Rejected Academy, page 10
“We all choose our paths here,” he tells me calmly. “There is no punishment. We all understand the rules and we abide by them. But, most of those rules apply to some of us, and not to others.”
He speaks cryptically, but I think I know what he’s referring to. He doesn’t want to point the finger of blame and call me a liar. He wants me to admit that on my own. Why is everything in this place hard to do?
“I’ve broken a rule that was mine to obey,” I look down as I speak. He is silent, waiting for me continue, to tell him everything, and I feel the strangest urge to do so, as if that will somehow make everything just a tad little bit better. “I went to the outskirts of the Wailing Woods to pick flowers for Willow.”
“I have seen that bouquet,” he nods. “It is lovely. But, was it worth the risk?”
“I guess not,” I admit. “Also, I put others at risk here. I am more sorry for that.”
“Spoken like a true member of the pack,” he smiles, and I see no judgment in his gaze, for which I’m grateful. Then, he tells me the words that all of us want to hear at some point in our lives, even if that isn’t true. “It’s all right.”
He takes my hand into his. The touch feels warm, reassuring. This truly is a place of forgiveness, understanding and sympathy. Little by little, I see why someone would want to stay here indefinitely and not go back to the outside world where insecurity and fear rule. Here, life makes sense because it is all about forgiveness. But, I guess for some forgiveness comes easier than for others.
“As for the bird you found... it is a warning,” he tells me something I’ve already sensed, only on a subconscious level. Why would I have taken it with me otherwise?
“A warning?” My throat dries up, as the cold claw of fear taps me on the back. “About what?”
“Birds are considered messengers,” he explains, letting go of my hand. “Some birds, like the dove or the eagle, represent symbols and messages of peace. Others, like the vulture or the raven are called the Angels of Death. The fact that someone left a dead raven by our doorstep, meant for you to find, means that death is near.”
“But, why would that someone tear off the poor bird’s beak?”
“Because the bird mustn’t speak. And, neither must you.”
“Speak?” I frown. “About what?”
He shrugs. “A secret of some sorts. Isn’t that the only thing one cannot speak of?”
“But, I don’t know any secrets.”
“So, you think, but someone is certain that you know something.”
“And, they’ll kill me for it?”
“Not as long as you are here,” he assures me gently. “There is magical protection on this place, which is keeping us safe. As you can see, the bird was left on the outer side of the door. Whoever left it there knew that was as far as he could go. I would advise you not to leave the Hermitage in the next several days, just until we see what is happening and if there really is any threat behind this.”
“That means I can’t go mushroom picking with Stefan and Vlad?” I ask.
“That would be the best for now, yes,” he nods.
I don’t like it, but the only thing I can do is agree. Also, I’ve heard of this magical protection, but I thought that it belonged to the olden times. Taarus must be special to still have permission to use the light magic to keep this place safe.
But, before I can ask him anything else, he is already up and headed for the door. He turns to me, then hesitates. I sense there is more to this conversation than he wants to tell me right now.
“Good night, Ecaterina,” he finally whispers, then disappears.
I inhale deeply, wondering what my next step could be. I have no idea, because honestly, I have no idea what is going on. I just received a warning to keep quiet about something. But, what?
I tiptoe back to my room, but all I manage to do is stare at the ceiling, until the first morning light illuminates the darkness around me.
Chapter 16
Cat
I only manage to fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, so I skip breakfast. At around noon, I am woken up by a knock on the door. I roll my eyes at whoever it is on the other side. I was told that I wouldn’t need to go mushroom picking, so I figured I’d go help out Willow in the kitchen when I get up. However, now it’s seems there’s a rush of some sort.
“Yes?” I call out, my voice still raspy.
“Can I come in?”
I recognize Stefan’s voice immediately. I quickly get up and sit on the bed, leaning onto the pillow. I don’t know what he wants, but somehow, I want to find out.
“Uhm, yeah, come in,” I reply, and instantly the door opens.
The first thing I sense is his scent. Musky. Muscular. Manly. It’s filling my chest, my nostrils, my insides like cologne. I meet his steel blue eyes, and it seems to me that he senses my scent, too. It is just the nature of the wolf. That is how wolves recognize each other. The eyes can always lie, but the nose never.
My eyelids flutter open at him, as he tries a slightly awkward smile. Still, it looks amazing. He flashes a row of those pearly whites and all I can do is just smile in return. It’s incredible how weak-kneed someone’s smile can make you, someone you’ve been trying hard not to think about, and yet, this makes you think about them even more. I’ve been all about contradictions these days.
“Are you alright?” he asks softly instead of a greeting. “Your leg?”
“It’s fine,” I glance down at my feet, still hiding under the covers.
I can’t take my eyes off of him, while all my instincts tell me to look away. His raven black hair is parted to the side, but those eyes... I can’t seem to get enough of them. They appear as if they can see right through me, through any wall I’ve tried to build around myself, refusing to let anyone in.
I’ve lost all those I loved. I’ve lost a home. I’m too vulnerable to even consider getting close or attaching myself to someone. My mind knows this very well, but my heart is pretending like it doesn’t.
