Angus arrives with armloads of food and jugs of water. “All right, I have sandwiches, smoothies, veg, steaks, cereal, candy… you name it, Tobias. Do you think you can eat anything?”
The cat races through the door and hops up onto the bed next to Tobias.
“Oh yeah, and that cat was waiting outside,” Angus says.
“Get that thing out of here,” Van says.
Tobias shakes his head. “The cat stays.”
“You hate cats,” Van says.
Tobias shrugs. “That cat is the only reason I have any skin left at all. He kept all the rats and mice away from me when I was locked in that box. The cat stays.”
“Fine. The cat stays.” Van rifles through the bags of groceries. “Will you please eat?”
Tobias shakes his head. “I’m not hungry.”
I lean against the door and bump against the wooden stick I took from the crypt. I grab it and slide my hand along its length, tearing my thumb on a thorn.
“Ow!” Bright red blood beads on my thumb. I suck it off and when I look up Tobias looks like he’s ready to pounce.
“Oh shit,” Van says. “No wonder you managed to stay alive all these years. Underwood turned you.”
Tobias doesn’t stop staring at my thumb. “What are you talking about?”
“Brother, you’re a fucking vampire.”
Marco, Angus, and I sit in the kitchen, staring at each other.
“Someone say something,” I say.
Marco shakes his head and applies more pressure to the cut on his wrist where he let Tobias feed from him. He looks pale and really upset.
I look at Angus. His wrist has closed up but he just looks at me as if he’s shell shocked.
“Well, then I’ll start,” I say. “I am really freaked out. I am freaking out here. I am one hundred percent freaked out!”
Van storms into the kitchen and grabs a towel from the cupboard. “I can’t do this. I can’t watch him… feed on me.”
“He needs our blood,” Marco whispers.
I shake my head. “He needs fresh blood. It doesn’t have to be yours, does it?”
“Oh my god, you’re right!” Van rushes over and plants a huge kiss on my lips. “Bless you. Thank god.” He grins at me and then starts undressing.
Van kicks off his boots and unbuckles his belt, undressing right there in the kitchen. He hangs his shirt on the hook by the back door and then leaves his jeans and his shorts in a pile as he opens the door and races out into the snow wearing only his socks.
“It’s going to be light soon,” I whisper, worried about Van being out in the daylight. Even though he blends in with the snow, there’s still a crazy group of rabid werewolf hunters out there and we shouldn’t take any chances.
“He’s on his way back,” Marco says.
We’re waiting on the back porch for Van to return. As soon as he shifted he told the guys through the hive mind what he was doing. Angus went upstairs to wait with Tobias and Marco and I made coffee.
Marco gets to his feet. “Here he is.”
I stand up and watch, waiting for movement. Then Van appears at the tree line, a beautiful white wolf who would normally be hard to pick out in the snowy woods, except for the huge elk in his jaws.
The elk is still alive. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this isn’t it. “Oh my god.”
Van carries the elk around the yard and disappears into the barn.
Marco opens the door. “I’ll go get Tobias.”
Angus and Marco help Tobias down the stairs and out to the barn. There’s an energy around them, almost like seeing a sparkle or something, it’s subtle and something I can’t define. Tobias was the final piece. I smile, even as I know what’s coming. Then I push the door closed and watch them go.
I plan to stay right here. I can’t watch this part. I don’t need to see what’s about to happen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
JOELY
“You sure about this?” Roz leans against the door of my dorm, looking worried. “You don’t have to. They can find someone else to speak.”
I shake my head, checking myself in the mirror for the hundredth time. “No. It feels right. It’s the right thing to do.”
It’s been a week since everything happened. Seven days since Damon Underwood and Porter Allbright died. Seven days since I rescued my men from that vampire’s brutal attack. And seven days since we found Tobias alive.
The craziness on campus hasn’t stopped, though without Porter Allbright stirring things up, the rallies have tapered off and the fighting has moved from the quad to the boardrooms. There are still those who want to build the Society of Ancient Magic back up, and those who want to reimagine a new version, and then there’s Eliza and her cronies who have gone off the deep end with their conspiracies, and seem only to want to see the world burn. I haven’t seen much of either of my sisters, and when I do, I walk the other way.
Georgia and Winter join Roz at my door, the three of them dressed in black, just like me.
Roz hooks her arm toward me. “You ready?”
I loop my arm through hers and lead us toward the elevator. “Let’s go.”
The quad is full of people, but there isn’t a protestor as far as the eye can see. My friends and I gather with the rest of the faculty around the plinth where the founder’s statue once stood. The fallen bronze of Reginald Whitmore Blakeborne was taken away when the rest of the quad was cleaned. And now we’re here to unveil a new statue. Something that speaks to the real history of this place.
Angus and Marco sit in the front row. I take my seat next to them and Roz and the girls sit on my other side. Professor Gilvray waves me up to the podium they set on risers next to the plinth.
Angus reaches
