Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,74

planning to shut down the camp, and I don’t think that means you all walk off into the forest to live with the deer and bunnies.”

There was a sudden haunted look in her eyes, as if she knew something about the idea of that camp shut down, but before I could push her, she said quickly, “Maddie told me something about a move to the Grave Sea colony.”

“Yeah, that’s for the lucky ones who ae supposed to be bait,” I said.

“Bait for what?” She stared at me and then said, “Oh, you cocky bastard. You think you’re that important?”

“I do,” I promised her. Warren Campbell seemed pretty obsessed with me, and I would bet that meant there was someone above him who was equally obsessed.

He didn’t seem the type to be independently motivated to that degree, unless I’d slept with his sister or enchanted his dog to hate him or something and didn’t even remember it.

Then I asked, “What’s going on with Keen? Sebastian?”

“Sebastian’s around here somewhere,” she waved her arm in the general direction of camp. It seemed as if the two of them had broken up and she didn’t seem very inclined to tell me the story. Whatever happened here must have something to do with why.

I glanced at the door. “You and I have a very brief period of time together so I’d like it if you just—”

“Don’t use that tone with me,” she cut me off. But she launched into her story anyway. “Keen led an escape attempt a while back. All of us from her old group. Someone sold us out.”

She paused, just for a second, then said in a rush, “Diminity died in the attempt.”

“Who betrayed her?”

“Already dead,” she told me, a wicked glint in her eye.

“That’s my girl,” I said.

“I didn’t say I did it.”

“Did you do?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“After that, they punished Keen with a root spell,” she said.

“So she literally can’t leave,” I said. The root spell meant that she was tied to the land itself; she was dying slowly anyway, but she’d expire quickly if she tried to leave the grounds. It was a cruel bit of magic. We’d never had any reason to use it, but I’d learned about it at the academy.

Then more harshly, I added, “But Keen would want you all to go.”

“I’m not going off an another half-baked escape attempt,” she said hotly. “They vaporized an entire barracks during our escape attempt.”

“The destroyed building.”

She nodded. “Everyone else turned their backs on Keen after that. They blamed her.”

That wasn’t fair, but fair wasn’t important. “But they can’t turn their backs on you. Can they? Because you’ve got the power to get in and out of camp.”

She pulled a leather pouch from under her yellow shirt; it was tied around her neck. “The mushrooms I gather help keep Keen alive.”

“And no one turns you in because…”

“Because I’d kill them?” she filled in, brows rising. “And because that’s not the only thing I bring back. For some reason, my rune doesn’t work right. I can get in and out of their wards.”

“Maybe it’s not that the rune doesn’t work,” I said. “Maybe you’re powerful enough to overcome it.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Just a hunch.” I wouldn’t risk Maddie’s life by telling my theories to Isabelle, no matter how much I loved her like a sister. She didn’t need to know.

“Keen wouldn’t want you to sacrifice for her,” I reminded her.

She shook her head. “I’m not letting more people die so I can escape, Silas. They’d just keep destroying barracks houses.”

“I’ll find a way to fix it,” I promised.

She looked at me doubtfully. “Well, since we’re all going to die anyway, I guess you can’t make things much worse.”

“I love the confidence.”

“Sorry.” She shrugged, not sounding one bit sorry. “You and I have known each other since we were kids. This is the confidence of someone who has known you all your life and seen some of your more half-baked schemes.”

“This scheme will be fully baked,” I promised.

“Oh? Is that why you ended up beating the love of your life half to death? Because you’ve got this situation well in hand?”

My jaw flexed, and those keen brown eyes of Isabelle’s didn’t miss a thing. She smiled in genuine delight. “She is the love of your life. You’ve got feelings for the first time in your life. How is that?”

I shook my head. “Irrelevant right now. We’d better separate. Just…stay ready.”

“Fine, Silas,” she said. “But after we burn this place down,