Page 64 of Malcroix Bones Academy

He sounded completely frantic.

“It’s too late,” I whispered back, while his ear remained by my lips. “They saw. The whole school saw?”

His head rose sharply. Panic leeched from his shocking, glowing eyes as he stared down, as his mind seemed to switch back on. The look on his face went from open, unquestionably human, to… well, dead-looking, absent of anything I recognized.

All around us, the volume seemed to come back on.

Multiple arms wrapped around the mage sitting on my waist and dragged him roughly off me. His weight left my abdomen so fast, I gasped in shock, and started coughing and choking all over again. That time, nothing seemed to come out but my breath.

That sick, decaying, cloying feeling inside of me had mostly gone.

Everything in my body hurt, though. My lungs hurt, my skin, my stomach, my throat, my heart, my head. My vision had faint sparkles at the corners, and as I stared up at the marble ceiling, watching the golden snake writhe across it, I felt like I might pass out again.

I heard Luc’s voice, Jolie’s, Miranda’s… but Draken’s was by far the loudest.

“What the bloody hell did you do to her, youprick?”the other mage snarled, his voice so filled with rage it barely sounded like him. “What do you do? Were you just going to murder her in front of the entire school? Is that it?”

I heard thuds, flesh and bone on flesh and bone. I tried to speak, to tell them to stop, but it was a minute more before I could force out words.

“Wait,” I gasped. “Wait. It’s fine. I’m fine…”

Then Jolie and Luc were on either side of me, and Darragh by my head. They carefully brought me to a seated position, while Miranda handed me a small glass of the brandy.

I pushed it away.

“No,” I said, hoarse. “Poison.”

Miranda blinked at me, then looked at the glass.

“That’s what did it?” she asked, shocked. “It wasn’t Bones?”

I nodded, then shook my head. “Poison. Don’t drink,” I managed in a rasp. “Don’t.”

Miranda left. She returned a few seconds later with a different glass.

“No.” I shook my head again.

“Drink it,” Miranda urged. “It was checked. With magic. It’s fine. It’s just water.”

After a slight hesitation, I drank it down. It was difficult to swallow, but the water was cool enough to provide some relief.

I turned my head, looking for Draken, and for Caelum Bones. I still didn’t understand what had happened, or how he’d ended up sitting on me, his hand wrapped around my throat.

“What happened?” I asked.

My voice sounded shockingly more normal.

I looked around for Draken and Bones.

“Why?” I asked. “Why did he save me?”

Miranda blinked at me, violet eyes wide, and now perplexed. “Did he?”

I nodded, sure of it. I remembered what he said, how frantic he’d been that I not tell anyone he saved the lowly hybrid, but I pushed his words away. I wasn’t saying heattackedme when I knew he hadn’t, not even if he wanted me to.

Anyway, it was too late for that.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “He saved me.”