“Don't antagonize the others,” I warned and he nodded, his smile fading slightly as I handed over a spirit charm for him to slip around his neck. I didn't think he was the type, but I figured better safe than sorry. “And the, uh, mate thing, I'll …”
“Get back to me when you're ready,” Vex said, stepping up close to me, handsome as hell in a borrowed white undershirt and a pair of Air's unbuttoned breeches. Vex was far too big to close them up properly, but gods above and below, did he look good. “Let's just … go try this spell, shall we?” I nodded and turned toward the door, pausing when Vexer put his arms around me and whispered in my ear. “Does it make me a bad man that I'm hoping it never works? I just want you to be safe.”
I shook my head and opened the door—to find Jasinda standing there staring at me with wide, wide eyes.
“Everything is set up,” she said slowly, almost like she wasn't sure quite what to say to me. “Trubble told me you wanted to try the spell so …”
“I do,” I said with a sharp nod. Because I was about two hundred percent certain the spell was going to fail the first thousand times we tried it. Why not start with the first dud?
“Brynn,” Jas said, grabbing my arm and yanking me down the hall away from Vexer. “Did you just do what I think you just did?”
“Uh, what?” I asked as we started down the stairs and I wondered what Eli's and Air's reactions would be.
“Had sex with the hunky griffin dude? You did, didn't you? Oh my gods, you did!” Jasinda did a fist-pump that had me gaping. “He's so good for you, Brynn. So good for you. And he's gorgeous, and he smells good, and he woke you with that kiss.”
“Just like your friend, Matz, woke you,” Eli said from the bottom of the stairs, turning Jas' cheeks a brilliant red color. She pushed past—well, through—him and over to the silver ash on the floor in the front room. “Good morning, Brynn,” Elijah said, leaning lazily against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked me up and down before flicking his eyes up to Vexer as the griffin man descended the staircase.
“Good morning,” I said, casting my glance over to the couch where Air was sitting, his eyes locked onto me. He looked like he was about this close to wrapping his ghostly hands around Vex's neck and strangling him. “Air.”
“I'm glad you have the support you need,” he murmured, turning away and standing up, pacing into the kitchen and going for the ice box. It wasn't until he'd reached out for the handle and missed it that he started cursing and pacing the floor.
“How could you sleep with that guy?” Dyre asked, suddenly right there in my face. “There are so many more important things to worry about.” I blinked at him, my mouth hanging open in shock as he swung his katana into the wall … and managed to create quite the nick. For a new spirit, he had an exceptional amount of influence.
“Did you seriously just stab my wall with a ghost sword?!” I asked, blinking a few more times as he scowled at me and glared with copper eyes, raking his fingers through his lavender hair. He even fluffed his tail at me which I was pretty sure constituted an insult of some sort. “It’s none of your business who I have sex with.”
“I’m sorry,” Trubble said, sitting on the floor near his brother’s feet and not looking at all apologetic about any of it. “But he’s a virgin and sometimes gets unnecessarily worked up about these things. I think it’s the sexual frustration poisoning his brain. Or maybe his feelings are hurt because he has a huge crush on you, sacrificed his life for you, and now has to watch you mate with a griffin instead of him?”
“Would you please shut up?” Dyre asked, sheathing his sword and turning that angry glare on me. “I don’t care who you have sex with. You’re right, that is your business, but it’s ridiculous with everything that’s going on that you’d even think to waste time like that. Do you have any idea what your dreams actually mean?”
“My dreams?” I echoed, putting a hand on my lower belly and feeling that achiness between my thighs that promised I’d had a very good time with Vex. I just prayed to Haversey that I wasn’t walking funny. “How do you know about my dreams?”
“Uh, guilty,” Professor Cross said, raising one hand from his position on the floor. He was lying there, completely shirtless, absorbing sunlight for his living ink. It was hard to not notice how toned and attractive he was, especially with all those feel-good hormones running through my body. “They’ve been on your mind so much, they’ve been impossible to ignore.”
“My mother’s coming to you in your dreams,” Dyre said, slouching against the wall with a sigh, his tail bobbing in irritation beside him.
“That’s your mother?!” I asked, taking a step back and bumping into Vexer. As soon as I touched him, felt his warm press into my back, I swear, my anxiety levels dropped about a hundred points. He was good for me, this Master of the Travelers’ Guild. “No wonder you were so protective of her at the Vibrant …”
“She’s been possessed by a shadow,” Dyre said, turning his eyes to the floor. I wondered what’d happened to his body after I’d been knocked out by the spirit whisperer. He was a prince, after all, so had the queen saved it like she’d done for her son? If so, I hadn’t heard anything about it. In fact, I hadn’t heard anything from Everess at all and that was starting to worry me.
“So why is she coming to me?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself as Vexer rubbed his cheek against one of my wings. I tried really hard not to look right, at Elijah, or left, at Airmienan. Not that I thought I was doing anything wrong, but … I felt guilty anyway. I wanted someone alive with me, craved it. And they both knew it.
“I don’t know,” Dyre said with a sigh, closing his eyes. He was substantially more corporeal today. Maybe it was his rage that was helping him? Any strong emotion that a spirit felt could help them project more into the world of the living. “But I want to figure it out.” He opened his eyes again and glared at me. “Which is why I want you to do this spell.”
“You’re assuming it’s going to work the first time around?” I asked with a laugh and a shake of my head. “Getting this resurrection spell to work could take years.”
“So let’s get to it then,” Dyre said, moving over to the silver spell circle with his brother on his heels.
“Don’t let them boss you around,” Vex said, releasing me and following me around the staircase to look at the complicated pattern of runes. Jasinda was staring at her notes, checking and double checking everything. “Every choice you make is yours, Brynn.”
“Don’t you have a job and a home to go back to?” Elijah drawled, dragging himself into the room and sitting down on one of the ornate windowsills. Pigskin blinds—so named because they were paper thin and light pink in color, although one hundred percent not crafted from flesh—covered all the windows. They let in plenty of sunshine, but kept us hidden from the students or faculty that might be passing by outside.
“I’ll go when Brynn is ready to take me,” Vex said, coolly, refusing to rise to the bait.
“There’s something … else,” Jasinda said as Air walked into the room, managing to make noise with his boots against the wood floors. That sound, it made my heart feel like it might implode inside my chest. Glancing over, I found the prince’s pastel green eyes on my face. He looked almost apologetic which was weird, considering what’d just happened between me and Vex. “Some soldiers delivered a girl’s … corpse this morning.”