Rory glances at me. “Sure…I’ll take the next shift.”
“Thanks a bunch!” Finley beams. He doesn’t wait until Rory is gone to pull me into his arms. He’s disarmingly tall, and holds me too tightly in his exuberance.
His mouth finds my neck, and his hands find my-
“Oh!” I gasp, pulling away. I feel the growl of my wolf inside me.
He grins sheepishly, his straight hair falling into his eyes. “Sorry! Prison, you know. Must have forgotten my manners.”
I nod. He must have been through so much. His pack wasn’t targeted by the panthers, but they offered to support us anyway. He’s only a year or so older than me, and he’s spent most of his adulthood locked up in a dirty cell.
“It must have been difficult,” I say, absentmindedly fiddling with the ring around my neck. It’s strange to see the matching one around his.
“Oh, not so bad,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. “It helped to…think about you. That’s what got me through. Knowing that you were waiting.”
I feel a sharp pang in my stomach. When I was here at Elmwood Academy, hunting in the woods and learning about magic, he was trapped in prison for defending my pack and homeland.
Maybe I just need some time.
“Hey,” he says, moving closer to me again. I can feel the heat radiating off of his body. He smells like smoke. “Would you like to find a room upstairs and get to know each other better?”
Maggie
The torch is getting more and more dim. When it goes out, will they replace it, or will we be trapped in here in complete darkness? I’ve never been imprisoned in a dungeon before. I don’t know the etiquette.
June is crying messily beside me. It makes the throbbing in my head even worse.
“What do you think they’re going to do to us?” she moans, wiping her eyes with her cloak. “I was supposed to go home to the Hecate coven for the solstice today…I only stayed to finish that extra-credit fortune-telling assignment! Oh my goddess, is that even going to counttoward my grade now?!”
The light is dim enough that she doesn’t notice me rolling my eyes.
“I don’t know,” I say. I wince at the sound of my voice.
She turns toward me, her eyebrows furrowed. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” I reply, showing her my wrist. “Just a vampire bite. Wait…am I going to become a vampire now?”
June isn’t considerate enough to hide her eye roll. She scoffs, “You really never pay attention in class, do you? In order to become a vampire, you have to be completely drained of all your blood, then the vampire gives you some oftheirblood, then you’re buried in a coffin, andifyou survive that,thenyou’re a vampire. But I’d never want to be one. It’s dangerous, and young vampires almost always get staked right away by older ones.”
She reaches up to smooth her tangled hair. Being a know-it-all has revived her a little bit.
“Anyway, I got injured too. Your wolf shifter girlfriend snuck up on me and knocked me out, otherwise I probably would have gotten away.”
I press my fingers into my temples and swallow the lump in my throat. All I want to do is get out of here and away from Elmwood Academy. Why did I stay when my moms wanted me to leave? I was such an idiot. I got blindsided by a cute naked girl and I threw everything away.
If I can just get home, I’m never coming back here again. I’m done with the magical world.
“Can’t we do anything?” I ask. “We’re witches, can’t we like…magicour way out? You’ve got to know something.”
June sighs. “Seriously, Maggie? Look.”
She gestures to the ground around us. I hadn’t noticed in the dark, but there’s a thick white ring of something encircling both of us. I pull on the chain around my wrist, but I know I won’t be able to reach the edges.
It’s a ring of salt.
“But…” I stammer. “I thought salt was supposed to protect…”
“Salt keeps bad energy out,” June says. “But it also keeps good energy out. They made the circle to trap us. We can’t send a signal, or work any magic like this.”
