Wither & Wound (Mythverse #3)

Chapter 2

2

I freeze.

It’s not the first time.

I froze in the hall last semester at the Spring Fling. I stood stock still just long enough for Darcy—a kind mermaid that my best friend was crushing on—to lose his head. The resulting spray of blood made me jump into action. But I was too late to save him.

I can’t let that happen again, can’t stand here while Nico extracts my sister’s eye. It can’t be yet another thing I fail at.

Luckily, I don’t have to.

“Really, Nico?” Mavis asks, her voice suddenly strong and firm.

This is a tone I know well. One that told me to get my homework done and set the table, warned me that my hair was too greasy to go out in public and that my shorts were too short.

This is big sister tone, and nobody argues with it. Apparently not even a werewolf intent on revenge. The blade in Nico’s hand stops short of Mavis’s eye.

“Eye for an eye?” Mavis taunts him. “Not very original. All this time I thought you’d be planning something spectacular to get back at me. But this? Pfftt.”

She actually blows a raspberry at him, her hair fanning out from her mouth. “I’m so disappointed in you, Nico.”

Wait. That last bit didn’t sound like my sister. That sounded like Maddox Tralano,Nico’s mother. And Nico almost never went against what his mom said. For the most part, she owned him.

“I mean, if something is worth doing, you’ve got to do it right,” Mavis goes on, straightening her neck as Nico’s grip loosens. “You weren’t raised to half-a*s anything, were you?”

“No,” Nico agrees, drawing the knife back from my sister’s face. “I wasn’t. You make a good point, traitor. I’ll ask the gods for special compensation before your execution, a chance to even the score between us. After what you put me through, it will have to be creative.”

I relax slightly, relieved that I won’t have to stand witness to my sister being maimed in a dark, Grecian cave. But it’s a short-lived reprieve, and a glint shows in Nico’s eye as he leans closer to Mavis.

“After all,” he says. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

I fly back to Mount Olympus Academy with an angry werewolf on my back and a sleepy cat in my clutches.

Mavis put everything she had left into convincing Nico to maybe not try out his surgical skills on her face. After her boost of adrenaline wore off, she was clearly running on fumes. Once we reach campus, Nico will be the least of her problems and Mavis will need all the strength she can muster.

Dragon Air (that’s me) doesn’t have first class seats, but I wanted to make Mavis as comfortable as possible. If she could get a bit of sleep her chances of surviving this disaster will be greatly improved. Like all cats, her preference is to be snuggled up and warm, so I suggested I carry her in her blanket.

Nico wasn’t as supportive of my leniency, but I was his ride home, after all.

Mavis wrapped herself tightly in the blanket and I carefully picked her up, cocooning her within my curled talons. I held out my other claw to Nico, but the alpha-hole jumped on my back instead. I gritted my teeth and promised myself that if the words “giddy up” came out of his mouth, there would be fire coming out of mine. Thankfully, once perched on top of me, he mostly kept quiet, although once we reached altitude I could’ve sworn I heard, “Whoo-hoo! I’m king of the world!”

My thoughts are a mess as we cross the ocean. The mighty power that goes along with being a dragon is not always tempered by my human side. After the c*****e I caused at the Spring Fling, I realized I was a killing machine—and pretty much nothing or no one could stop me.

Except myself.

If I wanted to, I could shake Nico right now, toss him into the ocean and see if he still feels like the king of the world as he doggie-paddles to some godsforsaken island. I could save our skins by drowning him. The logistics of killing Nico would be easy.

And if the world revolved only around logic, I definitely should.

But…feelings are a thing. Unfortunately.

I’ve seen Nico be a decent person. Seen him rein in some of his darker impulses simply because Cassie—my friend and the seer who saved him from the monster stronghold—asked him to. I’d seen him hesitate to attack the baby manticore even though Nico’s mother ordered its death. And, most importantly, I’d met his mother.

Even though she was dead, Maddox still held a lot of power over her son, and always had. I don’t think Nico had much of a chance to grow up into a loving, caring person. Maddox raised him to hate and to fight, yet there were still glimmers of a good guy underneath the hard veneer. Maybe with his mother’s influence gone, that side of Nico could be encouraged.

I spot the coastline of Florida. As I descend over the swamp that holds the lotus stream and Mount Olympus Academy, the clouds break around us and Mavis squirms in my grip as she wakes up, aware that we’re approaching our destination—and her imprisonment. Below us, students swarm on the campus green, pointing as I come closer, circling to lower altitude.

Nico leaps from my back in wolf form, landing easily on all fours. It’s a relief to have him off my back. For the moment at least.

