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Chapter Forty-Four

F ox

The Princes.

It was inevitable they’d show up. Briony is their thrall. Eventually, they’d track her down, even if I’ve been careful not to tell anyone where she is here. They returned from training exercises today and of course they’d go looking for her. Of course they’d find her missing.

“Little Kitten,” Dray Eros whines, pushing past me to hurry right to the side of her bed. He’s as naked as a newborn baby, not that he seems aware of the fact. “What the fuck happened?”

“Yes,” Beaufort Lincoln growls close to my ear, “what happened?”

I turn my head slowly like I have all the time in the world and meet his glower with my own .

“Are you implying something, Mr. Lincoln?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“I was attacked,” Briony calls over to us, clearly aware of the tension in the room and wanting to defuse it.

“I was jumped. Professor Tudor found me and brought me to the clinic.” Beaufort’s glare becomes more intense like he has several questions, but Briony is still talking.

“But I’m fine now, completely healed. So maybe you could take me back to my room.

” She stares at Thorne Cadieux as if trying to impart some secret message with her eyes.

“She isn’t completely healed,” I say firmly. “The doctor has said she shouldn’t be moved until she deems her well enough.”

Beaufort and Thorne both nod.

“Who attacked her?” Thorne says. His magic is crackling beneath the surface and I can sense from the drawn nature of his brows, he’s struggling to retain it.

“I don’t know,” I say. I glance her way. “And she claims she doesn’t know either.”

“I don’t,” she says. “Torch in my eyes, remember?”

“I have a fair idea,” Dray whispers, stroking a piece of hair away from Briony’s bruised face. He’s perched on the side of her bed, his cock resting on his thigh.

“Can someone get him a fucking gown?” I snap.

But no one moves and Dray gazes over his shoulder and winks at me.

I grind my molars so hard together I’m surprised I don’t crack a tooth.

“How did you find her exactly, Prof.?” Dray asks, suspicion flickering in his eyes.

Involuntarily, my gaze flicks to hers and then away. “I was out in the woods. I heard something.”

“Heard her being attacked?” Beaufort asks, his magic fierce in the air as well. “Didn’t think to intervene to help her?”

“He saved me,” Briony says. “Don’t be a dick, Beaufort.”

I smile to myself. So I’m not the only one she likes giving lip to then? I’m glad she isn’t bowing and scraping and licking their boots.

“What were you doing out in the woods, man?” Dray says, eyes still searching.

Does he know?

Impossible.

Dray Eros is a wolf shifter. I’m surmising it is down to him they found Briony here so quickly. Followed our scents most probably. That doesn’t mean he knows how obsessed I am with her.

Unless, of course, he’s reading it right now in my damn eyes.

“That’s a question I’d like Miss Storm to answer.”

Briony ignores the question, instead, fidgeting with the tube in her arm.

“I really just want to get out of here. Would one of you please go find the doctor so we can make that happen?”

“Probably best the prof does it,” Dray says.

“No,” I say. “I’m staying here.”

“There’s no need. She’s in good hands now,” Beaufort says. “We’ll take good care of her.”

I can’t help snorting at that.

“Something funny, Prof.?” Dray says, with his usual humorous tone, but I can see the threat hovering in his eyes.

“Yes.” I shake my head. “Take good care of her? Because you’ve done such an awesome job. You know, she’d be dead if I hadn’t found her when I did.”

My words cause a silence to sweep across the room like a cold, bitter wind .

Dray springs up from the bed, but Briony grabs his hand before he can lunge forward and Beaufort raises his hand to tell him to be quiet.

“Yeah and we’re very, very thankful for that Professor Tudor,” Beaufort says with a tight smile. “But you can go now.”

“No,” I say. These boys might be used to getting their own way, to ordering people about. Probably including most of the academic staff. But that doesn’t include me.

“No?” Beaufort smiles. “Why the fuck not? Don’t you have lessons to teach?”

I ignore his insolence. “I’m not leaving until I know she is all right.”

“I am all right,” Briony mutters.

“Why?” Beaufort says, stepping forward.

Suddenly, her scent is even stronger in my nose, and her beating heart even louder in my ears. It’s so obvious, so clear. I swear it must be carved across my forehead.

“We will look after her,” Thorne says. I realize I’ve hardly ever heard the kid speak and when I have it’s usually spitting with anger. Today, his words are softer. Fuck, even a little kind.

“Like protectors look after thralls?” I spit. I know how they take advantage of students weaker than they are, in return for a protection they barely provide.

“As if she were our fated mate,” he says.

Dray gasps and Beaufort mutters an obscenity under his breath. “Shit, man, what are you doing …”

But I barely hear his words. My eyes flick between him and Briony.

Fated mate? That can’t be right. That can’t be true.

“It is,” he says and I realize I spoke those last two thoughts out loud. He pulls back his sleeve .

“What is that?” Briony asks.

He paces towards the bed and presents his arm to her. From the distance, I can make out the faintest of marks across his wrists.

Amazement swamps her features. She examines her own wrists but they’re too covered in bruises to see anything even if she did have the markings.

I stagger backwards. “That can’t be right,” I mumble.

“Do you have them too?” she asks Dray and Beaufort, not hearing my comment.

“Nope,” Dray says, “Thorne has beaten us to it.”

She gazes up at Thorne and smiles – it’s a little shy but damn is it pretty.

My stomach moans.

“She doesn’t have the marks,” I snark out, petulantly. “It must be some other girl.”

Thorne shakes his head. “It’s her.”

“Briony?” I ask. Because she must know – she must feel – that it isn’t him. That it isn’t any of them.

But she’s still lost in Thorne’s gaze, oblivious to anything else around her.

“So you see,” Beaufort Lincoln says, stepping in closer and resting his hand on my chest. “She’s ours and we will protect her. You’re no longer needed. You can go.”

“No,” I say again. “I’m not leaving.”

“Why the fuck not?” Dray snaps with annoyance.

“Because she’s my mate too.”