These monster hunters are about to get schooled…

Fighting monsters is all I’ve ever known—and I’ve always fought alone. Until the
night I stumble onto an elite monster hunter academy and into the arms of four
hottie hunters who not only know the exact Latin classification of the thing trying to
eat me, but how to kill it dead.
Then Tyler Perkins, the crazy rich and shamelessly sexy leader of this monster
hunting squad, kicks it up a notch. He challenges me to stay. To fight. He’s
arrogant and entitled and did I mention gorgeous…and the way he pushes me
makes want to push back. Hard.
Tyler and his whole smokin’ hot team tempt me in ways that are far more
dangerous than a monster throwdown. I know I should split town—but I can’t.
Because for all its gorgeous old buildings and shiny bright classrooms, something
dark, sinister, and deadly is lurking in the shadows of Wellington Academy, waiting
to attack…
And I’m just the kind of girl for that job.
THE HUNTER’S CALL
MONSTER HUNTER ACADEMY, BOOK 1
D.D. CHANCE
 CONTENTS

Tyler
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
About D.D. Chance
 TYLER

I stomped down the stairs from Cabot Hall, striding away from the
other guys. They let me go without a word, which was smart. All
of us were on edge after our meeting with Dean Robbins, but I
wanted to punch my fist through a wall.
I could see what that dickhead was trying to do. Destroy us.
Everything we’d worked for, everything we’d dreamed. The academy
wanted to throw us away like garbage.
Not gonna happen. I didn’t care how much money was flying
around behind closed doors, or who was trying to buy out Wellington
Academy’s idiot board of directors, so puffed up over their creaky,
barely used magic and generations-old wealth that they couldn’t see
how powerful the academy could be again, how important.
Well, my family had money too. More of it than we’d ever known
what to do with. And we also had the balls to fight for what was right.
I pushed into a crowd of students who had no friggin’ clue about
how lucky they were to even be standing on this campus. Wellington
was the only magic academy in the world that had ever specialized
in turning out monster hunters. Now there were only a handful of us
going through the program, which had been demoted all the way to
an obscure minor, but we were trained. We were good.
And no matter what Dean Robbins and the board thought—there
were still monsters out there, even if we couldn’t prove it. Never mind
that every supernatural sighting called into the school in the past
several years had turned out to be a wild goose chase or a total
hoax. Never mind that the other students and, hell, way too many of
the teachers, eyed each other with barely hidden smirks when we
walked by. They were idiots.
I knew that monsters—real, huge, and deadly—still existed, and
so did the guys who fought alongside me. So how could the
academy be talking about shutting the minor down?
Focus… I blew out a long breath, forcing myself into the mental
exercises Commander Frost preached nonstop before our battle
classes. Reaching out with my mind, exploring the air around me,
taking its measure. As always, the practice helped. My heart rate
slowed, my breathing steadied. My body might be tensing for battle,
but my mind was quiet, my thoughts were—
A feral, yodeling howl ripped through the air.
I jerked around, hands going wide. Nobody else reacted around
me, other than to laugh and get out of my way with the usual mutters
about monster hunters. But I had heard that high-pitched roar,
dammit. It was almost…I frowned. Almost what I’d expect a Tarken
land worm to sound like, but way too loud for those little bastards.
I needed to reach out with my mind, cut through the shadows,
and see what was really out there. I needed a spell of discernment.
Except…how did that one go, again? I tried to pull the
incantation’s exact wording from the depths of my memory, but I
couldn’t remember a friggin’ thing. And Liam wasn’t here to prompt
me with the opening words, which were right on the tip of my…
Nope, nothing. My mind remained a complete blank.
“Fuck.” I shoved my hand in my pocket and ripped out my phone,
stabbing it to life and scrolling to where I kept my spells in a notes
file. As soon as I saw the first few words of the discernment
incantation, I locked in the rest. I was the best spell caster Wellington
had ever trained, and now that I remembered how it went, I uttered
the short, succinct enchantment with absolute confidence. The spell
zipped out into the cheerful Boston night, searching on the wind.
A new, chaotic scene flashed bright in my mind’s eye—slashing,
thrashing, gore everywhere. Then I saw her. A girl bent over nearly
double, hacking the shit out of…something big. Her blade flashed in
the darkness, hard and sure. Whoa. Was that actually a person she
was—
 Another wild howl sounded, sharper this time. I jerked my
attention to the streets beyond the girl. Had the land worm scented
her, or whatever she’d just taken out? The monster sounded huge
though—way too big. This couldn’t be another one of Frost’s
simulations, could it?
If so, the man deserved a friggin’ raise.
It didn’t matter. I needed to find this girl and whatever was
tracking her. I had to help her. No way could she handle a land worm
on her own. She wasn’t a student here. She wouldn’t have any clue
what to do.
Doubling down on my focus, I stretched my mind farther, beyond
the campus walls, out into the city—searching, hunting, sensing.
Time warped and folded back on itself. I couldn’t entirely believe
what I was sensing anymore, not at this distance. Was I seeing the
future? The past? It was impossible to tell.
Another shout split the night, this one human, female. The girl
again—running now—so fierce and focused, my whole body jacked
tight, my senses locked and loaded. She had long dark hair, fair skin,
and was medium sized. Not petite, but not an Amazon, though
everything about her screamed fighter. The image crackled in and
out in such a way that I knew I was no longer seeing the present, but
the future. Maybe only a few minutes from now, but definitely the
future.
I strained forward, trying to see more clearly. The girl’s mouth
was stretched into a snarl, and her arms and legs pumped like she
was going for Olympic gold. She wore street clothes—T-shirt, jeans,
running shoes. Her hair was ripped back in a ponytail, and her wide
brown eyes searched everywhere, alert and scared but mostly
pissed. In her right hand, she still gripped a knife. An iron knife. Who
was this girl?
“Nina,” I breathed, the name flashing in my mind with a burst of
knowing that was so intense it nearly knocked me over. This was
everything I wanted to see, everything I needed—but I still froze in
place, unable to believe my own visions.
Because this couldn’t be real, right? It had to be some sort of a
dream. Otherwise, in less than ten minutes’ time, this intense and
angry girl would be running for her life, chased through the streets of
Boston by a genuine friggin’ monster.
And she’d be headed straight for me.
 1
NINA

T hat which does not eat you makes you stronger.

It also stank like feet.
“Will you please just die already,” I gritted out over the
deeply funky ghoul’s ever-more pitiful moans. Like most ghouls, it
looked almost human, which wasn’t helping my mood. “All the way,
this time. Completely. I’m not joking.”
Dodging the creature’s skinny, flailing arms and razor sharp
claws, I finally managed to hack through its neck. I flinched back to
avoid the resulting spout of gore. Blood splattered across the dimly lit
sidewalk, soaking the ghoul’s matted green fur. The head with its still
gnashing teeth spun one direction, the body convulsed in another. I
staggered up and away.
It was done.
I slumped against one of the stone pillars that flanked a wrought
iron gate barely visible in the foliage, and wiped my knife on my
jeans. Three feet away from me, the ghoul twitched and steamed. It
was dead though. Decapitation never failed. Or at least, it hadn’t
failed so far. Then again, this was Boston, not Asheville, North
Carolina. The rules might be different here.
I pushed a few errant strands of my long brown hair out of my
eyes and peered at the creature’s cranium, wanting to make sure.
But…yeah. I was right.
The ghoul’s head, now several feet distant from the body, had
already shrunk to barely bigger than an apple, decomposing fast.
The body would take a little longer, sure, but nobody would find it in
this forgotten corner of the city. Especially not given the heavy vines
that had taken over the once-elaborate gate and high stone wall of
the abandoned school in front of me.
Stowing my knife in its ankle sheath, I reset my pony tail and
glanced back toward the overgrowth I’d been clearing away from the
gate when the ghoul had distracted me. I’d smelled it a good block
away, and knew it had sniffed me out, too.
But I couldn’t wait for it to shamble all the way over to me from
whatever cemetery it normally haunted, not with so many people out
enjoying the warm evening. I’d tackled it right as it was getting
distracted by a sweet old lady walking her dog, then had dragged its
stinky ass all the way back here to finish the job. Just another night
in paradise.
It was too bad, really. I’d sort of thought that maybe, once I left
Asheville, I’d leave the monsters behind, too. That the problem
wasn’t me, and all these years I hadn’t actually been doing anything
to make monsters chase me, attack me, and try to eat me in one big
gulp. I’d simply been living in a quiet little town with a super
unfortunate monster problem.
Monsters that no one else could see, until it was too late.
Monsters that hurt and even killed people, if I wasn’t there to stop
them.
I grimaced as the heap of ghoul guts behind me dissolved with a
bubbling sigh, releasing a newer, fouler stench. Well, I’d been wrong.
If anything, coming to Boston had made things worse. No matter the
zip code, I was flypaper for freaks.
Now I peered at the pillar nearest to me, both satisfied and
frustrated at the name etched into the heavy stone. Beacon Hill
Preparatory Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Mom had only
referred to the school where she’d taught in Boston once or twice,
but the name had been memorable, at least: Beacon Hill Prep.
I’d assumed it was a high school, since she’d taught college
courses in botany and natural sciences at our local university. I’d
been wrong. There was no Beacon Hill Prep of any sort in this area
of Boston other than this decrepit old ruin, which I’d only found after
hitting up one of the fussy, highbrow librarians at the achingly proper
Athenaeum Library earlier today. Beacon Hill Preparatory Academy
had been a gem in its time, the guy had insisted, but it had closed
more than a century ago. My mother couldn’t have worked there.
I squinted through the gate to the dilapidated building barely
visible through the overgrown trees and heavy bushes, and sighed.
Another dead end in the search to find anything about my mother in
the city where she’d grown up…the city where, just maybe, she still
had family. Somewhere.
Irritation riffled through me. I’d allowed myself three months to
check out the place Mom had lived as a young woman—and
possibly find a long-lost cousin or two. I was doing it for closure, I’d
told myself. To finally deliver the letter my mother had written over
the course of my entire lifetime but had never sent to her family…a
family who should at least be told that she’d died, for heaven’s sake.
I was doing it to hopefully understand why she’d walked away from
her own people and never looked back…except in that sheaf of
carefully written pages, scribed with perfect penmanship.
My mom had been a fiercely independent single mother. She’d
made it clear that it was her, me, and no one else in the world. Like
any kid, I’d believed her. As far as I was concerned, I had no dad—at
least not one who cared that I existed—no grandparents, no cousins.
It’d never occurred to me to consider any other possibility.
Right up until she’d died of cancer, anyway, and I’d eventually
screwed up the nerve to go through her things. I’d found the letter in
an unlocked, iron box—ten pages of sometimes lucid, sometimes
bizarre passages that started and stopped and wound around again,
stacked on top of a dozen ripped-open envelopes, all with the same
address.
I’d checked that addy, of course, but a Google search had only
pulled up a long-defunct private mailbox store, closed some fifteen
years ago. I’d almost given up after that. Mom hadn’t sent the letter,
after all. Maybe she’d sometimes wanted to, but she hadn’t.
I should respect that, shouldn’t I?
Then, a few short weeks ago, barely a month after her death, a
postcard had shown up in my mailbox, with a picture of some
random street in Beacon Hill, Boston. It contained a single elegantly
written line on the back: You will always have family in Boston. There
was no address on the card, no postage. I had no idea how it had
gotten to me, or who’d sent it. I didn’t even know if it was intended
for me, or for my mom.
My postal carrier hadn’t remembered seeing the card. Said it
might have been a mistake. But how could it be a mistake? Mom had
lived in Boston, worked here, before I was born. That much I knew to
be true. And then there was that long letter, never sent, with the
outdated Boston address…
I couldn’t put it out of my head. School was done for the
semester, and I didn’t know whether I’d go back in the fall, anyway.
With Mom gone…I didn’t know a lot of things. So after several
sleepless nights, unreasonably chilled to the bone, I’d pulled out the
letters again, and read them through.
They made me unexpectedly sad. Mom had wanted someone
important to her to know about me. About my strength, my grit. She’d
never acted like there was anything strange about me fighting
monsters, even though, hello—nobody else I knew had monsters
popping out from every freaking corner, looming in the shadows,
rustling through the trees. She’d said it was simply my gift, that I was
supposed to protect others, and fighting monsters was how I’d do it.
She’d been proud in real life, proud in the letter. In fact, she’d gone
on and on about how I could face any monster without fear—not
true, but she was my mom.
And then…she’d never sent the letter.
Why hadn’t she sent it?
On top of all that, there was the postcard, practically shimmering
with possibility. A family, I thought. My mom’s family, anyway. Not
really mine. But still…
I’d finally decided that at least I could go up to Boston, to see
first-hand where Janet Cross had grown up before she’d moved to a
cute college town in North Carolina and had a freak of a monster-
fighting baby girl. Maybe spend a day…or the summer. Maybe find a
past I didn’t know I had.
It’d been a nice idea. Hopeful. Fresh. A plan that could help me
finally start to grieve. But I was already three weeks into my stay in
Beantown, and the only thing that I’d managed to find was, well,
more monsters.
 Another low moaning sound issued up from the ghoul’s still-
twitching remains. I scowled, then stomped back over to it. Dropping
down to one knee, I flipped my knife around in my hand and got back
to hacking, severing the arms from the torso, and then the legs. With
every new slice, the ghoul fell further apart like a putrefied gourd, the
stench making me gag.
I didn’t stop, though. I didn’t need this thing to keep up its doleful
wailing, maybe calling out to its buddies in the area to come join the
fun. Monsters never knew when to leave well enough alone.
As if on cue, an angry, yodeling howl split the night.
I jerked away from the ghoul, scrambling up to spin around, trying
to look everywhere. What was with this place? Monsters didn’t yodel.
Asheville’s monsters had been bad, but at least they’d made sense.
And after more than twenty years of tangling with me, they’d become
much more cautious, too. The city was safe. My mom had been safe.
It was her and me against the world, she’d always say…
Now it was just me.
Another ululating howl cut through the air, from a new direction,
this time. I turned, then turned again, trying to get my bearings. I
didn’t know this city. I definitely didn’t know this yodel. But I knew I
could take on whatever had uttered it. I’d been fighting monsters my
whole life, figuring it out as I went along. I was strong, scrappy—and
when both those failed, I was fast.
Besides, better me taking on the mad yodeler than having it
attack another hapless old lady out walking her dog on this beautiful
May evening in Boston, the wind whispering though the trees, the
light breeze carrying the scent of honeysuckle and sewage…
Ahhh…sewage?
A third, softer yodel, closer this time—so much closer—rippled
down the street. A large form shifted in the darkness beyond the
cone of lamplight closest to me. My skin prickled with awareness,
and my breath hitched in my throat. I was no longer alone.
I pivoted slowly, my hands going up, my right hand gripping my
knife. Go for the neck, I told myself. You always went for the neck.
You take off a monster’s head, it was all over, full stop.
But as I squared myself to the lamp post, the overhead light
parted over a huge, bulbous form shuffling into view. The blood
drained from my brain, making me sway as I took it in. What the hell
was this?
The creature was easily ten feet tall, its long, flabby body bobbing
on what had to be a half-dozen legs. It sported an even longer head
with beady eyes and slimy, flapping lips that hung far past its chin
like fleshy walrus tusks. It was a giant freaking cuttlefish, but with
feet. A lot of feet.
Worse than any of that, though, were the thick, rolling bulges of
skin behind its eyes. They extended in glistening slabs straight down
to a thick, oily-skinned torso…without any obvious break.
“No neck?” I groaned with real feeling. “How can you not have a
neck?”
Apparently, that was the wrong question to ask. The cuttlefish
reared back, let fly a yodel of absolute fury—and launched itself at
me.
 2

W hen it comes to winning a footrace, six legs are better

than two.
“What is your deal?” I wheezed as I pounded around
the corner, arms pumping, legs churning. The galloping mess of a
creature right behind me lurched closer, squishing forward as its
elongated maw stretched toward me in several flapping sections.
Something else I’d learned about my second date of the night—it
also spit acid.
“Gross.” I ducked to the side, a glob of streaming mucus shooting
past my shoulder to catch the tree in front of me on fire. I poured on
the speed.
Out of nowhere, I felt a sharp, masculine presence, a sheer and
vital punch of power so strong it nearly made me trip. My gaze ping-
ponged up and down the street, but there was nobody here but me
and the cuttlefish, and we weren’t exactly on speaking terms.
Still, I couldn’t ignore the sense that I was being focused on,
watched, even as I raced down the street.
Nina, whispered the wind—or maybe it was just my brain trying to
warn me that the galumphing creature behind me was hacking up
another gob of drool.
“No, you—ugh.” I twisted to the side, not fast enough this time to
miss the smoking stream. I staggered a little as it splattered against
my right shoulder. The sleeve of my T-shirt was instantly incinerated,
and I sucked in a ragged breath as the acid ate into my skin.
 Bastard. I generally tried not to kill more than one monster a
night, but enough was freaking enough.
I leaned down long enough to yank the short, squat blade out of
my ankle sheath—the only real weapon I carried. My left-handed
knife game was DOA and always would be, so that arm mainly
served as a shield, complete with a fancy iron-lined wristband I’d
rigged up as a monster barrier of last resort.
This mini arsenal had done the job up to now, but I’d never dealt
with a creature quite so sloppy as the one currently chasing me.
Even the ghoul had been less…moist. Just thinking of the flopping,
glopping cuttlefish locking its saggy lips on me made my stomach
roll.
I wheeled around another corner and strained to piece together
the path ahead, but something was screwed up with the streetlights
along this stretch. The glare was too bright, making me flinch. Add to
that the road had started angling downward. I could run faster that
way, sure, but so could the cuttlefish. And it had more legs.
As I raced on, I picked out a wall stretching ahead of me along
the right of the manicured sidewalk, covered in slender, cheerfully
curling ivy. Pretty, but nothing I could use to haul myself out of
harm’s way.
Behind me, the monster thudded around the corner. It issued a
furious shriek before tearing after me down the lane. Was it having
trouble seeing too? Either way, it apparently was done screwing
around. I looked back in horror as it launched itself through the air,
legs tucked underneath it, maw stretched wide, outstretched lips
waggling like electric eels—
Then it was on me.
Shockingly, the creature’s slimy skin didn’t burn me the way its
saliva had, and we went rolling down the sidewalk, the thing
squawking and squalling with enraptured kill fever as I twisted into its
body, slashing out with my right hand to cut deep into the creature’s
midsection.
Its skin was thin, its body unreasonably squishy. But since I
couldn’t tell where this thing’s neck started or ended, I couldn’t
decapitate it. So gutting it would have to do.
 I sliced into it again, to the left this time, and scored pay dirt. The
creature gave a keening howl and tried to jerk away from me, acid
spittle flying, leaving my shirt and hair smoking with drool. I
screamed as the caustic droplets hit my skin, then hauled off with my
reinforced left wrist and clipped the monster right beneath what I
hoped was its neck.
The creature arched backward. Given that my knife was still
buried inside it, the violence of the movement ripped open its belly
the rest of the way. I used the knife like a trowel to scoop out
anything I could reach, covering myself in steaming gore as the thing
expired with a final, shuddering gasp.
I flopped over on my stomach, lungs heaving, squinting through
sheets of sticky goo. We’d stopped right in front of some kind of
doorway cut into the rock wall, a fancy arch with vaguely creepy
decorative faces surrounding it. Beyond the entrance, I saw a
beautiful tree-lined drive and hints of large stone mansion-like
buildings.
Some sort of private college campus? Probably. This part of
Boston was crawling with them. Well, I hoped they had a good street
cleaning crew, because there was no way I was gonna be able to
drag off this roadkill. Hopefully it would be a good monster corpse
and just disintegrate on its own, pronto.
As if responding to my unspoken plea, the monster husk started
to shrivel up beside me, emitting a foul, acrid stench. I planted my
hands on the street’s cobblestones, forcing myself back to my feet.
Goop streamed off me, stinging like fire everyplace it connected with
unprotected skin. I scraped the worst of it off my arms and staggered
forward a step…then groaned with real feeling as another blood-
freezing screech split the heavy night air.
“Oh, for the love...”
A second land cuttlefish came boiling around the corner, easily
twice the size of the first. It took one look at the remains of its buddy
on the street, then at me covered in monster guts, and bellowed a
livid, yodeling howl. Yep, these guys were definitely related. It surged
forward, its half-dozen feet churning with blinding speed.
I didn’t hesitate. I flung myself to the right and lurched beneath
the archway, my goop-covered running shoes slipping and sliding on
the pristine cobblestone street. The creature galloped right through
the opening as well, screaming its elongated head off, and I’d barely
turned around when it landed on me, flabby lips first.
“Jesus!” I thought I heard someone yell—a startled, masculine
someone who sounded…strangely familiar? But how—?
Between holding my breath and trying to hack my way free, I
didn’t have time to work through the mystery before powerful hands
latched onto my ankles. With one impressively powerful heave, I was
yanked out of the cuttlefish’s mouth and onto the cobblestoned street
—right as the entire creature exploded into heaping mounds of
sludgy ash around me.
That left me steam-baked, drool-glazed, powdered with monster
guts…and looking up at the most drop-dead gorgeous guy I’d ever
seen in my life.
Holy Hotpockets.
I tried to peel my lids wider so I could stare with my entire
eyeballs at the dark-haired Adonis looming over me like Mr. October
in the Ivy League calendar of Hard-Bodied Hunks. Low-slung jeans
framed narrow hips and meaty legs. A soft blue polo shirt with a
kicked-up collar stretched across a solid chest and what had to be
A+ abs.
Sadly, I couldn’t pick out any more details. Remnants of monster
guts lacquered my face in a layer of yuck the color of vomit, leaving
me to squint through its yellow-tinged crust. In other news, the
insides of cooked cuttlefish smelled a lot like sewage, too.
The heart-melting hottie peering down at me didn’t seem to
notice. He huffed a short, dry chuckle, and my heart gave the world’s
hardest lurch to the left. Was I having a stroke?
All I knew was, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do
anything but stare into deep, whiskey-colored eyes fringed with dark
lashes, wondering if maybe I hadn’t made it out of the monster alive
after all and this was my heavenly reward. Then the wide, perfectly
formed mouth with the slightest hint of fullness stretched into a cocky
grin set to stun. The guy studied me like I was some angel sent
down from heaven, and not some exotic form of sushi.
“It’s Nina, right?” he asked in a low, husky tone. “Welcome to
Wellington Academy.”
 3