Identifying Jordan, Cassie, Fern, Marguerite, and Greg in a group, I land beside them, quickly shifting into human form, though Mavis prefers to remain a cat. She curls in my arms, her tail tucked around her nose as if she is suddenly shy.

“Hey kitty kitty,” Jordan says, petting her. “I didn’t know we could take off-campus trips to the pet store.” He says, apparently not identifying Mavis as a shifter. “I would’ve had you bring me back a puppy.”

“Oh, no,” Fern says, a horrified look on her face.

“Emmie?” Greg asks, peering closer at the bundle of fur in my arms. “That’s—”

“My prisoner,” Nico interrupts. Having shifted back into human form, he tears Mavis from my grasp. Her claws latch onto my shirt, as her wide panicked eyes meet mine.

Greg shifts into bat form and flies at Nico, who easily swats him away with a backhanded blow. He doesn’t even look in his direction. Jordan, with his quick cat reflexes, grabs Greg out of the air.

“It’s okay, little buddy,” he says.

Doubly outraged, the rest of the group looks ready to charge too, now.

“Wait, guys,” Cassie says, her voice low and urgent. “Let’s follow Edie’s lead.”

Her eyes meet mine as she waits for me to tell her what we should do. If only I knew.

What I did know was arriving with Mavis was going to be bad, but the reality of it is so much worse than I thought. I feel like I’m betraying Mavis as Nico tears her away from me. Mavis lets loose a ferocious yowl and Nico gives her a hard shake in response. Then he walks away with her, holding Mavis in the air, even as she spits and hisses at the students who surround them.

“Make way,” Nico yells. “Make way for the traitor!”

Nico leads a parade of curious students in his wake to the faculty building.

I grab his free arm. “Nico, wait.”

He softens a little as his gaze focuses in on me. “Edie, you’re a true patriot, sacrificing your own sister for what’s right. We serve the gods, they come first in all. My mother would’ve sacrificed me to win this war. No hesitation.” He swallows and I wonder if saying that aloud makes him realize how horrible it sounds. But whatever’s going on in Nico’s mind, he quickly shakes it off. “You’ve done enough. You don’t have to see this.”

“What if they…what if there’s no trial?” I ask. “I need to be there when she’s punished.”

“This will only be locking her up. Maybe some questioning. I’ll make sure the trial is public,” he promises and takes a deep breath. “As public as this announcement.”

“EVERYONE!” he bellows, and Mavis lays her ears back, like his volume just knocked them down. “The entire campus needs to know about the hero in our midst!”

The circle of students pulls tighter, curious.

“This traitor—” he gives Mavis a shake again, and she growls, deep in her chest. It takes everything I’ve got not to cinder his a*s right that second.

“We all know who she is,” he says, turning in a circle so that everyone gets a good look at Mavis, in her cat form. “Emmie, my former partner—and friend.”

There are some smirks in the crowd. Looks like everyone knew Nico would have liked to have been even friendlier with Emmie.

“To be betrayed by her cut out my heart,” he says, turning to me. “But it’s been regrown in my chest. Regrown, because of Edie’s actions. Edie, who is so loyal to Mount Olympus Academy and the gods that she would turn in her own sister.”

There are gasps from the crowd and beneath that the simmering anger from this past summer starts to flare up once more. Nico has clearly inherited his mother’s oratory skills. She had a real talent for getting people all riled up. In her mind she was turning us into winners, but in reality she divided this campus, turning students against one another. Even dead, she left a lot of resentment in her wake. Nico also has his mother’s tendency to ignore anyone who doesn’t think the same way as he does. So when he hears some boos, he instantly assumes they’re against me.

“Hey, c’mon. Don’t hold it against her that disobedience lurked in her bloodline,” Nico says, warning the crowd. “Edie has purified herself by denouncing Emmie. No one can question where her heart—and her loyalties—lie.”

Some cheers follow that, eyes landing on me, indecisive mouths turning into smiles. But other gazes narrow further. No doubt those people are wondering what kind of asshole turns their own sister in. Before I can decide how to deal with that, I’m surrounded by people squeezing my shoulder and clapping my back. They’re the type of fanatics whose eyes gleam as they say, “Good soldier” and “For the greater good.”

I’m pulled away from Nico and Mavis as I try to evade my new admirers. But the time I extract myself, Nico and Mavis are gone. I twist around in time to see Nico carrying her up the stairs of the faculty building. Mavis’s gaze latches onto mine as the doors close behind them.

“Be strong,” I mouth, and just like that, she’s gone.

Jordan’s hand clamps onto my wrist, pulling me into my small circle of friends. “Has Nico officially lost his mind?”

