Second Year Setbacks (Hunter Academy Book 2), page 5
Izzy stopped in front of the building for her next class. “I’ll see you later.”
Susie nodded. “Sounds like it.” She walked off and Izzy turned to go into the building. A shiver went down her spine and she turned to look around her. Nothing there but students going into the building. Even though someone had died, it was apparently going to be business as usual today. Except Joey was the only Master she’d seen.
She walked into Professor Belle’s class and froze when she saw Isaac standing there. He turned to her. “Ah, Ms. Sidel, just who I was looking for.”
“Professor Winter, you seem to spend a lot of time looking for me.” The quick response came out of her mouth before she could stop it.
He smiled, but it was a tight, forced smile that almost pushed his lips into a straight line. “My office, please. Classes are canceled today.”
As if to prove his point, her phone went off, and she glanced at the message from the school. “My office, please. I’ll meet you there in a bit once I find Susie.”
Izzy shook her head. “Don’t bother, I’ll text her.” She shot a text to Susie that simply said. “Isaac’s office.”
Isaac nodded. “Head that direction. I have a couple other students I want to contact. I’ll be there soon.”
Izzy hiked her bag up on her shoulder and headed out of the room. Once she knew she was out of view of Isaac, she pulled her phone out and shot Joey a text as well.
She shoved her phone into her pocket and then headed to Isaac’s office. The closer she got to Isaac’s building, the thinner the crowd became. Susie stepped up next to her. “Here we go. Where’s Isaac?”
“He said he needed to gather a couple more students and that he’d meet us at his office.” Izzy shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t choose just us.”
“Yeah, that makes me feel a lot better.” Susie and Izzy walked into the building together.
“Why do you think his office is all the way out here?”
Izzy snorted. “Because he likes his privacy? I honestly have no idea. His office is the only one in his hall, too. Everything else is just rooms that are empty or used as storage.”
She stared at Izzy for a moment.
“What? I had to hide while I was sneaking around last year.”
“Oh yeah, when you and Ayden almost got kicked out.” She laughed. “Shame he’s not here this year.”
Izzy tried not to tense. She’d never told Susie what Joey had told her. “Yeah, I miss him.” The sadness in her voice surprised her.
“You two were close. He didn’t say what was going on?”
“No. Just that he had to leave the Academy.” She stopped in front of Isaac’s door and found it unlocked. She and Susie walked in and sat down in front of the desk.
Izzy noticed he had cleaned all the random papers from before off the desk. The entire office looked like he had cleaned it from top to bottom. Interesting.
Isaac walked in with two other students. One was Crystal, Izzy’s RA from the last year. Crystal’s black hair was pulled up in a tight bun, the ends sticking out here and there showing it wasn’t quite long enough for her to tame completely. She focused her brown eyes on the empty desk. And one was a guy she’d only seen a handful of times on campus. He had short cropped blond hair that betrayed the wild cowlick on the crown of his head.
“Isadora and Susie, you both know Crystal Dunox, and this is her Second-year Skilled partner Sam Dodd.”
Izzy and Susie held up a hand in a ‘hey’ gesture before Crystal and Sam pulled seats up in front of the desk.
“I’ve brought you four here to tell you about a problem we’re having within the Academy.” Isaac sat at the desk and watched the four of them.
“You will help me track down the killer of the Elite they showed on this morning’s news. Each of you shows a strength that I need in this case. Despite the size and importance of the case, the Elder Masters has limited my team size. This is our team, the four of you.”
Izzy interrupted. “Why not choose a team of Masters to go with you?”
“Because they are working on the back end of things. Typically, I would choose Elites to go with me, but as you see, our numbers are low and many of them are off with other cases right now. So that leaves me with Crystal, Sam, and you two.” Isaac motioned to them.
Izzy leaned back in her chair. It should have been the Masters on this, not a handful of Skilled and an Elite. They were a mismatched team, as it was.
“I don’t want to be on the field,” Susie whispered.
All eyes turned to her, and she seemed to straighten up. “I’m not in full control of my wolf yet. That almost cost us on the last mission. I’d rather be in charge of research.”
Isaac considered her for a moment.
“Susie is great at research. She also blends in with the wolves and at the places they frequent. She’s well suited for gathering intel,” Izzy agreed.
Isaac pressed his fingers together. “Very well, Susie will be on research. Izzy, Sam, and Crystal will follow her leads as soon as we have them. We will divide them up between the three of you. Any leads you follow up on, you bring the information back to me. You will not engage whoever you find and risk this mission and your life by going in without backup.”
Izzy’s heart pounded. What on earth did he think they were going to find that they would need backup for?
Of course, whatever it was had taken out several of the Elites. Maybe backup was a good idea.
Izzy sent Joey a quick text as she headed to her dorm. Susie walked with her, staying silent. Izzy was sure that both of their minds were on the task at hand. This was the second time they were being tasked with hunting down whatever was killing the Elites.
“I don’t know where to start.” Susie broke the silence as they walked into the building. “Where do I even start with this sort of thing?”
“With the deaths. We still have the notes from last year, right?”