I jolted with surprise at the sound of my name, the shellac around

my mouth cracking a bit. I couldn’t move any further, though. I’d
somehow adhered myself to the cobblestones beneath me, my
fingers stuck together around my knife.
My knife. I was sprawled on the ground in front a guy so
beautiful, butterflies had marshaled a frenzied conga line through my
stomach, while my hair and clothes and several pounds of monster
goop remained matted to my skin, and my fingers were glued to a
deadly weapon. Did that make my situation better? Worse? It was so
hard to tell.
“Where’d you come from, anyway? Did Commander Frost put
you up to this?” the guy tried again, stepping to the side and
dropping to one knee to tap the thick rime coating my forehead.
“Because news flash, dumb idea. You obviously had no clue what
you were doing.”
My eyes narrowed to slits, all the butterflies dying in a ferocious
napalm blast that seared through everything but the crust of monster
goop rendering me practically immobile. Mother. Fucker. Forget all
the babble I couldn’t understand, had this pretty-mouthed preppie
dared attack my monster hunting skills, when all he’d done was hook
his doubtlessly baby-powdered fingers around my ankles and give a
little tug? Yeah. No.
“Thanks,” I wheezed in percolating outrage as I realized—I was
going to be sick. Not merely your garden variety, I-just-killed-a-
monster-let-me-have-some-space sick either, but full-on gorge that
rose up in my throat fast and hard, desperate to evacuate my body. I
flopped over on my knees, my arms finally ripping through the thick
varnish of monster parts, and heaved. A rush of bile spilled out over
the cobblestones. I gagged, then gasped desperately for oxygen.
“Whoa, whoa… Liam,” the frat boy shouted. “Liam, for fuck’s
sake, get over here. Zach!”
Oh, flipping fanstastic. Was he calling for reinforcements?
Security? A TikTok camera crew? Could this get any worse? It didn’t
matter. I was too weak to move, my arms shaking, my stomach
churning. I sagged at the sound of running feet.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, my mouth gritty with stomach acid and
annoyance.
“What the—Tyler, what’d you do?” A new voice cut through my
haze, and I felt a weird, unexpected thrill as strong hands closed
around my shoulders, apparently oblivious to the sludge that covered
them, and turned me around.
“I’m—” I broke off, blinking hard, convinced I now totally was
seeing things. Guy No. 2 had to be Hollywood’s next most eligible
vampire—all dark, brooding eyes, porcelain skin, and a shock of
thick black hair. Wow.
“Liam,” the vision said urgently, ruining the moment. “Wanna
hurry it up? I think she’s going to puke again.”
I stiffened. “Get away from me,” I tried to say to everyone within
three feet of me, though it came out as more of a snuffling growl. I
shook off Guy No. 2’s hands and spit out a fragment of something I
didn’t want to think about too closely as someone else ran toward us.
“I’m not going to—”
“I got you, I got you,” Guy No. 3 interrupted. I swung toward him,
more looking for a way out of this screwed-up Bermuda Triangle of
boy toys than anything else, but as I turned to face him, he
absolutely blasted me. And this time, not with a rush of manly
gorgeousness.
“Hey,” I snarled, flinching away. The burst of warm water shocked
me into immediate action, my hands coming up for battle, my blade
still stuck to my palm. I slashed hard to the right, choking out an
incoherent warning, but the guy never stopped coming. He crowded
me so fast, I stumbled back into the arms of Guy No. 1—Tyler, was
it?—who grabbed me and held on tight.
A hot, wet burst of intense physical awareness deluged my
insides at the intimate grip, right before my outsides were drenched
in actual water. An entire canister of something was dumped over my
head and splashed over my shoulders and chest.
“Will you stop?” I tried again.
Guy No. 3 didn’t stop, though. He bore down on me, upending a
second flask of water over my belly, soaking my clothes all over
again. I writhed and spluttered in Tyler’s solid grip, but I also
recognized that whatever the dude was pouring on me was doing the
job, ripping through the layers of cuttlefish puke like a hot knife
through butter. It was like some kind of industrial strength—
“Holy water.” The voice of Guy No. 3 confirmed. I hadn’t gotten a
full look at him before he’d holy-water-boarded me, and now my
eyes were screwed shut beneath another blast of the warm liquid.
“You get coated in monster guts, it’s one of the few things that will
cut through it.”
I couldn’t deny that he was right as I felt the veneer of goop clear
from my mouth and skin. I flinched away again as Guy No. 3—I
assumed it was Guy No. 3—rubbed a soft cloth over my face, like I
was some sort of duckling caught in an oil spill. I had no doubt that
he was as gorgeous as his friends, because that was the sort of
night I was having. I jerked away from another swipe of the cloth,
blinked my eyes clear, and—yup.
Guy No. 3 was a total babe.
His complexion was darker than the others, with deeply tanned
skin, a pile of sandy brown hair, and eyes that practically danced as I
yanked the cloth out of his hands so I could mop off the rest of my
face myself. I also used the cloth to wipe off my knife, then stuck the
blade back into its ankle sheath, straightening to see the guy’s smile
hadn’t dimmed.
“I’m Liam,” he said, his tone light, almost teasing. “Liam Graham.
And you’re more than welcome. Holy water doesn’t have an
expiration date, but it gets heavy. I’m glad to have gotten some of it
out of my pack.” He lifted one shoulder, and I noticed he had a
military-looking knapsack slung over his back.
 The soft murmur of Tyler’s chuckle sent goose bumps over my
skin. “Liam and his backpack. You’re never going to see one without
the other, I guarantee it.”
“Well—thanks.” I steeled myself to turn back to Tyler the college
pinup model, managing what I hoped was an apologetic smile. “And,
ah, thanks for…”
As our gazes met, I jolted with a deep and visceral shock that
had nothing to do with potential sexy times. “Wait a minute. You
knew my name.”
Tyler smiled smugly, but if he replied, I couldn’t hear it. Not with
the sudden rush of blood roaring in my ears. “You knew my name,” I
said again. A surge of fear lanced through me, not even remotely
proportional to the issue of being identified. I mean—that was
strange, sure, but it shouldn’t scare the pants off me. And it seriously
did. “How do you know who I am?”
Tyler’s hands came up at the obvious panic in my voice. “Hey,
now. It’s okay—totally okay. I don’t know who you are. Not really. I
only know your first name, honest. It came to me through a spell.”
I blinked at him, taking another sharp step back. “A what?”
“Oh, give me a break,” Liam snorted beside Tyler. I swung my
gaze his way, and he rolled his eyes. “You were getting chased by
the largest Tarken land worm witnessed in the last two hundred
years, and you’re going to flip out at the idea of a magic spell?”
“Liam,” Tyler said warningly, but I didn’t mind the sarcasm. It
helped bring me back into focus. Because Liam had a point—I did
fight monsters. I had my whole life. The idea of magic spells
shouldn’t be all that much of a stretch. That said, I knew better than
to ignore my reactions. If my instincts were to get out of here, I
needed to roll.
I just wanted to understand what “here,” was, first.
“What is this place?” I asked. “Specifically. And what’s your
connection with each other?” Because that was the problem, I
thought. There was something about the fact that the guys were all
together that was bothering me the most…some danger here I
couldn’t quite understand.
Tyler took the lead as if he was born to the job. His relaxed, rich-
guy energy seemed pitched to a perfect vibration with the
cobblestoned pathways and manicured lawns. “We’re students
here,” he said easily. “At Wellington Academy. Where we learn magic
spells and hunt monsters.”
Just like that, my fear banked sharply, ebbing away like water
sluicing over a dam. I blinked. “Students,” I repeated. “You’re
students. At…um, a monster hunter academy.”
Setting aside the crazy of an entire academy dedicated to fighting
monsters, there was absolutely nothing scary about students. So
why were all my warning bells still banging and clanging like
Christmas in the old country?
“Stop sounding so surprised.” Now it was Tyler’s turn to serve me
up a sly, silver-spoon smile that implied I was way out of my Ivy
League. “If it wasn’t a monster hunter academy, we wouldn’t have
been able to identify that thing that just tried to swallow you whole. A
Tarken land worm, in case you missed that part.”
“Wait a minute.” An all-new and improved realization hit me,
further blunting my spurt of irrational anxiety. “Is that how you saw
me getting attacked? Because I ran onto your, um, magical monster
hunter campus?”
Ordinarily when I was attacked by monsters, it was like I was
invisible. People wouldn’t help me, couldn’t hear me—and most of
the time, didn’t even look my way. Over the years, I’d come to
understand that was because most people couldn’t actually see
monsters until they were about to be killed. Whether I was taking on
rampaging yetis or screaming fire birds or even a full-on winter
warlock one bright and snowy night, no one ever saw any of that. I
simply stepped away from wherever I was and showed up several
minutes later some other place, without anyone seeming to notice
how I got there or even, oddly, caring all that much.
But Tyler had seen what happened. Not only seen it, but he’d
hauled me out of a monster while it was trying to eat me. I refocused
on him, forcing myself to meet his eyes, and trying to ignore the fact
that he’d kept his shit-eating smile dialed up to an eleven. His name
was Tyler, for pity’s sake. What did I expect?
“Sure,” he agreed. Then he leaned closer, his eyes narrowing in
speculation. “But back to my question. Did Frost pay you to do this?
Commander Frost? Did he put you at risk, faking like you were some
kind of real monster hunter, to force us to test our skills?”
“No.” Faking like I was a monster hunter? Seriously? Remember,
this entitled asshole pulled you free from a cuttlefish. I could afford to
be gracious. No, really. “But I guess—thank you. For killing that
thing. Whatever you said it was.”
“A Tarken land worm.” Tyler repeated, this time with more
emphasis. “Way bigger than it should have been, too. So big, it got a
good fifty feet inside the walls before I could light it up, which was
about forty-five feet too many, you ask me.”
“That’s for sure. It practically reached the center of campus,” Vlad
the Vampire piped up, his voice clear, full, and strangely resonant as
he turned to look behind us, back toward the wall. Then he
refocused his dark eyes on me. “I’m Zachariah Williams, by the way.
Or Zach, if you prefer. And you are?”
“Just passing through,” I replied automatically. He didn’t flinch at
the harsh angles of my words.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, holding my gaze. “You’re safe here.”
I blinked at him, my breath evening out as my pulse slowed
down. In that moment, I actually believed him. How was that
possible?
“A lot safer in here than out there, for sure,” Tyler agreed,
breaking Zachariah’s grip on my brain and replacing it with his own,
this one hot enough to make my cheeks flush. “You’re honestly
telling me you weren’t hired by Frost?”
“For the last time, no. I don’t know anyone named Frost.” I was
beginning to wonder if maybe this was some kind of a screwed-up
dream. That would explain a lot.
“Not a dream,” Zachariah said, which struck me as odd, but I
couldn’t place why at first. He held out his hand, and I instinctively
wiped mine off first, though it was now free of monster guts. We
shook, and a flare of energy sizzled between us, making me jerk my
hand away.
“Ouch,” I managed. “Quit that.”
Zachariah gave me a sad half smile. “I can’t, I’m afraid. I’m
psychic. That also means I can read your mind. I’m sorry for that
intrusion, Nina Cross. I truly am.”
 I stiffened, renewed panic zipping through me. Not a dream, he’d
said. “You know my name, too?”
“He’s pretty friggin’ annoying with the mind-reading thing,” Liam
put in, completely without rancor. “None of the rest of us do that,
promise. Nice to meet you, Nina.” He hooked his thumbs into his
jeans pockets and rocked up on his toes, still surveying the ground.
“A twenty-foot-tall Tarken land worm. There’s all sorts of crazy to
unpack about that.”
Despite his easy words, a new surge of anxiety bloomed deep
inside me, chased by an oddly familiar chill. I glanced around, my
nerves pinging with danger.
Zachariah was wrong. I wasn’t safe, even on a monster hunter
campus. I was beginning to think I wasn’t safe anywhere. I’d always
fought alone, survived alone. That hadn’t changed. I’d come to
Boston for a single, focused purpose: to find my mom’s family, if they
still existed, and give them her letter. I needed to accomplish that
task, then split town.
“Ah… I think I probably better be going,” I said.
Tyler turned toward me, surprise blanketing his face. “What? No
way. You can’t.”
“Watch me.” I turned on my heel—
And crashed straight into a warm, solid, and remarkably well-
muscled chest.
“Masturbate,” Guy No. 4 rumbled.
That did it.
I snapped.
 4

W ithout taking so much as a breath, I leaned down and

yanked my knife out of its sheath. I came up slashing,
hard and sure, ripping the blade across a left biceps the
size of a watermelon. The guy taking the hit barely gave a guttural
oof, his arms coming up in self-defense as Tyler shouted something
sharp and Latin sounding.
My knees buckled, my vision exploding into a million different
colors, and the world went upside down. I was falling, falling—
I came back to consciousness with a jolt. The air filling my
nostrils was thick, vile, and reeking of ammonia. I flinched back, my
hands lifting in a sharp karate chop as I rolled to the side, scrambling
up—
And was stopped again, midair. Held fast in the grip of a muscle-
bound linebacker whose left arm had sprung a sizeable leak.
“Smelling salts,” Liam announced cheerfully beside us, waving a
packet at me before dropping it back into his pack. “No magic
required, honest. And Tyler only spelled you to keep you from knifing
Grim again. No hard feelings, right?”
“What did you say to me?” I demanded, shoving against the thick
chest of the guy holding me—a chest that was decidedly not Liam’s,
nor Tyler’s, nor Zachariah’s, I decided. Had Liam seriously called him
Grim? Whoever he was, his chest was way too big.
The beast let me go and stepped back, his laughter rumbling
somewhere deep beneath his soft brown T-shirt as I tried to take him
all in. I got the sense of thick, corded muscle under faded, worn
clothes, long, braided white-blond hair, and a chiseled jaw. The cut
on his arm wasn’t nearly as deep as I remembered it being, but I
couldn’t cope with another gorgeous guy, so I focused on his
collarbone and scowled. Even the jerk face’s collarbone was sexy,
peeking out above the frayed collar of his shirt.
“Who are you?” I demanded, shaking my head. Why am I so
dizzy?
“Grim,” he confirmed. “And you’re monster bait.”
“Monster—oh,” I said, blinking hard. “Right.”
I forced my gaze up, not nearly as offended by the guy’s
apparent assessment of my fighting abilities given what I’d thought
he’d said. I met his flat, pale-gold gaze, and squared my shoulders.
While the other guys were hot enough to roast marshmallows off of,
this guy was different. Imposing and super manly, but not as pretty.
Big, rough, and massively built, with sun-bronzed skin and white
blond hair, he looked like he should be competing in a Mr. Universe
competition for Mother Russia, not hanging out on some tony college
campus in Boston’s Back Bay. At least he’d missed my meet puke.
“Oh, he saw it,” Zachariah assured me.
The blood rushed to my face as I wheeled on Psychic
Wonderboy, mortification flashing to outrage. “You fucking get out of
my mind right now, or I swear to Christ—”
To my surprise, Zachariah’s face blanched, and he stepped back.
“No,” he said, lifting his hands. “No, Nina. I can’t help it. I mean, it’s
something I can’t stop on my own, but you can. There’s a ward you
can use…” He shot a desperate look to Liam, who’d already slid his
bag around to the front of his body again, the move so automatic, I
wondered exactly how long he’d had that pack.
“Well, actually…” Zachariah brightened, and I lifted my hand,
palm out to stop him.
“Don’t you dare answer that question,” I warned as Liam pulled
free a bracelet that looked like a medic-alert tag.
Liam shook the bracelet at me. “Best solution is to get a tat, but
this will stop Zach from crawling around inside your mind unless you
want him to,” he said, affably enough. “And he can’t help it, he’s right
about that. It’s part of who he is.”
 “Gimme.” I held out my wrist, and Liam chuckled, while Zachariah
—Zach—did a good job of looking abashed. His eyes had an almost
bruised character to them, and I realized they weren’t blue at all, but
more of a dark purple. I’d never seen anyone with eyes quite that
shade, and I blinked even as the skin of my wrist prickled where
Liam was touching me.
A deep and abiding awareness I had of all these guys swept over
me like an incoming tide, and I practically snatched my hand away
from Liam once the bracelet was secure. He nodded reassuringly, as
if I was some kind of frightened foal, and I swung my gaze to Zach.
“What am I thinking right now?” I demanded, and—completely
out of left field, I imagined him naked and in a shower, hot water
streaming over him, slicking his black hair to his perfectly formed
face, his mouth open, his eyes closed, his—
What the hell? I shook myself back to sanity, but Zach looked
neither embarrassed nor amused. “I don’t know,” he said, with
feeling. “I swear, I don’t. That’s how the wards work.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Tyler said, and I glanced back to him and
lost all interest in either Zach or Liam, which was freaking saying
something. But they weren’t Tyler. They weren’t as tall, or as hot, or
as maddening, or as…
Wait a minute. I narrowed my eyes. “Did you put some sort of hex
on me? Is that why I’m so dizzy?” I demanded, and now it was
Tyler’s turn to raise his hands—half mockingly, half way too
impressed with himself.
“Nope. It was a quick disorientation spell, that’s all. To keep you
from slicing up Grim.”
I scowled at him as Grim snorted something I couldn’t quite pick
up—then it hit me. Math had a way of doing that sometimes.
Oh…shit.
There were four guys here. Four guys who were obviously
friends. More than friends? Some kind of team? It was a team—a
gang—a group of guys that I needed to watch out for, I thought,
though I couldn’t remember why. I mean, who would have warned
me about such a thing? It had to be Mom, right? She was the only
one who warned me about anything. But what had she said?
 I couldn’t pin it down, and I didn’t want to think too hard about it,
honestly. Not here. Not with Zach able to read minds and Liam
studying me like I was a puzzle to solve and Grim practically
quivering with feral heat and Tyler…dear holy crapsicles, Tyler—
Focus.
Tyler opened his mouth to say something else, but I cut him off,
plastering a guileless smile on my face. “No, wait,” I said, putting a
little gush into my words. “I keep getting sidetracked, and I don’t
want to be. You saved my life. You got that thing off me, pulled me
out. Thanks for that.”
“Tarken land worm,” Liam offered again. “Normally they don’t
grow that big. And by that big, I mean usually they’re about the size
of a hamster.”
“And they shouldn’t be on academy property,” Beast-Mode Grim
said, beside me. I refused to look at him. I didn’t really want to look
at any of them, other than Tyler right now. Tyler who’d reached inside
the mouth of a monster and hauled me out by the ankles, then set
the thing on fire. That had to count for something, right? These guys
couldn’t be that bad…
“They shouldn’t exist at all,” Zach muttered, scattering my
thoughts as he scuffed his foot through the nearest ash pile. “You
totally smoked this one, though.”
“Well, you know what they say. You never forget your first.” Tyler
winked. “I was happy to be of service.”
I blinked, this new piece of crazy further piercing my rumbling
anxiety. “Um, that was the first time you’d ever seen one of those
things? Ever?”
Liam jumped in as if he couldn’t help himself. “Wellington
Academy is the country’s only monster hunting school, with one
glaring flaw. There are precious few monsters around to fight
anymore.”
I snorted. Yeah, right. “So how did you know what to do? How is
it I’m even still alive?”
Tyler’s smile kicked up a few watts. “You had a couple of things
working in your favor. Thing one, you were covered in guts, and that
protected you when my incineration spell kicked in.”
 Before I could respond to that, he kept going. “Thing two, I could
see you and see the monster chasing you because that’s what we
do here. Like, more than anybody else in the entire academy, that’s
exactly what we do. It’s kind of something you have to be taught, you
know? At least, to do it right. You were pretty good with your knife,
but you definitely weren’t doing it right.”
“You know…” I began, but Liam cut me off.
“Don’t let him bust your balls too much,” he said drily. “There’s
barely even a Monster Hunter minor at Wellington anymore. The way
we’re going, in another few years, every monster hunter is gonna
have to be self-taught.”
“And how did you come to be self-taught?” Zach asked. He’d
gone back to brooding vampire mode, but eyed me with a new,
curious speculation. That, more than anything, convinced me he
couldn’t read my thoughts.
“Don’t cover the bracelet with your other hand,” Grim offered
beside me, unasked. “It negates the ward. Handy if you need to
communicate, pain in the ass otherwise.”
I believed him, but I didn’t think he was reading my thoughts
either. He just struck me as very…observant. Glancing at him as
briefly as possible, I decided I wasn’t too keen on him observing
much more of me. His lips curled in a satisfied smirk, and I shivered
again, a new round of chills rolling over me.
Yep, I needed to leave.
“The question stands,” Tyler said, folding his arms as if he’d
officially appointed himself the boss of me. Which was never gonna
happen. “How’d you learn how to fight monsters so badly?”
Screw this. “I didn’t, at least not intentionally. I had a cuttlefish on
my ass, Tarken land worm, whatever. I didn’t even know there was
an academy here.” I squinted around, shrugged. “It’s kind of pretty,
I’ll give you that.”
“Do monsters chase you around Boston often?” Liam asked,
going for casual and utterly failing. All four guys were now studying
me with a weird sort of energy, something I couldn’t quite figure out.
What was I supposed to watch out for…it was a strange groupish-
sounding word, something my incredibly smart mother would have
used—because she had to have been the one who’d warned me. No
one else knew how I spent my days. But had she called it a cohort?
A consortium?
The guys were waiting for an answer, though, and despite my
profound but profoundly vague fears, there didn’t seem to be any
immediate threat. So, I segued smoothly into lying about the monster
attacks. Because that’s what I did.
“Oh, gosh no. It’s only happened once before, and that was
yesterday. Up the street the other way. Nobody saw it happening, so
I assumed maybe I’d had some sort of, I don’t know, out-of-body
experience? That’s why I was so surprised you guys saw it.”
“It’s never happened before yesterday,” Grim repeated. He
reached out a finger to trace the bare skin of my shoulder where my
shirt sleeve had burned off. I flinched away.
“Don’t touch me,” I warned, but the smirk was back on his
ruggedly handsome face. I knew what he’d seen. A long thick jagged
scar that ran from my shoulder to my elbow. These days, I only ran
from monsters to lead them away from people they could hurt. That
hadn’t always been the case. “Not every monster’s from a fairy tale.”
Grim’s expression shifted, becoming unexpectedly dark, almost
mutinous. A surge of emotions rolled through me, but I couldn’t
exactly place which ones. Fear, certainly, wariness, but something
else as well. Something more dangerous. I shivered again, forcing
myself not to rub my arms. What was he thinking? And why did I
want to know so badly?
“Well, if you haven’t been targeted before, then shit. We are
probably to blame for this attack tonight,” Tyler sighed, sounding
almost like a regular guy for the first time since he’d pulled me out of
the cuttlefish’s mouth.
I blinked at him. “Huh? You just saved my life.”
“Yeah, but…” He waved vaguely at the large stone buildings that
stretched off into the distance, their imposing size and timeless
beauty distracting me for a second as he continued talking.
“Like I said, we’re kind of a specialized academy here. Boston’s
got a few of them, but here at Wellington, we tend to fly under the
radar. We focus on spell work, practical magic, and a couple of very
old majors that you’re not going to find anywhere else.”
“Like monster hunting,” I offered.
 He nodded. “Like monster hunting, which is now a minor, Liam’s
right. I know it sounds kind of strange, though probably less strange
after what you just experienced. But yeah. It’s a pretty small
concentration. You’re looking at the entire junior class—nearly
seniors, actually. We’ve got a handful of freshmen who came on this
year, but…”
“But they suck,” Grim said.
Tyler grimaced. “The university has undergone a change in
direction. Monster hunting isn’t a popular focus anymore.”
“Speaking of,” Liam said, and he stepped away from us,
rummaging again in his knapsack.
Zach shook his head. “You’ll want to stand back a little. Liam
loves this part.”
To my surprise, what Liam pulled out of his knapsack next was a
book, a well-worn leather-bound tome, with rough-edged pages,
some of which were falling out. He thumbed through the book and
straightened sharply when he found a particular passage.
“Here we are.” He held the book up closer to his face and started
speaking in a low murmur. The ashy sludge on the ground started to
smoke. I glanced down in surprise. Was that…?
“Monster-cleanup spells,” Tyler confirmed. “This will take a
minute.”
Then he reached for my hand.
 5

