“Are you hurt?” he asked, his relieved sigh making my fingers twitch.
“I’m just sore from earlier,” I said, my brow furrowing. I didn’t want to think about what had sent him rushing into my room at this time of night. “What’s wrong?”
“Get out,” he said, grabbing the towel off the rack beside the tub. He dropped it onto the sink vanity, reached into the tub, and grabbed me beneath my arms when I didn’t move quickly enough.
“Gray!” I protested, smacking his hands away when he set me on my feet on the floor. He paused, glancing down my body and taking in what he hadn’t seen. He’d seen it in bits and pieces, particularly the prime real estate, but I refused to cower or hide as his gaze swept over my body.
“Fuck,” he grunted, shaking his head and reaching for the towel as he gave me one for my hair.
I worked to dry the length of it, shaking it and wincing at the mess it would be the next day with such harsh treatment.
He ran the towel over my shoulders with rushed strokes, dragging it lower over the rest of my body as I tried not to focus on the fact that I was naked with him.
Naked, and we weren’t…
I swallowed. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been another murder,” Gray answered, catching my gaze as the towel froze on my skin. My heart throbbed, pulsing in my chest as I thought about the voice I’d heard.
Calling to me.
“Gray,” I whispered, catching his arm as he turned away. My mouth dropped open silently, the words getting caught in my throat. I couldn’t risk telling him about the voice. What if it had something to do with my bloodline?
He pulled away when I said nothing more, heading for the door to my bedroom. I wrapped the towel around my body and followed, tugging on the pajama shorts and t-shirt that he set out for me.
“There’s something you need to see,” he explained, taking my hand and guiding me to the halls outside my room.
Following behind him, I tried to shove down my rising dread. Students milled in the hall, giving me a passing glance before it darted away at the glare Gray gave them. We hurried down the stairs, taking them as quickly as I dared without risking falling on my face.
My wet hair clung to the side of my face, chilling me to the bone as Gray guided me to the doors. The crowd that surrounded his body had formed in the exact spot Gray and I had sparred earlier in the day, where both our blood had spilled on the ground by the end of the training session.
I didn’t recognize the witch on the ground, but whoever had killed him had cut his throat. Blood covered the grass. The plants ignored it, as it hadn’t been given willingly. I swallowed as the crowd parted, revealing the stone wall of the school behind them.
Blood covered the stone, wedged into the crevices and dripping down the smoother parts of the surface.
Two.
I swallowed, staring at the words as my horror mounted. Gray had wanted me to see it; he’d dragged me here so that I could see the message written in blood.
“Are they counting their victims?” I asked, shoving the panic down in favor of rationale.
Any normal person would need answers. It was a natural assumption, and it still could have been accurate. I swallowed, hoping that was the case. My stare moved away from the body, sweeping over the crowd of observers studying not the body but me. Glaring at my hands as if I was the one who’d cut his throat.
“Before Charlotte Hecate was torn apart and her pieces scattered, she foretold a prophecy of the daughter of two,” Susannah said, stepping up beside me. She looked down into my eyes, and I felt the sweeping analysis of that stare.
My breath caught in my lungs, and I held it there, forcing myself to hold her stare. I hadn’t been around the Covenant since she’d tried to force me into a deep sleep, and I hoped that the last interaction would cover any of my nerves about this conversation.
This was far too close to home.
“What kind of prophecy?” I asked.
I barely knew anything about it, barely understood a single piece of what I was supposedly destined to do. All my father had said was that I needed the bones, that they needed to be returned to our bloodline.
What happened after I found them was a mystery. One I hoped would become clear once I connected with the other half of my magic.
“I hardly think that’s relevant today. The Covenant has done everything in its power to prevent it from coming to pass,” Gray said, scoffing as my blood chilled.
“I should think you’ve played some part in that,” Susannah snapped, finally turning her attention away from me.
I sighed, a tiny bit of my relief slipping loose, allowing Gray to take the focus off me.
“Of course. I have hunted down every male witch who tried to escape making the Choice on your behalf, Covenant.” He fiddled with his nails as if the topic of murdering male witches meant little to him.
I swallowed.
Not every one.
Running my hands over my face, I tried to steer clear of this conversation. But there was one thing I couldn’t ignore.
The opportunity to find out the information I’d been denied all my life. “What kind of prophecy?” I asked.
“Charlotte foretold of a witch born between two bloodlines who would restore what had been lost to time,” Susannah said, clasping her hands in front of her.
“What does that even mean?” I asked, glancing at Gray.
He shrugged. “All manner of things have been lost to time. It could have been anything. Charlotte was… troubled toward the end of her life. The way of things often left her deeply unsettled,” he answered, taking my arm despite the watchful eye of the Covenant. She didn’t seem surprised by the intimate touch as he led me away, heading back toward the school.
We entered through one of the six doors, my feet somehow functioning when I felt like the world had been tilted on its axis.
“Willow, wait!” Della called, following behind us. She caught up with us, walking beside us as Gray led me to my room. She swallowed as she cut in front of us, glancing at Gray and seeming to consider before she continued. “Did you hear it?”
“Hear what?” I asked, my hands clenching.
I didn’t miss the way Gray’s stare dropped to where my arm was looped through his, studying the tension in my body. He was too observant for his own good, and if I hadn’t needed him to find the bones, I’d have been far better off if he simply ceased to be.
Even if the thought of it made my heart hurt in a way I refused to acknowledge. He was my enemy, and when I found the bones, I would send his soul back to Hell where it belonged.
That was how it had to be.
“I heard something calling your name,” she said, swallowing as she looked at Gray. “I think it wanted you to be next.”
I dug my nails into Gray’s skin, forcing a smile. “I thought I was hearing things,” I said, admitting it when left with no other choice. To deny it would just seem odd, would only raise his suspicions, given that I hadn’t been the only one to hear the call. “It felt like compulsion.”