Page 5 of Faerie Fate
Nora was an orphan, like me. Or like I had been.
She was hesitant to leave, but Hoarfrost bristled and his attention was like the sting of cold on my skin. I pushed Nora through the door, then glanced back for Hoarfrost.
“Well?” I snapped. “You going or not?”
His time to play the hero was done. He approached gingerly, still watching me like he was ready for me to detonate at any moment. Finally he bobbed his head in a curt acknowledgement. The second they were both safe, with Coral not quite welcoming them with open arms, I slammed the door shut.
I made my way out of the ravaged dorms, always searching for more survivors. Where was everyone hiding?
Seconds became years and I braced before turning every corner. I pushed my weak body and dizzy head up the next set of stairs to the third floor and found only a handful ofother students before I came to the last room at the end of the corridor.
Immediately, the stench of rot burned a trail to the bottom of my lungs. My fingers shook on the doorknob. Then I opened it and the full scent wrapped me in a hot, fetid embrace.
The room was packed wall to wall with bodies. All of them dumped haphazardly on the floor and left in a tangle of decaying flesh. All of them mauled by shifters.
Chapter Two
The reason why the hallways were empty.
The reason why I’d found only fifteen people so far.
Death permeated the walls, the floors, the stones, to the foundation of the Fae Academy for Halflings, and coated the inside of my stomach with acid. Then came the tsunami crash of emotion, devastation and fury, a terrible combination.
Alone and reeling, I stared at the massacre. Unable to look away. All those poor kids?—
First-years. Oh god, they were all first-years, because there in the jumble was Professor Nitliffe, the charms teacher, with her eyes frozen open in death.
She’d tested me for my innate powers, my cognitive manipulation. She was specifically a first-year teacher.
Kendrick had killed Nitfliffe. Had she stood her ground to protect the kids, or had he wiped her out first before moving on?
My hands fisted, knuckles popping, the change threatening to overpower me. My wolf rose in the face of this fucking injustice before the sickness forced me to stop. My head spun, dizzy.
These kids hadn’t done anything to Kendrick Grimaldi, yet he swept through this supposed safe haven like a wave of death.
They were innocents. They had no business in this vendetta of his but they’d paid the price. And where was I? Planning and plotting and not fast enough to save any of them.
This horrible game of cat and mouse with Kendrick wasn’t just dangerous for me and the people I cared about anymore. He was killing students in his play for me. No remorse, no conscience.
I was responsible for every single one of these deaths and I took that into myself, forcing it to change me, so I’d always remember.
Every last one of them…
I made the mistake of counting the bodies and stopped when I reached twenty-five.
My breath came in sharp cutting gasps and my heart constricted, stopped, resumed its off-rhythm beat until the pain traveled from my chest to my skull. It pierced the back of my eyes and my palms went clammy.
No,no. This was the wrong time for a panic attack but there was no stopping the visceral reactions once they began.
Soft padding footsteps sounded from the corridor outside. In the midst of a panic attack, I was too sluggish to move. To think. Then a solid weight slammed into my back and trapped me against the wall.
“My lucky day.” The guttural voice sounded close to my ear as a gust of hot breath ruffled the hair on my neck. “Look at what I’ve found! Oh, you’re going to be like a little golden goose, girl.”
The emotions poured into me and the change rippled through muscles and bone, along my spine. Fur pushed out across my forearms and I suddenly hit the ground hard, my knees cracking.
Dizziness stopped the change from completing but the fall saved me from attack.
The patrolling wolf shifter had swiped his claws at me and grazed my shoulder. Pain was minuscule compared to the stalled change, but I rolled on my side, curling into a ball, before he moved again.
