Page 68 of Shattered & Returned

This was the worst possible moment to become the focal point of the school’s most dangerous predators. Their attention locked onto me with twin intensity, hunters spotting the same quarry.

“I concede. You win,” I told Toby, urgency sharpening my voice.

“Not until you’re down and bleeding, mouse!” she spat, attacking with fresh fury. Her blade shrieked through the air.

I barely blocked in time. The impact jarred my arms all the way to my shoulders. My dagger trembled in my grip—still responsive, but its earlier guidance had faded.

Shit.I’d been trying to fly under the immortals’ radar, especially Kingsley’s, but Toby saw this as her golden opportunity. With each vicious swing, she forced me toward the center of the hall, directly into their line of sight.

She won. Now the immortals’ vulturous stares snapped to us, tracking my every desperate parry, every stumble, as Toby’s blade came at me again and again.

Instinctively, I sabotaged my own movements. Where moments ago I’d moved with unnatural skill, now I stumbled—overcorrecting footwork, mistiming parries. I even let her blade graze my arm, biting back a cry. Pain was preferable to questions about why a supposedly untrained girl fought like a swordswoman.

“Is that her?” Kingsley’s voice turned as sharp as a thin blade. “I knew I felt a disturbance in this wretched place.”

“Get the fuck out of my class, Kingsley.” Ravencrux’s words made the air frost over. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and you have no fucking business here.”

The hall had gone deathly quiet. Even Dante stood frozen, watching the confrontation between the two lethal immortals.

“How long have you been hiding her? Weeks?” Kingsley’s silver eyes burned into me. “Every attempt has failed in the past. Did you forget I can sense her too?” His fingers twitched at his sides. “I felt her presence in my tower, but Sebastian, he distracted me.”

My throat went dry. What were they talking about? I was nobody, just a homeschooled girl tossed into this nightmare against her will. Yet they spoke about me like I was someone else entirely. Someone significant. Someone hunted.

My heart lurched as danger pressed in, iron walls closing around me. A primal fear speared through my chest, stealing my breath.

Then the vision hit?—

A crimson sky stretched above jagged cliffs. A noose bit into my neck like a vise. My fingers clawed at the rope, useless.

Terror filled my chest.

I swung from the cliffside, my body slamming against unforgiving rock with each gust of wind. Below, waves roared like hungry beasts. Salt spray stung my bare feet.

My lungs burned. The rope crushed my windpipe. My vision darkened at the edges as I twisted?—

Just enough to see him.

A figure stood silhouetted against the blood-red sunset. Golden hair caught the dying light, fluttering in the wind.

Then everything blurred.

I gasped, back in the present, and crumpled to the mat. My legs spasmed. The dagger slipped from my grasp. Above me, Toby grinned, her blade poised for the killing stroke.

“Bloom, move!” Sindy’s panicked voice cut through the haze.

Dante dropped beside me, asking urgently, “Where’s your inhaler?”

I wheezed, my throat sealed shut. My trembling hand fought its way to my pocket. The inhaler felt impossibly small as I fumbled it to my lips.

Black spots swarmed my vision. My face must’ve been turning blue. One desperate puff, then another.

“Freak.”

“Pathetic.”

I dragged in ragged breaths, forcing my trembling body to obey. The familiar sting of humiliation burned hotter beneath the weight of so many watching eyes, especiallyRavencrux’s.

Then Kingsley’s laughter crashed through the hall, deep and booming. “Look at what she’s become, a sniveling weakling.” His voice curled with vicious delight. “Poetic, isn’t it?”

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