She nodded. “Never throw away your research. Simply file it in case you need it for later use,” she muttered the first line from the research and tracking curriculum.
“We pull that out and see if we can find some sort of pattern.” Izzy unlocked her dorm room and walked in. She shut the door behind Susie. “It’s the most logical place to start.”
“Then we move out from there on the map.”
“Then we might predict where the killer will strike next.”
She nodded. “I’ll dig in from there.” She put her bag on the bed. “Do you think Isaac is involved with this still?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think, but I really want the answer to that before we go on. I didn’t find anything in his office the other night, and I noticed he cleaned everything up before the meeting.” Izzy sat her bag by her desk. “So he probably knew someone was there.”
“Or he didn’t want us to catch a glimpse of what was going on.”
Izzy shook her head. “There was nothing on the desk that would have made sense to anyone. It was like each paper only had a tidbit of information on it and you’d have to match it up to another sheet.”
“A code?”
“Or just insanity.” Izzy snorted. Her phone rang, and she looked down to see an unknown number. She hit the decline button. Whoever it was could leave a message. She wasn’t in the habit of answering strange numbers.
A second later, Susie’s phone rang, and she looked down at it. “Unknown.”
“Mine just rang with an unknown as well. I just sent it to voice mail.”
Susie debated for a moment. “It could be a pack member.”
“If you want to, answer.” Izzy sat in her desk chair while Susie sat on the bed.
She answered her phone. “Susie speaking.” She uh huhed a few times and nodded even though the person on the other end couldn’t see her.
Izzy sat there and waited.
“Yes, I understand. I’ll give her the message.” She hung up and looked at Izzy. “That was a Detective Sanders? He said that he was trying to get a hold of you with something important about your parent’s death. Sounds like a scam.”
Izzy took a moment to process what Susie had said. “He got a hold of me last year, and I told him to back off and not go down that road.”
“Apparently he didn’t listen.”
Izzy sighed. “Apparently not. I have his number somewhere. I’ll call him back eventually. Right now, I want to settle into research and homework. I have a paper to write on vampires and the importance of their bonded humans.” Izzy wrinkled her nose. “I’ll have to hit up the library to get some information.”
“Bonded humans sounds like another term for slave.”
Izzy had to agree. All the information about bonded humans in their textbook painted it as a non-consensual bond between a vampire and a human. Occasionally she’d seen mention of the vampires taking a lover as their bonded human. She was sure the library had more documentation on it than the textbook.
“You get to work on that, and I’ll dig out the research from last year.”
“Perfect.” Izzy turned to her computer to get to work.
The moment the sun set, Lucius took Tegan to see her brother. The crypt was in a graveyard within Lucius’ property. It was older than his mansion, and there had been no real mention of it when he bought the land. Gravestones marked families from the early 1800s with names long worn off. The crypt where they kept Zaaren in had been built but never occupied. It was the perfect spot to hide Zaaren and keep him safe, but still have him close enough to know if he woke.
Tegan stepped up to the door and frowned. “Something’s different.”
“Do you think he’s waking?” Lucius stepped up behind her.
“I don’t know.” She pushed opened the door of the crypt and walked in. Taking a moment, she lit the candles that stood in the corners.
Zaaren’s coffin laid on the platform. Lucius looked over the plain pine box as Tegan made her way to it. She lifted the lid and looked down at her brother.
His hair was the same white as hers, and when he woke his eyes would be the same red. The effects of him interrupting the spell that the witches were casting on Tegan. Lucius hadn’t been there, but he’d seen the nightmares in Tegan’s mind from that night. “He looks peaceful.”
Tegan nodded. “But I can feel him. He’ll be waking soon.” There was something in her voice that Lucius couldn’t figure out.
“You’re still angry with him?” He asked. “Three-hundred years later?”
“He left me with the Circle, Lucius, and went to sleep. If Orion hadn’t found me, I’d still be with them.” She swallowed. “You’d feel every moment of my pain there because the Circle would not allow you on their territory.”
Lucius put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t dwell on it. You and Zaaren can discuss it when he wakes.”
She nodded. “We need your people and wolves around the grave. Food too.”
Lucius nodded. “I’ll make sure he’s well fed before you see him.”
“Good, because I don’t want to see him in his bloodlust.” She turned away from the coffin and left the crypt. Lucius looked down at Zaaren. “She is still pissed off at you. I hope you have a good excuse when you wake.”
Lucius took the time to blow out the candles and close the crypt before he went to find Tegan.
She was standing at another grave, a sneer on her face. “Why didn’t we just stake him?”
Lucius could feel the vampire in the grave. Wrapped in silver chains and encased in a silver coffin, the vampire wasn’t escaping soon. “Because there’s a human attached to him somewhere, and I don’t want to take an innocent life.”
She glanced at him. “My brother would have staked him.”
“Your brother lost a lot of his compassion over the centuries.” Lucius chuckled. “Come on, I’m sure Orion needs your help at the bar.”
She smiled. “Yeah.” He put her hand on her shoulder and then took her to the bar.
Orion stood there talking to the independent Hunter that had been there the night before.