O f all the things Tyler had done so far, this probably

surprised me the most. I stared at his outstretched fingers,
unsure what to do. He didn’t seem to mind, merely wiggled
his fingers a bit. I belatedly reached out my hand as well.
The touch of his skin was warm, tingly, and the air seemed to
hold its breath around us, shimmering with anticipation. And I was
only holding the guy’s hand, for heaven’s sake! I’d never been so on
edge in my life, and these guys weren’t even monsters.
Right?
“We’ve got this,” Zach said, and Tyler nodded, pulling me away.
Grim had already turned and headed back into the shadows, and
within a few seconds, it was just me and this tall, handsome college
guy walking down the cobblestone lane, deeper into the center of
campus, away from the gates of the academy.
Away. I stopped, pulling my hand free of Tyler’s. I instantly
missed the contact, but I clearly needed to stop being so distracted.
“Yo, I kind of need to get back to my apartment.”
“Fair enough.” Without missing a beat, Tyler gave me another
cocky, self-assured smile. The kind of smile that told me he didn’t
often get turned down. “Let me walk you home.”
I shook my head. “I can take care of myself.”
His smile kicked up one corner of his mouth. He really had an
exceptional mouth. “Yeah, well, a complimentary walk home comes
standard with every monster attack at Wellington Academy,
especially since it’s the first time you’ve ever been attacked in your
life.”
I hesitated. There was no way I could counter that without
revealing the truth—that I’d been fighting monsters since I was four
years old. And to be honest, I found I didn’t mind the idea of walking
with Tyler so much. Despite Mom’s apparent long-ago warning about
some crazy dude gang, Tyler didn’t feel like a danger, exactly.
Right.
Well, not that kind of danger. Either way, he wasn’t an actual
monster and we were going to be walking in public. I could handle
this.
Without further discussion, we turned and headed back toward
the same wall where I’d entered. From this side, it looked like a
perfectly ordinary gray brick barrier, complete with cheerful ivy, until I
got right up on it. Then I could see the figures carved into the rock—
ghoulish gargoyles, medusas, and howling demons. We ducked
under the archway, and I peered back—and was met with more
horrible faces, half hidden in the foliage.
“How has nobody figured out what you guys are?” I asked.
He shrugged. “People see what they expect to see. It’s like the
monsters themselves. We’ve been told over and over again that their
numbers are diminishing, that they only live in super remote places,
definitely not roaming the streets of Boston anymore. I mean—that
second land worm that attacked you, it was epic. We haven’t seen a
real-live monster, ever, other than the ones we keep in the
menagerie here on campus. And those guys have been with the
academy for so long, it kind of sucks to even call them monsters. We
don’t fight them, we protect them. Everything else we do is with
holograms and illusion magic. We’re the best in the world at fighting
monsters—but there aren’t hardly any monsters left anymore. Or so
everyone keeps trying to tell us.”
He said this last with a wry twist to his lips, and I had to laugh.
“I meant what I said back there,” I blurted, feeling a rush of
awareness about how close we were walking together—and how
comforting it was—that left me both awkward and emotional. I didn’t
want to trust this guy—I didn’t trust this guy—but the facts were the
facts. “You totally saved my ass. If you hadn’t incinerated that thing, I
would eventually have hacked my way out, but I wouldn’t have been
in good shape.”
That, at least, wasn’t a lie. When I got attacked and actually
caught by monsters, I’d been seriously screwed up on more than a
few occasions. There were definitely some scars on my body I
couldn’t quite remember how they got there. In the past year alone,
I’d ended up in the hospital a couple of times, though I’d managed to
slip out before I’d had to give my real name or identity. I didn’t have
insurance, of course. Even if I had, with a preexisting condition of
monster meal, I didn’t think I was going to get comprehensive
coverage.
What had Grim called me, again? Monster bait? Asshole. At least
I was warming up to Tyler.
“The fact that you even think you could’ve hacked your way out is
awesome,” he continued. “You’ve obviously got zero formal self-
defense training.”
Okay, well, I had been warming up to Tyler.
“It was that obvious?” I offered noncommittally. This guy didn’t
know me. I’d flat-out lied to him. He had no idea what I was capable
of—
So of course, he dug himself in deeper. “Oh, yeah,” he chuckled,
managing to sound like every elitist asshole who ever lived. “I mean,
thank god you were carrying a knife, but…” He paused. “Why were
you carrying a knife anyway?”
“Oh, you know. Muggers.” I stopped short of batting my eyes at
him, but it was a near thing. “I’m so glad you guys were able to
protect me.”
Tyler nodded, blissfully oblivious to my sarcasm. “Me too. Though
I’m pretty sure the land worm was only active because of us. Again,
I’m really sorry about that.”
I let him continue to take the blame for the night’s events as we
strolled up the street, two college kids out for an evening walk. Like
normal people, almost. “So, what does one do with the monster
hunting degree?” I asked as we turned onto Newbury Street.
Tyler’s dejected sigh took me off guard. “Honestly? Not a hell of a
lot anymore, at least not in the good ol’ US of A. They still need
monster hunters in the old country, though, and there’s been a
demand for the skillset in South America of late. That’s probably
where I’ll be heading after graduation next year. Figure I’ll spend a
couple of years roaming around the rainforest, or what’s left of it,
doling out my services wherever they’re needed.”
I peered skeptically at him. “People pay for that?”
“A hell of a lot, actually. Or they used to. That’s probably the other
reason why they’re looking to phase out the minor. It was endowed
with legacy dollars from way back when the university was founded,
and things really ramped up around the middle of the 1900s. Anyone
who successfully graduates as a monster hunter is set for life. I’m
talking millions of dollars if you want it all at once. More over time if
you don’t need the lump sum. If the academy could find a way to
legitimately repurpose those scholarship monies to other parts of the
campus, believe me, they would. There’s also the issue that most
people don’t believe there are any more monsters in the world of the
truly magical variety.”
“Oh?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully flat. Millions of dollars?
More over time? Was he serious? Why hadn’t my mom ever dropped
that little bit of information on me, in between lessons on the J-hook
knife thrust and how to flame your dragon? “Where do they think all
the monsters went?”
“Died out, disappeared into a portal to another dimension…there
are all sorts of theories. An entire subgroup on campus thinks they
never existed in the first place in any real numbers, never mind all
the history and spell work and totems that have been amassed over
the centuries to fight them. Those students subscribe to the fairy-tale
theory that monsters were made up to scare populations into
compliance with local government regulations. Kind of like religion.”
I remembered Zach’s reaction when I had used the name Christ.
“So where are you guys from?”
“All over,” Tyler said. “Zach’s from Georgia, Liam and I are
Boston boys. Grim’s from…God knows. Europe, we think, but he
doesn’t really talk about it much.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t seem like he talks much in general.”
“Not if he can avoid it. But it’s actually kind of nice having four of
us in one class. Most of the time, it’s only two or three people total.
And some classes even skip a year because of the requirements it
takes to enter the minor. We’re all officially majoring in Magical
Sciences, sort of Wellington’s version of General Studies, but very,
very few students get into this minor. We’ve got a couple of new
freshmen who are promising, but who knows what the situation is
going to be like by the time they reach their senior year? And, they’re
kind of entitled assholes.”
He said this last with a very self-aware smile, and I had to
chuckle. Despite his seemingly ingrained-at-birth arrogance, it was
easy to laugh around Tyler. Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last
time I’d laughed with anyone other than my own thoughts. But with
Mom’s warnings ringing in my ears—though far more faintly now—I
needed to understand their group connection. I tried to circle my way
around to that topic as delicately as possible. “So, you and Liam
knew each other before you came to school here?”
“We’ve known each other since we were kids, yup. We also knew
we were headed for monster hunting from a very young age.”
“Because monsters chased you?” I asked, since, duh.
Tyler shot me a surprised look. “Like when we were kids? No
way. That would have sucked ass. We just knew, the way some
people know they’re going to be doctors or work with animals, that
we were supposed to hunt monsters. Sort of like a calling, you
know?”
“Yeah,” I lied, hiding my frown. I hadn’t been called to hunt
monsters. I’d been called to keep them from killing me on a frequent
and escalating basis. Even Mom had never actively gone out on a
hunt, like she was going to go harvest mushrooms or something.
She’d simply done everything she could to help me fight off the
monsters that never stopped coming—and then recorded my
successes in one long, carefully written letter.
But I was willing to go with Tyler’s spin. It sounded much nicer.
“And Zach came up from Georgia?”
“Yup. We’ve been tight since freshman year. His dad is a
preacher, if you can believe that.”
My step hitched a little, and I winced. “Oh, Jesus,” I said and
winced again.
Tyler laughed. “You got him right where he lives with that one.
He’s seen some serious shit. I guess you’d say he was hunted, or at
least he’s been around plenty of people who were messed up,
particularly by demons. He’s got some stories.”
“I bet,” I murmured.
“As for Grim, like I said, no one really knows where he’s from. He
showed up freshman year with the right paperwork and that kind of
raw intensity about him, and nobody asked questions. Not even
Commander Frost, and that man has questions for everything.”
“He’s one of your professors?”
“He’s the academy’s head monster fighting instructor—our
mentor, really. Way more of a mentor than the dean of our
department, that’s for damn sure.” Tyler checked himself, shaking his
head. “One more year, though. We’ll make it through.”
“That’s when you graduate?”
“Yep, not a second too soon. Those South American man-eating
yetis aren’t going to kill themselves.”
“Fair,” I agreed, and drew in a long breath. I needed to stop
dancing around the issue and put my mom’s barely remembered
warnings to rest. “So, you and the guys—are you all, like, buddies, or
do you belong to a more formal association at, ah, the academy?”
He quirked me a glance. “What do you mean?”
I glanced back at him. “Well, you know…”
The movement behind Tyler happened so fast I would’ve missed
it if I hadn’t turned at the exact moment I had. But I’d seen the
shimmering bands of night screamers way too many times to miss
them when they were right in front of my face. I’d also felt those
bands wrap around my throat, tight enough to kill, often enough that I
knew they meant business.
The creatures burst from the shadows as I pushed Tyler out of
the way.
“Run,” I shouted.
He didn’t.
 6

I nstead, Tyler whirled in a tight circle to face the threat, his hands
lifting as I went for my knife.
“Magla Gušter,” he snapped. The night screamers’ furious
rush toward us stopped abruptly. They rotated in a sharp spiral,
hissing with fury, but didn’t come any closer.
What the hell? I danced from foot to foot, hands up, knife out, all
weaponed up with nowhere to go. Tyler shot a glance at me, taking
in my stance.
“You’ve seen these before too?” he asked, and I flushed. As far
as he knew, I hadn’t encountered any monsters in my life before this
week. But before I could explain how I knew about fighting
screamers, they struck again. From behind us. Because that’s what
they did.
“Your feet,” I blurted as I awkwardly hopped sideways, while Tyler
leapt up and did an elegant twist midair, diving to the side in a neatly
executed shoulder roll that got him well out of the way of the
sweeping ground attack of the slashing mist.
I, of course, was neither so nimble nor so lucky. The first swipe of
the creatures missed me, but the whipping shadows caught my left
ankle on the second try, twisting it hard as it smashed me against the
brick wall. My bare shoulder scraped across the stone, the skin
ripping open, and I hissed out a sharp breath.
Fortunately, I’d dealt with these bastards enough times, I knew
how to handle them. I crunched heavily to the ground, rolling over
onto my back, and caught the trailing edge of the screamer between
my palms. One palm still held the flat of my blade, which made for a
tidy screamer sandwich: two palms, white mist, deadly iron. Then I
held on.
The thing with screamers, they were chickenshits and hive
minders. You hurt one, you hurt them all. You just had to hope you
didn’t get beaten to death in the process as they tried to whip you off
them.
“Nina!” Tyler shouted, or I think he shouted. I was too busy
getting flung against the brick wall, again and again, until suddenly, I
careened into something soft and warm and—surprisingly familiar.
Tyler’s well-muscled arms closed around me and held on tight as the
screamer, deprived of its slashing defense, yanked us both, hard.
We skidded forward a few steps, but Tyler held firm, and then—
miraculously—it was over. The screamer did as all screamers
eventually must: it exploded into nothingness. A blast of
supercharged cold air blew us back into the brick wall a final time,
then there was nothing.
“Son of a bitch,” Tyler breathed, but there was far less fear in his
voice than there should have been, and way more excitement than
was probably healthy. I gave him a shaky grin, and his face instantly
changed to one of horror.
“Nina, for fuck’s sake, where’s your apartment? Is it close? You’re
bleeding. Bad.”
“What?” I managed, but now there wasn’t one Tyler in front of
me, there were two—two? Maybe three. Should there be three? I
shook my head, and it no longer seemed connected to my ankles.
My ankles?
I pitched forward, and Tyler caught me. “It’s okay,” I managed, as
my feet lost contact with the sidewalk and I realized, somewhat
belatedly, that he’d picked me up like I weighed nothing. I was being
carried by a guy I barely knew, him and his six buddies. Six?
“Where’s your apartment, Nina?” Tyler asked again. “I swear on
the collective, I won’t hurt you, but we’re either going there or we’re
going to the hospital, and right the fuck now.”
I was sliding in and out of consciousness, but my brain’s warning
bells started ringing again like a five-alarm fire. There were two really
bad things trapped in the words he’d uttered. Two epically awful, no-
good things. I latched on to the second one, because it was closer.
“No hospitals, ever,” I gasped. “I’m just passing through. No names.
No identification. I can’t do hospitals.”
“Okay, no hospitals,” Tyler said, agreeably enough, and his
buddies echoed his response. He was being remarkably agreeable, I
thought. Agreeable was much better than smug. A one-hundred-
percent improvement, in fact. He was warm and big and strong
and…agreeable. All of him. “But where—”
I frowned. Tyler and his friends asked a lot of questions, and we
were already moving in the right direction. How could he not know
where I live? “Forty-seven fourteen. No. Fourteen forty-seven. Top
floor. Such a pretty place. A pretty place my mom could have lived
in, maybe had lived in, back before I was born. You would have liked
my mom.”
His grip on me tightened slightly, and his words were a little
rougher when they floated down to me next. “I bet I would’ve,
sweetheart,” he said, in a soft, whispering rush of echoes, and then
we were climbing a short flight of stairs. Something wet tickled my
lips. My cheeks heated. Was one of the Tylers kissing me?
But no, this was something coppery and slick and—I darted my
tongue out and decided it was blood. Blood was good, though. If I
wasn’t tasting blood, that meant my heart had stopped beating. I
hated it when that happened.
“You have a key?” Multi-Tyler asked.
“Right hip pocket. Key card.” I sighed, sensing the oncoming
blackness, the healing slide of sleep. I could always fall asleep
easily, which you’d think I’d have a problem with, given the monsters
that liked to hang out under my bed. Easy solution to that one, of
course. Because I was a thinker. I’d simply eliminated the under-the-
bed option.
“No monsters, not here,” Tyler said, and I frowned as he swung
my body around, fishing out my access card to swipe it across the
panel. Very high-tech, my landlords, for all that the apartment looked
like a historical landmark, surrounded by trees and next to the cutest
little park—
Don’t look at the park.
 I clutched Tyler’s arms a little tightly, and he murmured something
else comforting I couldn’t quite make out. He seemed to grow calmer
the more freaked out I got, which I appreciated in him and all his
other Tyler-selves. I furrowed my brow, frowning. How could more
than one Tyler be carrying me, though? How did the physics of that
work?
“I got you, Nina. Now up we go, top floor.”
“Top floor,” I agreed. Part of me felt bad, and I couldn’t figure out
why for a second. Then I noticed that all the Tylers were still carrying
me up the stairs. That meant three flights of stairs, poor guys.
Granted, I’d never gotten around to eating dinner, so at least they
weren’t dealing with that extra weight.
“It’s good, you’re good,” he said, and I wondered if I’d said any of
that out loud.
Before I could ask him, we stopped again, this time in front of my
apartment door. Tyler hesitated, but I didn’t. I struggled to get out of
his arms, swinging my feet until he let me stand. Then I hauled my
other keys out of my front jeans pocket. Three of them, all on a
carabiner clip, only slightly sticky from cuttlefish guts. One for the
door handle, one for the extra lock the apartment owner had installed
after I insisted I was willing to pay for it. And a third one, too, for the
lock I’d had installed without the apartment owner knowing—the one
he still hadn’t noticed because it wasn’t like he dropped by for
unexpected visits, right? That wasn’t his job, and I was a good
tenant.
A tenant. That was important. I wasn’t some sort of rando Airbnb
guest. I needed a mostly unfurnished apartment that I didn’t have to
worry about messing up. I even paid two months in advance
because, as I told Mr. Bellows, I traveled sometimes and didn’t want
to miss a payment if something at the bank screwed up. I’d learned a
long time ago that landlords appreciated money in hand more than
nearly anything on earth, at least besides you not having a cat.
“That’s…a lot of locks,” Tyler observed, and I started a little at the
multiple voices. Did I have enough popcorn for all of him?
“I’m a safety girl.” I stared at the door, a little confused.
Something about a cat? Tyler reached down and turned the handle,
then pushed it open. “Oh,” I breathed out. “This is my place.”
 I’d only sagged a little when his arms went around me again. He
lifted me up against his warm, firm chest, his body smelling of
eucalyptus, sweat, and heat. It was a heady, intoxicating scent, and I
maybe drifted off for a second. Then he was laying me down on my
gloriously wide sectional chaise-without-feet, my favorite piece of
furniture that I’d brought from home in the back of Mom’s truck,
which wasn’t maybe saying so much since it was practically the only
thing I’d brought. Chaise, side table, sleeping bag. Why bother with
anything else other than the kitchen table and chairs that came with
the place?
“I’ll be right back,” Tyler said, and I murmured something that I
hoped sounded like approval, because at this point, I was blissfully
sliding down into sleep. Sleep was how I shook off most monster
attacks, my body healing rapidly except in the very rare situations
where they got in a particularly deep bite or cut.
But screamers didn’t cut. They choked and beat you to death
while deadening your screams, but that was the worst of it. Nasty
little bastards, but usually not a lot of blood. Blood could be such a
pain in the ass.
I patted my rust-hued chaise and smiled. No feet, so it sat flush
with the floor, rendering it monster-avoidant. Upholstered in
Scotchgarded tweed, with enough flecks of cinnamon-colored thread
in the pattern to help even the most stubborn bloodstain blend in.
Best piece of furniture ever.
“Here we go.”
Tyler was back by my side, no longer smelling of eucalyptus and
mint but of antiseptic wipes and intensity. I blinked my eyes open,
focusing hard. “I’m going to have to fall asleep,” I said, and his thick,
dark brown brows bunched together, his whiskey eyes turning yet
more serious.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart,” he said, lifting a cool
washcloth to my face and wiping at it. The cloth seemed to push
inward a little more than was reasonable, and I flinched away at the
sudden sting.
“Stupid bricks,” I muttered. I tried to pull the errant flecks of stone
out of my skin, but Tyler batted my hand away, all the while keeping
up what seemed to be an endless roll of questions, like a magpie
rattling outside my window. Finally, beaten down worse than I’d been
with the screamers, I told him he was cuter when he was quiet.
As he laughed and agreed with me, my gaze drifted up, past the
really hot and super gentle guy who seemed determined to scrub off
every inch of exposed skin and swab it with antiseptic, past all his
equally super sexy friends who leaned over other girls who looked
like me. I gazed over to the windows of my darling brownstone,
which had shades that started midway, leaving the tops open to the
sky. It was a starry night, tonight. Such a starry night. Such a pretty,
starry, open night.
“You’ve got an awful lot of medical supplies in that bathroom of
yours,” Tyler said after another few seconds, and I blinked back at
him. It wasn’t a question, it was an observation, and I relaxed. I didn’t
like questions, but observations weren’t dangerous, right? Nobody
could get in trouble with observations.
“Ow,” I muttered as he peeled away my choker.
“One of the lizards got ahold of you, looks like,” Tyler said. “I
should probably cut this off.”
I waved vaguely toward the kitchen. “I’ve got more. They hide the
scars. There are scissors in the—”
“Everywhere,” he agreed, amiably. “You’ve got pairs in the
medicine cabinet, rolling cart, kitchen drawers, kitchen table. Along
with gauze, antiseptic in three different places, and a washable
sleeping bag on a plastic tarp in your bedroom.” Once again, he
wasn’t asking a question, and I smiled down at the thickly cushioned,
brightly colored sectional chaise, with all its jagged lines of rust-hued
threads woven in with all the other colors.
“Brand-new,” I said. “Want to keep it that way.”
“Yup,” Tyler said. “So when things get really bad with the
bleeding, you crash on the sleeping bag.”
Also not a question. I appreciated that. Nobody liked a guy who
asked questions all the time. And since it wasn’t a question, I didn’t
have to answer. Really, win-win all around.
That didn’t change the fact that I was super tired, though. “I really
do need to sleep,” I told him, and when I looked up, only one Tyler
looked back at me. I was a little sad. I’d liked having all of him
around. “It helps.”
 “You get better when you sleep.”
My mind parsed the words, the tone, the drop at the end. Not a
question. No answer needed, but I nodded anyway, my eyes drifting
shut. “I get better if there’s not a lot of blood. Cuts can scar and
breaks are bad, but scrapes and bruises heal. Choke holds are no
problem if they don’t crush the bones. If I strike first, that isn’t a
problem. I have to be careful, right? Have to be smart. Don’t tell
Mom.”
A soft hiss of dismay floated toward me. “Because Mom worries.”
I smiled. “Mom always worries. It’s what moms do, she says. She
might even write about it in her letter. So don’t tell her, or it’s back
over the lessons, all the lessons. Cut and hit and run. Kick and roll
and slash. Leave the bodies to disintegrate. Don’t get caught. Get
back to your room before anyone sees. Back to your room, and
clean yourself up, quick and quiet. Don’t make a sound. Back to your
—”
Darkness slipped around me like a homecoming. I slept.
 7

