Dangerous Creatures (Dangerous Creatures 1)

Ethan drew his arm around her. Lena was trying, but all the sugar in the world wasn’t going to make this good-bye go down any easier.

Not for the six of them.

Ridley made a face. “If you want to boss people around, Cuz, start a sorority.” She rummaged through a bag of empty chocolate wrappers. “It’s our last night together. So what? Accept it and move on. Tough love, people.” Ridley talked a good game, but deep down she knew her own tough love wasn’t all that much tougher than her cousin’s marshmallow meltdown.

They just had different ways of showing it.

Lena grew still, gazing into the dying fire. “I can’t.” She shook her head. “I’ve left too many people behind too many times. I won’t do it again. Not to you guys. I don’t want everything to change.” She reached for Boo, burying her hands deep in his dark fur. His head dropped down to his paws.

The six friends fell silent, until only the crackling remnants of the campfire could be heard.

Ridley was uncomfortable with the silence, but more uncomfortable with all the feelings talk that had preceded it, so she kept her mouth shut.

It was finally Link who spoke up. “Yeah, well, change happens. I used to really love these things,” he said, squeezing a marshmallow between his fingers. He shoved John, who was sitting on a rock between Link and Liv. “Dude. When you turned me into an Incubus, you shoulda warned me about the whole we-don’t-need-to-eat-and-everything-tastes-like-crap thing. I would’ve eaten a bunch a stuff for my last meal.”

John held up a fist. “You’re only a quarter Incubus, you big stud, and I did you a favor. No one would’ve ever called you a big stud if you’d kept eating those things.”

“No one calls him that now,” Ethan said.

“What are you saying?” Link was indignant.

“I’m saying, you used to be kinda sorry, Stay Puft, and now the chicks are lining up. You’re welcome.” John sat back.

“Oh, please,” Ridley said. “As if his head could get any bigger.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s bigger.” Link winked, and everyone groaned. Ridley rolled her eyes, but he didn’t care. “Oh, come on. Like you didn’t see that one comin’.”

Lena sat up straight, looking over the fire at the faces of her five closest friends in the world.

“All right. Forget this. Forget good-bye. So what if we’re going to college tomorrow?” Lena glanced at Ethan.

“And England.” Liv sighed, taking John’s hand.

“And Hell,” Link added, “if you ask my mother.”

“Which no one is,” Rid said.

“What I mean is, we don’t have to do this the Mortal way,” Lena said. Ethan stared at her strangely, but Lena kept going. “Let’s make a pact instead.”

“Just no blood oaths,” John said. “Which would be the Blood Incubus way.”

Link perked up at the thought. “Is that another camp thing? ’Cause we definitely didn’t get to do that at church camp.”

Lena shook her head. “Not blood.”

“Maybe like a spit promise?” Link looked hopeful.

“Eww,” Rid said, shoving him off his log.

“Not a spit promise.” Lena leaned in, holding her hand over the fire. The flames reflected against her palm, turning orange and red and even blue.

Rid shivered. Her cousin was up to something, and with powers as unpredictable as Lena’s, that wasn’t always a good idea.

The embers glowed under Lena’s fingertips. “We need to mark this occasion with something a little stronger than s’mores. We don’t need to say good-bye. We just need a Cast.”

CHAPTER 2

Symptom of the Universe

The six friends had talked circles around the idea, until the moon had risen and the fire had all but died, and even then Link wasn’t really sure what was going on.

They’re just feeling low, he thought. Don’t think there’s a Cast for that. Still, he wasn’t going to be the one to break the news. If Lena and Liv wanted to pretend there was something anyone could do to change the fact that they were all getting the hell out of Gatlin tomorrow, Link wasn’t going to pop that bubble. He’d learned to stay out of the way when it came to Casters and their Casts.

“Here’s what we want: something that says that no matter where we go, no matter what we do, we will always, always be there for each other.” Lena nudged Ethan in the moonlight. “Right?”

“Do you really have to ask?” Ethan mumbled, sleepily nuzzling her neck. “We don’t need a Cast for that.”

“Anywhere? Even across an ocean?” Liv asked, squeezing John’s hand.

Link looked away. It was a long-established fact that John was basically following Liv halfway across the world like a whipped dog so Liv could finish studying at Oxford while completing her Keeper training. It was nothing like what Link had ever had with Rid, even back when they did have something.

