Page 152 of Fractured Fates

“What happened?” he asks.

“She fucked up, that’s what,” Stone snaps. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, his shoulders rising and falling. “I told her, I told her so many times. Stay at the academy.”

“Stone,” the man in black warns.

“I was with my friend Andrew.”

“Your friend? Where is he now?”

I shake my head. “He left me here. It was … it was a trap.”

“Andrew? Andrew who?” the man in black demands.

“Andrew Playford.”

“I know the one,” Stone says darkly.

“The name means nothing to me,” the man in black says. “What’s the connection?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head in frustration, then glares at me. “What the hell did you think you were doing? Leaving campus? Wandering around this part of the fucking city?”

I close my eyes, his words a painful barrage to my head.

“Stone,” the man in black growls.

“She’s a liability,” he mutters, pacing now, rage rolling off his body in waves. “He was going to … He was so close to–”

“Stone, I know.”

The professor glares at his friend, then disappears into the smoke, leaving the two of us behind.

I push myself away from the man in black, rolling onto my side. My body shakes, nausea brewing in my stomach.

“I’m fine,” I say, gritting my teeth against the pain that spirals through my body, every part of me in agony.

“You’re not fine,” the man in black says, resting his palm on the small of my back. Warmth radiates from his touch, swimming through my body and making me groan with relief. “Your magical reserves are almost depleted and your …” I peer down at my right leg, twisted into an ugly angle. I gag.

“Can you fix it?” I ask, my voice trembling.

“Yes,” he says, “if you want to end up with a permanent limp. It needs to be done professionally. I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

I groan. “I can’t afford a hospital.”

The man in black takes no notice, scooping me up into his arms as gently as he can, careful not to jolt my injured leg. He’d needn’t have bothered. There’s something about his embrace, the warmth of it, the solid protective wall of his strength, that has the pain seeping away. I melt against him, my eyes heavier than ever, my head falling to rest on his shoulder.

“You’re safe now, Rhianna.”

“Who was he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispers and I close my eyes, feeling his warm mouth against mine, feeling him kiss me with a tenderness I don’t understand, feel his lips move against mine, feel his tongue sweep against my mouth, taste him, sink further and further into him.

* * *

I don’t knowhow he transports me through the city because when I open my eyes again, I’m lying out on a mattress, under the bright lights of a clinic, the smell of antiseptic strong in my nose and the man in black’s hand in mine.

He reaches forward, stroking a strand of hair from my face.

“How are you feeling?”