“Mae, what brings you back here?” Lucius approached her.
Tegan scurried off to the bar, looking at her phone the whole time. He assumed she was sending a text message to the Keepers about Zaaren.
Mae crossed her arms, cradling her chest. Lucius forced himself to raise his eyes and meet her gaze.
He wanted to steal her away that moment. Bring her into his world. The urge was strong enough that his fangs ached.
“I’m coming back to talk to the other employees to see if they’ve heard from Josh.”
Lucius shook his head. “You’re not…” He hesitated in his words. He wanted to tell her she wasn’t welcomed here, but he couldn’t bring himself to send his mate away.
Tegan looked at him with a raised brow, and he knew she was catching on to his feelings. “You’re not welcomed here, Mae. You’re upsetting my patrons and my employees.”
Mae stepped up into Tegan’s face. “You’re hiding something.”
Tegan laughed. “Get out.”
Mae spun on her heels and marched out of the club. Tegan looked at Lucius and he knew he was in trouble with her because he could feel her reach out through their link.
“She’s your mate.”
“Yes, that stays between us.”
She shut the link off and went to the bar, grumbling to herself. He sighed and took himself back home to contemplate what he wanted to do about the panther. He needed to get her tonight if he didn’t want her to disappear again.
Ayden waited in Joey’s office for the Master Hunter. When the door open, Ayden sat up in the chair and saw Joey walk in. “About time.”
“Sorry, I had a meeting with an Elder Hunter that ran long.” He held his hand out. “The information?”
Ayden handed him a copy of the file. “Look, where I got this information is of no interest to you, but I need you to know that Lucius is well aware of what is going on. You might try working with him instead of against him.”
“We don’t involve Lucius unless we have to. We can’t trust him to work with us.”
Ayden bit his tongue. If only the modern Hunting Society knew that they used to work side by side with the vampires. “There’s also an independent Hunter looking into it in Florida. Once I drop off the recent information to her, I’m going back to Ireland.”
“Good, I don’t like you around here. I know you’re trying to help, but you need to stay away from the Academy. Isaac is too smart not to know who you are. And if you associate with Izzy, you’ll get her kicked out too. Isadora needs to stay here.”
Ayden frowned. “Why?”
“Because it’s safer here where I can keep an eye on her than out in the field or being an independent Hunter. I don’t know how much you know about Marcus, but he’ll see Izzy as a loose string. He’ll want to take her out.”
Ayden tried not to think of the situations where he’d dealt with Marcus. The vampire was terrifying, and Joey wasn’t wrong about tying up loose ends. “Why do you know that?”
“He’s been lurking around her old house. I got a call from the family that bought it that their security cameras caught a someone lurking around.”
Ayden’s heart sank. “The Circle really is in the states then.” The words slipped out of his mouth before he could catch it.
“Markus is Circle?” Joey’s eyes widened. “Does Izzy know?”
“I don’t know. We never discussed it because I kept my vampire knowledge to myself, remember?” Ayden snapped. “You have to warn her. If she goes after him, then she’ll have the entire Circle after her.”
“But it would be the Hunting Society’s chance to know who else is part of the Circle.”
Ayden tried to keep his anger in. “Are you thinking about using her as bait?”
“No, I’m not. I wouldn’t do that to Izzy. I’m thinking more of weighing our options.”
Ayden doubted that. If Joey thought Izzy’s connection to Markus could out the rest of the Circle members, then he wouldn’t put it past the Master Hunter to use Izzy as bait.
“Of course, you know who all the members are, don’t you?” Joey crossed his arms.
Ayden felt a pressure in his head. “No. I don’t. Now, get your creepy powers out of my head. I gave you the information, and I believe the deal was that I needed to leave after that.” He pushed away from the desk. “I hope Izzy is staying out of trouble.”
“She is. Have a safe trip back to Florida.” Joey opened the door. “Straight to your car, Ayden. I’ll know if you stop to see Izzy.”
He had no intentions of sneaking off to see Izzy. He didn’t want to break her heart again. “Understood.” Ayden walked out and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up. He didn’t want anyone spotting him either.
He made his way across campus to his parking spot, stopping for a moment to look up at the dorm rooms. A couple lights dotted the windows around the building, and he wondered if Izzy’s was one of them, up late studying for her classes the next day or wasting time instead of sleeping.
He shook his head and went to the car. There was no need to dwell on something that wasn’t going to happen. They were a world apart in many ways. If her family had kept up on being Keepers, then maybe something could have happened between them.
He snorted. Maybe, even then, Keepers weren’t supposed to hang around each other in case the Circle wanted to take them out. He climbed into the car and turned the engine. He’d head back tonight and prepare to go to James’ party with Harper, and then he could return home. Maybe Nuala would show signs of waking as well. One could hope.
CHAPTER SIX
Lucius approached the house, trying to keep his steps silent. He knew two things, an injured Kassity was in the house. The smell of her blood lingered in the air. And this was Mae’s house. He could smell her scent everywhere and it drove him wild. A moment later Josh appeared on the steps of the house. He walked in and Lucius growled. Mae was working with him. His mate was betraying him.
