Page 78 of Faerie Gift

Back to full power. One hundred percent charged and pissed-off.

Much to my surprise, they hesitated. They didn’t want to attack me, I thought briefly. They wanted to intimidate me, and thought I would have caved to their threats.

Good thing I could still surprise someone, I guess.

“Well?” I pressed. “Are you just going to bully me? Are you all talk and no action?”

I’d reached the end of my rope and my wolf, prowling beneath the surface, ached to show them whereIstood in pack hierarchy. If anything happened to Uncle Will, I would have stepped up into his place as alpha. Better these two chumps knew it now before they tried something stupid.

Reaching for my power, I let it show, feeling heat rush to my right hand. When I looked down, skin had transformed into metal, glinting steel and a wicked point at the end of the dagger.

“Well?” I repeated.

The boys glanced down at the dagger, the shorter one’s skin paling and the taller one standing like he’d turned to stone.

I was about to lay into them when the door opened behind me.

“Tavi? What are you still doing here? You finished your exam fifteen minutes ago. Wait…what are you holding?”

I knew the voice. Oh damn, I knew the voice, and this couldn’t be happening.

I whipped around to see Mike standing there. Good, dependable, steady Mike, his eyes wide. He looked at my dagger hand. He looked at the boys. Then at me. Then at my hand again.

The bottom fell out of my stomach.

Mike knew. He knew I could transfigure, and he knew what it meant.

27

Mike didn’t lay into me right away, as I expected him to. He didn’t fly off the handle and demand an explanation. Good, steady, dependable Mike. I’d probably just lost him forever as a friend.

He turned to the two second-year boys, older than him, and straightened to his full height, donning the mantle of Crown Prince in a way I’d never seen him do before. Magic crackled in the air around him, his eyes glowing.

“Is there a problem?” he asked politely but firmly.

And it wasn’t his student voice. A monarch spoke then. Someone neither boy would dare argue with. The taller one ducked his head and hid his expression with his hair.

“Sorry. We, ah…we thought she was someone else. Our apologies, Prince Michael.” The shorter one fumbled a sort of bow and they both bolted away.

I shook my dagger back into a hand with a flash of heat to accompany the magic and held it behind me.

Mike watched them until they were out of sight. Then turned to face me with his eyebrows raised. “You can transfigure?” The color had leached from his normally sun-kissed skin and he ran a hand through his hair, letting out a harsh laugh. “Say something, Tavi. Don’t just stand there and look at me.”

I didn’t expect to hear the hurt in his voice. What could I say to defend myself? Literally nothing.

At once the tables had turned and Mike was the one vacillating between upset and anger. Trying to decide how this would go between us. And I was the one trying to figure out how to smooth things over.

It’s not what it looks like.

Yeah, in this case, he’d seen the truth. It was exactly what it looked like.

I shrugged again to hide how I wanted to squirm in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Mike, I—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he barked.

I worried my lip, knowing if I told him the truth it might get me kicked out of the school. “I wasn’t sure what you would say. Please, you can’t tell anyone about what you saw.”

His laughter sounded close to hysteria. “You think I would? Tavi, you’re my friend. Friends aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other. I would never tell anyone because it would hurt you. But it hurts me that you didn’t feel safe telling me your secret.”

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