Page 19 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Seventeen

B eaufort

My little chat with the professor yesterday has confirmed to me that Dray is wrong. I saw that look in his eyes. There is no way he could fake that. He loves Briony and I don’t believe he’d hurt her – even if, for some perverse reason, he was working with Bardin.

It also confirms what I’ve suspected all along. The Hardies are behind all this; the more I dwell on it, the more certain I am, and somehow they’ve co-opted the Madame into their plans.

I’m still dwelling on it the next morning when we step into the gymnasium. The Hardies are already there, goofing around and being their usual obnoxious selves. An audience of admiring girls giggling as they perform burpees one handed, lift weights and flex their muscles.

They’ve already replaced their thrall, a pretty girl with thick black hair and a sparkling new collar. She’s hanging off Kratos’ arm, feeling his biceps and swooning. It has jealousy swirling in my gut. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to have our thrall dressed in her collar, by my side, for all to see.

It has my blood boiling. Why the hell did I let Tudor persuade me to play nice with these jerks?

I scrub my hand through my hair.

Because I have responsibilities. Because, unlike Dray, I can’t succumb to every pent-up frustration and desire for revenge. I have to be sensible, measured, mature.

But fuck, is that difficult sometimes, especially when I know what they’ve done, when I suspect I know what they’re doing, when Kratos is standing there with a great big smirk on his ugly face.

“Fucking Hardies,” I mutter to Dray whose eyes are focused their way as well.

My bond brother cracks the knuckles of his right hand and cricks his neck to the left. Then he’s strolling across the gymnasium in their direction.

The responsible, measured, and mature thing would be to stop my erratic bond brother. But Dray isn’t the only one feeling pissed off and irritable without our mate around. A tussle with the Hardies – an excuse to scare them a little and reassert our dominance – might be just what I need.

Thorne hasn’t arrived at the gymnasium yet, which is probably just as well. He’s unusually quiet – and this from a man who rarely speaks. I suspect, underneath that silent facade, he may be seething, and I want information from the Hardies, not guts, blood, and teeth. Not yet anyway.

I force that thought away as Kratos yanks his thrall’s hand from his arm and stands tall.

Around him his bond brothers, Prentice and Nathan, do the same and the gaggle of girls, sensing the coming danger, melt away.

The tension rolling off the Hardies’ bodies is palpable and understandable after the beating Dray gave them – one I pretend not to know about.

“Hey boys, what’s up?” Dray asks with his usual air of friendliness. “Having trouble lifting those weights? Need a hand?”

Kratos practically snarls at him and Dray rushes for him. I lift my arm, catching my temperamental bond brother and stopping him in his tracks. Like I said, there will be time later for beating the crap out of these losers. What I want now is answers.

“We want to talk,” I say.

Kratos’ gaze shifts from Dray to me.

“Yeah, about what?” he asks with suspicion.

“The attack on our thrall.”

“From what I understand, she isn’t your thrall,” he says. “In fact, if she wasn’t so damn ugly, we might have considered her as a replacement. But in the end we went with someone more …” He trails off, winking at his new thrall. The girl actually flutters her stupid eyelashes and giggles.

“Jeez, Kratos, you either have a very big death wish or you are as fucking stupid as you look,” Dray says.

I have to laugh at that which obviously has Kratos turning purple. Not that he does anything. He’s always been all talk – there’s very little behind it. That’s why he’d have his thrall attack ours when we weren’t around. It’s sneaky and pathetic,. He doesn’t have the guts to come at us head on.

“How about we cut the crap and you answer some questions I have for you?”

“And if we don’t feel like wasting our time talking with you?” Kratos sneers.

I step closer to him. We’re almost the same height, but I have about an inch on him I reckon.

His build is slightly bigger. However, his magic is like butterflies flitting around in the breeze compared to mine.

I get right up and personal in his face, so close I can smell what he ate for breakfast as well as his thrall’s perfume.

“I understand Dray already made it clear how fucking upset we were about the attack on our thrall. I also understand he went easy on you.”

“Easy on us,” one of the other Hardies mutters.

“Yeah,” I say, “I understand he stayed in his human form. Is that correct, Dray?”

“Absolutely. My wolf is a little more,” he grins, “bloodthirsty.”

Kratos’ gaze flicks back to Dray and I can tell he’s trying to determine whether Dray is serious. The thing is you never can tell – especially as Dray is prone to changing his mind. He’s as reliable as a broken watch.

“Like I told the dog, we weren’t responsible for what happened to your thrall,” he says.

“But your little bitch of a thrall was.”

“She was a little,” his lips twitch, “unstable. Fuck, I miss her.” He glares at me, his new thrall glaring at him.

“The thing is, Kratos. I don’t believe you.”

“We weren’t behind the attack,” Kratos’ bond brother, Nathan, says.

“Now, that I do believe. I don’t think it was your idea. You’re too fucking dumb. I think someone put you up to it.”

“I told you. We had nothing to do with it. Dessy was just a bit crazy like that.”

“Just a bit of fun, huh?” Dray says, jerking his head.

“Yeah, I’m sure she never meant for your thrall to get hurt.”

“And that’s why she beat her half to death, then?” Dray says, big grin hovering on his face, wildness in his eyes.

