Page 39 of Monster's Reward

I startled becausethatwasn’t Mr. Brecken’s voice. It was Professor Dunlop’s.

Jahrdran turned toward me and mouthed, “The dean of students?”

I nodded.

“It’s been over two hundred years,” Professor Dunlop continued. “Even though most supernaturals think the shadow monsters are a myth, I’d be surprised if one of the Varulvka believed it and Kasi already knows the truth. So, what exactly are you afraid of her discovering?”

After a long silence, during which I tried desperately to hear anything they might be saying, Mr. Brecken said, “Ah. You do not want her to know that her people were slaughtered in vain.”

I staggered, my knees buckling from hearing it stated so plainly, and Jahrdran set a stabilizing hand on my hip, drawing me into his side, a move that was as surprising as it was comforting.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Brecken,” Professor Dunlop exclaimed. “Just because the council no longer believes the shadow-beast was the killer doesn’t mean they’re right.”

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re right or not,” the Headmistress said. “The point is it would be devastating for Kasi to know it’s even a possibility. Worse, though, would be if the boy Jahrdran found out. The Varulvka are fierce hunters, but they are also profoundly tied to the concepts of honor and justice. To discover how far from those ideals they fell would be devastating. Wemustprotect our students, even when it means keeping the truth of their pasts from them.”

“What if they’re fated mates?” Mr. Brecken asked. “You did say they appeared intimate.”

“I sincerely hope that isn’t the case,” Headmistress Blackthorn said.

“Yes,” Professor Dunlop agreed. “That would be a true tragedy seeing as he is bound by the oath of his people to hunt all known shadow-beasts to extinction.”

“As long as he’s unaware of her true nature, she should be safe enough,” Mr. Brecken said.

“Is there no way to break the oath?” Professor Dunlop asked.

“There’s only one way that I know of,” the Headmistress said, “and that’s to prove a shadow-beast wasn’t the Shadow Killer, after all.”

I was shaking and couldn’t stop.

I wanted to storm inside the library and rage at the Headmistress and the Dean and even the librarian, but I knew it wasn’t their fault.

They weren’t the ones who had signed the execution order, nor had they hunted my kind into extinction for a crime everyone now seemed to agree they hadn’t committed in the first place.

The only thing the professors were guilty of was trying to protect me and my mate.

I turned and caught sight of the look on Jahrdran’s face.

If I was furious and sick, it was nothing compared to what was happening with him.

His face was ashen and his brilliant, blue eyes were glistening with tears.

His wolf ears were laying flat on his head, fur was sprouting everywhere and his fists were clenched, claws out, blood pooling where they pierced his skin.

It wasn’t as if we’d heard anything different from what we’d just been discussing. The problem for Jahrdran, though, was that even though he’d agreed to help, he hadn’t really believed my theory until now.

That much was obvious from the look on his face.

Unfortunately, hearing our professors stating out loud that even the council no longer believed the shadow-beasts were guilty, Jahrdran could no longer deny the truth of our history and the reality of that was finally slamming home.

Worse yet was hearing that his oath would remain in place until we solved this mystery for his people and for mine.

Now more concerned about my mate and his state of mind than continuing our research, I stepped into his space, slid an arm around his waist and led him away from the library.

We walked up six flights of stairs silently, both lost in our own thoughts.

I took him to my room, where we curled up on my bed and simply held each other as day fell to night.

We didn’t talk about it the next day.

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