Ravage (Royal Fae Academy #1) - Lacey Carter Andersen Page 0,39

forever.

As we turn another corner, a blinding light appears in front of me, and that smell of sunshine is overwhelming for a powerful moment. And then the light and the smell and the hellhound and Abigail are all gone. I find myself kneeling on the floor, the torch clutched in my hand. Just ahead of me is the door to the outside, and the rain falls hard.

But I don’t care that I’m back where I started. I don’t care about anything for a long minute, anything except that Abigail was able to cross over before her bones were entirely consumed.

Time ticks by and my shock wears off. I take a shaky breath and rise as realization dawns on me. Whoever was burning Abigail’s bones must have done it because they knew she was helping me. And I had to find out who it was.

Dropping the torch, I race forward to the exit. Shoving open the door wider, I explode out into the night and into the waiting arms that close around me. Fury uncoils in my belly, and I strike out at the mind of my attacker.

But something’s wrong.

13

Lucian

One second I’d switched directions on campus to check out the entrance to the tunnels in my search for Esmeray, the next I heard her scream. Never before in my life has a sound cut me so deeply. I went racing to the entrance, bound and determined to destroy whatever had made her scream like that, and the next thing I knew, a small body was crashing into me. I had one second to acknowledge that it was Esmeray in my arms, and the next a mind-numbing pain slammed into my head.

I’m pretty sure I’m dead.

The world is dark, and I feel nothing. It isn’t scary. It just...is. And then I hear my heartbeat start back up, the sound filling my ears. I open my eyes, coughing and choking, and Esmeray is kneeling beside me, her skin pale, her expression frightened.

“Lucian.” She whispers my name and touches my chest so softly that death was worth this moment with her. “Are you okay?”

I can’t quite speak. My lips seem like they belong to someone else, so I just nod.

“Never do that again! I could’ve killed you!”

There’s a ringing in my head as I start to feel more like myself. I force my lips to work. “You’d never hurt me.”

She sits back on her heels, and I want to touch her so bad. Esmeray might scare other people, but to me she always has such a raw vulnerability beneath that tough-as-shit exterior. “So you’re really okay?”

I nod and groan as I lift a hand to touch the back of my head. I must have hit the ground pretty damn hard when she used her powers against me, because there’s a tender bump in the back.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, and the question holds a strange threat.

I frown and glance at her, trying to read her face. “Looking for you.”

“You knew I was in the tunnels?”

I suspected, but I didn’t know. Still, it feels like a lie when I say, “No.”

Her brows lower and her eyes grow sharp. “Did you burn her bones?”

“Wh--what? Who?”

She rises, and now I see it in her face. She doesn’t believe me. “Are Bron and Dwade at her grave?”

“Esmeray--”

She turns and runs.

It takes everything inside of me to stand unsteadily and race after her. I feel like I’m walking sideways, and the ground seems too far away, but I run through the rain, keeping an eye on her small form far ahead of me. Already I know she’s heading to the graveyard, but I don’t know what she thinks she’ll find. Does she really believe we went out to burn some bones in the night?

She explodes through the gate to the graveyard, and I’m ridiculously far behind. For a minute I lose all sight of her, and my heart races. If someone was burning bones, if someone knew what Esmeray was doing tonight, she might just be running straight into the arms of a powerful enemy. But just as the thought makes me run harder, I spot her.

Esmeray kneels before an undug grave, and I can’t be sure if it’s the rain or tears that track her face, but I’m relieved to see she’s alone. I slow and approach her carefully, having no desire to find myself flat on my ass again. But when I get closer, when I open my mouth to say something, anything, she stops