Page 85 of Bound to Three Fae Beasts

“Go.”

I slipped past him and headed out, unsteady. A shape-thief could hold multiple mate-bonds. I had two. Just two. Seb and Jasper. This thing I felt toward Gareth was nothing more than self-preservation. He was a hunter, and he was hunting me, even if he didn’t know it yet.

When he found out? Well. When he found out, I hoped I didn’t see him coming.

Chapter 37 - Azriel

I wasn’t sure if sleeping with Jasper was a mistake or not, but the days afterward, I refused to regret it. That desperate need that had driven me to him cooled, though it didn’t go away entirely. My grief took its place as the dominant emotion, and I used that grief to push me into better training. I spent more time with Silas and Freta, working hard to bring our grades up in our classes.

Instead of reading up on shape-thieves, I researched how to get Silas’s beast form to manifest and how to strengthen Freta’s badger. I was determined to do everything I could to protect them and get them through the Academy alive.

“You should resume your mentoring lessons with Seb,” Freta told me one evening.

“Don’t worry about me. My beast is stronger than ever,” I assured her, and that was true.

I’d gained enough control over the wolf that I didn’t have to keep skimming it from Seb, and when I inspected myself in the mirror, I didn’t have the same tells as before. I even held it in front of my friends for long lengths of time without worrying they’d see anything wrong with it.

Freta shook her head, her mouth pulling tight. “It’s not just that. I told you, you need to do whatever you should do to gain the upper hand. Seb—”

“I don’t think Seb wants much to do with me right now,” I interrupted. I hadn’t told her or Silas about Seb fingering me. Just remembering it made my core tighten with longing. If Flora hadn’t interrupted, would it have been him, not Jasper, that I went to after Penry’s death?

Silas’s gaze was concerned as he pretended to read across the room. “Is there anything you need to tell us?”

I hesitated. Then I shook my head. If they knew I slept with Jasper, would they be punished for not reporting it? I wasn’t going to take that risk. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be fine.”

Classes were tough, especially since nobody acknowledged the dead. Sometimes I wanted to scream at our teachers for being so callous, but what good would it do?

Instead, I focused my energy on studying, helping my friends, and nighttime spying. I was getting better at skimming forms and invisibility, and I used these powers to get close to the high fae students and learn more about them, their weaknesses, and how to blackmail them into making them help us. I got enough dirt on a fourth-level student that he gave me all of potions he made, even as he threatened to break my neck the moment school was out.

Everything I learned, I passed on to my friends.

“How are you learning all of this?” Silas inspected the potions I’d brought back. “And how did you get so many all at once? I thought we agreed to lay off stealing after what happened to Poppy.”

Another first-level student had transfigured herself into a toad after drinking a wrongly-labeled potion. The upper-level students were setting more traps for those of us who were swiping their potions.

“I didn’t steal them. I was given them after finding out some very interesting information,” I answered smugly.

Silas put down the potion and turned to me. Suspicion glowed in his eyes, something that made my stomach drop. What was he suspicious of? “How are you finding out all of this information, Z?”

“You know I can be invisible,” I hedged.

“Yeah, but this is … a lot. People just happen to be talking about their dark secrets when you’re around?” Silas’s brow furrowed.

“Look, I’m just getting lucky. I’m doing my best to keep us all alive,” I insisted. The truth was, I was using my invisibility to get enough information to open the door, then I skimmed the form of someone close to my target and talked with them about these things, and that’s how I got the information.

How would Silas and Freta react if they knew the truth about me? I didn’t ever want to find out. Jasper had all but admitted he knew my secret, but he didn’t seem to care. Maybe it was his revenge against the fae for what they did and planned to do to him. Maybe he thought the tradeoff of having someone willing to sleep with him was worth the risks to himself.

Or maybe it was the mate-bond, driving him to protect me despite what I was.

“Z, I’m just worried about you,” Silas said, lowering his voice. “You haven’t been acting like yourself. Ever since Penry, you’ve been … almost unhinged. You’ve been acting like you don’t care if you live or die. What risks are you taking?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I answered, hardening my voice.

He opened his mouth to argue again, but Freta grabbed his arm. “Silas, Z knows what she’s doing.”

My gaze lingered on the place her hand touched as a surge of jealousy shot through me. I quickly busied myself identifying the potions I’d gotten. What was with the jealousy? Freta trusted me completely, which made it all the worse.

If my secret came out, would anyone care that Silas and Freta didn’t actually know I was a shape-thief? Or would they just be punished for it anyway?