Page 145 of Malcroix Bones Academy

The moon was stunning, brilliant. It shone over the fountain and the distant lake, dazzling my eyes, half-blinding me. Blue-white diamonds twinkled over the fountain’s spray. My eyes slid up to the moon itself, but I could scarcely see it through my magic.

Green and gold flames licked around my vision, blurring my eyes.

I was still staring up at the sky, at the clouds moving overhead, obscuring and revealing the light, when a hand grabbed me roughly, and yanked. I turned around, my back to the stone, and gazed up at a looming, simply ridiculously tall form. The moonlight splayed over the top part of him, and I stared at the gold-painted, muscular body, then the gold, horned mask bedecked in jewels and carved with elaborate designs.

My half-focused eyes dropped down to his furred legs and black, cloven hooves.

He ripped the mask up and off his head and face, and glared at me with his shocking gold eyes. He’d painted the skin of his face even under the mask.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.

I stared back at him, muscles tense, my breath already coming harder.

I’d known exactly who he was, even if I’d told myself I didn’t.

32

Not A Small One

His jaw ticked visibly, his eyes turning increasingly cold.

The gold, metallic, vaguely Egyptian mask, which he must have magicked to make it appear seamless when it molded to his skull and face, he now gripped firmly in his hand. Before I could make sense of where he’d come from, whether he was even real, his gold-painted hand slid through the air, leaving ghosting trails of black and silver magic.

I flinched when those tendrils swam into my skin, sucked into my veins like blood being drawn through a needle. I gasped in shock, and forced out words.

“Don’t…” I managed. “Don’t do that. I told you not to?”

His eyes shocked me when I met them. His face had changed almost beyond recognition.

Ice-cold, murderous fury stood out in his irises, making them nearly glow.

“Who gave it to you, Shadow?” he hissed. “Was it Hollywood again? Or was it that fuckboy flyer who’s been feeding you drinks all night?”

I stared up at him.

It struck me, in that instant between breaths, that he was drunk, and I really wasn’t okay. I wasn’t up to this argument.

I wasn’t even up to answering his question, although some part of me tried.

I tried to think back on when it started, when I first realized something was off. I’d been a little dizzy right before I left my friends. My mind replicated the worried look in Graham’s eyes when I’d rebuffed his offer to accompany me to the loo. My jaw tightened with the effort of thinking, and I had to grip the bannister with both hands now just to keep myself upright.

I glared up at that inhumanly statuesque, gold-painted face, and his significantly harder gold eyes.

“Go away, Bones,” I managed to get out. “Our deal never involved… this. Not my bodyguard. Go back. Back to Elysia…”

“We’re looking for someone who’s trying tokillyou,” he growled back.

I blinked at all the light coming off him, and shook my head. “Thought we were done. Thoughtyouwere done.”

Fury exploded out of him. “It’s not some small, legal, pub-level dose you can blow off this time, Leda. Did you see who put it in? Or not? You might as well tell me, because I’m going to find out. Even if I have to rip it out of those two pricks with my bare hands…”

I struggled to focus on his words, but another wave of dizziness and confusion hit me. My magic rippled out in an unruly cloud. I could see it too clearly; I could see all of it too clearly, and it wiped away everything else. My magic swam around my eyes like a wall of green-tinted gold. It confused my vision, making it difficult to know what to focus on.

His hand caught hold of my arm.

I jerked it away, and nearly stumbled.

“No hands…” I blurted. “You don’t like touching hybrids. Remember?”