M y stomach registered the smell first. Bacon and eggs and

buttered toast. My first and most powerful thought was…I
was dead, and this was heaven.
Then my ears registered the hissing of cooking meat, my mouth
watered, my heart rate spiked, and I cracked my eyes open. Light
streamed into the apartment, creating bright patchwork squares on
the hardwood floors and the rug, and I could tell at a glance
something was wrong. Different. The apartment had changed
somehow…
I blinked as a shadow at the kitchen door moved, and I was on
the floor and scrambling away before my eyes fully registered what
was happening. The creature froze, coalescing into a solid form as I
blinked the rest of the sleep out of my eyes and slammed hard
against the wall, my right hand swiping down for the knife that wasn’t
in my ankle sheath, my left wrist rotating forward the guard that
wasn’t there—
Tyler leaned against the doorframe to the kitchen, the spatula
poised in the air, his body loose, but his expression focused. All the
way across the room, I could see the intensity in his piercing light-
brown eyes. My face flushed, and my heart started pounding for an
entirely different reason.
“Mornin’, Nina,” he drawled, nodding at me. “You seemed to
sleep well.”
“I…” Shit.
 I swallowed as my gaze swept the room again, noticing new
details in sharper relief this time through. The tidy stack of gauze
pads, tape, and antiseptic on the TV table by the chaise. The
jumbled pile of blankets and the pillow from my bedroom on the floor
beside the chaise. The gorgeous hunk of male lolling easily in the
doorway to the kitchen. The smell of sizzling bacon.
Sadly, the only image in all these that gave me any anxiety was
the collection of medical supplies. I risked a look down. I only had
one bandage, on my upper left arm. The rest of my skin was clean,
unbroken except for fine pink scars.
“Your cuts all healed in the middle of the night, just like you said
they would,” Tyler confirmed.
I blinked at him. “I told you that?”
“You said you needed sleep. That sleep would help you get
better. I didn’t know if you were dropping into shock, but based on
the arsenal of medical supplies you had in your bathroom, I figured
you had some experience in the matter. And you were right. I’m glad
you’re better.”
He said this last without a hint of admonition, but I still flushed.
Before I could say anything in reply, he’d turned again. “This is ready,
if you’re hungry.”
I clapped my hand over my stomach as it growled, my knees
bending of their own accord, my body lurching forward without giving
my brain any say in the matter. I rubbed my hand through my hair
and tasted the metallic grittiness in my mouth that always showed up
the morning after a late-night monster bender. “I, uh—I’ll be right
back.”
I decamped for the bathroom.
My second favorite room in the apartment—any apartment—was
always the bathroom, right after whatever room held my chaise.
What I saw reflected back to me in the mirror wasn’t all that
impressive. Pale hollow-cheeked face, lost in a mess of dark hair
that hung past my shoulders and, at the moment, stuck out in all
directions. Boring brownish eyes. The kind of face that blended in
whether it needed to or not. But a strong face, I thought, lifting my
chin a little. One that had looked monsters in the teeth and survived.
So maybe it shouldn’t be all that surprising that a straight-up college-
trained monster hunter was currently frying bacon in my kitchen.
Yeah, no. It was still surprising.
I washed up hurriedly and brushed my teeth, feeling almost
human again, then ran a brush through my hair. Stopping off briefly
in my bedroom, I switched out my clothes for a slightly cleaner pair
of jeans and a tank top that wasn’t ripped to shreds. I went through
tank tops the way some people went through tissues, but I’d learned
a long time ago that leggings didn’t fit my lifestyle. Cute didn’t matter
if you ended up getting your ass thrown across blacktop or glass-
strewn alleyways.
I had no idea where my tennis shoes were, so I tucked my feet
into slides, promising myself once again that I’d get a pedicure
someday. Not this morning, though.
By the time I stepped back into the hallway, I could smell
something else magical and true wafting from the kitchen. Coffee.
Oh my God.
I picked up the pace and breached the room as Tyler turned
toward me, glass pot in hand.
“You were out of, like, everything, but there’s a great little store a
half a block down on the right. You know it, right?”
I blinked, feeling dizzy, and stepped hard to the side. The pot
clattered to the countertop, and Tyler strode across the room in three
quick steps.
“Hey there, hey,” he said, though when I flinched back from him,
he stopped short. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. Do you not like bacon?
Is there something else you’d rather have?” Tyler asked, startling me
back to the present moment. “I’ve never met a vegetarian monster
hunter, but I totally should’ve asked.”
“What—oh. No, no. This is great. I just…thank you. For cooking.”
I moved to the table and sat, picking up my fork, and, as if to prove
my sincerity, dug in as he returned to the stove and got his own food.
The first bite of food was beyond heavenly. I hadn’t eaten dinner
the night before, late as it was, and I hadn’t eaten much in the way of
breakfast or lunch before that, now that I thought about it. It wasn’t
that I was trying to lose weight, I just didn’t think much about food in
the moment that it was available. I had other things to focus on.
 “Good. Eat,” Tyler said, as he settled into the chair opposite me,
seeming too large for my small dinette table from sheer force of
personality alone. My mind cleared a little bit more, memories of his
overbearing attitude coming more sharply into focus—and his
protective streak too. Why did he feel the need to protect me, and
why did the idea of his protection bug me so much? He was an
actual, bona fide monster hunter, for heaven’s sake, and he’d clearly
scraped my ass off the pavement not once last night, but twice. I
should be grateful.
I wasn’t, though. I was stressed, on edge. I narrowed my eyes at
him. There was something about Tyler I’d missed, gnawing at me.
Something he’d said last night, after…
I scowled. “We got hit by screamers?”
“So you kept calling them,” he agreed, leaning back in his chair to
regard me more steadily. It wasn’t the regard of a guy who wanted to
jump me, I decided. I swallowed an unexpected pang of
disappointment along with my next bite of eggs. Despite my strange
anxiety about the guy, I hadn’t been jumped by anything of this world
in way the hell too long. “They have a formal Latin name, but of
course, you wouldn’t know that.”
“Because I’m not a super-special monster hunting student,” I
agreed.
“Yeah, well, maybe you should be a super-special monster
hunting student. Monsters seem to have a thing for you.”
Monster bait. Unbidden, Grim’s derogatory comment came to
mind, and I stiffened in my chair. “I do fine by myself, thanks.”
“And you have for some time, haven’t you?” Tyler shot back,
leaning forward into my space. His whiskey-brown eyes sparked fire,
and his rock-hard jaw clenched tight as he went in for the kill. Jesus,
he was hot. I struggled to focus on his words, not his face, but his
words were way less fun.
“At least that’s the way it seems, given the full-on first-aid clinic
you’re rocking in every room of this place, and the random
comments you dropped after you survived your second monster
attack of the night. So, spill it, Cross. What’s really going on with
you?”
 I thought for the tiniest moment about telling him to get out of my
kitchen, get out of my apartment, and let me move on with my life. I
couldn’t bring myself to do it, though. It had been so long that I’d
been fighting all by myself, with no one—not even my mom, who
never seemed to attract monsters the way I did, but who had taught
me everything I knew about what to do when one showed up—who
could understand. What harm would it do to tell this cute, sexy, eggs-
cooking, bacon-frying, eucalyptus-smelling college-guy demigod the
truth, even if he was kind of a dick and thought he was better than
me? At least he didn’t think I was crazy.
“Okay, fine. I’ve been fighting monsters for a long time,” I finally
agreed, and Tyler settled back in his seat with satisfaction, watching
me intently as he chewed his eggs. As hungry as I was, I pushed my
own eggs around on my plate for a second more, not meeting his
eyes.
“I don’t know when it started. But I was pretty young. Little-kid
young. I was living with my mom in our small, cute house, and we
hadn’t been there very long, I don’t think. I heard something under
the bed, and when I looked, there were eyeballs staring back at me.
Like any self-respecting kid, I screamed bloody murder. Mom came
running, whisking me up and out of the room and taking me to hers.
She didn’t ask me to sleep in my own bed again for a week, and then
she offered to stay with me. Like to sleep in a chair by my bed.”
“She sounds like she was a good mom,” Tyler said.
I smiled a little wistfully, not missing how he referred to her in the
past. Had I told him the truth about that too last night? I must have.
“She was the best,” I said simply. “But even when I was what,
four years old? I didn’t want to put her at risk by staying with me. It
was one thing if I was with her somewhere else. That seemed to be
okay. Not in my bedroom, though. Not somewhere I was supposed
to be alone. Even though she, like, knew what was happening to me.
I didn’t understand that at first. I just wanted to keep her safe, if that
makes sense.”
He lifted one well-muscled shoulder. “None of this makes sense,”
he said with a candor that made my heart stutter a bit. He wrapped
his hand around one of my mugs, dwarfing it, and I stared at his
fingers for a long second, suddenly way too aware of him as a guy. A
sexy guy. A sexy guy in my apartment who knew his way around
butterfly bandages and a skillet. I flushed and glanced away as Tyler
lifted the coffee mug to take a sip. “Don’t worry about that. What
happened?”
I blew out a breath and refocused on all the ancient history I’d
bottled up for so long, with no one to tell. “The monster came back
that very first night when I was in my room by myself. But I was
ready for it. It stared at me with its big scary eyes, and I stared right
back and told it to go away. It did. By the time the next one came, I
had weapons. My mom had been hanging pictures in the hallway,
and there was a jar of nails she was using.”
“Nails.” Tyler nodded. “Iron.”
I gestured to him with my fork, feeling ridiculously rewarded by
his approving smile. “Iron. Though I didn’t understand why at the
time, pretty much anything with metal seemed to do the job. I threw a
handful of nails at the second monster that showed up. It shrieked
and scrambled back, and I went to bed. I didn’t sleep well after that,
but it didn’t come back the next night, or the night after. I’d almost
convinced myself I’d scared it away for good when I opened my
closet door a few days later, in broad daylight. There was another
one standing just inside. A different one, I was pretty sure. Because
it was long and tall and skinny, and its skin sort of didn’t quite fit right.
It was too loose, it seemed.”
“Wings?” Tyler asked, and I shook my head.
“I don’t think so. It looked like a skeleton that hadn’t quite become
a skeleton yet, and I didn’t have any nails on me, of course. It
reached out and yanked me into the closet and slammed the door
behind us. I freaked out and called my mom, but she was all the way
downstairs. Fortunately, I was a typical little girl with lots of pretty
dresses and jumpers that Mom got from the local thrift shop because
I went through them so fast. Most of the clothes were stored kid-high
because she’d put in special shelving. Best of all, we used regular
hangers.”
“More metal.” Tyler winked.
I fought the blush. “You bet. By the time my mom reached my
room and yanked the closet door open, all the clothes on hangers
were on the floor, and I’d been cut up kind of bad. I tried to explain
what had happened, but that seemed to upset her worse. So I
apologized and told her I was playing make-believe and that I was
sorry and I didn’t want her to be mad, that I wouldn’t do it again or at
least I would try not to do it again. My mom wasn’t dumb, though.
She didn’t miss how I changed my promise, and she hugged me
tight and told me there were a few things I needed to know. Stuff that
would help me stay safe. That’s all she ever wanted, was that I stay
safe.”
A wave of emotion rose up out of nowhere, threatening to
swallow me whole. Because it wasn’t all she’d ever wanted, as I’d
realized after she’d died. She’d wanted her family to know about me,
too. To be proud of me. She’d wanted that so badly, she’d started
writing a letter to them when I’d been only five years old…and had
kept writing that same letter, all the way up until the cancer had
taken her.
I blew out a long, careful breath. I would deliver that letter for her.
In person. I’d find the family she’d written to for more than fifteen
years…and I’d tell them that she’d been amazing. Strong and true
and beautiful, the best mother a girl could ever ask for. I’d tell them
she’d kept me safe.
“Nina,” Tyler whispered, as the tears crested behind my eyes,
threatening to spill. “What is it?”
I blinked hard, staring at him without really seeing him anymore,
my mother’s voice shouting far in the back of my mind, a word I
hadn’t remembered before—but now bubbled to the surface on a
wave of blinding terror.
“Run!”
 8

“N ina,” Tyler snapped, sharper now, and I jerked back to

the present, my mind abruptly clearing. The panic swept
away again, as quickly as it had come.
“Nothing.” I managed. “It’s nothing…sorry. The past kind of
creeps up on me sometimes, is all.”
I cleared my throat, wiping away the tears sprouting in my eyes
with a rough swipe. Tyler didn’t say anything during all this, merely
watched me. My nose started to burn, and I rubbed it with the back
of my hand as well, then met his gaze again, offering him a stronger
smile.
“The lessons started that day—easy stuff at first, things I could
understand. As I got older, they got more intense. At first, I thought
the monsters were going to stay in my house, but then I started
seeing them around town. They rarely bothered me if I was with my
mom, but if I was alone—I’d see them, they’d see me. Sometimes I’d
come on them stalking other people, but I learned pretty quick that I
was a good distraction.”
I grimaced, a trickle of annoyance punching back my chagrin.
“What was it that Grim called me? Monster bait? Is that even a
thing?”
“He shouldn’t have said that.”
Embarrassment flushed through me, which only made me
angrier. “So it is a thing.” I couldn’t help how defensive I sounded. I’d
always thought of myself as something of a warrior. A fighter,
anyway. But now, come to find out, I was only bait? Screw that. “Do
you guys have a lot of people come around who are monster bait?”
“No,” Tyler said firmly. “And what I mean is, he shouldn’t have
said that because we don’t know anything about you. I’ve never
heard of a human being designated monster bait, but from where
Grim comes from, who knows. It could be true. Regardless, you’re
not bait, Nina. If you were, you’d be dead already.”
“Yeah.” I picked up my coffee and stared at the wall for a second
while I took a long draft, practically simmering with an anger I didn’t
know how to disperse. Because truth was—I didn’t seek monsters
out. They attacked me. If they pushed me too far, or if I thought they
were a threat to anyone else, I killed them. But they were always the
ones who acted first…always.
Maybe I was monster bait.
Or…I took another drink of coffee, keenly aware of Tyler’s eyes
on me. Or maybe Tyler and his little group of besties were a bunch of
assholes who made anyone not part of their little club feel like idiots,
and that was what Mom had wanted to warn me away from. Also
totally possible.
I grimaced and refocused on him, trying not to pay too much
attention to how warm and concerned his gaze had become, or the
shimmering gold depths in his whiskey-brown eyes.
“I keep wanting to apologize for all this,” I said. “I have to remind
myself that you’ve experienced the same thing. Or sort of the same
thing.”
“Sort of,” Tyler agreed. “I didn’t ever have to fight monsters,
though—that didn’t come until later. My childhood trauma was pretty
much constrained to nightmares.”
My brows went up. “Oh?” I didn’t have nightmares. Monsters in
my gym locker? Sure. But no nightmares. “Were they bad?”
“Pretty bad, yeah.” He shrugged. “It started when I was a little kid.
I thought there were ghosts in the walls—demons, maybe. Talking,
moaning, doing anything they could to scare me. Like spirits trapped
in the house, never able to move on to the afterlife. The house had
become their prison.”
I stared at him. “Dear Lord. That…would be a lot. How old were
you?”
 “When it first happened?” He scrunched up his face and looked
to the right, and I could see it then. The little boy huddled in his bed,
alone and scared, convinced he was hearing voices, thumps, and
bumps in the night. “I was maybe six. Actually—I was six. It was like
a light switched on a few weeks after my birthday, and it became
ghost central in my bedroom.”
“Did you tell your parents?” From his very few comments on the
subject, I didn’t know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.
“I didn’t for about three months. But the clamoring got worse, and
I became nervous during the daytime—dropping stuff, falling asleep
in class, lashing out. My dad was having none of it, and he ripped on
me about it so long one morning, I flipped out. Screaming about
monsters in the walls, demons, devils, ghosts, fairies, and
boogeymen.” He chuckled grimly. “That did not improve my
situation.”
“He thought you were lying.”
He snorted. “Oh, no. He thought I’d been holding out on him.
Apparently, though no one had bothered to tell me, the ghosts of
Perkins Hall were the stuff of legends. More importantly, nobody had
had the gift of communicating with them for generations. The fact
that they were willing to talk to me and I was too much of a
chickenshit to let them infuriated my father. He instructed me to fall
asleep while he was in the room with me, but I refused.
Unfortunately, I was only six years old. After about three or four
hours of defiant resistance, I zonked out standing up—and they
came out.”
I stared at him. “What happened then?”
“I realized I’d been all wrong about the ghosts. They weren’t
trapped in the house—they simply refused to leave. Fully a dozen
bastards dating back hundreds of years with opinions on everything
that ever happened in the place, and they were happy to unload it all
on me. Stuff a kid of six shouldn’t know. Stuff a man of sixty shouldn’t
know. And there I was, getting an earful of every theft, love affair,
private indiscretion, harrowing breakup, and balls-out war, with my
father staring at me, demanding to know answers to questions I
couldn’t understand. I knew immediately I couldn’t tell him everything
they were telling me, but even after I gave him the information he
was hot for—something about the location of some family heirloom—
he tried to beat the rest out of me anyway.”
“At six?” I asked, aghast. “He actually beat you?”
Tyler grimaced. “He had a saying he loved to share. You didn’t
get to be a Perkins by luck. You had to earn the right.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “What did your mom say about that?”
He shrugged. “She was already out of the picture, and I was an
only child. And he wasn’t wrong. I should do more—be more. I
should earn the right to be a Perkins. I haven’t done that yet, even
after all the things I’ve been given, all the education, the safety, the
support. But I should.”
I narrowed my eyes at the double-barreled criticism in his voice,
but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were unfocused, as if he was
looking into his past, and judging himself every step of the way. Then
he shook his head again, and kept going. “To be fair, it only
happened that one time. The next day, I was terrified he’d come after
me again, but he informed me he’d be leaving on a trip, and that I
could remain in the house with the staff, or stay with Liam.”
“Liam,” I echoed. “You were friends already?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “The Grahams were several rungs down on
the social ladder, but my father respected his father, and that made
everything okay. I know, I know,” he sighed, actually seeing my
grimace this time. “It was a messed-up childhood on several levels.
But at any rate, I totally get your need to hang by yourself as a kid. I
didn’t want to introduce too many people to my crazy.”
“And did your dad leave you alone after that?”
“He did, for the most part. When he returned a few weeks later,
he apologized to me for his outburst, and asked me to keep him
informed if I learned anything else. Like I was some kind of spy,
which did make it sort of cool. And back then, I was willing to do a lot
to get on his good side, so I did. If the ghosts showed up, and I
remembered anything they’d said, I’d spill. But it didn’t happen all
that often, and eventually, they sort of faded out. By that point, Dad
also seemed to have learned everything he needed to about our
twisted family tree…or maybe he understood that I’d learned stuff
about him too that he didn’t want me using against him. After that,
everything got a lot easier. I was maybe, what—thirteen? Since then,
it’s been pretty quiet. I’ve felt safe falling asleep, anyway.” He
pointed a fork at me. “Where did you go to feel safe? Where did the
monsters usually leave you alone?”
“Actually?” I thought about it, the memory bringing a smile to my
face. “Probably the quietest area in my entire town was the
cemetery.”
Tyler’s brows lifted. “You’re serious?” he asked, sounding
genuinely interested.
“Yup. I worked there as a groundskeeper for most of my high
school years and had even planned to work there throughout
college. Then my mom got sick. She didn’t want me to drop out, but
she went downhill in a hurry. Cancer, they said, but they weren’t
really sure. One of them even said she had a concentration of heavy
metals in her blood, and that made me want to laugh and cry at the
same time. No wonder she never attracted that many monsters,
right?”
I laughed a little unsteadily at my own joke, but Tyler merely
watched me with his quiet eyes, his gentle smile.
“How long ago did she die?” he asked.
My eyes dropped to my coffee mug—Mom’s favorite mug,
actually. Sky blue, with a bright painted sun on one side, a cheerful
moon on the other. “It’s been about four months now. Seems longer,
most days.”
“And you came here first thing?” Tyler asked. “Why Boston?”
I smiled. That question, at least, was easy to answer. “My mom
had family here. She had a letter that…that I want to deliver to them,
if I can find them.”
He cocked a brow. “If you can find them? She didn’t have their
address?”
“She did, but…” I hesitated, but I didn’t see any point in lying
about this part. “It was to a post office box that doesn’t actually exist.
Like anywhere, not even in old postal records.”
Tyler tilted his head, considering that. “Maybe she miswrote it?”
I grimaced, remembering all the past envelopes, every one with
the same carefully lettered address. “Maybe. But I decided to come
on up here myself, see if I could find them. She definitely lived in this
part of town when she was younger. Before I was born. I think she
must’ve taught somewhere, maybe at a high school or something.
She didn’t talk about it much, but she always got a look in her eye
when something came up about Boston, at least the good news
anyway. It seemed the right thing to do to come and check it out.”
“Well, I think you should do more than check it out,” Tyler said,
leaning toward me slightly. “You should come to Wellington, maybe
take a couple of classes. I can think of three right now that would’ve
kept you safe last night.”
“I guess.” I lifted a shoulder, dropped it, as my anxiety
reawakened. “I manage pretty well on my own, though. Last night, I
wasn’t paying attention.”
“I mean it, Nina,” Tyler said. He put his fork down and scooted
closer to me, his face now only a foot away from mine over the small
kitchen table. His eyes were ever so slightly harder now, his manner
more intense, like I’d somehow tripped some trigger without realizing
it. “You can’t just keep dicking around by yourself. It’s too
dangerous.”
Excuse me? I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, a lick of
anger searing up my spine, scattering my worries. “I appreciate your
concern, Tyler, but I’ve been dicking around by myself for my entire
fucking life. And I’ve been doing a bang-up job of fighting actual
monsters, not glow-in-the-dark holograms or CGI boogeymen. So
maybe you should back the hell off.”
“You think you could beat me in a monster fight?” he challenged,
his eyes boiling now with a fierceness I couldn’t quite understand—a
fierceness that should have repelled me, but didn’t at all. I felt
unexpectedly dizzy, as if I’d suddenly become drunk on whiskey
eyes and anger, and though I never argued with anyone—about
anything—this I liked. I really liked.
“I think I could kick your ass in a monster fight,” I corrected, my
breath hissing against my teeth. The room seemed to shift around
us, the table moving away from my hands, the chair rattling against
my shins.
“Well, maybe you should try,” Tyler scoffed, then he winked at me
with an insolent smirk. “At the school. After enrolling.”
I burst out with a sharp laugh, the unexpected dogleg to our
conversation catching me completely off guard. This close to Tyler, I
could smell him. I could practically taste him. My heart skittered and
my entire body seemed to go electric with a need so quick, so real, it
lit all my nerves on fire. I don’t know why I did it. I only knew I had to.
Needed to the way I needed to take my next breath.
I leaned forward and kissed him.
 9

