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“I have a message for you,” she heard herself say, her heart pounding. This was the most stupid, reckless thing she’d ever done, but given that part of her mind wanted her to throw herself into his arms and kiss him right now, she was going to opt for the slightly less insane path. “A message from Kaya.”
His face froze, and she felt tears threaten to well up in her eyes at the storm of emotion that flickered through his expression. “What are you talking about?” he said finally, his voice barely shaking. Had she ever met someone with that kind of ironclad self-control?
“She wants to meet you. She says she’ll explain everything. She says she’s sorry. She says....” Inota hesitated for a long moment, hating and loving the look of hope slowly dawning on Callan’s handsome face. This was going to end in disaster, she thought faintly. She was going to hurt him so, so badly.
“What? She says what?”
“She says… she says to trust her.”
Chapter 17 - Callan
Exam week was a stressful time for any student. But as that particular week dragged on, Callan would have given anything to change places with a student whoonlyhad exams to worry about.
Where exactly had Melton gotten the message from? That was what he wanted to know. They’d searched the whole university for Kaya, top to bottom. They’d suspended all incoming and outgoing boat trips, too—there was no way anyone had entered or left the university since her disappearance. The only conclusion that could be drawn was that she’d gotten off the island before the alarm had been properly raised. All communication channels into and out of the school were being monitored, too. So how had Kaya gotten a message through without being detected? And more to the point, why had she gone through one of the librarians, of all people?
It had been a strange conversation, too. Melton was usually an easy-going guy, especially for a librarian—but he’d seemed like someone else entirely on the beach there, gripping Callan’s wrists so hard that the red marks had lingered for hours. And he’d made Callan promise never to so much as mention the conversation to him again, saying it would put him in too much danger to talk about it, so he had nowhere to go with any of his follow-up questions.
Nowhere, that was, except to his friends.
The night of the party was the first time he’d spoken to Archer and Morgan for a while. He hadn’t been avoiding them, exactly, but he’d also been reluctant to seek them out. News had spread around the school, of course, about the guest lecturer who’d disappeared mysteriously, but the administration was yet to make any kind of definitive statement, so everything remained squarely in rumors territory. Callan had been doing his best not to listen to much of it, but he knew that Archer at least would be thoroughly across all the available information, and it was likely Morgan would be keeping up, too, given her own teacher’s interest in the situation.
After the confusing conversation with Melton, though, he knew it was past time he stopped keeping all of this to himself. They were his friends, and they’d want to know what was going on with him, even if there was nothing they could do to help.
He found Morgan on the edges of the party, sitting some distance from the dance floor and talking with her roommates, three beautiful, rather intimidating women he’d met a few times now. Morgan took one look at his face, then looked back to her friends. The three of them, as if on cue, headed for the dance floor, leaving Morgan and Callan alone.
“Impressive,” he said, gesturing towards the departing backs of her friends. “Didn’t know you’d progressed to group telepathy.” Morgan smiled.
“Call it female intuition. Also, you look absolutely miserable. Not hard to put the pieces together. What’s wrong?”
Callan hesitated for a moment. He’d been keeping so much of this to himself for so long that he felt curiously blocked, as though all the secrecy had lodged in his throat and was holding his voice back.
Morgan’s expression softened. “Is it about Kaya?”
The sound of her name was enough. He sat on the rock opposite Morgan and felt the whole story spilling out of him. The spark he’d felt when they’d met, the growing realization that his feelings for her went well beyond academic interest or intellectual admiration. Kissing her on the beach, their clandestine date in the depths of the library, going away with her and learning a little about the mysterious past that made her so closed-off, so cryptic. Morgan sat in attentive silence, her eyes not leaving his face, no hint of judgment or exasperation in her expression even when he anticipated it. She always had been the best listener he knew.
He finished the story with the details of the message he’d received—though he omitted the exact time and place he’d been told to meet her. It was shocking, how good it felt to have actually said the whole story aloud to someone. He still had no idea what to do, of course, but he still felt like a weight had been lifted. Morgan took a deep breath.
“Well, first of all, I’m amazed you’ve kept your grades up with all of that going on in the background.”
He laughed weakly, shaking his head. “Let’s see how the exams go before we make those kinds of sweeping statements, yeah?”
“Fair enough.” Her smile faded. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
“I don’t know.” It felt like an admission of guilt just to say it. “I mean… I want to go and meet her, obviously. I want to know what’s going on, why she left like that, which of the rumors I keep hearing are true. But—”
“But you’re worried you can’t trust her?”
“No. Yes.” He grimaced. “She’s my soulmate, Morgan. What kind of monster can’t trust their soulmate?”
Morgan tilted her head. “Loving someone doesn’t stop them from harming you, Callan. Soulmates are just as capable of cruelty as anyone else. I don’t think it’s monstrous for you to be suspicious of this woman. You said yourself that you barely know anything about her. You don’t even know her real name.”
“I know her,” he countered, but the words felt hollow even to him. He kept thinking of how it felt to hold her in his arms, the glow of her eyes when he leaned in to kiss her, the absolute joy of the long nights they’d spent in bed together… but that was only one part of knowing a person, wasn’t it? “I love her,” he corrected himself, grimacing a little at how childish it sounded.
“Of course you do.” Morgan sighed. “This is a hard one, Callan. I’m not going to tell you what to do—I don’t think anyone can. But… and I know you’re tired of hearing about magic at this stage, so I’ll keep it brief… the soulmate bond is the deepest magic we shifters have. If there was ever a time to pay attention to your magic, it’s now.”
“Can’t believe all this comes down to picking the wrong classes,” Callan muttered, winning a soft laugh from Morgan. “You’re right, of course. I don’t know how, though. I’ve never been in touch with that stuff.”
Morgan shook her head. “I disagree. You’re an aspiring diplomat, Callan. You’ve dedicated your life to balance and harmony. Your passion for diplomacy, for facilitating communication, for finding paths through difficult situations… every dragon you’ve ever met has guessed you’re a Libra in a heartbeat, haven’t they? You might not have done any formal study, Callan, but your magic has always been there. It’s a part of you. Trust yourself.” She took a deep breath. “Alright. Magical pep talk over.”
