Page 47 of Shadow Caster
I took a measured sip of my coffee this time. “I can handle myself and whatever comes at me.”
“Comes …” Carlo sniggered.
“Seriously, dude, grow the fuck up,” Brady snarled. “Fucking twenty-year-old virgin.”
Carlo sobered immediately. “Hey. What? No.” He held up his hands and looked to me. “I am not a virgin.”
The guys chuckled, and the tension that had pervaded the air eased. Long moments of companionable silence passed. This wasn’t so bad. I mean, if these guys could be okay with a woman in the ranks then—
“What did you do?” Carlo’s attention was on the cuffs at my wrist. The shackles that prevented me from escaping this place.
I looked down at them. Heck. I’d almost forgotten they were there. “I killed a human.”
Saying the words out loud, simple and devoid of excuses, felt good.
Carlo held my gaze and nodded. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“You say that as if you can relate.”
Carlo lifted his hand and pulled back the arm of his gown. A silver cuff circled his wrist. “What? You thought you were the only criminal ever to get relegated to the Academy?” He grinned. “Legacy family move, baby. We fuck up, they shove us here.”
“Legacy?”
“Harwood.” He winked. “If you’d hung out in the social circles, there is no way you’d have missed my moves.”
Aidan groaned and shook his head. “Here we go with the moves. You have two left feet on the dance floor; you know it, we all know it.”
But my mind was on his previous statement. My father had known transferring a sentence to the Academy could be done. He’d manipulated events to get me here, to trap me here, and he’d been confident his plan would work because it had worked for others before him.
I wanted to ask Carlo how it had happened for him? If he remembered, if he had been conscious, in control, something. But the words stuck in my throat as the memory of what I’d done filled my mind.
“Don’t,” Carlo said. “Waste of fucking time. You can’t change it. You can’t change what you are. Just got to live with it.” He peered at me from under lashes the color of wet sand. “I heard you used to kick ass in the pits. True?”
Oh, good. Solid ground. “Yeah. I fought in the pits.”
“In that case,” Devon said, his voice surprisingly soft for his size, “welcome to the gang. You need to be a fighter to survive here.”
“These guys are my troop,” Lloyd said. “We’re in sector two training at the moment.”
An ominous silence fell over the group, and my gaze traveled back to the claw marks on Brady’s neck.
I had to know. “Is that where you got those?”
He didn’t even bother to look up at me. “Got lucky.”
The twins were moonkissed, Carlo was nightblood, and Brady was … feyblood. We all healed fast, but Master Hyde had scars, and the wound on Brady looked fresh.
I set my mug on the counter. “The wounds never heal completely, do they?”
Brady did look up at me now. His jaw ticked, but it was Lloyd that answered.
He lifted his shirt to showcase claw marks across his abdomen—neat, pale scar tissue.
“Scars are better than being dead,” he said. He dropped the edge of his shirt. “Go get fed. You’re going to need it.”
“Sector one?” Carlo asked, brows raised.
“Yeah,” Lloyd said. “Orientation for the newbies.”