M uch like fighting monsters the night before, Tyler didn’t

hesitate. I vaguely heard his fork clatter to the kitchen
table, then both his hands were up, holding my face
steady as his lips pressed hard against mine. The connection jolted
me, and my heart leapt into my throat, pounding furiously as there
suddenly seemed to be too much table, too much space, too much
everything between us. I struggled upright and Tyler did as well,
yanking me to him and fitting my body against his as if we were born
not just to fight together, but to live and breathe and, most of all, kiss,
his long, hard body hot and vital through the thin material of his jeans
and even thinner fabric of his shirt.
For my part, I was practically crawling up his chest, my leg
wrapped around his hip like I was climbing Mount Tyler without a
rope and loving each ridge and indentation of the craggy cliff wall. An
incredible burst of excitement raced through me, and I felt like I was
coming home—power, insane power, built up in me, dizzying with
possibility. We spun around, and I vaguely had a sense of the table
being shoved, the chairs kicked, the crash of a ceramic plate
bouncing off the counter and shattering on the hardwood floor. But
with my hands entwined in Tyler’s thick hair and my breath tangled
with his, both of us tasting, testing, devouring the other, I couldn’t tell
what was up and what was down. It was all a dizzying whirl that
didn’t stop until my back slammed against the kitchen wall hard
enough that the windows shook.
 Not only the windows, either. The kitchen cabinets banged open,
the chairs toppled over, and the table screeched across the floor
before crashing into the far wall.
Tyler and I froze in absolute stillness—and everything else did as
well. There was no sound at all but the labored whooshing of our
twin breathing—in, out, in. The room remained quiet except for the
drip-drip-drip of coffee leaking from the knocked-over mug onto the
floor.
Slowly, carefully, Tyler leaned back from me, his eyes searching
out mine.
“What the hell?” he managed, sounding credibly shocked. He
swiveled, keeping my hips locked in his grasp, my legs tight around
his waist as we turned and surveyed the chaos of the kitchen. The
cups had toppled but not broken, but the plates hadn’t fared so well.
And the frying pan… “I hope you were done with your eggs,” he said
ruefully.
I laughed, the sound dangerously close to a sob, and patted his
back to get him to release me. Apparently picking up on my roiling
emotions, he let me slide easily to the ground, though I didn’t miss
the hard ridge of his shaft as I eased down his body. My throat
tightened and my belly clenched as our gazes met again, and I had
to physically fight the urge to climb back up and send him crashing to
the floor, right along with our ruined breakfast.
What the hell is wrong with me? This wasn’t who I was. Tyler
wasn’t my usual kind of boyfriend. Which was generally no kind of
boyfriend at all, since I never knew when monsters might want to
double date.
Not to mention—he was kind of an overbearing ass. I couldn’t—
wouldn’t—forget that. Even if he was hot. Way hot. Insanely—
“Oh, yeah,” he murmured, as if agreeing with my unspoken
thoughts, and he reached for me—just as another glass toppled out
of the open cabinet and crashed to the floor, shattering to pieces.
“I think you should go,” I said, too quickly, trying to hide the way
my body was practically vibrating at the idea of being back in his
arms. “You should get back to school. And I’ve got things to do. You
should go.”
 “I don’t want—wait. Of course.” Tyler shook his head hard,
catching himself immediately. He blinked at me, then gestured a little
helplessly around the room. “This normal with you? Or am I just
lucky?”
I folded my arms. “I guess that will be something for you to think
about as you take a walk. Back. To campus.”
A sharp flare of annoyance flashed across his face, then for the
second time in just a few minutes, he surprised me again by
laughing. A real, honest laugh, that somehow managed to puncture
all my mad and toss me right back into the flames of want again.
Who was this guy? And why did he have this effect on me?
“Fair enough, Nina Cross,” he said, pronouncing my name like a
benediction. “But where will you be, today?” We moved out of the
kitchen and into the main room, with its enormous multicolored
chaise. “Somewhere safe?”
I shrugged. “What could be safer than Back Bay and Beacon
Hill?”
He snorted. “A lot of places, considering your track record with
monsters. You’re kind of breaking the mold, you know, getting
attacked like you are. Normally, you have to piss off a monster
before they’ll go after you.”
I lifted my brows, unbending despite myself. “Really? You’ve
never been attacked by a monster unprovoked? Not once?”
“Not till last night, no. None of us have been, other than Zach—
and then only demons. And though I haven’t asked him about it yet,
you can bet it’s something Liam is researching right this moment.
That’s not something that monsters do, or at least not any monsters
that we’ve had record of any time in the last couple of hundred
years. Monsters are monsters. I don’t mean they’re stupid, because
they’re not, but they don’t have agendas like us. They don’t sit
around and think about specific people to track down, and they don’t
attack someone who hasn’t transgressed on their territory in some
way. It’s not what they do.”
He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead almost as if he
couldn’t help himself, then angled back, holding my gaze. “Which is
something you would know if you took a class or two. I’m just
saying.”
 “Ha.” Somehow, our arms had found their way around each
other’s waists again, never mind the scrape of forks across the floor
in the other room. It felt natural, oddly enough. So natural that my
next words spilled out before I could stop them.
“What are you doing here, Tyler? I mean really. Why are you
helping me?”
To my surprise, he tilted his head to study me more fully, while
keeping his arms locked around my waist, his body pressed tight to
mine. “Honestly? Because I can’t help myself,” he confessed. “You’re
important—I know it in my bones.”
I snorted, making him blink. “So, you’re trying to recruit me to
your cause?”
“It’s more than that,” he insisted, with an intensity that surprised
me. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was part of it. My whole life,
I’ve only wanted to prove myself as a worthy Perkins. To become a
leader of monster hunters and show everyone how it was done.
There never had to be a reason why, it was just who I was. What I
was. Setting aside the ghosts and all that, my home life was kind of
shit. I don’t say that for pity, because my extended family’s richer
than God and I am the luckiest asshole on the planet because of
that, but I just wanted to get out and start hunting. Always. Liam too.
We finally enrolled at Wellington and met Zach, who’d seen some
things, and Grim, who’d definitely seen some things, and it all sort of
made it real, you know? Even though we were fighting glow-in-the
dark holograms or CGI boogeymen.”
I grimaced at my own words thrown back at me, but Tyler only
squeezed me closer. His arms around me felt better than anything
had in way too long.
“And then you came running into my world last night—first in my
mind, did I tell you that? I had a vision of you before you ever
showed up on campus.”
My eyes widened. “Yeah? Did I look like a badass?”
He laughed. “You did. You were running like hell and looked
totally pissed, like the last thing you had time for was whatever was
chasing you—and you were so freaking strong and beautiful and—”
He leaned back, his eyes shifting away as if to recapture the
memory, which allowed me the chance to turn scarlet without him
noticing, the blood rushing to my face. This gorgeous Ivy League
hunter thought I was strong? Beautiful? Without warning, that
admission made all his jabs about my lack of formal skills disappear
in a poof of hormones. Which was ridiculous—and yet…
“And just like you were meant to find me, I guess. Like it had to
happen.” Tyler dropped his gaze with those words, and I offered him
a perfectly composed smile, as if super hunky college guys said
these kinds of things to me all the time. “And then you did.”
“I definitely did,” I agreed. “Me and my land worm, just like you
wanted.”
His laugh was genuine, and back to being a little smug. “I guess it
was both our lucky days.”
“Uh-huh.” I tilted my head and looked up at him from under my
lashes, which felt weirdly flirtatious and yet somehow totally natural.
“And what if I did come to your school? How would that improve
things?”
He lifted an eyebrow, cockiness firmly back in place now. “Well,
for one, you’d be with me. That’s an improvement for anyone.”
“I’m serious,” I said, though I was grinning now. He could be
excused for not believing me.
“So am I. And don’t get me wrong. I know I’m giving you a hard
time because what you’re doing is not safe, but you fought like a
baller, even if you’re untrained. That’s hotter than hell. The fact that
you’ve survived multiple monster attacks for the past twenty-some
years all by yourself without anybody to protect you but a vigilant
mother who didn’t quite know what was going on and a bucketful of
nails by your bed is pretty damned amazing. You’re doing fantastic
on your own, and you heal like an absolute boss. I’d just like you to
stay safe so that you have the opportunity to be more amazing.”
Stay safe… My heart gave a hard tug again. How many times
had my mother asked me to do that very thing? How many times had
I caught her watching me, her eyes filled with pride and hope and
maybe a little fear, and talking to me—really talking to me—after she
found the dull iron knife I’d bought at the renfest in my pile of dirty
laundry? After that, she’d upgraded my unofficial Girl’s Guide to
Monster Hunting to include offense as well as defense, and we’d
role-played fighting over and over again, any time I’d asked.
 She’d also protected me with her life the few times monsters had
ever attacked when we were out together. She’d never once
breathed a word about taking me to counseling, but…now that I
thought about it, she also never tried to get me formal protection. Or
her either, for that matter. The only time she’d ever expressed
concern was when I’d once suggested I take a martial arts course.
She’d flipped out. Funny, I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.
“What is it?” Tyler asked, gazing down at me. Once again, our
instant connection felt way too right, too natural for someone I’d only
met the night before. Granted, he’d arguably saved my life twice the
night before, so I guess we could be excused.
He also was waiting for an answer, so I tried my best. “I was just
thinking, Mom taught me everything she knew about fighting, and I
learned other basic techniques from YouTube.”
“My point exactly,” he said drily, but I shook my head.
“What I mean is, she never encouraged me to learn how to
protect myself, like officially. I asked her once if I could learn karate
or whatever, and she got really upset at the idea. She insisted that I
didn’t need any training—and that seeking it out was a really bad
idea. I totally dropped it and never brought it up again. I don’t know if
she never thought it was necessary, or if there was something else
going on there.” She hadn’t mentioned me needing any training in
her letter to her folks or whoever either, I didn’t think. The updates on
my skills had always been relentlessly positive.
“That is kind of strange.” Tyler frowned, recalling my attention.
“For most parents, their kid taking a self-defense course or
something like that wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if they were a
single mom. But why wouldn’t she want you to get formal training?
For that matter, why wouldn’t she have looked into specialized
training?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You mean like a monster hunter
academy? Probably because she didn’t know it existed?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he countered, leaning forward to kiss me on
the forehead, then releasing me. He ran his hands through his hair
as if he was trying to focus and having a difficult time. “If she was a
teacher in Boston, especially this particular corner of Boston, I mean,
depending on the crowd she ran in, somebody might have
mentioned the stories about the magic academies tucked away
around here. Not just Wellington. There’s also Twyst and a few
others I’ve been told not to mention.”
I lifted my brows. “You can’t mention the others, but this Twyst
place doesn’t mind the PR?”
“They’re a bunch of assholes.” He grimaced, leaning against the
wall by the front door. “Wizards, warlocks, witches, and all that. They
think they’ve cornered the market on all things magical in the world,
but they’re wrong. Wellington gets some of their castoffs, and those
students go on to be pretty impressive in their own right, even if
Twyst has given up on them. But that’s a story for another time.
We’re talking about you plus monsters equals a recurring and
unfortunate problem. And there’s nowhere in the country that’s better
at solving that particular equation than Wellington Academy. You
really need to think about giving it a shot. Like starting today.”
This was the overbearing Tyler I knew and already liked way too
much. I shook my head.
“I can’t today. I’ve got things to do. People to find.” Still, I smiled
back at him, feeling a weird thrill of excitement curl through me.
Tyler’s kind of attention went beyond the staunch, silent support my
mother had always given me. This felt active. Energized. And useful
too. Like maybe I could learn something to help protect myself
against the monsters, maybe something that would get them to leave
me alone.
“I mean it, Nina,” Tyler pressed. “You don’t have to do all this by
yourself. You shouldn’t, actually. It’s not smart.”
“You’re…probably right,” I allowed. I blinked as his face was
transformed by his wide, happy smile.
“Good,” he said—and then, once again, almost like he couldn’t
help himself, he stepped toward me, pulled me into his arms, and
kissed me…hard. The world seemed to pick up speed at that point—
spinning around me at a dizzying pace. Something scraped,
something else clattered, but for another thirty seconds, there was
nothing but Tyler and me and our arms wrapped around each other,
our mouths searing with heat and hope and—
“Whoa,” I yelped as the backs of my calves unexpectedly
connected with something solid and my arms went wide, wind-milling
as Tyler lunged for me.
“Gotcha—I got you,” he said, his laugh loud and carefree as he
managed to pull me away from my multicolored chaise and into his
arms like I weighed nothing. Then his mouth was on mine again as
he swung me around, and I had a vague sense of him moving
toward the front door of my apartment again, without me having to
think about anything but the touch of his lips on mine, the delicious
intensity of his muscles tightening as he gripped me close, the
warmth of his body surrounding me. I felt unreasonably safe and
protected and cared for in this virtual stranger’s arms—and
something else too.
I felt like I belonged.
“Run” my mind whispered, ever more faintly.
“Promise me you’ll come to the academy tomorrow,” Tyler
murmured, his lips shifting off mine to trail a line of kisses up to my
ear. He breathed out, and the combined sensation of his warm
breath on the sensitive skin and his intense focus made my heart
shiver with excitement. “I won’t stalk you, and I won’t bug you. But
promise me.”
“Okay,” I heard myself agreeing as he opened the door. The
polished stairway gleamed in the sunshine pouring through the
windows, and he settled me down to the floor, making sure I was
steady before we trotted down the stairs hand in hand. Once again,
the move was more natural than it should’ve been, but we truly
seemed to fit together, weirdly enough. And I found I didn’t want to
let Tyler go. Which was why it took another ten minutes and one
overturned planter before he stepped back from me. The taste of
coffee and possibility still lingering on my lips, I watched him stride
easily down my front stairs to head back toward Wellington
Academy. An academy I hadn’t even known existed before last night.
I watched his long, rangy form move easily down the tree-lined
street. He didn’t look back, maybe because if he did, he knew we
would end up tangled together again, the heat of our attraction taking
us both by surprise and probably flattening the tires of the cars
edging the street.
I wrapped my arms around myself, grinning like an idiot. “You
better not be a seduction monster,” I warned under my breath, not
bothering to stop the giggle. Could those exist? I’d done enough
research to decide that there were no such things as actual succubi,
but maybe there was a dude version anyway? Maybe originating
from the Jersey Shore?
Still chuckling, I turned back around, scanning the street, until my
gaze finally came to rest on the tiny wooded grove a few houses up
from my brownstone. It was a sweet little pocket park, with just
enough of a fringe of trees to make you feel like you were moving
into a wooded idyll before opening to a wide grassy corner, with a
manicured little path winding through it. Students and young families
alike gathered there to sunbathe, play, or simply sit on one of the
several benches, enjoying a momentary respite from the day. It
wasn’t a scary place at all, yet I felt a chill as I studied the cheerful
tree line. It practically burst with new spring flowers and tiny shoots
of green, a promise of the summer to come. So why did it suddenly
feel wrong?
Then something shifted in the empty spaces between the trees,
something that gained solidity as I watched. I swallowed, going
perfectly still. What in the…
I wasn’t imagining it. There were figures standing there, tall and
lean and intensely beautiful, dark against the green leaves and
newly sprouted boughs. They watched me, not coming closer, but
not slinking away either. They weren’t people, I somehow knew.
They didn’t belong here.
Monster bait. The phrase leapt into my mind, spoken in Grim’s
harsh sneer. I wanted to forget it, but I couldn’t, the idea now planted
and taking root like the slender trees in the park across the street,
with their twisted, flowing branches serving to hide something dark
and deadly that waited for me to make my next mistake.
Monster bait.
I stepped back inside my brownstone and shut the door tight.
 10

