Page 30 of Savage Elites

With no willing witnesses or proof that I hadn’t forced alcohol down my own throat at the initiation, I expected that an intelligent lawyer might get the Crown Prosecution Service to drop the case.

“No.” The word came out an elongated groan.

“What do you think it’s about?” Cormac crossed the room and crouched at my side. He balanced one hand on the edge of the desk and the other on the back of my desk chair.

I gazed down into his concerned eyes. “Bianca approached me the other day, furious that she had to give the police genetic samples. When she couldn’t convince me to drop the case, she offered to tell me who had tried to kill me.”

His brows drew together. “If anyone tried to kill you, it was her.” His gaze flickered to Ashley’s empty bed. “Or…”

A shudder ran down my spine. “Not even Ashley could be that wicked.”

Cormac broke eye contact. Probably because he didn’t have the heart to tell me he thought I was being optimistically naive. “What did Bianca say exactly?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to repeat it.”

“What?” He pulled himself to his feet and placed a hand on my shoulder. “If it was something dangerous, you need to tell—”

“I-it wasn’t,” I blurted. “And I told her it was out of the question.”

Cormac stared down into my eyes, silently urging me to continue.

I ran a hand over my brow. “She wanted me to play the pull-a-pig game with you as the victim.”

His face twisted into a rictus of rage, and his nostrils flared.

My heart galloped a panicked beat, and I scrambled to my feet. “I refused to do—”

“No.” He raised a hand. “I’m not blaming you. Just… shocked that she’d go so far.”

“I don’t know why. Bianca is capable of anything.”

He gave his head one of those shakes a dog would make when they’d just come out of the water. All the anger disappeared, and his face softened back into its usual pleasant expression. “You’re right. I came to ask if you were thirsty.”

“I’ll make you a cuppa.”

He grinned. “I wasn’t trying to trick you into making the tea.”

“Come on.” I looped my arm through his. “Let’s go upstairs.”

The scholars’ common room was only a quarter-full, with a few first years crowded around a third-year girl with pink glasses playing chess in the corner against a boy in our year. The girl was some kind of prodigy. I longed to watch the game, but I hadn’t spent much time with Cormac since the auburn-haired twins had made those snide comments about us needing to kiss each other.

Cormac reached the counter at the end of the room and hovered his hands over the two boxes of tea. “Earl Grey or English breakfast?”

“I’ll make it.” I reached for the box of English breakfast, which he preferred, and placed a teabag in two clean mugs.

“Then you’ll think I called you out here to be my charlady.” He poured an unholy amount of milk in each mug then added boiling water from the kettle. “You know, Corrine used to make fun of me all the time. She said I couldn’t make a cup of tea to save my life.”

I glanced at the pale drinks. “She might have had a point.”

Cormac bumped me on the shoulder. “You’re just saying that.”

“Do you need another teabag? This is more like watered-down milk than tea.”

He beamed, and the expression made my heartache. I expected that his sister always complained bitterly about his tea-making skills.

We sat side-by-side on a threadbare sofa, enjoying our tea. Cormac balanced a plate of chocolate hob-nobs on his lap and kept nudging me in the side to take one. I shook my head. Since Mom and Dad died, I’d lost my appetite for chocolate.

Maybe it was because Mom and I used to buy bars of Dairy Milk and dip them in our tea. I wasn’t ready for another reminder of what I had lost.