Page 114 of Dead Wolf Walking (Bad Moon Academy 1)
I sit down and study the way Draco’s face flashes from angry, confused, and settles on hurt. He’s been a little volatile since the incident with the demon witch.
He did lose the most.
I know,I say. Not a day goes by where I don’t mourn the loss of what was, but in order to move forward with our plan, I can’t get stuck in the past and the what-ifs. Draco knows that, too, and pretending like he isn’t full of misery makes him a crabby asshole sometimes.
“Right, well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it then. Enjoy your day off of classes.” He shoves away from the table and Raven grimaces as she watches him leave. Her lips part, and I think she might call out to him, but her eyes harden and she presses her mouth into a thin line.
“He’ll be okay. He’s not a morning person.”
“Could have fooled me. He was fine until…” She trails off and winces.
“Until I showed up?” I ask with a smile.
She nods and chuckles. “Yeah.”
I lift a shoulder. “Draco will come around. I have something sort of fun planned today if you want to join me.”
“Oh?” She perks up and finishes her coffee. “No ghosts, I hope.”
“No ghosts today.” I grin. “Are you ready?”
“You’re not going to tell me the plan?” Her long red hair falls over her shoulders, and she flicks it back, eyeing me as she waits for me to spill the beans.
“Eh. No.”
Her mouth drops open. “Rude.”
“Follow me.” I stand and head out of the cafeteria. I don’t look back until I hear her chair scrape across the floor. “Do you trust me?”
“To be determined,” she admits, setting her tray and dirty cup in the dish bin.
We start down the hall, and I sort through all the different possibilities of what to do with her. She always runs in the forest with Everett. Draco is, well, Draco does whatever he wants and she doesn’t seem to mind him too much. Which leaves me trying to find something to lure her in with. By the time we reach the staircase, I’ve made up my mind. I walk around the stairs and she shoots me a curious glance.
“Where are we going?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be an adventure, now would it?”
She sighs. “I thought women were supposed to be the mysterious ones.”
My lips twitch, and I lead her down a short hallway lined with bookshelves. The human history books are covered in dust. Raven whistles as we walk.
“How many libraries does this place have?”
I glance over my shoulder and stop in front of the second bookshelf from the end. “Four.”
“The main library, this one, the secret one Morg mentioned… and?”
Grabbing the spine of the least dusty book on the shelf, I pull it out. “This one.” The shelf groans and moves back before rolling behind the other one, creating a doorway into a darkened room.
“Holy shit,” Raven says, making my smile widen.
Yeah. This was the right choice.
Chapter 25
Raven
“Holy shit,” I say for the seventh time. Running my fingers over another bookshelf, I take a deep breath before spinning away from the books and craning my neck. This library is three stories and the shelves are too. The staircase on the side of the room is also a bookshelf, and the second and third floors are only big enough to ring around the room. The first floor has all of the tables and chairs for studying.