E ight hours later, I sat huddled over my coffee at the Crazy

Cup coffee shop up on Newbury, staring at the shifting
images on the TV screen on silent in the corner, while my
mind bounced from the day’s lack of progress to the secret magic
academy of richy-rich monster hunters and back again. It’d been
another long day of unfocused anxiety and dead ends.
Maybe I should go home to Asheville. Even if its monsters didn’t
yodel.
“Mind if I turn this up?” One of the baristas spoke up from behind
the counter, her eyes wide beneath her heavily-mascaraed lashes
and her shining beehive of Amy Winehouse-worthy black hair.
“They’re saying something about the mugger.”
I lifted my brows as the other patrons murmured general
approval. From everything I’d read since coming to Boston, crime in
the city was a problem, sure, but not in this rarified neck of the
woods. Privilege and preppiness had its benefits, or so it had
seemed. But the scene on the TV, apparently shot earlier today
before sundown, looked an awful lot like the pristine, tree-lined
streets that had already grown familiar to me. I’d heard about some
mugger over at Boston College earlier in the day, but that still
seemed kind of far away from here. Judging from the rapt attention
of the coffee shop patrons around me, however, it wasn’t far enough.
“That’s over by Boston College,” the barista said. “I’d swear that’s
College Road.”
 “Another mugging?” a guy standing in line asked unnecessarily
as the scroll beneath the TV image told the basic story. The barista
punched up the sound, and an earnest-looking woman in a bright red
blazer spilled the news to the listening audience.
“While police don’t have any suspects yet, we’ve received new
information from today’s assault at one of Boston’s most prominent
colleges. A male student, whose identity is being withheld by the
police, had been walking southeast down College Road near the
university when he was assaulted by a man purportedly dressed as
a Victorian reenactor. Other students were drawn to the scene by his
shouts, but not before the young man was seriously injured and the
assailant had fled. There do not appear to be any witnesses to the
actual assault. Police have not released any additional details at this
time, but this is a developing story.”
There was more, but everyone’s attention was already shearing
away, their interest blunted by the lack of specifics despite the
apparent violence. Or maybe it was the idea of a guy dressed up like
some out-of-work stage actor. Only in Boston, I thought. The image
shifted, and the barista dialed the TV volume down again.
I turned my attention back to my coffee cup, mapping out my
plan. I’d give the Great Janet Cross search one more week…maybe
go see Tyler again…but that was it. I needed to let go of this wild
goose chase, get on with my—
Something shifted in the corner of my eye, and I turned, frowning
as I recognized the enormous guy sitting in the corner.
Monster Hunter Grim, sitting in the corner of the Crazy Cup
behind a mug that looked like a child’s toy in his hands. I hadn’t seen
him come in, which surprised me. He was kind of a tough guy to
miss. Huge, even half hidden in the shadows, bulging muscles
barely contained beneath a faded blue T-shirt and scuffed jeans, his
long blond hair pulled back tight from his chiseled face.
He met my gaze steadily, not even doing me the favor of nodding
in recognition, but before I could think of something to say to him, the
front door opened and a dozen or so newcomers came crashing in.
Their chatter filled the small coffee shop, a rush of complaints about
finals, plans for the summer, laughter and gossip. Like college kids
were supposed to be.
 Like I’d never been. I watched them a little wistfully for another
long second, then glanced back toward Grim—
And stiffened. He was gone.
Leaving my mug on the table, I was out the door a second
later and turned to the right, where a frigid breeze seemed to strike
up out of nowhere. I’d felt that same blast of cold air right before I’d
smacked into the guy’s chest last night, and then again in the coffee
house…there had to be a connection. Grim might have a handle on
tracking me, but he wasn’t the only hunter out walking the streets. I
took off into the shadows, cutting down one street, then another,
but the cold air eventually petered out, and no Grim. Dammit.
No Grim, but that didn’t mean I was alone. I
slowed down, suddenly aware I was out in the open without any real
clue where I was, while some freak-show Victorian-
reenactor mugger person roamed around the city. Possibly not my
best move. Something shifted in the shadows of the alley right
beside me, but they were small somethings, I knew immediately. Too
small to be human. I had heard that kind of sound before,
unfortunately, a slithery, chittering skitter that made my skin crawl
and my breath catch in my throat.
“Freaking fantastic,” I muttered, bracing myself as I
turned. Monkey rats.
With earsplitting, high-pitched screams, the creatures attacked all
at once, easily a dozen of them. I’d always called them monkey rats
because I’d never wanted to look too closely to figure out their
specific taxonomy, and rats were gross enough. They were each the
size of a loaf of bread, with long skinny legs, longer tails, and crazy
monkey faces, all teeth and squat noses and beady eyes. They were
vicious but stupid, and I had my knife out, business end slashing
wide, before the first one got within two feet of me.
At the first touch of the blade, the rat bastards exploded, which
was disgusting but quick. I kept hacking, marking time with the
sound of each new bubbling pop, and sustained only a few stinging
bites along my forearm before I staggered out of the alley, the rest of
the creatures cowering back, then retreating into the shadows.
“Nice change to have something run away from you, I bet.”
 The voice was flat, mocking, and irritatingly familiar. I whirled
around, knife still out. Grim stood on the other side of the opening to
the alley, his arms folded over his massive chest. Only then did I
notice the telltale chill in the air.
“Were you going to help at all? Or were you just getting
pointers?”
“Those aren’t the predators I’m worried about.” He shrugged.
“You seemed to be doing pretty well by yourself.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of experience.” I wiped my blade off on
my jeans, not missing his comment about predators. Had he been
worried about that Victorian-dressed mugger hitting Newbury Street?
“What do you think about the guy on the news?”
His lip curled. “I think there are a lot of indulged children in this
neck of the woods who don’t have the sense to know what’s right in
front of them.”
“Uh-huh.” I rolled my eyes, back to being irritated. “Pithy and
smug, yet strangely unhelpful.”
Without warning, Grim moved, surging forward until he was
barely six inches away from me, staring down into my eyes.
His nostrils flared as if he was scenting me, the movement so foreign
and feral, it made me shiver.
“You don’t even know what you are,” he muttered tightly.
“Oh yeah?” I countered, defaulting to bravado to combat the
sudden spike of fear deep in my belly. “I suppose you’re going to
enlighten me?”
A cruel smile stretched across his lips.
“Better hope it never comes to that. It would go very badly for
both of us.”
Then he stepped away from me and melted into the shadows,
leaving me alone in the alleyway with the chittering monkey rats
behind me. Apparently, they hadn’t decided to leave after all—rare
behavior for monkey rats. Something was clearly stirring them up.
Before they could screw tight their courage to come flying out at me
a second time, I jerked myself into motion and headed back to the
Crazy Cup. After a day like this, I needed more coffee.
 11

T he next morning dawned bright and cheerful, with only a hint

of the sultry weather coming our way with the rains that were
promised over the next several days. I got up early and drank
leftover coffee from the Cup, wolfing down a muffin as my gaze lit on
the dishes now thoroughly dried in the rack by the sink.
I hadn’t had the heart to put them away yet, like remnants of a
long-dried bouquet that you kept on the table for months because
you didn’t know when the bud vase might get filled up again. The
dishes that had survived had only held eggs and bacon and toast,
but they’d also scored a few chips in places where they’d clattered to
the floor in the midst of Tyler’s and my kiss. Those chips would hold
a special place in my memory for a long time.
And now, I needed to sack up and go back to Wellington
Academy. I’d told Tyler I would, and I found myself actually wanting
to keep that promise.
Fortunately, no monsters, monster hunters, or snappily dressed
muggers greeted me when I poked my head out the front door of my
apartment. I trotted down the steps, deliberately scanning the tree
line of the pocket park with an air of defiance. Nope. Nothing lurked
in the shadows today.
I had a hard time even remembering the tall, lean figures I’d
thought I’d seen among the trees. Maybe they’d also heard about the
knife-wielding reenactor roaming the district and had decided to find
safer haunts. Worked for me. It wasn’t the first time monsters had
watched me from a comfortable distance. As far as I was concerned,
if they stayed on their side of the street, nobody had to die.
It seemed to take me much longer than it should have to find the
street where I knew the academy had to be. I finally broke down and
entered the school’s name into Google, but nothing came up. It was
like trying to find the Boston P.O. box Mom had written on her
envelopes all over again, only this time, even more annoying.
Crisscrossing back and forth across Newbury and its leafy side
streets, I’d almost given up when I saw the cobblestone road I’d
noticed two nights before. Had it really been such a short time?
Despite my run-in with Grim, nothing creepy had woken me in my
apartment last night, and the tree people from the park hadn’t come
any closer. Maybe the residual effects of Tyler’s visit were still
protecting my personal space? I’d take it.
Once I was on the correct street, finding the opening to the
academy was easy. I walked along a vine-covered wall and ducked
beneath the archway, following the path onto the pristine campus.
On this cheerful Boston morning, the campus seemed to sparkle like
some sort of bizarre fairy tale kingdom, sunlight streaming through
tree branches to create a dappled pattern on the cobblestone drive,
the sidewalks alternately bathed in bright sunshine and gathering
shadow.
I could see the large official university buildings in the distance,
but even as I set out for them, they didn’t seem to get any closer. A
trick of the eye, I was pretty sure, but what if…
I slowed. What if I wasn’t supposed to be here? What if Mom was
right and I didn’t need formal instruction, that what would help me the
most was what had helped me all this time, my instincts? Should I
even attempt to be trained as a monster hunter, or would that throw
off my mojo somehow? Was it possible to throw off your monster
hunting mojo?
For only about the fifty-seven millionth time this month, I
wondered what it would be like to be a normal girl, with normal
questions and normal wants and needs. It seemed a little excessive
that I should have to be worrying about monster hunting mojo when
most students my age were worrying about junior year finals.
“Hey! Are you lost?”
 I refocused sharply on the pretty, green-eyed redhead who had
emerged from another sidewalk and now stood at the cobblestoned
crossroads in front of me. She wore what I had to assume was
Wellington’s traditional academy uniform, at least for the female
students, a white button-down Oxford cloth shirt tucked into a plaid
skirt, knee-high socks reaching all the way up to her lower thighs.
She accessorized the look with tall gleaming black boots that
somehow managed to look polished but not slutty. For that reason
alone, I decided Wellington Academy must truly be a magical place.
“Oh. Ah…no. I’m not really lost. I met a student from here, and he
suggested that I, um, maybe take a few classes.”
Even as I tried to explain myself, I realized how incredibly lame I
sounded. Who shows up on a college campus just to take a few
classes? The answer to that? Nobody. Because normal people
weren’t freaks. And this was the kind of move only a freak would pull.
Maybe it was time for me to leave Boston entirely and move
somewhere I couldn’t embarrass myself. Like a desert island. Or Las
Vegas.
The redhead merely brightened. “Oh! A late-term transfer. I was
one of those too. I’m wrapping up my studies now, but I got here last
spring, right about this same time. Are you from Twyst? I don’t
remember you, but I kind of kept to myself when I went to school
there.”
I shook my head, trying to appear well-informed. What was this
Twyst place, and why did it seem to dump students like yesterday’s
garbage?
“No, I—um, I’m not looking to enroll full-time. Is there an admin
building? I don’t even know the process to audit classes. If they do
that.” I bit my lip. “Do they do that?”
The redhead flapped her hand at me. “Oh sure, but you should
totally enroll. Wellington has the best curriculum in functional magic.
I’m taking classes in animal-familiar veterinary medicine, which is
exactly like it sounds except way cooler, and I’ve never been happier
in my life. I knew from the start that I wasn’t cut out to be some
boring old witch or wizard. That’s so Harry Potter, you know? But the
work that I’m doing now is meaningful. It’s going to help people and
their familiars. It’s needful work. That’s kind of what they specialize in
at Wellington, the practical work that needs to be done. You’ll see.
You’ll really like it.”
She shook her head, her fair cheeks flushing with twin stripes of
color. “Oh geez, I haven’t even told you my name. It’s Merry—
spelled like Merry Christmas, I’m sad to say, but my brother’s name
is Noel, so I feel like I got off easy. Merry Williams.”
I blinked at the familiar-sounding name.
“Are you related to Zach Williams? I met him the other day.”
She gave a short, quelling chuckle. Not a mean laugh, more like
a rueful one. “Oh, I know Zachariah, but I’m not related to him. My
God, what would that be like, right?” She looked at me knowingly,
and I did the best I could.
“I…guess? I only met him briefly.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, wow, you really are new. Well, he’s one
of, you know, the campus nutballs. Those monster hunter guys, I
mean, right?”
I must’ve looked sufficiently confused, because Merry bit her lip,
clearly torn between spilling tea and offending me. I understood the
power of gossip, and she didn’t seem like a typical mean girl, so I
gave her an encouraging smile. “I’m afraid I don’t really know all that
much about anything that goes on at Wellington. I’m a straight-up
ignoramus.”
“Oh my God, not at all,” she assured me. “Let me take you to the
admin building and fill you in, okay? I used to be a tour guide at
Twyst. I love this stuff.”
“Ah, sure,” I said, falling into step with her. “You don’t do that
here?”
“Nah—I really am close to graduating. I don’t have time. But I
know enough to be dangerous.” She gave me a brilliant, enthusiastic
smile, and I found myself liking her, despite her frenetic energy. “So it
works like this. Wellington Academy is a magic school, but they
focus on magic that’s actually useful, right?”
I nodded. “Like animal-familiar husbandry.” I was impressed I
could say that with a straight face.
Merry beamed. “Exactly! So all the majors here at one point or
another were, like, totally useful. However, over time, some majors
sort of fell out of favor either because nobody used them or needed
them anymore, or because, you know, they were inherently lame.
Like succubus training. Anybody knows you can’t train a succubus,
but that didn’t stop two hundred years of guys giving it a try. It was
the dumbest thing ever.”
I couldn’t help it, I stared at her. “Succubi are a real thing?” I’d
gone through every wiki page I could find on every monster ever
dreamed of, so of course I knew what a succubus was
mythologically speaking. But in all the time I’d been dealing with my
own monster issues, I’d never once had to face something that tried
to suck the life out of me through sex. I would have noticed that.
“Totally a real thing, and once they get their teeth into you, they
never forget. Even if you are able to get them off you the first time,
you can bet they’ll be back. So word to the wise, avoid the succubi.
But that’s not the point.” She rushed on. We’d started walking at a
slightly faster clip, and while I kept up with her easily, it was clear
that Merry’s legs moved as fast as her mouth did. No wonder she
was so slender.
“So, most of the—like, I don’t want to say useless, but sort of—
useless majors sort of got phased out over time. But not monster
hunting. Even though it got knocked down to a minor, that one will
not let go. Partly because it was what the academy was first founded
on, but mostly because there are a few students who take it every
year, which is crazy, because monsters are totally no longer really a
thing.”
I shot her a wary glance. “Because they don’t exist anymore?”
“Well, you know, they exist,” she hedged. “Sort of like succubi
exist, right? But there are so few of them that you don’t need any
more monster hunters. It’s sort of like being a vestigial-tail expert.
Yes, there are probably fifty people in the world that are going to
have an issue with vestigial tails, but do you seriously need to be
turning out new vestigial-tail specialists every year to deal with
them? No. You probably need one every ten years or every
generation, you see what I mean?”
“I do see where you’re coming from,” I allowed. “But what you’re
saying is, you guys still have the minor despite all that.”
“Totally, and it’s sort of a campus joke. Don’t get me wrong,
Zachariah is one of the hottest guys on campus and the other
monster hunter freaks are smoking hot as well, at least the juniors,
anyway. Which, now that I think about it, it’s kind of interesting, right?
Like, is there something about the fact they’re monster hunters that
makes them sexy only because they’re weird? I mean, are they
actually hot, or are they freak hot?”
It dawned on me that maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that I focused
on my own strange questions, and not other people’s. But Merry was
on a roll.
“Anyway, rumor has it they can’t shut down the minor because it’s
got insane funding from some super-crazy old guy or a super-crazy
old family, and so the university is not allowed to shut it down. But if
Zach was the one who told you to come here, that’s still completely
awesome because he’s totally right and Wellington Academy is the
best.”
“Actually, it wasn’t Zach, it was one of his friends. A guy named
Tyler?”
“Tyler Perkins,” Merry breathed. “He’s even hotter. And his family
is one of the first families of Boston, right? Like, setting aside any
magic stuff, they are the top of the heap socially. Please tell me you
know that. Tyler has platinum-plated shoes to fill if he wants to make
a mark in that family.”
“I’d heard they were wealthy,” I hedged, but she scoffed a laugh.
“Not wealthy. Bill Gates is wealthy. The Perkins are, like, tied-to-
the-fabric-of-the-earth rich. Super important, super old, super
connected. And oh my God, Tyler’s dad is mean as the day is long—
don’t be fooled. If you ever have to meet him, you’ll have to be—oh,
here we are!”
I nearly piled into her as she stopped triumphantly in front of a
gray stone building with marble steps and an imposing entryway of
thick columns and a heavy door flanked by wrought iron strips inset
into the wall. The strips caught my eye immediately, of course.
Clearly, this was my kind of place.
In fact, I shot a quick glance around the courtyard and noticed
there was a preponderance of wrought iron everywhere, from
decorative fencing to elaborate gates to stylized decorations that
topped the walls and ran down the columns. The quad was an
ironworker’s dream…and apparently, a monster hunter’s sanctuary.
Maybe Wellington Academy had been the real deal once, however
long ago.
There were other students milling around, too, all of them looking
remarkably normal. Clusters of preppily dressed early twenty-
somethings and earnest-eyed teens, the time-honored demarcation
between lower and upper classmen apparently holding strong, even
at a magic academy. It made me wistful to be back in school, I had to
admit.
Could this be my school? Could I find a place here—a new
home? I tried to chase the idea away as soon as it formed, but it
wasn’t going easily.
Merry pointed to the austere front doors of the building in front of
us. “So yeah, go in there, and tell them why you’re here. And
absolutely tell them that Tyler Perkins referred you, because you’ll go
to the front of the line, I’m telling you. If they do suggest that you
enroll full-time, you have to let me know, because my roommate
finished up early and moved out at the beginning of the semester,
and you can totally sublet her space! My lease goes to the end of the
summer because I’m taking some special classes, so it’s perfect,
right? I mean, obviously, not if you don’t want to or anything. That’s
completely cool.”
Desperately trying to keep up with her, I opened my mouth to
speak as Merry’s gaze shot past me out into the courtyard.
“Annnd boom. It’s Tyler. Like, he must have gotten the heads-up
you were here, since he told you to come to campus. He’s got
groupies everywhere, despite his major. Minor. Whatever.” She
swung her gaze back to me, her eyes wide and earnest. “Do not tell
him what I said about monster hunters, okay? They’re really nice
guys. They’re just, you know, freaks. So anyway, I’ve got to run. If
you need anything, let me know, and if you want to be my roomie,
totally let me know! You can always find me over in the vet school.
I’m there, like, all the time—bye!”
And with that, she was off, her long legs carrying her away from
Tyler like a gazelle springing away from a lion. He didn’t miss the
urgency of her departure either as he trotted up the path. Today, he
wore dark-washed blue jeans and a short-sleeved gray T-shirt and
Teva sandals, his hair mussed and his grin wide, looking like any
ordinary college guy and not the son of Daddy Warbucks. The
butterflies were back in full force as he approached me, and I barely
quelled a sigh. He really was way too cute for comfort. Looking at
him now, I couldn’t even dredge up a wisp of anxiety over him and
his buddies
“I see you’ve met Merry Williams,” he said, chuckling as he
nodded her way. “We call her ‘the mouth.’”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, she calls you ‘the freak.’”
Tyler laughed without a hint of irritation. “And she would not be
wrong,” he said. “I would’ve met you at the gate if I knew when you
were coming. I should’ve given you my phone number. I don’t know
why I didn’t think to do that yesterday morning—oh, that’s right. I was
distracted.”
I shrugged even though his teasing gaze made my cheeks heat.
“It wouldn’t have done much good,” I said honestly. “I don’t share my
number with anyone.”
That stopped him, and he scowled at me. “That’s kind of stupid.”
I smiled back sunnily. “And you’re kind of rude. I’m trying to
overlook it, though.”
“Seriously, why the secrecy? Someone should know how to find
you. Other than the monsters, anyway.” He scowled at me. “How’s
your memory?”
“Decent.”
“I don’t believe you. Key my number into your phone. Now.” He
rattled off some digits, then stared at me until I pulled out my phone
and typed them in.
“Don’t expect me to be calling this anytime soon,” I said, trying to
keep the edge out of my voice. There’d been something totally
freeing about not being accessible, though of course I’d needed my
burner phone and laptop for all my impromptu searches of postal
drop points in the city.
“Well, if you do, know that I’ll be right there, waiting to answer
you,” Tyler said, the intensity of his reply catching me off guard. He
didn’t push me on it further though, or ask for my number. By now,
he’d also moved off the stairs, but I stayed rooted in place.
“Where are we going?” I asked, frowning. “Merry said this was
the building I need to go to if I was going to audit a couple of classes
or whatever.”
“It is,” Tyler agreed. “But that’s only if you’re officially enrolling. I
thought you might want to sit in on a couple to start, as a guest, but if
you’ve already made the decision…”
“Oh.” I shook my head. Of course I hadn’t made any such
decision. That’d be crazy. “No, no, that’s fine. That’s perfect. What
classes are you taking right now? And they really won’t mind?”
“Not even a little.” He laughed. “But I’m not gonna lie, the class I
was currently heading to is kinda lame. It’s a straight-up medical-
triage course.”
“Ahhh…like regular triage, or triage for monster attacks?” I’d
never really thought about it before, but it was reasonable that there
would be unique techniques for patching up monster injuries. Up to
now, I’d made up my first aid practices as I went along.
“Monster-injury triage, but it’s about the most boring thing you
can possibly imagine. Way more interesting, though, is Grim and
Liam duking it out in combat class over at the monster quad. Those
are one-on-one courses most of the time, but theirs hit at the same
time, so they’ve started doing tandem training with Frost. It’s pretty
cool. We should go to see that one.”
“And they won’t mind us watching either?”
Tyler snorted. “Not hardly. Grim’s the one who told me you were
here.”
That surprised me and unnerved me a little too. Just like at the
coffee shop the night before, I hadn’t seen Grim when I’d first walked
on the campus. I hadn’t seen any other students except for Merry
until we’d hit the admin building. “How’d he know I was here?”
Tyler shrugged. “No clue. But don’t feel bad about not seeing
him. He’s a big guy, but he can blend into damn near anything. It’s
one of his best skills as a monster hunter.”
“Right.” I decided not to tell him about Grim’s impromptu
appearance at the Crazy Cup. What the big guy did in his free time
was his own business. I was ever so slightly freaked out that he
seemed to have his own Grim GPS coordinates for me, but maybe
he had that for everyone.
“So they’re fighting—where?” I asked, refocusing on Tyler. “Like
here on campus?”
 “The monster quad,” he clarified. “Which I am more than happy to
show you—”
His words were cut off as a bone-rattling roar ripped through the
air, a roar none of the other students milling around in the central
quad seemed to notice.
“Like right now, in fact,” Tyler grinned, gesturing ahead. “C’mon—
you’re going to love this.”
 12

