Page 37 of Strength of Desire

“Well nobody’s bringing anything, if the bonfire doesn’t happen,” Keelan said. “Which is why I need to go. But Felix, if you can bear to part with those, I’ll stick them in your room for you.”

“You promise?” Felix asked. “You’ll drop them offbeforeyou go help them experiment with indoor bonfires?”

“Scout’s honor,” Keelan said. He stretched out his arms, and waited for Felix to deposit the books in his open hands.

“Come on.” Ash linked his arm through Felix’s now unburdened arm. “Let’s go to Combat. Though with the amount of books you’ve been carrying around, you’re probably so jacked you don’t even need it.”

He pulled Felix into the main aisle of the library. With a final look at the shelf where my primer for the ‘modern’ witch sat, I followed the rest of my friends out. I’d just have to come back and get it later.

It was snowing lightly as we made our way to the gym for Combat, but that didn’t stop Noah from making us run Vesperwood’s five-mile loop again. It wasn’t too windy, but we still had to be careful of our footing as we wound through the trees on the dirt path that had been frozen solid since I’d gotten to campus.

There was a beauty to the woods in the winter, though. A wild stillness, an emptiness that seemed to stretch for miles. I knew there must be animals out here somewhere—the raven had to be flapping around, if nothing else—but it felt like we were the only living creatures in the world. The snow muffled every sound, except for our huffed breaths as we forged ahead.

Until we reached the lake, that was. Lake Superior was huge. The biggest lake I’d ever seen in Iowa was barely two miles around, but Superior looked the way I’d always imagined the ocean would, rolling and gray and spread out beyond the horizon.

There was a slight promontory on Vesperwood’s grounds that jutted out above the water. To the west, the land fell away to a distant beach, covered in driftwood and ice. To the east, the land stayed elevated, and curved inwards before thrusting out into the point that Point Claudette was named for. And in front of us, the vast expanse of steely water waited, looking like it could swallow a person whole and never give back their body.

The path snaked halfway out the promontory before doubling back, and I took care not to get too close to the edge. Fifteen feet down, where the sandstone bluff met the water, vast sheets of ice had broken and crushed against the shore. They stabbed upwards like giant arrowheads, ready to pierce whoever was dumb enough to fall onto them. They looked like teeth, and the lake looked hungry.

I shivered as the path ducked back into the woods, leaving the gaping maw of the lake behind.

I was exhausted by the time we reached the gym again. I was always in the slowest group, along with a few other students. Ash was one of them. I suspected he could run faster if he wanted to, but chose not to out of principle. I was too tired to feel anything but grateful for his company.

Noah was standing outside the gym as our little group shuffled up to the building. His face was unreadable. He ran with the fastest group, and had been back at the gym for a while now. Long enough to have cooled down, if the snowflakes gathering on his hair and eyelashes were any indication. His cheeks were barely pink.

I was gasping for breath and pretty sure the snot inside my nose had frozen, but I was proud of myself. I’d definitely gotten stronger in my time at Vesperwood. That said, the runs were still brutal, and in the winter chill, I was barely human by the time I finished. My legs wobbled, and I was coated in a cold-sweat that made me shiver the second we stopped moving.

“Inside,” Noah said gruffly. His eyes looked the group of us over, but they seemed to slide right past me.

It hurt. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

His granite features were all noble and hard in the soft, snow-globe light. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and stood solid as a mountain as we filed through the door one by one. He looked like he was part of earth itself, his body one more tree trunk for us to weave around, but I’d seen him move enough to know that he could spring into action faster than I could blink, if the need arose.

Like he had when he’d killed that moragh for me.

My stomach twisted. Noah hadn’t looked at me, reallylooked, since that day. My heart stung.

I refused to look at him as Ash and I straggled through last. So the man was gorgeous. So what? Plenty of other students and professors at this school were attractive. And it wasn’t like I even wanted him to like me anyway. How could I, when I wasn’t sure I wanted men to like me, period?

I just wished his own dislike had been a little less obvious.

10

CORY

The snow continued to fall after Combat, silent and serene, and by the time dinner was over, four inches had accumulated, with more forecast overnight.

“First signs of spring, huh?” I said as we climbed the stairs up from the refectory. I could see the snow falling outside in the moonlight through a window.

“Oh, come on,” Felix said. “It’s only twenty-two degrees out today. That’s practically balmy for this time of year. By Imbolc next week, it could even reach thirty-two!”

Ash snorted. “People in the upper Midwest are insane. I’ve seen Kaveh Abedi wear shorts here. InMarch. Completely nuts.

“Kaveh’s a werewolf,” Felix said. “They run hot.”

Ash laughed and wiggled his eyebrows. “Yeah they do.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

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