.

  “Oh?” He tilted his head to one side, studying me. “Because I’ve watched you go to the pits every day. I’ve seen you in the dojo every night. You always trained hard and found joy in it. Now it’s…different.”

  I shook my head, denying his words.

  “I’m not going to scold you,” he said.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” I demanded. He was sitting so close to me that I couldn’t resist the sudden impulse to press my palm to his forehead. “Fever?”

  The two of us never touched flirtatiously. Sometimes I hit him in the pit, or he hit me. Sometimes he adjusted my body in a fighting stance, or pulled me against his body to shield me, or pushed me out of his way. His hands never lingered on my body, but the feel of them always did.

  And a few times, he had held me: when I collapsed into his body after healing him, after the beating, after we lost Silas and I sobbed into Rafe’s wet shirt in the rain. The moments when Rafe and I touched each other were marked in pain.

  My heart hitched at my own daring, touching him just because I wanted to, as he regarded me curiously. He didn’t seem annoyed by my touch, and that made my heart skip.

  I pulled my hand away before the moment could go awry, and reminded him, “You usually don’t miss the chance.”

  “You’ve been hurting yourself every chance you get,” he said, resting his hand on my shoulder, then sweeping his fingertips lightly down my spine. His touch raised shivers. “Worse than any bruises I ever left. Why is that, Maddie?”

  I had no idea how to answer that. “You never ask a question you don’t know the answer to, do you? You must have your own opinion.”

  “I think you’re the most kind, caring person I know,” he said. “This team is hurting. And that means it hurts you more than anyone. You carry all your own pain for Silas, and theirs too.”

  He paused, tilting his head to one side, then corrected himself, “Ours, I suppose.”

  His hand pressed against the small of my back, which had long since healed, and my heart hitched.

  “I don’t know how to fix things,” I said softly. “Silas. Tyson too…”

  “Maybe not everything is yours to fix. Maybe you shouldn’t punish yourself because you can’t.” His gaze was kind.

  “I think Silas is alive out there somewhere,” I said. “Somewhere. If I could just…”

  “Just use more magic?” he asked. He shook his head. “Not here. It’s not safe for you here.”

  “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  “Maddie.” His voice came out stern, like usual, then softened. “I’ll help you. We’ll find someplace.”

  “You’ll help me? You despise magic.”

  “I can’t afford to hate magic if I’m going to protect you, apparently.”

  “I never asked you to protect me.”

  “If we’re going to protect each other.”

  “Better.”

  His hand slid across my back in a caressing circle that made my breath catch before he pulled away, getting to his feet.

  As he headed toward the door, he said over his shoulder, “And if you really must be punished, you can always ask me to the dojo with you. I’m pretty sure I can offer you a more satisfying experience than Chase or Penn.”

  He was facing away from me so he couldn’t see my cheeks blaze, but then as he went through the door, a faint, mischievous smile touched his lips.

  If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought Raphael Hunt was flirting with me.

  Chapter Five

  Clearborn

  On a Saturday morning, I’d rather be watching my cadets bash each other around the head-and-shoulders in their inter-team fights than sit in the Eastern Alpha council meeting.

  When I listened to the bickering in these meetings, I always felt as if I were being bashed around the head-and-shoulders.

  On my way into the meeting, Piper Northsea walked in front of me, flanked by Callum and Arthur. I was willing to bet she cared as much as I did about changing the rules about magic at the academy.

  I called, “Could I trouble you for a minute of your time, Ms. Northsea?”

  She turned with curiosity written across her beautiful face. “Of course.”

  She glanced at Callum, touching his forearm lightly, and he and Arthur nodded and moved away, greeting other Alphas as they went into the building. Most of the packs still saw Arthur and Callum as the true leaders, and Ms. Northsea as the pretty face of the pack. The alphas saw what they wished, I supposed. It didn’t seem to hurt Piper Northsea’s feelings to play their game.

  When the two of us were alone, she smiled at me, then said lightly, “I heard you had my sis
ter whipped.”

  Hell of a conversation starter. I’d hoped to negotiate with Piper Northsea, but she might not be willing to talk to me.

  “Oh? Did she complain to you?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “She was home for Christmas break for a week and never saw fit to mention it.”