T yler took off at a dead run, and I pulled my hand free to start
pumping my arms in earnest to keep up. His long strides ate
up the campus in no time flat, and eventually we passed
through a break in the stone wall, heading hard toward a group of
stone buildings that made up its own separate hamlet from the
campus.
It felt strange to be racing toward what was undoubtedly a
monster attack, and even stranger for anyone to be happy about it.
Maybe Merry and the rest of the campus were on to something
about the monster hunter guys.
As I ran, I categorized the supernatural howl—since there
definitely had to be monster lungs involved. I didn’t know what the
creature’s proper name was, but there were only a few things I’d run
into that were broad chested enough to make that kind of noise.
The first option I discarded immediately—a short, bull-faced
doglike creature that hunted in packs. Their roar was deceptively
large for their small forms, and, more to the point, they always
hunted in a cluster of eight or nine beasts, pretty much the number
you might credibly believe could eat you as an appetizer before
roaming on to find their next meal. But this had been a single
creature. And that meant most likely—
“Balrog?” I offered up to Tyler, and he shot a startled look at me
as we rounded the corner and came upon a small field about fifty
feet wide and maybe twice as long, ringed by a low stone wall. It
extended beyond the field’s edge, enclosing the entire hamlet,
though at about half the height of the main school’s wall. So the
monsters could come in, I theorized, but maybe they couldn’t get
back out? I wasn’t sure I wanted to test out that idea.
We pulled up short as I spotted Zach hoisting himself up onto the
stone barrier, balancing on the surface. He turned and waved us on.
“You made it,” he said, one brow arching as he noticed me.
Something sparked in his dark blue eyes, then was gone again.
“Good. Not much longer now.”
Tyler and I hurried up. “Not, like, Tolkien’s Balrog, but yeah, pretty
close, now that I think about it,” Tyler said, hopping up onto the stone
ledge before leaning back to pull me up as well. I could see Liam
and Grim standing in the middle of a field of tall, swaying grass, their
arms out, their bodies taut, as if they were waiting for something. Off
to the side, a large, bearded, burly man in a flannel shirt and brown
work pants stood ramrod straight, his arms folded over his chest. A
heavy bow hung at his back, along with a quiver filled with massive
arrows.
Tyler continued. “Their official Latin name is about sixty-seven
syllables, but we call it a fire bull. Like Tolkien’s creature, it hurls a lot
of fire, and it’s big, but it looks kind of more like a—”
“There,” Zach said, pointing as a creature burst out of thin air and
into the middle of the field.
Despite the fact that I was safe on my side of the wall and
sandwiched between two monster hunters, I lurched back. “I thought
you said you fought holograms,” I said, the stench of the creature
rolling toward us strong enough to make my knees knock. I’d only
come across one of these assholes once, and I hadn’t been able to
actually kill it. It’d loped off across the cemetery, howling with
outrage, stuck full of nails from my brand-spanking-new nail gun that
I’d learned to use in shop class the semester before. That had been
a good summer.
“They are holograms. Fire bulls don’t exist in the natural—wait,”
he said, and Zach had turned to me too, the attack in the field
momentarily forgotten. “You’ve seen fire bulls in real life?”
“I mean, it was nowhere near this big—”
 “Are you serious?” Tyler protested, sounding actually a little
pissed off now, which amused me more than it should. “A fire bull
attacked you?”
“Of course it did,” Zach said tightly, turning to Tyler without any of
the irritation Tyler apparently harbored at my mad monster
experience. “I told you. We need to get her to Frost. He’s going to
lose his brain.”
I ignored them both, my eyes shifting to the creature snuffling and
stomping in the middle of the field. The Balrog-like fire bull was
basically a minotaur with a bad case of bedhead all over its body—
and it was twice the size of the one that’d attacked me when I was a
kid. The bull’s head was as shaggy as a buffalo’s, and its hind legs
were yeti thick and covered with hair, while its forearms slash legs
served both to brace it as it lumbered forward and to punch with fists
the size of smart cars. Exactly like the one I remembered, the fire
bull’s shoulders crackled with flames, and its pelt smoked with a
curious mix of sulfur, sweat, and what I’d swear was urine—the
stench strong enough to melt the paint off a street sign. My hands
were sweating now, and I wiped them on my jeans. “How do you
know that’s an illusion, not the real thing?”
“See the giant dude in the corner with the beard?” Tyler pointed.
“That’s Commander Frost. He runs the monster hunter classes, and
back in the day, he wrangled actual monsters. Academy
commanders are the ones who traditionally summoned monsters,
back when that was a thing, so they’re the ones who design the
illusions to be as close to lifelike as possible. And Frost is the best
commander the school has.”
“But…” I blew out a short breath. The stench made my eyes
water—how could a hologram stink that bad? “You’re sure this one is
fake? And that it’s alone? I managed to take it out before I got to you
guys, but that land worm the other night was wandering around with
his big brother.”
Tyler chuckled, clearly way more comfortable back in the role of
know-it-all. “Well, you’re not completely off base. Fire bulls travel in
pairs, if they can. Or if they could, I should say. They don’t ex—” He
cocked an eye at me, considering. “You saw one, you said? Did it
have a buddy?”
 “Well, not at first. But yeah, it didn’t stay that way.” I forced myself
to think back to the altercation when I was a teenager, while the
creature in the pen looked around, cocking its head as if to smell the
air. Another waft of fire bull stench floated my way. That was one
impressively lifelike illusion. Frost knew his stuff. “I was maybe
sixteen at the time, working at the cemetery. I had to mow the far
field, which was still consecrated ground, but no one had been laid to
rest there yet. So I guess it wasn’t as consecrated?”
Zach snorted, and I kept going. “I got all the way out to the
farthest edge, right next to where the woods started up again, and
boom. Monster central. One of those things came pounding out
through the trees, huffing flames to clear a path, and stumbled out
onto the open field, where it saw me. It disappeared at first, but then
it came back. And attacked.”
By now, both guys were staring at me, but I still only had eyes for
the creature in the pen. I kept waiting for it to fade in and out, to
fizzle or something, but it stayed firm and straight, not so much as a
CGI hiccup. “You sure this thing is fake?” I asked again.
Tyler glanced back to Grim and Liam, then peered at the small
man in the corner. “Frost looks pretty relaxed. If there was something
wrong, you’d know it first from him.”
“Yeah, but Bal—fire bulls, whatever—they’re illusion throwers,
right?” I asked, still unreasonably nervous. “As soon as the thing saw
me in the cemetery, it disappeared like I said, and I thought I was
safe. Then the maintenance manager showed up on the side of the
field, and I thought, oh, good, I’m even safer, and I stopped my
mower and hopped off to go talk to the guy and—whammo. Bad guy
number two.”
Zach’s brows went up. “Whammo?”
“Number two?” Tyler asked.
The sound of a door slamming caught my attention, and I
glanced over to see another heavily built man with an identical beard
to Commander Frost, also in a flannel shirt and work pants, step out
from one of the small stone houses into the sunshine, stretch, and
check his watch. He took a long slug of something from what looked
like an insulated cup, glanced over to the practice field—and
dropped the cup. Then he started running.
 “Look out,” the man shouted. He didn’t sound petrified with fear,
but he should’ve been, because a second fire bull appeared out of
nowhere, while the image that had been the commander winked out
of sight at the edge of the practice field. I didn’t think either Liam or
Grim noticed this. They were squared off against fire bull number
one, both of them whooping with excitement, and took off toward the
thing they thought was an illusion.
“Whoa,” Zach blurted, and he lurched forward before Tyler pulled
him back.
“Can’t enter without their request, man,” he reminded Zach. “You
want Frost to sit you on your ass for good?”
“But Frost is still out here,” Zach countered, reasonably enough.
And in truth, the real commander was now running hard, his face
intent, his eyes blazing. As he ran, he somehow managed to rip his
longbow off his back in one smooth motion.
“Move,” Frost shouted, and Zach, Tyler, and I scuttled to the side
as the commander leapt up on the ledge, then went soaring into the
open field, clearing way more distance than I would have thought
possible for someone so short. He landed and was already pulling
an arrow from his quiver and notching it when Grim reached the first
fire bull.
Both of them roared at the contact, and a second later, Liam
yelled as well, his hands moving almost too fast to see, hacking and
slicing. The first fire bull caught Commander Frost’s arrow in the
shoulder, and it howled, spinning around. That apparently startled
Liam and Grim into pulling up short. Frost notched another arrow as
more roars cascaded around us. “Get back,” he ordered. “Shit.”
Two more fire bulls burst onto the open field.
Zach and Tyler sprang off the wall so fast, I could barely track
them. They raced forward, long, wicked knives appearing in their
hands. The fire bulls paired off, focusing on Grim and Liam, even as
Frost notched and loosed another arrow, then a third.
“Run,” I begged beneath my breath, though of course these
people knew what they were doing. They knew how to kill the
monsters. That was literally all they studied here. But I couldn’t help
feeling that what they really needed was a distraction, something to
catch the attention of the fire bulls, deflect it so that the slashing
thrusts of the guys and their magical knives and Frost’s arrows could
get close enough to do real damage.
Monster bait, Grim had called me. Sneering.
Had he been right? Maybe not bait, but something a monster
could scent, could recognize, and want to go after? Something that
could distract it?
Time to find out.
I jumped from the wall before I could give myself a chance to talk
myself out of it and ripped off my red shirt, grateful for the industrial-
strength sports bra I had on underneath. Force of long habit, right up
there with the heavy jeans. Never bring an underwire to a monster
fight.
“Yo!” I shouted. My cry had somehow picked up a curious
resonance in the walled enclosure because it carried loud and long
over the field, catching the attention of not only the monsters, but the
guys as well.
Grim turned first, and I caught an expression of credible horror on
his face when he saw who I was and what I was doing. Then all four
of the fire bulls and even Commander Frost turned toward me, the
fire bulls screaming with feral delight at the fresh meat. Or maybe
they liked girls better? I didn’t have time to consider it as I took off
running.
The problem with trying to outrun creatures that are three times
your size is that they can cover a lot more ground with every step
than should be reasonable. I’d barely taken four strides when I felt
the breath of the creatures on my back, the rush of pain coming back
in a flash, though my last encounter with these fire bulls had been
nearly eight years ago.
“Drop,” I heard several voices command, or thought I heard them
command. My brain was still processing that as the creatures
converged on me. At that same moment, the beasts all gave a
collective huff of pain.
“Drop,” they shouted again, and pure self-preservation instinct
took over. I hit the dirt as the first monster jumped, soaring over me,
while two more dropped to the ground on either side, shaking the
earth. The fourth flopped on top of me, pinning me beneath Mt. Fire
Bull, and I nearly passed out from the stench.
 “Go,” the now-mighty cry rang out, carrying a weird reverberation,
as if the command wasn’t merely a shout but some kind of anti-
monster spell being cast. A second later, fire swept all round me. I
crouched on the ground, my arms up over my head, and tried not to
burst into tears as I considered the very real possibility of being
roasted alive right along with the fire bulls.
After that—there was nothing. The monsters vanished in a
crackling pile of embers, much like the land cuttlefish had two nights
ago, and I was left hunkering in the center of four guys, all of whom
were hunched over, shoulders heaving, trying to catch their breath.
Tyler moved first. He reached forward and pulled me to my feet
as the commander reached us.
“Who are you?” Frost demanded, and I recognized that he’d been
part of the voice that had ordered the monsters away—part, but not
all of it. Which meant the guys had helped as well. That was
seriously cool.
“What are you doing here?” Frost continued, drawing himself up
to his full height—which was pretty impressive, I had to admit. The
guy was almost as big as Grim.
“Saving our asses, looks like to me,” drawled Tyler, gesturing
between us. “Nina Cross, Commander Frost, head monster hunter
trainer at Wellington Academy, and our official mentor.”
Frost narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not part of the program.”
I gave a queasy laugh. “I don’t want to be part of the program,” I
admitted. “I just want not to die.”
The moment I spoke, Frost took a step back.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he breathed, his eyes going wide.
“You’re monster bait.”
 13