But tonight John and Liv were happy as clams because they were staying together, while you couldn’t chisel Ethan and Lena apart with a spatula the size of Link’s Beater. They were headed to schools in the same state but different cities; that was the compromise they had reached with their families. Link couldn’t even remember the names, though he’d pretended to listen to a thousand conversations about them—the schools, their dorms, their reading lists. Blah, blah, blah. All he knew was they’d be at rival schools in sleepy old towns up in Massachusetts (or Michigan, or maybe Minnesota—heck, what was the difference?) ninety minutes apart. You would think it was nine hundred miles, the way they’re acting.

Whipped as Thanksgiving potatoes.

Still, Link smiled at the sweet stupidity of it all. Who was he to judge? If anybody had a shot, it was Ethan and Lena. Even John and Liv had managed to keep it together. It was only Link and Ridley who were Gatlin’s biggest basket case of a relationship.

Ex-relationship, he reminded himself.

“Nothing’s going to change.” Lena’s tone turned serious. “We won’t let it. We’ve been through enough together to know that the people you care about are the only thing that matters.”

Link caught Ridley’s eye in the flickering firelight, in spite of everything. Ridley looked away, pretending to listen to what Lena was saying, as if she cared. Anything to ignore me, Link thought. That’s her trick, same as always, and she still thinks I don’t know what she’s up to.

Just like the old days.

“So, you think a Cast will keep us together?” Ridley asked, pretending to listen. “Can’t we just, I don’t know, send postcards?”

Lena ignored her. “Maybe Marian would have an idea.”

“Or maybe she wouldn’t. Because it’s a bad idea,” Ridley said.

“No, wait. I think I’ve got it.” Liv’s braids were coming undone, and she sounded exhausted. But the sparks in her eyes burned as bright as the remnants of the campfire. “A Binding Cast. It’s how Ravenwood protects itself and keeps those who would do harm out, right? Binds a person to a place? Couldn’t it also Bind six people together? Theoretically.”

Lena shrugged. “A Binding Cast for people? It could work. I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t.”

Link scratched his head. “Work how? Like, our hands are permanently stuck together in a group hug? Or like, we can read each other’s minds? Can you get a little more specific?” Not that I’d mind being Bound to Rid, he thought. At least, it wouldn’t suck.

Lena stared into the glowing embers. “Who knows? We’re kind of winging it here. There aren’t a whole lot of Casts about Binding people.”

“Or, you know. Any.” Ridley sighed. “So why am I the only person who thinks we should get out the peach schnapps and go bowling instead?” No takers. “How about breakfast, then?”

Link kicked a clod of dirt toward the fire. When had Rid gotten so worried about using her powers? She’d been like that ever since the summer. Skittish as a new pup, and about as nervous.

“This isn’t black magic, Rid,” Lena sa

id. “If we do something wrong, we’ll undo it.”

“When have those words ever not come back to haunt you?” Ridley shook her head at her cousin.

“Nothing big,” Lena said. “Just a little something so we don’t forget about each other. Like a Forget-Me-Not. A memento. I could do it in my sleep.”

Rid raised an eyebrow. “Someone’s gotten a little cocky since she brought Boyfriend back from the dead.”

Lena ignored the dig and held out her hand to Ridley. “Everyone join hands.”

Ridley sighed and took Lena’s hand, also taking Link’s warm and sweaty one.

He grinned and gave her a squeeze. “Is this gonna be kinky? Please let this be kinky.”

“Please let you shut up,” said Rid. But it was hard not to smile, and she had to make an effort to keep her bratty expression in place.

John took Liv’s hand, and Liv took Link’s. Ethan grabbed hands with John and Lena to complete the circle.

Lena closed her eyes and began to speak in a low tone. “There is a time beyond mountains and men—”

“Is that it?” Link asked. “The Cast? Or are you just makin’ it up? Because I thought all your Casts were in Lat—”

Lena opened her eyes and glared, one green eye and one gold flashing in the remaining firelight. Link’s mouth shut and his voice was silenced for him, Caster-style. Link swallowed, hard. Lena might as well have slapped duct tape across his face.

He got the message.

Then she closed her eyes again. As she spoke, Link could almost see the words on the page, as if a scroll had opened itself for them.

“There is a time beyond mountains and men

When our six-faced moon must rise.

If you call for me, I will come to you then,

And our six-headed horse will ride.

Though Sixteen Moons began our thread,

And Nineteen Moons must end us,