Firespell (The Dark Elite 1)

Jason was accompanied by a guy who was cute in a totally different kind of way. This one had thick, dark hair, heavy eyebrows, deep-set brown eyes, a very intense look. He wore glasses with thick, black frames and hipster-chic clothes: jacket over T-shirt; dark jeans; black Chuck Taylors.

I blew out a breath, remembered the symbol on the small of my back, and decided I wasn’t up for handsome Adepts or their buddies any more than I had been for funky, nose-ringed spellbinders. Mild panic setting in, I planned my exit.

“Hey,” I told Amie, as we reached the first floor, “I’m going to run in there.” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder.

Amie glanced behind me, then lifted her eyebrows. “You’re going to the orthopedic shoe store?”

Okay, so I really should have looked before I pointed. “I like to be prepared.”

“For your future orthopedic shoe needs?”

“Podiatric health is very important.”

“Veronica!”

Frick. Too late. I muttered a curse and looked over. Jason’s friend saluted.

I risked a glance Jason’s way and found blue eyes on me, but I couldn’t stand the intimacy of his gaze. It seemed wrong to share a secret in front of people who knew nothing about it, nothing about the world that existed beneath our feet. And then there was the guilt about having abandoned Scout for Louis Vuitton and BCBG that was beginning to weigh on my shoulders. I looked away.

“That’s John Creed,” Veronica whispered as they walked over. “He’s president of the junior class at Montclare. But I don’t know the other guy.”

I didn’t tell her that I knew him well enough, that he’d carried me from danger, and that he was maybe, possibly, a werewolf.

“Veronica Lively,” said the hipster. His voice was slow, deep, methodical. “I haven’t seen you in forever. Where have you been hiding?”

“St. Sophia’s,” she said. “It’s where I live and play.”

“John Creed,” said the boy, giving me a nod in greeting, “and this is Jason Shepherd. But I don’t know you.” He gave me a smile that was a little too coy, a little too self-assured.

“How unfortunate for you,” I responded with a flat smile, and watched his eyebrows lift in appreciation.

“Lily Parker,” Veronica said, bobbing her head toward me, then whipping away the cup John held in his hand. She took a sip.

“John Creed, who is currently down one smoothie,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Lively, I believe you owe me a drink.”

A sly grin on her face, Veronica took another sip before handing it back to him. “Don’t worry,” she said. “There’s plenty left.”

John made a sarcastic sound, then began quizzing her about friends they had in common. I took the opportunity to steal a glance at Jason, and found him staring back at me, head tilted. He was clearly wondering why I was acting as if I didn’t know him, and where I’d left Scout.

I looked away, guilt flooding my chest.

“So, new girl,” John suddenly said, and I looked his way. “What brings you to St. Sophia’s?”

“My parents are in Germany.”

“Intriguing. Vacation? Second home?”

“Sabbatical.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Sabbatical,” he repeated. “As in, a little plastic surgery?”

“As in, a little academic research.”

His expression suggested he wasn’t convinced my parents were studying, as opposed to a more lurid, rich-folks activity, but he let it go. “I see. Where’d you go to school? Before you became a St. Sophia’s girl, I mean.”

“Upstate New York.”

“New York,” he repeated. “How exotic.”

“Not all that exotic,” I said, twirling a finger to point out the architecture around us. “And you Midwesterners seem to do things pretty well.”

A smile blossomed on John Creed’s face, but there was still something dark in his eyes—something melancholy. Melancholy or not, the words that came out of his mouth were still very teenage boy.

“Even Midwesterners appreciate . . . pretty things,” he said, his gaze traveling from my boots to my knot of dark hair. When he reached my gaze again, he gave me a knowing smile. It was a compliment, I guessed, that he thought I looked good, but coming from him, that compliment was a little creepy.

“Cool your jets, Creed,” Veronica interrupted. “And before this conversation crosses a line, we should get back to campus. Curfew,” she added, then offered Jason a coy smile. “Nice to meet you, Jason.”

“Same here,” he said, bobbing his head at her, then glancing at me. “Lily.”

I bobbed my head at him, a flush rising on my cheeks, and wished I’d stayed in my room.

12

I’d spared myself a confrontation with Scout earlier in the day. Since she and Lesley were playing cards at the coffee table when I returned to the suite, two brat packers in line behind me, my time for avoidance was up.

I stopped short in the doorway when I saw them, Amie and Veronica nearly ramming me in the back.

“Down in front,” Veronica muttered, squeezing through the door around me, bringing a tornado of shopping bags into the common room.

Scout glanced up when I opened the door. At first, she seemed excited to see me. But when she realized who’d followed me in, her expression morphed into something significantly nastier.

I probably deserved that.

“Shopping?” she asked, an eyebrow arched as Amie and Veronica skirted the couch on their way to Amie’s room.

“Fresh air,” I said.

Scout made a disdainful sound, shook her head, and dropped her gaze to the fan of cards in her hand. “I think it’s your turn,” she told Lesley, her voice flat.

Lesley looked up at me. “You were out—with them?”

Barnaby wasn’t much for subtlety.

“Fresh air,” Scout repeated, then put a card onto the table with a snap of sound. “Lily needed fresh air.”

Amie unlocked her bedroom door and moved inside. But before Veronica went in, she stopped and gazed back at me. “Are you coming?”

“Yes,” Scout bit out, flipping one card, then a second and third, onto the table. “You should go. You have shoes to try on, Carrie, or Miranda, or whoever you’re pretending to be today.”

Veronica snorted, her features screwing into that ratlike pinch. “Better than hanging out here with geeks ’r’ us.”