“Yeah, because I knew you wouldn’t do it,” I said and smirked at Ryan’s alarmed face. “I’ll give Clay a call now. Believe me, he’ll be fine with it. We can’t guard her if we don’t know where she is.”
The relief from Ryan’s mouth ebbed, as did five years of his life. We all knew what Clay was capable of.
“If she’s that good at fighting, she probably doesn’t need us,” Kane said.
“Believe me, she’ll agree with that statement. But one on one, she is fine. Better than fine. But we all know, one day it will be much worse than that. She’s good but…”
“Yeah, we all know what we signed up for,” Ryan said.
“Does she know?” Kane asked as he finally got himself off the sofa and came and looked at the timetable in my hands.
“Her uncle wants the next few years to be as normal as possible for her. He wrapped her inside the kingdom bubble for too long and now he wants her to develop her instinct, learn who she can trust and form relationships, including with those from other kingdoms.”
“I’ll have a relationship with her,” Seb said, waggling his eyebrows.
“You’ve got that wrong. She was my girlfriend, and she’ll be mine again,” I said, but I was getting pissed at Seb and his insistence. I didn’t know if he liked her or was trying to wind me up.
Seb muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch. But I had an idea it started with an expletive, and I assumed he didn’t agree with my statement, or he was ignoring it. He stood up and walked to the kitchen, popping the lid of the bin as he threw his apple core in.
“Let me see again.” Seb strolled to the island and took hold of the timetable. I watched his eyes scan over her schedule. Left to right. He pushed it back. “She starts next week. I wonder why she waited.”
“Lacey only just agreed. She and Clay have been arguing about it for months. She wanted to go to New York. Now she’s relented because Clay certainly wasn’t going to. I expect Clay is having the grounds scoured, getting people in position. Having staff checked out. He is super security cautious.”
“This is Knights University. She is better off here than any other. Are you sure we’ve been told everything?” Ryan asked, and he was right. This was the best university for people like us. People with magical powers, or at least that’s our kingdom. Other kingdoms attended, the Dark and Light Faes, both groups stood out among others. The Dark Fae, because of their height and build, whereas the platinum hair of the Light Fae distinguished them. The scariest was the vampires. It was easy to mix our people and vampires up as we both looked—human, at least, until they showed their fangs.
The university was the place where we learned our chosen subjects, but we learned to be among others like us. A scheme that the various leaders put in place to keep the peace between the different kingdoms.
“New York…” Kane said but didn’t elaborate.
“Did you not hear her at the dance class? They offered her a place at Julliard in New York City, but when her parents died and her uncle took guardianship, he refused to allow her to go,” I said, then hesitated.
“I thought the plan was always for her to come to this university?” Kane asked. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“You’re right,” I said. “That was the plan, but secretly Lacey plotted a life elsewhere. Until Clay changed that. But really, what did she expect? She is being hunted.”
“Does she know?” Kane asked.
“Know? You mean she’s in danger?”
Kane nodded. “And who.”
“She knows something isn’t right because Clay said she is looking into her parent’s deaths,” I said.
“And does she know about having Knights?” Seb asked. “Us?”
“Hopefully we are. Our job is to look out for her but not tell her yet. She has to choose us first, hopefully before her magic starts.” I lifted my shoulders.
We were not her automatic Knights. Clay decided on one of our last meetings, which pissed me off, considering I was supposed to be the one who would be at her side. He changed the rules, and Lacey was the one to decide. Though Lacey didn’t know about it, not yet, at least. But somehow the four of us would need to come together to help me win her back because I wanted to be more than a knight to her.
“Is she suspicious about the car accident?” Seb asked, taking me away from my thoughts.
I raised a shoulder. “Not sure if she is curious about it or if she genuinely thinks it was more than it was because, as much as it looked like an accident, this was Daniel Summer. He was Clay’s brother, second in line, but just as powerful, so I expect Lacey’s mother would have bound to him.”
“Which makes them as powerful as it gets,” Seb said.
“And magical. They should’ve had enough magic between them to not die in the accident.”
Kane sat on a stool at the kitchen island, pretending to look at Lacey’s timetable. “Is there a possibility they didn’t die?”