  “Perhaps it didn’t make that much of an impression,” I mused, though I had a feeling we both knew it did. “Are you going to ask me to ensure it doesn’t happen again? Because I believe that’s up to your sister.”

  She shook her head. “I might not agree with all your choices, but it is your school. And Maddie would be furious, and rightly so, if I interfered. Of course I think she’s special, but she’s never wanted to be treated that way.”

  Maddie’s desire to be special was readily apparent—and common enough at her age—but she clearly never wanted special treatment, and I appreciated that.

  “Your little sister thinks it should still be your school.” I’d overheard her talking out in the field. She didn’t hate me—oh good, it would have hurt my feelings so badly if a first year student despised me—but when they finally got rid of Dean McCauley, they should’ve brought Piper back.

  Piper nodded. “She’s still troubled by the unfairness of how I lost my position as dean.” Then, by way of explanation: “She’s young.”

  “And you’re not troubled by the change?” I asked curiously. I wasn’t always sure what to make of Piper Northsea.

  “I’m proud that I started the school, and I’m willing to leave my part in the past. From what I understand, the school is safer now than it was a year ago—undercover witches and rogue shifters aside—and I’m content with that.”

  “Perhaps we can be on the same side,” I said.

  “Perhaps we can.” She tilted her head to one side. “Are you bringing a vote to the table today?”

  “I believe I will be, depending on how today plays out.”

  A faint smile played around her lips. “That’s better than bringing a body, as you did to the last meeting.”

  I shrugged. Some people just need killing.

  Not much later, I sat across from Piper as she tapped her pen absently against the tabletop, clearly as irritated by this meeting as I was. We were discussing the witch that had been captured in the woods.

  Alpha Fuller came to the table from the long bar in the corner of the room. He gripped a crystal glass of Scotch, as if whiskey were a breakfast food.

  “But why would a fellow witch attack Silas?” Alpha Fuller demanded.

  “That is an excellent question that we might have the answer to…if only Silas Zip hadn’t leapt into a whitewater river.” Piper pursed her lips. “Perhaps a slaughter-them-all approach to the covens isn’t the best strategy after all.”

  “We all know you tend to be sympathetic to witches,” Fuller said.

  Piper smiled sweetly. “And yet… it’s interesting that my pack’s kill count for the covens is a bit higher than yours, isn’t it?”

  It was more than a bit and everyone at the table knew it. The Northsea pack had played an important role in rooting out the covens for the past eight years.

  Piper Northsea, with her soft blond hair, burgandy wrap dress and slow smile, looked elegant and refined. Yet sometimes I thought Maddie had inherited her taste for a brawl from her older sister.

  “Perhaps there’s a meaningful distinction to be drawn between everyone with magic and the covens that mean to do us harm,” I suggested, before Fuller could light into Northsea. I didn’t need the meeting to last even longer.

  “Magic cannot be trusted,” Fuller disagreed.

  “I understand your point completely,” I said. “And yet, if the witch we interrogated can be believed, the witches fear magic as much as we do, in their own way.”

  There was a rumble of disagreement around the table, and I raised my hand. Piper’s eyes were bright and curious as I went on, “The Coven of the Day believes that we shifters all have a latent core of magic that powers our ability to shift.”

  “That’s why the covens seek to steal our princesses and drain them to power their own magic,” Arthur said.

  Callum and Arthur sat on either side of Piper—three leaders for three combined packs—and Callum drew an idle circle around the top of his mug. “They believe we have access to the same magic they do—perhaps more—but that we sacrifice our ability for tradition.”

  “Nothing wrong with tradition, eh, Clearborn?” Alpha Hadley asked. He shot me a sideways look. “My young wolves at the academy have had something to say about your methods.”

  “Let’s stay focused on the subject at hand,” I said. A committee meeting full of shifters felt like herding cats, not that any of them would have appreciated the analogy. “I’m happy to discuss the academy at the end of the meeting. Let’s bring in the interrogation team and listen to the full report on what our witch had to say.”

  And perhaps we can skip the endless debate on how we feel about magic.

  Feelings didn’t matter. Magic was key to saving the packs.

  Javi and Lincoln rose and stood at the end of the table. They’d interrogated the surviving witch. She had come not from the Coven of the Day, but from a local coven that had already been extinguished by the packs.

