Page 1 of Sick Like Me

Chapter 1

Caelus

Blackgrave Academy is best at night.

Rigid and imposing, the castle stands in the centre of misty moorlands, directly between two dense forests on either side, each one of them belonging to opposing, old money families.

The huge, stone structure is formidable. Every column and pillar wrapped in vines. Twin gargoyle statues guarding the gates from high above, their aged, grey eyes tracking every person that enters through the wrought-iron entrance.

Moonlight beams down onto the grounds as I start to make my way out of the rear entrance. Fog cools my overheated skin as it curls around my ankles, the damp air pricking goosebumps along my forearms, rippling up to my exposed biceps.

I’m not going to have a lot of time to deal with this. I’ve just finished teaching my ten-pm class, and now I’m trudging my way into the woods, wearing ballet tights, trainers and a fucking stringer vest, to deal with a problem for my father.

Branches slap at my bare arms as I manoeuvre my way through Carnell Wood. Sweat sticks the flimsy, thin cotton of my vest top to my back, the early summer wind cooling my hot, damp skin as I inhale the thick scent of fir trees carried on thebreeze. Rustling leaves and snapping twigs are the only sounds I detect atop my hard breaths and the pound of my heart buzzing in my ears.

That’s why it’s such a surprise to find her here.

There are many cabins and crumbling old cottages out here in these woods, but something there absolutely should not be on my family’s land, is a Stone.

Moonlight catches her familiar white-blonde hair as it breaks through the canopy of Oaks and Birch, turning it a silvery grey. Her skin is much the same, making her appear sallow and ghoul-like, carving her side profile up like a haunting skeleton mask.

I study her movements as she approaches the man, whispering words I am unable to hear from this distance. The man says nothing, but that’s enough to capture my attention.

Wesley Clarke.

At twenty-five years old, he’s a failed-professional footballer with a giant chip on his shoulder because he made his daddy bank when he took over a big chunk of west London by spilling copious amounts of what he calls ‘designer heroin’ onto the streets.

It doesn’t impress me, but the way in whichshemoves does.

Elegantly pressing up onto her dainty toes, her feet arching into a slender curl, her calf muscles tensing, knees straightening, all of it prominent to me even beneath the thick material of her black leggings. Her thighs tighten, and even without using her hands, she is perfectly balanced, her core muscles keeping her still and upright. It takes some dancers years to perfect that, but without any practice at all, she holds it.

Her long, thin fingers come to the front of Wesley’s shoulders, the tips just barely pressing against them, but he’s enthralled by her in the same way as I. His eyes are on the stretched length of her slender body. She’s five-ten to his six-one, so she’s not far away from her target with those toxic lips.His eyes are already shuttering, lids only half open as she leans in, allowing his hands to land on her hips, but I catch the small tremor that runs through her as they do.

It makes my teeth grind.

Especially when her mouth finally brushes his.

Immediately, he tries to deepen the chaste kiss, his lips parting, fingers tightening on the flare of her hips, but she doesn’t allow it, settling back on her heels. She blinks up at him in the way she always does, this innocent little flutter of lashes, a blank look, something I am all too intimately familiar with.

That’s how they stay for too many minutes. Locked in an embrace, him holding her, her hands resting delicately against the front of his shoulders, his back to a tree. He speaks lowly, a murmuring, their lips too close, sharing breath, and she listens, keeping a small distance, enough not to touch, but never replies.

Finally, when my short nails cut into my palms, blood filling the underside of my nails where I fist my hands so tightly, she steps back, breaking his hold on her as he coughs. A dry sort of throat clearing, just the once.

“Ostara,” he splutters quickly, shooting heat through my veins like strikes of lightning at hearing him call her name like that. “What the fuck did you do?” he asks immediately, his voice low, a disbelieving whisper.

Knowing, I’m sure, as well as everyone else on this campus, that Ostara Stone has a dark little secret, and he just found out exactly what it is.

Poison.

Only, he won’t ever be able to share it with anyone now. So, her secret will stay just that, and he will die, realising in his final moments, just how stupid he was to underestimate her. In the same way that everyone else always does.

“You’re sick, Ostara!” he shouts, shoving at her small frame with his much larger one. “Fucking sick!”

To her credit, she doesn’t let it affect her, she doesn’t fall or twist or stumble, she simply glides back, her white, high tops smoothing through the dewy foliage, so she’s a few safe feet away.

“Bye bye, Wesley,” she says then, this lyrical little whisper that she completes with a head tilt.

The idiot drops to his knees, his hand to his throat as he gasps for air. And Ostara, she stands there, just out of his reach, wiping the white cuff of her sweatshirt across her pretty, red-stained mouth. It smears across her cheek before she cleans it off completely. And then, still staring at the man, white foam starting to fizz from his mouth, blood seeping from his bulging eyes, a sharp, gurgling, hiss escaping his chest. She lifts the small vial attached to a long silver chain, concealed beneath the neckline of her oversized sweatshirt to her lips and swallows its contents.

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