Her schedule got considerably more challenging; in addition to her usual classes, she took an hour of endurance with Professor Beaufort each morning, and learned to climb with Jack, who was a slave driver. Despite the wind, he insisted on practicing out of doors. The Institute training room had a perfectly good climbing wall, but it apparently wasn’t good enough for Sir Sadist of Sade, who preferred to make her scrape her hands on the steep, calcareous walls of a hillside in the Wolvswoods.
On Thursday, she was told to head to the main gym.
The woman waiting for her was dark, sensual, beautiful, and mysterious. Her brown hair had red streaks in the sunlight, and while most of her features pointed to an Indian heritage, she had a dusting of freckles on her nose and green eyes that sparked with gold near the center.
Chloe didn’t think she’d ever seen a more beautiful woman in her life.
‘I’m Greer.’
An unusual name Chloe had only heard once here. ‘As in Greer Vespian?’
‘That’s it.’
She whistled, impressed.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, exactly—someone a little more like Blair and Gwen, feminine, bubbly—but at a glance, Chloe would have pegged Greer as a huntsman. She had the look of a well-trained fighter and the analytical eyes of someone who knew how to put an adversary on their ass thirteen different ways.
‘I’ve had some of your potions. You rock.’
It was hard to tell under her ochre skin, but Chloe would have sworn the witch blushed.
‘Thanks. I try. All right, so, I heard you’ve just taken up training.’
Chloe winced. ‘Last weekend.’
From her grimace, Greer seemed to understand her plight.
‘Well, take it from someone who’s been through this—sparring, running, obstacles; they’ll make you strong. But without the basics, your body is just a list of limbs you don’t really understand.’
Chloe was ready for more torture. She was determined to never again feel as hopeless as she had in London, and if this was what it took, then she would go the distance.
‘Right. What are we doing?’
Half an hour later, Chloe moaned in relief. Greer had made her lie on her back on a yoga mat and move her knees down to the floor on her right side while her head was turned the other way. Every single bone and muscle in her body thanked her for it. She was shown a few different twists and stretches to reconnect with her tense limbs, and when they were done training, Greer also handed her a bottle of gold liquid.
‘That’s to soothe your muscles. External use; just rub it after your bath every night like a moisturizer.’
‘What’s in it?’ Chloe asked, pocketing it.
Greer shrugged. ‘You know, essential oils, eucalyptus. Mostly magic, though. A mushroom that only grows at the very tip of a stiff cliff, flowers that must be picked on a blue moon, the raw heart of a…’
Chloe held her hands up in surrender. She didn’t need to know whose heart she was ingesting. ‘Got it. No questions asked. If it helps, I’ll use it.’
The witch laughed. ‘Wise. Keep practicing, and I’ll see you next week, same time?’
No way Chloe would miss that.
By the end of a long week, she was glaring every time her eyes fell on Night Hill, seeing it as the source of all her troubles. She was certain that if Levi had let Mikar, or basically anyone else, train her, every part of her flesh wouldn’t feel like it had been beaten repetitively.
Except maybe Jack. She could be wrong, but she suspected that Jack’s training plans might make Levi’s seem like child’s play.
To be fair, in just a week, she’d made considerable progress. She practiced the ‘block punch, grab, and twist arm’ move Levi had used on her every day, moving against an invisible attacker, her hands only grabbing air—but she got faster and faster.
By Sunday, walking up to Night Hill, she was looking forward to showing her progress, although she wouldn’t admit that to Levi.
He told her he’d pick her up at six at the bottom of the hill, so she arrived at five-thirty, determined to speak to Bill again.
She knew something was wrong almost right away. Bill’s cabin was dark and empty, its door wide open. Behind it and to the left, the gate heading up to Night Hill was open.
No, not open. Smashed. Destroyed.
Hearing and feeling movement behind her, she spun on her heels and breathed out in relief when Mikar appeared.
He lifted his arm, pointing east.
‘On the hill. Now.’
Not Night Hill. Coscnoc.
She opened her mouth. ‘No questions,” he said. “You run, you hear me? Don’t look behind you, run—through the woods, not on the trail. Don’t trust any of your friends. One of them is behind this.’
The next moment, he was running up Night Hill, leaving her side for the first time in three months.
