Page 150 of Into the Isle

“It was Astrid,” I said, shaking my head on my pillow. “The bitch finally got one over on me. No idea how I ended up here though.”

“Some drunk students found you,” Magnus said.

“Probably on their way to fuck in the shadows,” Arne explained, “given all the festivities after midterms. Imagine their surprise when they chanced upon you, lying in the road, little fox.”

I cracked a painful smile. “Imagine, pretty boy.”

He chuckled. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Ravinica.”

“We all are,” Randi eked out, squeezing past Grim to get closer so she could wrap her dainty hands around mine. “You aren’t going anywhere without us anymore. We’re your bodyguards.”

I loved her for it, for the spitfire attitude in her eyes. But I shook my head, saying, “Bullshit, Ran. I can’t let that happen or live in fear at Vikingrune Academy. Astrid wins if I do that.”

Her face sank. Slowly, she nodded, understanding.

“Give us more details, sneak,” Grim said.

“A messenger raven dropped a letter off to Dagny.” I nudged my chin toward Dag, saying, “That should have been my first hint, since Astrid is a raven shifter and all.”

“What was the letter about?”

I opened my mouth, almost spilling secrets I knew about the Lepers Who Leapt. Then, knowing I couldn’t trust anyone after what I’d learned in Mimir Tomes, I clamped my mouth shut.

After a pause, I said, “It said Arne was in trouble.”

They didn’t need to know more details.

“Who was it from?” Grim pressed.

I shrugged, hoping to hide the lie in my eyes. “Didn’t say.”

Grim grunted and looked away, thinking.

My eyes darted to Arne next to me, and his flashed wider. He couldn’t read my mind, of course, though I hoped he got the hint that his sister had been used as a scapegoat. Which meant Astrid knew about the Lepers, and that didn’t bode well for them. She was not only a total bitch—she was also the daughter of an authority figure here, Tomekeeper Dahlia.

A cloud of silence fell over the room as everyone looked down at me with pity and anger. I hated seeing them like this, torn up over what had happened to me—over my own damned mistake.

I had told myself I wouldn’t get caught slipping again, yet I’d slipped on the mother of all banana peels. I guess I had lost sight of my safety here, or lack thereof, and had grown complacent. Maybe it was the men distracting me.

Vikingrune Academy would always be dangerous for a bog-blood like me, no matter how much I watched my back. All I could do was hope to have people in my corner to help watch it for me.

I desperately wanted to spill my guts, feeling vulnerable and lightheaded, probably from drugs coursing through my veins. I only noticed an IV stuck in my right arm after our talk was reaching its end.

I wished I could blab about everything I’d learned in the library and wash all this ick away. I wanted to purge myself of the overbearing burden weighing me down and return to how things were before my discovery.

Sadly, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even in my disheveled, bedridden, mind-addled state. It was too difficult. I was too worried about losing everyone here if they learned I was a madwoman who had been sent to Vikingrune Academy on an assassination mission.

It sounded ridiculous to me, now.

A new shadow took form behind my friends in the doorway, and with a start Grim, Magnus, and Arne swung around.

Sven Torfen stepped into the room, up to the wall of man that was created by the three guys separating the wolf shifter from me.

Grim said, “The fuck do you want, Torfen?”

The gorgeous man stared past him, tilting his head as he looked at me on the bed. He nearly took my breath away, not just because of his attractiveness, but also because of his audacity for showing himself here.

“I came to pay my respects,” Sven said through a clamped jaw. “And to tell the little menace I had nothing to do with this attack on her. I find it ugly, frankly. We do things differently as wolves.”

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