  Their coven had sought Silas Zip on orders from the Day, but they didn’t know why. They just knew he was a powerful witch, and they thought he was there protecting the school on the council’s orders.

  I’d heard it all before, but I still scrubbed my hand over my face at the thought. It was impossible to convince the council, but I didn’t think Silas had been working against us at all. Something more complicated was going on.

  But perhaps Silas could serve to protect us in another way.

  The shifter from the interrogation team added, “They had captured Madeline Northsea, as far as the witch knew.”

  Next came the part I did not look forward to. It was a risky play, and it was nothing of my own that I gambled. “And why was it so important to the Day to capture Ms. Northsea?”

  “The leader of the Day believes her to be his daughter.”

  I was watching Piper Northsea’s face. She stilled. A murmur went around the table, full of suspicion and darkness.

  “She’s safe on academy grounds,” I said, pretending as if that were what the alphas were concerned about. They should care. “And my students are safe from her. Cain knows I harbor no particular affection for the Northsea pack—no offense—and I wouldn’t hesitate to remove Maddie Northsea from the academy if I thought she were a danger.”

  “None taken,” Piper murmured.

  Had I managed to collect enough power over the course of the past few months to make this move successfully?

  Certainly, killing Garmond in hand-to-hand combat for his disrespect on the grounds of my academy had cemented some of my power.

  That last Alpha council meeting had been a bit more interesting than usual.

  “But does she have magic?” Alpha Riding asked. He was an old man, his thick white eyebrows drooping as if even his hair follicles were tired. The fact that he remained head of his pack, even though he’d probably break a hip if called into a fight, spoke to how much his pack respected him.

  Piper’s eyes flashed a warning as she looked at me. It almost made me smile. I was not in a position to be threatened, not even by the queen of the most powerful united pack in the country. I would do my best to look out for Maddie Northsea and the rest of my cadets, but their comfort wasn’t my top priority.

  “She does,” I said simply.

  Then I waited for the explosion of voices to settle. “She’s loyal to her pack,” I said, my voice loud enough to drown out the last grumblings. “And we can make use of her. We can study that latent magic the witches fear and see if there’s a weapon there.”

  “Perhaps there’s a better use for the Northsea girl,” Hadley said slowly. “We know the Day is working on a curse to destroy our wolves. If the Day wants
Northsea, perhaps we should let them have her. Let her go to her father and uncover their secrets.”

  I shook my head. She wasn’t ready for a spying mission.

  “If she’s loyal to the packs, she can serve the council now,” Hadley pressed. “Or do you doubt her after all?”

  “I don’t doubt her,” I said, “any more than I doubt any eighteen-year-old with good intentions and poor judgment.”

  “She can do it,” Piper Northsea said, her bright blue eyes meeting mine.

  I raised an eyebrow. “I would expect you’d want to see your sister safe on academy grounds.”

  “I want to see an end to the war between the wolves and the witches,” she said. “Maddie is ready.”

  “Your sister is a gifted leader and a bright girl,” I said, “and she’s far from ready. As one would expect from a first-year student. Even if she survives, her wolf will not.”

  The Day would never accept Maddie as one of their own without using her as a test case for ‘curing’ the wolf inside.

  “It’s the same latent core of magic whether used to shift or to power a spell,” Callum said. “She won’t lose her wolf. Not permanently.”

  “You’re willing to gamble on that?” I demanded.

  Piper glanced at me pointedly. “I suppose we can put it to a vote.”

  I suppose I’m still the dean.

  No, better to save that play. My top priority today was to ensure we had the go-ahead to research magic at the academy. That was the first step to integrating it into the curriculum, if it were indeed the way we’d win the war with the witches. Even the dodgy old fools who comprised most of the Council couldn’t oppose research, not with what we’d learn from the witch.

  “Very well. I’d like to put something to vote as well,” I said.

  Thanks to Piper Northsea’s pull with a few other packs, I had the votes to begin my research. I’d expected her to vote with me, for her own interest; I hadn’t trusted that she would cash in the favors owed her.

  Piper Northsea and I had never been allies in the past. I’d played a not-insignificant role in unseating her before, although I’d lost my play and been dismayed to see Dean McCauley replace her. We still didn’t agree on everything, far from it.