Bitter Brambles (The Ivy Institute #2)

Chapter 15

KAGE

I jolt awake with the fuzziness of a dream still clouding my mind. Briar is heavy in my thoughts, but she always is. Even while slumbering, I can’t escape her. I grab my head, wishing I could remember what woke me but dreading it at the same time. It was definitely a nightmare, but it felt so real.

I look around the room. Being in her bed is the closest I can get to her. Even though she didn’t even sleep on this fucking mattress long, the fabric still touched her skin. The space is bare, and her scent hardly even remains, but I still see the ghost of her everywhere.

The door creaks open, and I bolt upright, my heart thundering in my chest. There’s some small part of me that thinks it’s her, even when I know it’s impossible. Ziv’s large frame comes into view when he swings the wood fully open.

My heart falls, and I drop back to the bed. “What do you want?” I haven’t spoken to him in weeks, not since he tried to use me to kill himself.

“Nothing you can give me, demon,” he mutters but slinks farther into the room. If he tries to touch me again, I’m not sure I’ll have the willpower to stop him. Some days I want to kill him myself, but I know he’s my only hope for getting Briar back. I’ve tried talking to the instructors, even Syrinx, but if they know anything about my creature, they aren’t talking to me.

“Why are you here, fallen?”

“I can’t remember what she smells like.”

His words puncture something in my chest. I’ve had moments when I can’t see her face as clearly or wonder if she really does smell like I remember. They are worse than the times I can’t get the image of her out of my head, or when I think if I round the corner, she will be right there because I’m certain I can scent her. “Yes, you do.” I clear my throat. “She smells like the forest after a rainfall, fresh and a little sweet.”

He nearly falls into the wall before allowing himself to slide down and thump his ass on the floor. I hate that I feel sorry for him, but I do, even when he got to touch her, to bond with her in a way I never will and it’s his fault she’s gone in the first place. I know I’m cursed, but I’m starting to think he is as well.

“She has another mate,” he mutters with his head hanging low. A heartbeat passes, and I think there’s no way I heard him clearly, but the pain in his voice can’t be denied. The nightmare I thought I forgot trickles into my thoughts—my creature with another male. She still doesn’t smile often, but the rawness inside her is healing. She’s moving on and adapting while we do nothing.

“I wonder if he will be the one to keep her safe,” I muse out loud.

“He has a brother here, a shifter, but the male is weak. His name and family lineage along with a very generous donation are the only reasons he was accepted into the Ivy.”

I huff. Can’t anything be easy? This entire time I’ve worried for Briar, I haven’t once considered just how much the gods must have abhorred her to pair her with us—a useless shadow, a fallen God, and now a weak shifter. Surely there’s a reason for her torments we don’t yet see.

“His name is Moros, and he is the next alpha of the Ashcroft Pack.”

I lift my head off the pillow, confused. “An alpha? I don’t understand,” I say. There is a reason the Ivy always wins the Undertaking. They recruit or demand the best novices. Why would they have invited the lesser brother?

“Vyron, his father, is the current alpha of their pack. He is the one who made the deal with Syrinx for his son Eris to come here. Eris seems to think he is the favored son and will be alpha when his brother dies, which was the intent when the alpha was sent to Windsheer to attend Frostburn.”

“Fuck!”

“I doubt he views the arrangement as a punishment now,” Ziv sneers, and it takes a moment for his words and the meaning behind them to sink in. The fallen is talking about the other male and the fact that he is with Briar. My full nightmare comes into focus, allowing me to recall the reason for the dread I felt when I woke up. A bitter laugh escapes my chest.

“What the fuck could you find funny?”

“You, you selfish prick. I would give my life to touch her once, yet you had her and want to be pissed that the Fates chose someone else for her? Someone needs to get off their ass to protect her. Maybe it will be him.” I’m an asshole. I’m just as selfish and pissed as he is, but at least he got to hold her and bond with her the way he was supposed to, so I feel justified rubbing this shit in his face.

“Yeah,” he agrees so softly I barely hear him over the silence of the room. “I also know exactly what I’m missing, and it isn’t just the way she feels wrapped around my dick like you’re implying.”

His words hit close to home, because I was trying to belittle their connection to just a physical one, but I know that’s not the truth. Ziv bonded in two ways I couldn’t or wouldn’t, and it haunts me every moment.

“What do we know about Moros?” I ask after a long stretch of unspoken hushed regrets.

“Not much, but I have a feeling that’s going to change.” Ziv’s comment gives me a glimmer of hope that we will finally have a connection to Briar to find out exactly what’s been going on, because we haven’t been successful as of yet.

MOROS

The first inclination that shit is going downhill is when Mick pulls Briar off to the side of the field and behind one of the barricades used to contain elemental magic where I can’t see just what the fuck he wants with her. It’s bad enough I have to deal with him overseeing her training every day, but the fucker loves trying to assert his position of dominance whenever possible to show me he thinks he’s in charge. I would like nothing more than to kill him most of the time, but on days like today, I want to do it slowly after I cut out his tongue.