“Greg, are you okay?” I ask. “Nico hit you pretty hard.”

The whole left side of his face is swollen, but Greg just scowls at my question. “Yeah, he used me for batting practice. But it’s fine. Okay. I can take it.”

This school is full of guys with chips on their shoulders, but Greg isn’t usually one of them. I glance at Cassie, wondering what’s going on with him, and she just shrugs.

“Hey, let’s focus on Edie here,” Fern says softly. “And Emmie.”Fern, in tears, rests her head on her girlfriend, Marguerite’s, shoulder. This is dangerous; Marguerite is a vampire and there isn’t supposed to be interspecies mingling. But Fern is so upset that Marguerite seems willing to take the chance.

“Oh, poor Emmie,” Cassie says softly. She and Mavis were roommates before I came to the Academy, and they became close.

“Somebody has to feed that cat,” Jordan goes on, ticking things off on his fingers. “And litter. She’s going to need litter. Probably some toys, too. Our kind can’t stand to be without stimulation for long.”

“You seriously still don’t know what’s going on?” Greg asks, rolling his eyes. “That’s bad, even for you, roomie.”

“Oh, and catnip!” Jordan says. “I know where there’s some growing wild—”

“Jordan,” I say. “That’s my sister.”

He stops, eyeing me curiously as pieces fall into place…slowly.

“She’s a shifter,” Greg adds, helping his roommate with the puzzle.

“You have a shifter sister?” Jordan asks, then laughs. “That’s hard to say. Shifter sister. Try it, Edie.”

“Jordan,” Marguerite asks. “Did you have some catnip today?”

“Yes, I may have had a quick nip. But that stuff doesn’t really affect me at all.” Jordan crosses his arms and tries to look offended, but it doesn’t work. Instead he starts laughing again as he tries to say “shifter sister” three times fast.

Greg turns his back to Jordan and faces me. “You should have told me,” he says, and for the first time in our friendship, I think Greg might actually be mad at me. “You should have told me that Emmie was your sister.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.

“I know I’m not smooth like Val, or strong like Nico,” he goes on. “But I’m your friend, and you could have trusted me. I might have been able to help.”

“I…I…I just found out.” I stammer, eyes going to Fern still weeping on Marguerite, who has one arm protectively around her.

“Let’s not fight,” Fern says, wiping her eyes. “We’ve got enough problems. Emmie—sorry—Mavis will be tried as a traitor, and with the prophecy being discovered, the gods aren’t going to go easy on her. She’ll be put to death, for sure.” Her face twists into grief again, fresh tears falling onto Marguerite’s shoulder.

“It will be okay, baby,” Marguerite whispers to her. “Don’t cry.”

Cassie’s face tightens in determination. “We have to do something. We need to take a good look at that prophecy.”

“What prophecy?” I ask.

Greg answers. “While you were off playing with Nico, Merilee found something in the Archives,” he says. “A prophecy declaring that Mr. Zee will die—”

“Mr. Zee can’t die!” I interrupt. “He’s a god.”

Cassie shakes her head. “The prophecy says that Mr. Zee will die by the hand of one of his own children, a Moggy.”

“A Moggy,” I repeat. A mixed blood. A creature born of two different types of supernatural creatures. Zee has always disliked Moggies, and believed that interspecies relations only weakened bloodlines. Now, he’ll have even more reason to hate them.

“He’s wants us vampires to bite test everyone, which no offense, but…” Marguerite sends Fern an apologetic look. “My parents would have a fit if they knew. That’s healer stuff and it’s an insult to expect vampires to do it.”

“An insult?” Fern demands.

“My parents’ words. Not mine.” She leans in close to Fern. “Baby, you know that.”

“Themis wouldn’t allow them to be executed,” Cassie adds as Marguerite whispers something into Fern’s ear that makes her smile in this dreamy sort of way. Despite everything, seeing them so happy together makes it all seem a little less hopeless. “But she is keeping a close eye on all suspected and known Moggies.”

“I don’t know if Mr. Zee can die or not,” Greg continues. “Hepa says he’s incredibly sick. They’re working day and night to figure out what’s wrong with him, but—”

“But it looks like someone knows how to kill a god,” Cassie finishes for him. “And it’s probably one of us.” The silence is almost frightening, pregnant with possibility.

But then Jordan shouts “Not it!” and looks at everyone else in the group. Cassie smacks him in the stomach, but has to shake her hand afterwards. Jordan isn’t that bright, but he does have washboard abs.

“I don’t mean one of us specifically,” Cassie clarifies. “But it’s got to be a student. Who else would have that kind of access to Mr. Zee?”

It’s a good question.

And I don’t have the answers.