“I just couldn’t sleep last night,” I shrug, trying to sound casual. “I spent the whole night at the library.”
“With Taarus?” he suddenly asks.
“Uhm, yes,” I nod, blinking up at him. “How did you know?”
“Taarus spends most of his nights at the library, reading the book of Thoth.”
“When does he sleep then?” I wonder.
“There was a point in the past when I doubted he even slept at all,” he confided. “But, of course, he sleeps. We all do. He just needs less than the rest of us. Much less. Did you want to talk to him about something?”
My instinct urges me to dig more deeply into this. I feel like he knows more than he’s saying but doesn’t want to ask questions directly. The book of Thoth is something all shifters are familiar with, but mainly the basics. We know what it is and what it can do. We also know that it needs to be kept safe from evil hands, because all hell could break loose if the book is lost or used for evil purposes.
“No,” I shake my head. “I told you, I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d just go to the library and read something until sleep comes.”
“I see,” he replies, but I still see that hesitation and confusion crackling away in the air between us. “I... I have to tell you something.”
“Tell me what?” I watch his jaw tighten, as curiosity rises inside of me.
I can hear my own heartbeat, my inhales and exhales, as I wait. His eyes are on me, drinking me in. What is this effect he has on me?
I tried my best to keep him at a distance. I tried not thinking about him. I even tried being quiet around him, just so we wouldn’t get closer, but it seems that fate had different plans. It keeps bringing us together no matter how hard we try to stay apart.
“I followed you yesterday,” he says it while clearing his throat, so I almost didn’t hear him properly. But, I know what that means. He’s seen everything.
“You... but, why?” I wonder.
“I saw you sneak out the main entrance,” he explains. “And, I knew from the look on your face that you weren’t going to do something smart, but exactly the opposite.”
I pout. “I don’t need to be looked after, you know. I’m a big girl who can take pretty good care of herself.”
“While you are here, consider yourself protected by all of us,” he corrects me. “It’s not just you I would have protected. I would have gone after anyone with the same look on their face.”
A part of me doesn’t like that he’s comparing me to everyone else. That means that he doesn’t consider me special in any way. I’m just like the rest of them. I feel even a little insulted, although I’m not supposed to be. I keep reminding myself that this man doesn’t owe me anything, neither do I owe him. So, why does it feel that there is some inexplicable connection between us every time he sends that steel blue gaze my way?
“I also saw the bird,” he adds silently.
“You did?” I’m taken a little aback, but it does make sense. If he followed me to the outer edge of the Wailing Woods and back, then of course he saw me pick up the dead raven.
“Was that what you went to talk to Taarus about?”
“Yes,” I admit. “But, I wasn’t lying about the sleeping part. I really wasn’t able to sleep.”
“I believe you,” he nods, and for some reason, I appreciate knowing that he’s on my side, and not here to tell me what a stupid thing I’ve done. I know that myself. I don’t need to be reminded of it. “I suppose he explained what the meaning of the bird is.”
“He did,” I confirm, shifting a little in the bed, and considering even getting out, but instead I stay where I am. The covers are providing some kind of a physical barrier, as if such a thing is necessary.
His presence, and more so his closeness is waking up all sorts of confusing emotions inside of me. I want to run to the window and open it, to allow in the smells from the outside, just so I won’t have to smell his fragrance any longer. It confuses me. It makes me want to get closer to him and pull away at the same time.
“And, I’m going to tell you exactly what I told him,” I continue, in hopes of keeping distance from him, although it’s becoming increasingly difficult, “I don’t have any secrets that I’m keeping. Maybe it was meant for someone else.”
“Such things are never mistaken,” he shakes his head at me. “They reach those they are supposed to reach.”
The way he looks at me both exhilarates and frightens me at the same time. I see a magic in those eyes the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The wolf inside of me reacts instantly. I feel a surge of need, of want and my energy is overflowing. I try to calm it down, but it’s almost impossible.
“Then, I must be stupid or something because I must know something I don’t even know, I know,” I say feeling ridiculous, but it’s worth it, because he smiles, and the tension is slightly less tangible.
Before, I doubted Stefan even knew how to smile, but making a fool of yourself is bound to make anyone smile. In the end, it’s worth it, because his smile is like the sun, warm and overpowering.
“That can mean only one thing,” he says mysteriously, his eyes burning with a strange fire.
“What is that?” I wonder, curiously.
“It means that you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do.”
I nod. I mean, I don’t want to insult him or make him angry, but he didn’t tell me anything new.
“Isn’t that the case with everyone?”
“Not everyone was given a dead bird for a warning,” he reminds me of something I doubt I’ll ever forget.
“Now you sound like Vlad,” I frown.
“I can’t keep his bad influence at bay all the time, now can I?” he smiles.