When Starla tries to take advantage of me being more than twenty feet from Briar to talk to me, shit only gets worse. Briar doesn’t know about Starla or any of the other females I’ve messed with, and I don’t want her to either, so I’ve been avoiding the aide like the plague, but it seems all my running has finally caught up to me.

“Moros.”

I can’t even stand the way she says my name anymore.

“I’m mated,” I say, voicing the first and only thing that comes to mind other than fuck off .

“Sure.” She can’t meet my eyes when she shrugs her shoulders, but it isn’t like she often did anyway. Starla is a masochist. I never took the time to wonder why before, but things are different now, and I can’t help but see her in a different light. Is she this way because she wants to be, or because it’s the only thing she knows and the only way she was accepted?

This isn’t my problem.

Starla leans in closer than I’m comfortable with, but I don’t pull away. It would seem like a weakness to do so. “Don’t,” I warn.

Her wide eyes dart up to mine, and she mouths, “I have something for you,” before glancing around the room. Relief pushes me to exhale. Maybe this isn’t about her wanting to be fucked and she has information she thinks I’ll want. It’s good to know not ignoring her might pay off, even if I feel like shit for ever touching her.

“Not now,” I warn. “I’ll meet you at our usual spot later.” I suppress a shiver of revulsion at even the thought of the things I did to her.

I hear her shaky inhale before she agrees with a nod then slips out of the sand. I look around me to see who else noticed our chat, and per usual, no one seemed to notice the aide—that is until I look behind me and see a glare directed right at me.

I swallow. If Briar’s tight lips and pinched features tell me anything, it’s that she’s not happy. Oh shit. She turns away from me, throwing her long hair out behind her. My dick that wanted to crawl off my body for ever getting close to Starla is suddenly very interested in getting attention.

The male next to me wrinkles his nose and casts a scowl in my direction. “Fuck off,” I growl, knowing I’m sending out pheromones. My body will do whatever it takes to entice my mate, and reminding her how much she loves the way I smell is one of the simplest.

It’s only when she snaps her head back in my direction that I realize what a fucking mistake that was. She probably thinks I’m reacting to Starla, not her across the room.

Mick dismisses us, to my immediate relief. “Alright, that’s enough for today. Get your sorry asses out of here before I end up killing some of you myself.”

Now I can explain what happened to Briar.

I head toward the main exit, waiting for her like usual, and only start to worry when nearly the entire field is cleared, yet I still haven’t seen my mate. Mick strolls over with too much swagger for someone I could kill so easily. When he clamps his hand on my shoulder and clenches his fingers, I think about how many ways I would rip his throat out. “She’s been gone for five minutes. I guess you didn’t notice her leaving.” He tips his head to one of the other exits then smiles before shoving off me and leaving himself. I let half a heartbeat pass before I sprint for the exit he pointed to.

I frantically search the hall before I come to my senses and actually track her. Her natural scent is slightly off, tinged with the burnt smell of sugar. Damn it, she’s pissed. I consider shifting, thinking we would find her fast, but then I wouldn’t be able to explain when I do. Not surprisingly, I track her straight to one of the bathing rooms on our floor. I hoped she would go to our room, but I accepted this or the tavern could be an option. I’m just glad she didn’t wander off to get lost like she used to.

I knock on the door briefly before trying the knob, only to find it locked. “Briar,” I call through the door. She doesn’t answer, but I hear snickering behind me that dies quickly when I look toward whoever had the nerve to open their mouth. Jeh is walking with two other elites. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, hadn’t even thought about him to tell the truth, but now he’s on my radar.

“Something to say?”

“Nope.” He pops the P to seem unaffected, but I roomed with him for months, so I know him better than that.

“Sure seems like you have something on your mind, Jeh.” I don’t let him walk away with the others who seem more than eager to depart.

He stares at me like I’m a stranger and like he knows me too well at the same time. It’s uncomfortable to say the least. Once the others he was with round a corner, he keeps his voice pitched low and comments, “So I see you’re still talking to Starla,” implying I was doing more than talking with his tone.

“When was that ever your business?” I’m defensive when I should just tell him to get the fuck out of here. I don’t like that he noticed I was speaking to Starla. I didn’t realize he even knew about my arrangement with her in the first place, but this proves he did.

“You can talk to her and not me?” he accuses. Now I see what his problem is. Jeh is jealous—not that he should be for several reasons, the most important being he has no claim on me.

“I can talk to whoever the fuck I want,” I snap.

“Really? It doesn’t seem like it.” He makes a point of looking at the door and my hand still on the locked knob.

I face him fully, but before I can tell him to leave or I’ll make him wish he did, he blurts, “Are you still fucking her?”

Instinct takes over. It doesn’t matter that I once considered him an ally. What matters is how his words will affect Briar. The blow I deliver to the side of his head causes his eyes to widen briefly before his gaze goes utterly flat. He falls to the floor, out cold from the single strike. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.