Chloe stared at his back for a heartbeat. She’d never seen him so spooked, not even in London. What was he afraid of?
Don’t trust any of your friends. One of them is behind this.
Behind what exactly? Breaking Night Hill’s barrier? She didn’t understand a thing.
But she did know one thing: Mikar had protected her since she’d entered Oldcrest. He had been a deterrent, at least, and maybe even a shield. And now, he was gone.
So, turning to face east, she ran.
At least she was good at running. The huntsmen hadn’t dubbed her Cheetah for nothing.
Night Hill and Coscnoc were perhaps a mile apart, separated by a muddy ravine. Any other day, she would have headed south, toward the Institute, and then north to Coscnoc, but the three-mile delay wasn’t an option right now. She trekked through the mud, forcing herself to keep her gaze forward. Once she’d reached the base of the east hill, she glanced at her legs and grimaced.
‘Sorry, pretty boots. I promise I’ll clean and polish you.’
If she survived whatever was happening.
Obeying Mikar’s directions, Chloe remained away from the paths leading up to the summit, although running through the woods wasn’t easy. When her lungs protested, she took a short break, using the opportunity to remove the mud at the sole of her boots on a tree trunk.
Then she leaned against it, closing her eyes.
What was going on?
Her eyes flew open. Someone was here. Again, surprise gave way to relief.
Levi.
‘Oh my god, Levi. I don’t know what’s going on. Mikar…he told me to come here and then left. What’s happening?’
Levi made no reply.
Something was wrong. He looked wrong.
No smirk, no smile. His eyes were hollow, void of emotion.
‘Levi?’
Finally, he spoke.
‘I didn’t want it to be this way. Believe me.’
What was he…
He advanced at the speed of light, making it clear that until now, he had truly slowed himself down so she could see him, relax around him.
Don’t trust any of your friends.
They weren’t friends. Not truly. And Mikar wouldn’t have warned her against Levi, his own master.
Chloe took one step back.
Too late. His hand was around her neck, keeping her in place. She didn’t need to remember his lesson to know that she was screwed.
Yet she struggled, trying to break free. Of course she did; the dumbest animal would have done the same in her shoes. Levi’s grasp tightened.
‘Listen to me, Chloe. You’re going to need this.’ He held up a chain with a strange metal pendant hanging from it, a dark stone at its center.
No, not a stone. A tiny flask filled with liquid.
Blood. It looked strange—wrong—but she knew, she just knew it was blood. Its faint scent. Coppery, heady.
‘Do you understand me, Chloe?’
She shook her head as much as she could manage with his iron fist keeping her in place. She didn’t understand a thing.
From the beginning, every single one of her instincts had been confused around him. Run away, run into his arms. Kiss him, plunge a knife into his chest. He’d infuriated her just by existing.
Still, her brain couldn’t process everything. He was hurting her, and talking about a damn necklace.
There was a noise to her left. He let her turn her head.
She froze.
London had been nothing—nothing—compared to this.
She saw them running up the hill toward them. Hundreds of ferals, darkening the woods with their shadows.
But their greatest strength is that they travel in packs. If you see one, there’ll likely be a hundred on its heels.
The next instant, the earth, sky, and wind were engulfing her. She felt sick to her stomach and taken by a tornado. Then the motion stopped as fast as it had started, and she found herself on solid ground.
Chloe blinked. They’d moved so very fast. They were hundreds of feet up, still on Coscnoc.
‘There’s no escaping the hill now,’ he said, hand still on her throat, another one around her waist.
His grip was the only thing keeping her upright.
‘We’re surrounded. And lower down the hill, the masters who unleashed the ferals on us are waiting for us. If I tried to get you out of here, I’d fail. They’d fight, and the moment you’re out of my reach, they would destroy you. Rip out your heart. Behead you. Nod if you heard me.’
So many words, all meaning one thing.
She was going to be killed. Someone would manage to get to her. There was no hope of getting out of this.
She sniffed. ‘Why? Why do they—’
Her voice broke. Did it matter why?
“We don’t have time, Chloe. Not now. Remember everything I’ve said. Focus on it. Can you do that?”
It didn’t sound like he was trying to hurt her after all. She swallowed with difficulty and nodded.
“Good girl. I’ll see you on the other side.”
She wanted to ask what he meant.
But he’d snapped her neck, and she was already dead.