I’ve never seen him like this, casual and even joking. Still, I can tell that beneath all this nonchalance lies something grave, something he’s not telling me yet or maybe something I myself am not aware of. It feels like an ominous cloud that has been following me from the place I once considered a home, all the way here. I can see it in the distance, but it is still too far away for it to pose any serious threat. Now that I have received a very tangible threat, perhaps that cloud might be bringing forth a storm sooner than I thought it would.
“You are here, in the best place to get to know yourself, Cat,” he continues. “You need to understand the inner workings of your mind and heart, how you love, how you hate, how you experience happiness and grief, and even the things which might cause you pain to remember them.”
A jolt of ache rushes through me and I immediately remember my father. I lower my gaze, because I feel if I look at Stefan, he will be able to see right through me. I still haven’t reached that stage when I am comfortable talking about my past. I don’t know if I ever will be. I suppose these things come in time. The past hurts less the more time passes. It’s a life’s truth. Only, it is easier said than done, waiting for the pain to lessen.
“It is no shame to feel pain,” he tells me softly. It is then I raise my eyes to his and see for the first time that he is speaking from experience. He knows what it feels like to lose someone dear, someone close. “We’ve all lost someone we loved.”
“Even you?” I ask, although I already know the answer. I am asking merely because I want to continue this conversation, as this is the closest I’ve felt to him since I’ve met him.
Strangely, I want to be even closer to him. He frightens me and thrills me at the same time. I want to know what makes him tick.
“All of us have,” he nods.
The look on his face tells me that we’ve crossed over from casual chitchat into very serious territory. A part of me knows it might be an imposition to ask about his loss. Then, I remember that he knows all about mine. So, if it isn’t anything to be ashamed of, then he could share it with me.
“What happened?” I ask, before my brain can turn on the smartest of my grey cells.
I wasn’t supposed to ask. I feel like a curious little child who has no idea where to draw the line. Sometimes, that is all I am. But, it’s children who always ask the most innocent questions, without any pretense. Their minds and hearts are pure. Maybe there is still the remnant of that pure child somewhere inside of me, aching to get out.
He lifts his gaze to mine, and his startlingly blue eyes seem cold. For a moment, I believe that he won’t talk to me ever again, that he will just get up and leave, without a single word. But, his lips part and the words start spilling out of him like a waterfall.
“It’s a story as old as time,” he starts. “A greedy leader who didn’t care about his clan and the uprising that followed, which cost us far more than we were expecting. We underestimated his strength. We didn’t know that he had access to the dark magic, and that it was the source of his true power. None of our wolves could even touch him. He killed many of us. The rest of us were outcast, because he knew that if we stayed there, we would eventually find a way to kill him.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I don’t think so,” he shakes his head. “I don’t think about him at all. He belongs to another life I used to live, one I don’t want to go back to.”
“At least you managed to escape with your brother,” I remind him of the silver lining.
“He found his way out himself,” he explains. “We separated on the very night of the escape, and I honestly believed I would never see him again. Fortunately, I was wrong. But, that is not the reason I can’t sleep at night.”
“What is the reason then?” I sense a menacing truth rising to the surface.
“Xena.”
The sound of a woman’s name immediately makes my heart react in a way I don’t like, in a way I think is inappropriate for the situation. I shouldn’t be jealous. I shouldn’t. And, yet I am and there is not a damn thing I can do about it.
I want to ask who she is. I want to know all about this mystery woman who still keeps Stefan awake, but I don’t. My green-eyed monster chooses to be patient and to allow him to tell the story on his own terms.
“She was my mate,” he says, and the green-eyed monster roars inside of me. Has he bonded with her? If he has, then he is off limits. “We didn’t bond yet, but we were planning to during her first shift.”
I always considered that pretty unfair. Men get to shift as many times as they’d like, choosing their mate only when they are ready. Women on the other hand need to make that choice the first time they shift. It’s an old tradition, and an overly patriarchal one, but no one seems to challenge it and it just keeps on going.
Once again I remember the man I almost bonded myself to. Tidus. That piece of shit who was too busy saving his own ass, even if that meant throwing me to the wolves. Literally. I can’t imagine I ever wanted such a coward for a mate. I make a conscious effort to come back to the present moment and the man before me. How different he is than Tidus, how much braver. The two men couldn’t be compared for the simple fact that Tidus wasn’t a man at all. He was a mere boy disguised in the body of a young man.
“She was by my side when we decided to leave,” he continues. “We only had the light of the moon to go by. We waded through the river, all the time I held her by the hand, I wouldn’t let go, although it was difficult for her to keep up. But, we had to keep going, because if we got caught, we would both die. We went through the Wailing Woods, and finally reached the Malefic Mountains. She was exhausted. We couldn’t stop to rest, not until we were here safely. So, I pushed her to keep on going.”
He pauses, and I sense that this is where the story becomes difficult to tell. My heart feels his burden, because it is the same. It feels like someone ripped out a part of our insides and threw it out on the dirt, with you knowing that you will never be able to take it back. So, I allow him to take his time.
“We started climbing the mountain, up the path. You remember it?”
“Yes,” I nod.
I almost slipped and fell into the gorge. That was the second time I felt like I’d cheated death. But, I keep this to myself.