The new thrall gasps and hurries away to her group of friends. I’m guessing not all news sweeps across this academy.

“Look, Kratos,” I say, straightening the collar of his T-shirt, aware of all the pairs of eyes focused on me around the gymnasium.

“We can do this bullshit, waste all our time, ending with us torturing you to within an inch of your life until you tell us the truth, or we can skip all that bother, and you can tell me now.”

Kratos makes a big show of pressing his lips together, but his friend, Nathan, seems less sure on the torture and pain part.

“For fuck’s sake, Kratos. What the hell does it matter?” He addresses me. “What do you want to know?”

“What I want to know,” I say, “is did you crackpots come up with this genius plan yourselves or did someone else put you up to it?”

Kratos is still refusing to speak but his friend is more than happy to.

“There was no one else behind it.”

“So you came up with the idea to have your thrall kill our thrall all by yourselves?” Dray says.

The dude hesitates, then nods. Kratos glowers at him.

“Wasn’t that fucking stupid? You knew we’d find out it was you,” Dray says, sniffing violently.

“Yeah, but maybe we didn’t care,” Kratos growls, pushing at me.

Immediately, I have my shadows wrapping around his body like a hungry snake, squeezing the very life out of him.

There’s a shocked intake of breath across the gymnasium and I hear Henny’s manic giggling.

Kratos struggles against the confines and I have to confess his powers have grown, I can feel it.

Still not as strong as mine though, so I squeeze him all the tighter, hearing his ribs crack one by one.

He squeals like a pig and Dray chuckles.

His bond brothers look on without emotion.

“If you’re trying to start a war, Kratos,” I whisper, “you’re more stupid than I thought.”

Kratos is too busy groaning in agony to answer me.

“Why did you do it?” I ask the other one.

“Like Kratos said, we wanted to get back at you.”

“Because …”

The guy shrugs like what they did – nearly taking Briony from us – was nothing but a nuisance, not the most heinous of crimes.

Nathan is usually the most quiet of the Hardies with the least to say.

It’s usually Kratos with the big mouth and the big bravado.

I study Nathan’s face. Do I believe him?

His answer puzzles me. He’s as good as admitted that they were the ones responsible for the attack that nearly killed our thrall.

Is that because he has no doubt in his mind that we’d torture the truth out of him anyway?

Or is he lying, and if so, why? To protect the person whose idea it was? There can only be two reasons he’d do that. The person means a lot to the Hardies – unlikely, they’re a bunch of dickheads who care about little more than themselves.

Or they’re afraid of whoever put them up to it.

More afraid of them than us.

I let Kratos fall to the floor, my shadows slithering back into my hand.

I consider what to do next. Torture all three of them until we whittle the truth out of their mangled bodies.

Or wait this out. If they are more afraid of the person pulling the strings than they are of us, it could all be a waste of time.

As much as I hate these dudes, as much as I’d happily see all three of them ten feet under, Tudor was right.

That would be enough provocation to start a civil war.

“You want my wolf to tear them apart, Beau?” Dray says eagerly, and Nathan gulps.

“Nah, not this time,” I say. “But we’ll be keeping a close eye on you boys. A very close eye.”

With Dray by my side, I turn and walk away.

Behind me the floorboard creaks and I know Kratos has staggered to his feet and is coming for us. I lift my hand and catch him in the grasp of my shadows.

“Don’t even fucking dare,” I growl.

The audience around the gymnasium watches in a mixture of horror and rapture as he struggles, hissing and spitting at me, attempting to release his magic and send it my way.

His brother, Prentice, lifts his hands ready to attack, but Dray has seen the threat and has a weight flying across the space and hitting him on the head, knocking him to the ground and groaning in agony, before I’ve blinked an eye.

Nathan backs away with his hands up in surrender.

“Don’t be cute,” I tell the three of them. “You know we could obliterate the three of you with a flick of our magic.”

“For now,” Kratos growls, scrabbling again at the shadows wrapped around his throat, “but you need to watch your backs. We’re getting stronger and then we’re going to come for you.”

“I look forward to that day,” I say, punching my shadows against his face and hearing his nose smash, and then me and Dray are striding to the other side of the gymnasium just as Thorne and the Titan twins enter.

Thorne peers over at the bloodied and busted Hardies and then at us, his face as passive as always.

“They admitted they were behind the attack on Briony in the forest. They say no one put them up to it. But they were lying,” I tell Thorne. “I’m sure of it. Someone put them up to this.”

Dray nods, then turns his gaze away from Thorne and towards me. “But what did Kratos mean – why the hell would he think they’re getting stronger?”

“His magic was more powerful,” I concede reluctantly in a whisper so that none of the other kids in this gymnasium can hear me.

Dray looks at me, then laughs. “Nah,” he says. “That ain’t possible.”

“I’m serious,” I tell them both. “I don’t know how, but he’s gotten stronger.”

“Shit,” Dray says, shaking his head as he rocks up and down on his toes. “I don’t like it.” His gaze slides to mine. “Know what I dislike even more?”

“What?”

“Being apart from our thrall.”

I sigh, scrubbing my hands through my hair.

Yeah, me too. Time I did something about it.