The door behind me creaks open, and that’s when his actual words dawn on me. There’s no way Briar didn’t hear him, since he wasn’t trying to be quiet. Now I have a lot more to explain. Her eyes go directly down to my feet where Jeh is lying.

“You were that worried about what else he might say?” she asks, sounding deceptively calm.

“No, the damage was done, but he knew better.”

“Clearly, he didn’t.” She arches an eyebrow, looking at me with suspicion. I can’t even blame her.

“She approached me today and told me there was something she needed to tell me. I used Starla for?—”

“Sex,” Briar interrupts.

I take a deep breath, wishing I could deny her accusation, but I can’t, so I just finish my original statement. “Information.”

“Isn’t that convenient? What a multitasker!” Her tone is flippant, but her body language is far from it. Her shoulders are high and stiff, while her arms are wrapped around her middle.

“Let’s go back to the room so we can talk,” I suggest, wanting to give her a much better explanation.

Briar looks around me, and the hardness in her gaze fades a little. “I’m pretty sure you have someone else you need to speak to.”

I turn to see a group of elites in the hall with various expressions of interest on their faces. Damn it! I’m not worried about the consequences because trainees fight, but this will mean my explanation to Briar is going to have to wait.

Mick rounds the corner and comes to an abrupt halt. It’s clear he was already informed there was an issue, because he was nearly in a run before that. Of course it would be this dick.

“What happened here?” He looks directly at me for answers.

“He challenged me,” I reply, which is partly the truth. While his words weren’t a true challenge, the fact that he thought he could speak to me in such a way was.

“Did anyone else witness this?” He looks at Briar then averts his gaze, quickly realizing he won’t find much help there, even pissed at me, because she is my mate. She would protect me, or at least he thinks she would. I find a little comfort in his assumption, because I’m not as confident at the moment.

“We were alone in the hall.”

“I heard raised voices,” someone chimes in. “By the time we got here, Jeh was like that.” He points to the ground.

“He used to be your friend,” Mick says. I never thought of Jeh as such. You don’t make friends in a place like this, you make allegiances and enemies. He was the former, but that was before he tried to come between me and my mate.

“I could have killed him just as easily.” He should realize I did him a favor.

“His pack would expect compensation if you had.”

I laugh at Mick’s warning. “His pack would be welcome to seek it.”

The tutor tilts his head and reassesses me. “Foley may not be happy either. Jeh has potential.”

“I thought so too, but clearly I was wrong.” Admitting I was mistaken isn’t easy, but it brings my point home. We were both misguided to put faith in the other shifter.

“All of you go to your rooms.” Mick makes a point of looking in Briar’s direction again. I glance over my shoulder to see her eyes trained on me. There’s a question in her gaze meant for me. Should I?

“Lock the door. I’ll be there as soon as I’m done.” No matter what it takes to get back to you.

She gives me a slight nod then closes the door without a word to anyone else. When I face Mick again, his expression is wary, as it should be.

Once the hall clears out, he drops the bravado and kicks Jeh in the side. “What did he really do to piss you off?”

“I told you, he challenged me.”

“Bullshit. He worshiped you,” he snorts.

“He tried to make my mate question me, which is just as much of a challenge.”

“That makes a little more sense.” He shakes his head with a disgusted expression. “You’re also going to be the one to explain this shit to Foley,” Mick instructs, but I expected that.

“Fine, let’s just get this over with.”

Mick blows into his hands after closing the heavy door that separates this part of the institute from the trainee wing. The guards stationed near the entrance reset the wards as we make our way to Foley’s office. I’ve had time to think about how to handle this, and the only thing I care about is getting back to Briar quickly. If that takes me apologizing and saying it won’t happen again, so be it. If it was anyone else besides Jeh or another elite, there wouldn’t need to be an explanation at all. The trainees in the dregs kill each other for sport, but the headmaster made it clear he was counting on us to stand together through the games since we are the strongest.

“I wouldn’t mention that Briar had anything to do with this,” Mick mutters softly when Foley’s door comes into view.

“Why?”

“He doesn’t trust her, no one does. People tend to kill the things they can’t control.” He gives me a look that conveys he’s smarter than I originally gave him credit for. “People have been asking about her, important people,” he warns. “I’m trying to keep her out of trouble. You should do the same.”

Mick knocks on the door, announcing our arrival before I can question him further, and I’m smart enough to know it was on purpose.

A small female aide who carries herself much like Starla opens the door with her eyes already cast down to the floor. “Yes?”

“We need to speak with the headmaster.”

“May I tell him who’s calling and what for?”

“Tutor Mick and Moros, a trainee.”

The female backs away with her head bowed before finally spinning to make a hasty retreat deeper into the unit. I don’t dare breathe a word about what Mick said before reaching the door to the office. I’m sure the entire place is monitored, but I do watch the tutor with new interest. What does he know that he isn’t telling me?