Page 136

We rounded the last corner leading to the headmistress’s suite of offices, and I heard it. Screams in the distance. My body reacted before my mind had finished identifying the sound. Lysander and I exchanged one look. No words. Blades came out. We moved quickly. We reached the hall, and the smell of rotten blood hit hard. I held back from shifting into my wolf, even though the desire was itching beneath my skin, and there was a clean simplicity to simply ripping throats out with my teeth. But the less who knew the Avari secret, the better, and I didn’t know who would be standing in that office when we got there.

We reached the doors to Regan’s suite, saw the cluster of high-bloods, their movements wrong—jerky, uncoordinated. Eyes full of nothing but hunger. And there, standing in the center of it all, swinging a framed portrait of Catherine Mortis’s dead father like a makeshift blade was Regan. She’d ripped the fucking frame off the wall and was using it like a hand-held decapitation tool.

An infected highblood lunged for her, mouth wide open and rotten teeth bared. Regan pivoted and slammed the edge of the portrait into the highblood’s throat. His head jerked backward, and she followed through, ruthless and efficient, using the weight of the frame like an executioner’s ax. The highblood’s head separated from his body and splatted across the polished marble floor.

Regan’s chest heaved. The purple jacket she was wearing had come undone, and blood splattered the white shirt underneath. She lifted the portrait again, her polished fingers tight around the edge of the frame. She looked dangerous, deadly, and really fucking hot. “Come on, then,” she snarled, her voice low and husky. “Make my day worse. I dare you.”

For a single heartbeat, I was stunned. Frozen, but not from fear. If anything, I’d never been so turned on in my life. I glanced at Lysander. His eyes were blazing with pride. He met my look, and I saw something there so hot and brutal I couldn’t stand it. But it would wait. We moved forward together.

I growled, throwing myself into the fray, my body a blur of steel and fangs as I cut tendons and tore throats. Beside me, Lysander was teaching a similar lesson in violence to the feral fools who had tried to kill our mate. Regan fought with us. She didn’t step back once she saw us. She moved like someone who’d already been broken once and had decided to become the blade that had hurt them. When she’d smashed the last infected in the face with a crack of the broken picture frame that smashed their teeth out, it was over.

Silence rushed in.

Regan still held the portrait dangling from one hand. Her knuckles were white with tension. Her hair was streaked with blood and gore.

“Are you hurt?” Lysander asked, his voice rough.

She shook her head slowly. Behind her, the door to the inner office slowly creaked open, and a small timid face peeked out.

“Is it over?”

Regan sighed. “Yes, Dani. It’s over. You can come out now.”

The girl crept out, her eyes widening as she took in the sight of mangled bodies and leaking heads.

“You lied.” Lysander’s voice was low. I followed his gaze to the smear of red across Regan’s cheek. Lysander’s voice was tight. “You’re bleeding. They were infected, and you’re bleeding.”

Regan touched a hand to her cheek cautiously. “It isn’t mine.”

Lysander didn’t even blink. “I’m not taking any chances.” Before I could even get a word in, he was crossing the space between himself and Regan, lifting her into his arms. Regan made a sound—I wasn’t sure if it was shock or outrage or both or neither. But whatever it was, it was too late.

“Lysander,” I started to say. But a gust of air swept past me, and he was gone. And then they were in the corridor, and Lysander was moving with highblood speed.

Dani stared after him, clearly stunned speechless. Slowly she looked up at me.

I bent over, wiping my blade on a clean bit of feral highblood clothing, then sheathed it. “Headmistress Pansera will be taking the rest of the day off,” I said, as I straightened. I looked around the room—at the pools of black blood and the spatters of bone and other unpleasant materials that now decorated the vestibule walls. “I’ll have servants come clean all of this up.”

The girl nodded.

I cleared my throat. “You don’t have to stay, you know. You could go home, too. Take a day off.”

“I’ll stay,” she whispered. “She saved my life.”

I let my mouth curve just a little. “She’s quite an impressive woman.” I turned back to the hall. “Lock the inner doors behind you, just in case there are more.”

But I doubted there would be. I’d already seen what Lysander had missed. This wasn’t a new wave of the plague. Those highbloods hadn’t been infected. They’d been raised.

Chapter 46

REGAN

Lysander didn’t speak or put me down until we’d reached my door. Then he lowered me to the floor, just inside the threshold, as if I might break, and pushed the door shut behind him. With him on the inside.

I backed away from him, fury hot in my veins. “What the hell was that?”

Kage was an actual wolf, but Lysander was built like one. He leaned back against the door, filling it. His body wasn’t large like Kage or Blake’s; he was a lanky man—built the way a wolf was in winter. All long lines of muscle and fine bone. And clearly he’d been built for speed and endurance. He wasn’t even breathing hard. I stared at him. Some strands of his silver hair had come loose from the leather he’d tied the rest back with. They touched his cheek-bones when he moved.

I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. I’d thought of them as calm and glacial-blue. But right now, they were looking rather storm-tossed. I swallowed.