“Y ou know, I’m getting a little tired of everyone calling me

that,” I groused.
Frost looked like he was going to break a few teeth
from clamping his jaws so tight together, and the guys all seemed
credibly perplexed except for Grim, who simply looked pissed. I was
beginning to think that was Grim’s signature look.
Frost recovered first, turning on Tyler. “You brought her here to
campus? When?”
“Technically, she found us,” Tyler clarified. “And it was two nights
ago. We were coming back from meeting with Dean Robbins, and I
saw someone come through the west entrance—which was crazy
enough. Then I saw what was following her. A Tarken land worm.”
Frost scowled at me. “When did monsters start following you?
Close to the campus?”
Probably not my best look to admit to all the guys at once that I’d
lied to them, but I had lied to them, and there was no point in
sugarcoating it. Plus, hopefully Tyler had already explained the truth.
“No, not close to the campus. I mean the other night I was more
or less close, but I’ve been dealing with monsters pretty much my
whole life.”
To my surprise, Frost only nodded. Thankfully, none of the guys
looked shocked either. They looked equal parts interested, proud,
and—in Grim’s case—still pissed off. I appreciated his consistency.
 “When it starts, it starts young,” the commander said. “It’s
generally believed to be a condition in the bloodline, and there’s
nothing you can do about it, as far as getting rid of it. I’m sure you’ve
wondered.”
I grimaced. “Actually, I never really thought about the idea of
being bait before a couple of days ago.” I studiously avoided looking
at Grim. “I always just thought I could see things that other people
couldn’t see, and they could see me back. I didn’t think they were
actively trying to seek me out. And as to bloodline…I guess. My
mom never seemed to have too much trouble with it.”
He grunted. “And your father?”
I felt the blood score my cheeks, though I should have expected
the question. “Unknown. He wasn’t a part of our lives. I have no idea
if he’s even still alive. Mom never talked about him.”
“But she knew what you were.”
I frowned, not liking where this was going. “She knew enough,
yeah,” I said, my words clipped. “She taught me how to protect
myself.”
“Her name?” he asked, and the question was so abrupt, I
answered honestly.
“Janet Cross. I’m in Boston to find her family, actually. That hasn’t
been going so well.”
“We can help with that,” Frost said, with such assurance that I
wanted to believe him. “And it’s not all bad news. Generally, people
with a genetic predisposition to be monster—ah, aligned—also have
a fair amount of natural-born hunting ability.” He looked at me with
more critical eyes. “They also are required to be part of a registry. It’s
a registry that doesn’t get much attention anymore, and may not
even be maintained, now that I think about it, but since we’ve found
you, you should be added, along with the lineage you know about.”
The caution of my single mother, long used to keeping out of the
public eye, reared up, and I smiled politely but noncommittedly at
Frost. “That would be interesting,” I allowed. I had no intention of
providing my name for any such registry, but I couldn’t deny I was
intrigued.
I’d wanted to find my mother’s family, but maybe I’d been going
about this all wrong, especially since that search had been going
nowhere. Maybe I should start focusing on my dad. My mom had
always been very clear that my father never knew I existed and
shouldn’t be blamed for not being a part of my life, because that had
been her decision alone. She’d always been rather defiant on the
point, and I’d never wanted to press.
I’d also never felt like I’d been missing out because I didn’t know
my father. Mom had been plenty of parent for me, and from what I’d
seen of the fathers of my classmates, I’d come out on the winning
side of that equation more often than I would have expected. But if
he was still around somewhere, and he knew my mom’s family…it
was worth a shot. That didn’t mean I had to enroll in any freak show
registry, though. I needed to shoot down that idea pronto.
“So, if I have this natural-born ability, is there any point in me
taking classes?” I asked.
Tyler frowned at the question. “Of course there’s benefit to you
taking classes. You don’t even know what you’re fighting.”
Speaking of consistent… I slanted him a skeptical look. “You
know, last time I looked, I was surviving on my own with my trusty
little knife. No spells, no magic backpack, no problem.”
A ripple of some emotion I couldn’t quite define rolled through all
the guys, and I hooked my thumbs into my jeans pockets for added
you’re-not-the-boss-of-me emphasis. I wasn’t here to make friends.
Even my attraction to Tyler, while still an ever-present pressure in my
mind—and in various other parts of my body too—wasn’t enough for
me to lose sight of the fact that I was the outsider here. The super
happy outsider. Getting more outside all the time.
Then Frost spoke. “Think about what we experienced here today,
Ms. Cross. Not one, but four fire bulls, all in one place. The first one
was supposed to be an illusion. It was planned—a lesson that was
on the books for today and dutifully recorded in the logs. But what
showed up wasn’t an illusion. It was real, and these are creatures
that hunt in pairs, not packs. The fact that three more appeared and
took over the battle is deeply concerning.”
“Well, it’s not all that concerning,” I countered. “You guys handled
them pretty well.”
“We did,” Frost said, and I’d been the child of a professor long
enough that I recognized the smug satisfaction of a trap neatly
sprung when I heard it. I winced inwardly.
The commander didn’t make me wait long.
“And the reason why we were able to handle them is because
these young men have been trained in the skill of magical command
and group fighting. You have not. Typically, when you’re a lone
fighter, you make the most of what you have on hand, or fashion
makeshift weapons that serve the purpose of defeating the monster
you encounter or simply driving it away.”
He gestured to my hand, and I fought the urge to put it behind my
back. I was still carrying my short iron knife—my short, iron, and very
definitely down-market knife. Bastard.
Frost continued. “Generally, these implements are made of iron,
like yours is, which is also the primary ingredient in officially
designed weapons, so your instincts are sound. But what you
probably don’t have are weapons fashioned for particular types of
monsters. Physical, spiritual, elemental, extra racial.”
I couldn’t help myself, the last category sounded kind of cool.
“Extra racial? What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
Frost waved vaguely. “When we think of monsters, we tend to
default to outsized creatures of fantastic skills and proportions, like
the fire bulls. But in some cases, the monsters we fight look like us
with only a few key differences. Maybe they are skeletonized, maybe
they have the appearance of elves or vampires. Either way, they
require their own set of weapons. Weapons you do not have.”
“Fair enough.” I’d never come across any rabid garden gnomes,
but it was good to know they were probably out there. “So, like,
werewolves?”
“Werewolves and all were creatures fall under the designation of
shapeshifter,” Frost explained, not missing a beat. “As such, they
make up their own category. There are some shifters that morph into
and from human form, but there are also several varieties that shift
from domestic animals to their wilder variant. It is not an exclusively
human variant.”
“Huh.” I felt my curiosity grow, and, unbidden, the image of my
tree watchers across from my apartment building flitted across my
mind. So were those guys extra-racial monsters? And what did that
mean, exactly?
 I didn’t miss the satisfied smirk on Tyler’s face at my obvious
interest and resisted the urge to flip him off. Because I was an adult
that way. “Well, I guess it’s probably useful for me to know some of
that stuff. I can’t argue with that.”
“Good,” Frost said. “Typically, Wellington doesn’t allow students
who are not formally approved by the board to audit monster hunting
classes, but we make many of our own rules here in this part of the
campus. I’ll advocate with the board that we expedite your
enrollment as a full-time student.”
I lifted my hands. “Hold up a minute,” I protested. Tiny shoots of
anxiety poked through the ever-fertile soil of my brain. “I don’t need
to do all that, right? I only need to sit in on a few classes, like as a
guest.”
Despite my earlier temptation to officially enroll at Wellington, I
knew it was a bad idea. Yes, it would be extremely helpful to know a
little bit more about the monsters I was facing and what might make
them go away, but I wasn’t about to sign up for regular classes. I’d
go back to college when I was ready. My degree in premed studies
was at least two years away from being completed, but it had proven
to be a valuable course of study. And I’d gotten access to all sorts of
useful tools during my labs, so that was a bonus. I would definitely
go back to school, but not right now. I wasn’t ready for that.
“You’re certainly under no obligation,” Frost said smoothly. “But
there are a fair number of benefits to enrollment that hopefully the
students here will help you understand.” He glanced to Tyler,
correctly figuring out that he was my connection here. “You’ve told
her about the collective?”
I practically jolted out of my clothes, then went absolutely still, my
eyesight narrowing to a pinprick. Fortunately, no one seemed to be
watching me.
“The what?” I asked carefully, trying to keep the chill out of my
voice, and probably not at all succeeding. I didn’t care. This was it,
the word ringing through my brain like a klaxon bell. The danger my
mom had warned me about all those years ago. All the terror of that
night, that horrible night rushed back over me as if it was happening
right here, right now.
 I’d been thirteen years old, if that, and I could still see her in my
mind’s eye, the blood seeping from her shoulder, her eyes wide and
unfocused. “The collective,” she’d gasped, while all I could do was
focus on how frail she looked, how frightened. Why had I gone out
with her that night? Why had I put her in danger? How had I not seen
the giant, scale-covered lizard beast before it had leapt out from the
darkness and snapped its enormous jaw closed over her left arm? I’d
gone instantly ballistic, my knife up and slashing like a whirling
dervish, and the monster had dropped her with a squawk. But it’d
been too late—too late. There’d been so much blood.
But at Frost’s mention of the word collective, the rest came
flooding back, stabbing at me relentlessly. “Four men, all together.
Bonded as one. They’ll—they’ll hurt you. Destroy you. Worse than
monsters ever could. If you ever see them—you run. Promise me
you’ll run!”
She’d started shaking at that point, trying to reach for me, blood
welling up from her shoulder with renewed energy. I’d promised on
the spot, of course. I would have promised about anything to quiet
her down. She’d passed out, and so had I, and when I’d awakened
to find her safe and whole, I’d buried the memories and thrown away
the key.
Now here I was, smack in the middle of a goddamned collective,
without a single clue what it was. Or why it was going to kill me.
I cleared my throat, and tried again. “The what?”
Frost turned his attention back to me, though once again, he
didn’t seem to take issue with my question or my tone.
“The collective is a tight-knit group of hunters who have agreed to
be formally linked in their efforts. We encourage it for any particularly
capable groups that come through within a single year. Over the
course of your studies here at Wellington, you establish a trust level
for your fellow members in the collective, and they for you. Solo
monster hunters generally don’t last very long, I’m afraid. The fact
that you have is a testament to your grit, but it’s not an ideal
situation.” He gestured to the guys around me. “And you’ve already
formed a connection with an existing group.”
“Got it.” I shrugged, working harder to ignore the panic welling up
inside me. I’d barely met this group of guys, they were all members
of a double-secret frat that was apparently going to destroy me, and
their Paul Bunyan commander wanted us to join hands together and
sing campfire songs?
Even if my mom hadn’t encouraged me to run like hell, this was
never happening. Setting aside the idea that they apparently could
hurt me worse than monsters ever could, I had no plans of relying
too much on anybody, let alone a group of college boys who were
eventually going to graduate and move on with their own lives. With
my luck, I’d start really getting into the groove of us working as a
team when I found myself rolling solo again with just me and a nail
gun for company. That sounded like a very bad idea.
And that was assuming they hadn’t already killed me first.
“Ah…there are other bonding possibilities for, um, add-on
hunters,” Liam spoke up, sounding almost apologetic. Either he’d
picked up on my growing unease, or the possibilities in question
sucked ass. This kept getting better and better.
Frost nodded. “The peculiar demands of monster hunting have
existed for centuries, perhaps even thousands of years. Groups
have had to form unexpectedly, even urgently. The spells are old and
would need to be studied for modern application, because I’m not
sure of all the ramifications, but they do exist. I’ll look into it.”
“Good to know,” I said, wiping my hands off on my jeans again
like it was super ordinary for me to be sweating buckets on the cool
spring day. “But first things first. You said there were some classes I
could benefit from. Are there any that are being offered this
semester? I know we’re kind of toward the end of the year, but I’ll
take whatever you’ve got.”
“Battle readiness, for sure,” Tyler put in.
“Weapons,” Liam added. He’d picked up his pack somewhere
along the line, and now he patted it. “Particularly ones that require a
small footprint. You’d be amazed at what I can fit in this backpack.”
“Identification,” Zach offered, running a hand through his jet-black
hair. “Always better to know what you’re facing and how it reacts to
various attacks. You can save a lot of time that way, and maybe
some skin in the process.”
“Fitness,” Grim rumbled. We all looked at him, and he gave me a
thin smile. “Because it looks like you’re going to be running a lot,
Monster Bait.”
Irritation rippled through me as the guys laughed, but Grim didn’t
back down from my irritated gaze. I noticed, despite not wanting to,
that his chin was perfectly chiseled and his mouth almost sculpted,
set into his granite-jawed face like a gift for women everywhere. I
wanted to hate the guy, I did hate the guy, but he sure was easy on
the eyes. Even if he was an asshole.
Frost brought his hands together in a sharp slap, and I jolted, the
energy of that slap seeming to electrify the air around us.
“Then it’s done, at least this much. We’ll talk tomorrow.
Meanwhile, we need to do a perimeter check—”
“Nina doesn’t,” Grim grunted, surprising me. “She should go. To
class.”
“Excellent idea. Plan on meeting at the library after class—seven
o’clock.” Frost waved to me and Tyler absently, then refocused on
the other guys.
I narrowed my eyes at the summary dismissal, but then Tyler
took my hand to draw me away and I didn’t care as much.
Something about touching him always felt so incredibly right, in a
way I didn’t want to explore too closely.
Blowing out a long breath, I tried to refocus. I needed time to
think, to regroup, to pick apart my mom’s long ago warnings and
square them up to a group that’d been nothing but helpful since I’d
met them. Well, mostly helpful, anyway. Except for…
“What’s with Grim?” I asked Tyler as soon as we were some
distance off, aiming toward the main campus. Every stride away from
Frost and his suggestion of the collective was a step in the right
direction, as far as I was concerned, and I remained acutely aware of
Tyler’s hand on mine. Aware and unreasonably happy about it. “He
seems like he’s perpetually midsnarl.”
“Nah,” Tyler said easily. “That’s just his way. We don’t know a lot
about him, honestly. He showed up the first day of second semester
and got dropped in with us even though he didn’t have the credits.
We didn’t mind. He’s a fucking baller when it comes to monster
hunting. And any kind of hunt, for that matter. He’s fast and brutal,
and you need both. He also knows a hell of a lot about monsters
without the benefit of all of Liam’s books. He’s a good guy to have on
your side.”
“Well, he doesn’t seem to be a fan.”
Tyler laughed. “Consider yourself lucky. He doesn’t even talk to
most women, though he has his share of groupies. He doesn’t have
much use for anybody outside of us. He’ll grow on you, though. Trust
me.”
I grimaced, then poked at the bubble of questions that were
blowing up in my mind, even though it was now super clear that
Mom had been warning me specifically about the monster hunters of
Wellington Academy. I didn’t have to run away in the next thirty
seconds, though. It was broad daylight, and I’d identified the threat. I
could leave at any time—so what would it hurt to learn more about
what it was I was running from? “So he’s part of your collective
thing?”
“Absolutely. We formed as an official group midway through our
sophomore year. And Frost is right. There’s undoubtedly a way for
you to join the group too, but it’s super old lore, and we haven’t really
had to study it. Hell, they don’t even teach collective magic anymore,
not formally. But we’ll figure it out if that’s something you want to do.”
I smiled, appreciating that Tyler was at least trying to keep from
bum-rushing me into taking classes and joining his secret treehouse
club, though any sort of hesitation clearly went against the grain for
him. He was determined to lead the monster hunters of Wellington
Academy into battle, and he wanted me on board in whatever way
he could get me.
For half a second, I allowed myself to imagine what it would be
like to have not one but four protectors dedicated to keeping the
monsters away at night—not only from me, but from everyone. What
would it be like to be a part of their unit, protecting others as well?
They seemed to place a lot of emphasis on the requirements it would
take for me to join up with them, but most likely it was some
elaborate form of pinky swearing, and then— what? Instant Broville?
That wasn’t for me, and yet…
“They’ll—they’ll hurt you. Destroy you. Worse than monsters ever
could. If you ever see them—you run.”
 I grimaced as the memory of Mom’s warning whispered through
my mind. Okay, you really couldn’t get clearer than that. It was time
for me to leave.
“Hey, what you did back there during the fight, that was really
brave,” Tyler said, interrupting my thoughts. He walked closer beside
me beneath the sprouting trees.
I shot him a look. “You mean offering myself up as a fire bull
sacrifice?”
“Yeah, but you did it trusting that you’d succeed in getting their
attention. And you trusted us not to get you killed in the process.
Both those things matter. It was kind of badass to put yourself out
there like that. And I’m thinking you probably had a plan for how to
defeat the fire bulls all on your own, if it came down to it. A dumb
plan, you know. But a plan.”
I warmed to his grudging praise even though I knew better.
Praise didn’t come very often, and I would take it where I found it. “I
had a plan, but it wasn’t a good one. Now that I really think about it,
Grim wasn’t wrong. About a good two-thirds of the monster attacks
I’ve survived are because I run like hell. It works better than it
should.”
“Maybe so, but the fact remains that when you have to, you fight.
And when you fight, you do win, even if I don’t agree with your
methods. Like I said: badass.”
His tone had shifted again, and I looked up, caught by the
intensity of his gaze. Without saying another word, he leaned
forward to brush his lips over mine. And there it was again—the wild
surge of excitement, the sense of coming home, the empowerment
that I could take on the world and nothing could stop me, nothing
would stop me. The whirlwind of sensation built within me, and it was
Tyler who broke it off, Tyler who stood back with a hushed curse.
“Damn, girl,” he said, and his eyes were wide, earnest. I glanced
around, and in barely the span of five seconds, the space around us
had changed. Dramatically. All the blossoms on the trees had been
stripped off the still-quivering boughs, with piles of spent blooms
mounded around us. He held out his hand, and I noticed it was
shaking. “We’d better go find a class to sit in on, or there may not be
much of the campus left by lunchtime.”
 I didn’t know if he was joking or not, but I slipped my hand into
his, sinking into the sensation that had returned to simply feeling
right, real. I needed to leave Wellington Academy—to get the hell
away from all these monster hunters, even though I hadn’t known
they’d existed before this week. But…maybe not today, necessarily. I
had my whole life to be alone, after all. I could at least learn
something while I was here.
“So—what class first?” I asked Tyler, tuning out the fading cry of
my mother’s long-ago plea.
He hitched a shoulder. “Entrails magic is starting up in about five.
There’s an awful lot of monsters you can ward off with a good bag of
guts. That’d be a good place to start, I think.”
I shot him a sideways glance, but the guy was totally serious.
Maybe I was better off fighting on my own.
 14

E ntrails led to monster ethics, which gave way to fight

strategy. Dinner was a quick bite at a bar close to campus
called the White Crane, a hole in the wall with a long,
gleaming bar and a dozen dimly lit tables, a dark-haired female
bartender who looked like she’d just as soon deck you as pour you a
drink, and a curious mix of older, grizzled locals and fresh-faced
upperclassmen. While he put away two pints of beer and we both
plowed our way through cheeseburgers and thick-cut fries, Tyler
talked non-stop about every other class he’d had since starting
Wellington, and why I needed to take them, too. By the time we
finally headed back to meet the rest of the group, my head was
spinning.
No sooner had we breached the wall to the monster quad,
however, than Tyler veered off toward a large vine-covered building
that I hadn’t noticed yesterday when I’d visited the small hamlet. I
barely noticed it now, surrounded by lengthening shadows the way it
was, with only two flickering lights flanking its imposing front door.
“Lowell Library and research lab,” Tyler explained as we mounted
the steps. The front door responded easily to his key card and
swung open onto an equally dark foyer. We stepped inside, crossed
the short entryway, and entered a library wonderland.
Rows upon rows of bookcases soared above gleaming marble
floors, each of them lit by chandeliers hung from the ceiling. An
enormous fireplace took up most of the far wall, cheerily lit despite
the late spring evening. Marble-topped tables and polished study
carols peeked out of every nook and corner, inviting you to curl up
and read or drop down a pile of books for study. Of all the places I’d
seen in Wellington, this was by far the most magical.
Oblivious to my wonder, Tyler gestured me forward, and I saw
Grim, Liam and Zach disappearing into a room at back corner of the
chamber, past the fireplace. Peeling my eyes wide to try and take in
every shelf and book, I let Tyler hustle me along until we also
entered the brightly lit room.
My first impression was: war room. Three giant screens
dominated the walls, while shelves marched beneath, every surface
stacked with paperwork and files. A wide table extended down the
room’s center, with thick, intricately carved legs and a marble top. On
it sat a row of open laptop computers, currently all silent, flanked by
more stacked scrolls and books. The perfect marriage of old and
new.
“Well, this place is pretty cool,” I acknowledged, as the other guys
slouched into chairs and Liam took a seat in front of the nearest
laptop. I walked around the table to peer at one of the screens,
which featured a map of Boston.
“This place is awesome,” Tyler agreed. “Monster hunter HQ.”
“Incoming,” Liam said under his breath, and a second later, Frost
stepped into the room. I turned to take him in, wondering if he’d just
finished splitting logs somewhere. He still rocked the Paul Bunyan
starter set of flannel shirt and work pants, and this close, I could see
the shimmering gray in his hair, and the fact that he had a thick scar
over one brow that got lost in his sideburns. His bushy beard
seemed to have grown a few inches since I’d seen him earlier, and I
suspected that beard probably hid other scars as well.
Frost scanned the room and stopped when he got to me, nodding
with gruff resignation. “I owe you an apology, Ms. Cross,” he said. “I
called you monster bait, but that’s not quite right, it seems. There’s a
better term to describe you, I’ve learned. Harbinger.”
I made a face. “How about I make up the nicknames from now
on? You people suck at it.”
Frost pushed on, ignoring me. “The nature of the harbinger is that
he—or she, in your case—is a chosen child of the bloodline who’s
hiding in plain sight. She isn’t sought out, because nobody knows
she exists. Nobody still knows you exist, in fact. It would be to your
advantage if that remains the case.”
He picked up one of the folders stacked neatly on the table, and
waved it at me. “Your mother, Janet Cross, isn’t in any of our family
databases—I’m not surprised you’ve had difficulty tracking her down.
As far as the magical world is concerned, she doesn’t exist. But
there is a Janet Cross who worked here in Boston, on an equally
specialized registry. I found her on a very exclusive employee
database at one of the private early childhood education schools in
Beacon Hill, less than three miles from here.”
I opened my mouth to ask how he’d figured that out, then shut it.
This was a magic academy. It stood to reason they knew stuff. That
didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, all of this was starting to feel
like a very bad idea, though I couldn’t deny the spark of excitement.
Despite Frost’s assertion that mom was magical…I honestly had
never thought of her that way. She’d simply been my mom. But this
new lead made sense—a super private school for rich little kids. I
could see a college educated botanist getting hired on there, and
then later landing a position at the university. That made sense.
“So, what does this harbinger do?” Tyler asked. He’d stationed
himself near me, while the other guys remained ranged around the
table—Liam scooting suspiciously closer to the stack of books and
scrolls scattered on the table by the laptops. His pack had slid
forward ever so slightly, and I halfway got the impression that the
room might be a little lighter of some of its research materials before
we were through here.
“In a nutshell?” Frost replied, still eyeing me. “She’s a universal
“on” switch, trumping any magic that may have been hiding monster
activity from us—which as you can imagine, won’t please Dean
Robbins. I have a feeling his assertion that there are no more
monsters to fight will be decidedly put to rest.”
“Wait a minute—someone’s been blocking you from monster
attacks?” I asked, frowning. “Or is it just that I came to town and
declared it national meet your monster day?”
Frost snorted. “In all honesty—I have long believed monster
attacks have been dwindling. So no, I don’t believe that Robbins is
completely out of line. That said, even a few such outbreaks a year
wouldn’t fit his narrative. Now, I suspect we’ll become quite a bit
busier.
“Excellent,” Liam said, grinning at me when I turned is way. “It’s
about time something happened.”
“The second role of a harbinger is far more specific. Her arrival
heralds a new attack of monsters, the next stage in what many
consider to be our ongoing war with them.”
Grim grunted a derisive laugh, and Tyler leaned forward.
“Well, that’s not bad either. With a full-on monster war, the
academy can’t shut us down,” Tyler agreed. He opened and closed
his hands into fists. A centering technique, I suspected. If war was
coming, he’d be more than willing to jump into the fray, I had no
doubt.
But was it coming? Had that been what had pushed me to come
to Boston, not just the possibility of finding my mom?
I blew out a long breath, trying to beat down the twin spurts of
curiosity and anxiety bubbling up inside me by looking anywhere but
at Frost. My gaze landed back on the digital map of Boston,
expanded to focus on the section of the city bounded by the Charles
River, from Battery Wharf to Fenway Park. Several locations in blue
gleamed on it, along with several sections of green. Otherwise, it
was a fairly straightforward street map.
Noticing our attention, Frost turned toward it. “For the moment,
the question of Ms. Cross’s family history can be set to the side, in
favor of the reality of our present. We’ve had an…unexpected
development that only now is beginning to make sense to me. You
can see here that I’ve indicated the typical landmarks of this section
of Boston—Fenway Park, Boston Public Garden, the museums—
along with the magic academies in blue.”
I leaned forward, staring at the blue dots. Only Wellington was
indicated by name, and I nearly asked what the others were when
Frost continued. “Over the past few weeks, this section of the city
has been experiencing a surge in power outages. At first, I didn’t pay
much attention to it because the spring storms typically bring
disruption to our power lines, and this year was no different. But our
weather has remained stable for the past several days, while the
outages continue. A brief check of the city’s power grid indicates no
systemic problems. Discreet inquiries turned up nothing unusual,
with the general theory being that the system is simply ‘glitching.’
The outages are brief and seemingly random. Or so I thought, until
Mr. Perkins apprised me of your experiences, Ms. Cross.”
I slanted him a glance. “You can call me Nina.”
Frost nodded. “Per the information you shared with Tyler, you’ve
sustained at least six attacks in the past three weeks, two when you
moved here initially, and five in the past few days. Mr. Williams has
done me the favor of charting those attacks, with the palest dot being
the first, and the darkest one indicating tonight’s incident.”
He turned to Zach, who was already moving to one of the
computers. “Got it,” Zach said. He slid into the chair at the table and
started typing. A few seconds later, he nodded to Frost, and with a
click of the man’s remote, the map changed. A tight cluster of orange
dots appeared on the screen, all focused between Newbury and the
academy.
“In green, then, these are the incidences of power outages the
days of those attacks, the shading corresponding to the timestamp of
each incident.” Another click, and I pursed my lips. Six gradually
darkening lines of green dots wound through the city, ending at the
attack point, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
“The monsters all followed a path to me that started from Boston
Public Garden?” I asked. “I’ve never even been there.”
“Ordinarily, I would deem that a tourist foul, as would most
residents of this part of Boston,” Frost said drily. “In your case,
consider yourself lucky. Whatever has locked on to you, it’s
originating on park grounds. There are several possibilities in the
park itself, but I haven’t had time to explore them. Almost certainly,
we’re looking at a monument or perhaps the lake as a source of
origin.”
“But what does that mean?” I asked. “We can’t exactly raze a
public park.”
Frost grimaced. “We cannot. We’ll have to be a good bit more
sensitive than that. That said, it gives us a place to start, and it also
gave me the opportunity to track another disturbing trend. One
which, regrettably, predates your arrival in Boston, Ms. Cross, but
will almost certainly involve you, I suspect sooner rather than later.”
Zach turned sharply toward Frost, scowling. Clearly, this wasn’t a
data point Frost had asked him to chart.
Frost hit his remote again, and a dozen red dots, larger than the
others, illuminated on the screen. “Boston, like most major cities, is
not immune to lawlessness. Annually, we experience over forty-five
hundred incidents of violent crime, including murder, rape, robbery,
and assault. For a city that prides itself as being above average in
every respect, I can say that we’re also above the national average
in crime in all but one category, in which we tie the average. All that
to say, violence—and violent perpetrators—can hide in this city
perhaps more easily than most.”
“You’re talking about the Boston Brahmin—that’s what they’re
calling him now on the down low, based on the way he dresses,”
Liam said, addressing this last to all of us. “The Victorian reenactor
who capped that student at Boston College yesterday—have you
seen the stories about him? That guy.”
I jolted, remembering the newscast from the day before. “Fancy
Victorian muggers were called brahmins? I thought that was an
Indian term, like a high-level caste.”
“Criminal tendencies notwithstanding, the Brahmins of Boston
were very high caste. Just ask any of them.” Liam grinned, swiveling
toward me. “They were the cream of the crop, top-shelf members of
the city’s first families. Though Tyler would be the best to explain the
significance of that.”
“Liam,” Tyler said quellingly, but by now Liam was practically
bouncing, clearly delighted that he’d scored a direct hit on his friend.
Those two definitely had known each other a long time.
“Well, you are a Perkins. Who better to tell the tale?”
Tyler glanced my way, appearing more uncomfortable than I’d
ever seen him, and I recalled what Merry Williams had said when I’d
first told her about Tyler.
“Ah—first families are, like, the founding members of Boston, I’m
guessing?” I offered, trying to help him out.
He finally capitulated, sighing. “Some of them, yes. The richest
ones, anyway. Basically, anyone who had enough money and barely
enough social standing at a finite point in time in the 1850s got
segregated into this unofficial caste.”
“Not so unofficial,” Liam snorted. “Oliver Wendell Holmes coined
the phrase Boston Brahmin, and it stuck.”
“Never mind the cultural appropriation problems,” I pointed out.
“Exactly.” Tyler grimaced. “The families who were included were
known for being ungodly wealthy, insufferably arrogant, and sticklers
for discretion—except for in their manner of dress. Which was…
excessive.”
“Deep reddish-colored velvet trousers, insane plaids and
paisleys, brightly colored vests, top hats, pointy-toed lace-up boots,
the works,” Liam volunteered, leaning forward to tap something into
a computer. With a click of a button, the map on the screen changed
to an elegantly dressed Victorian man with long, delicate features
and pale skin. “Your basic Victorian baller.”
I peered at the image. “That’s what the Boston Brahmin looks
like? Like the current one hunting people down right now?”
“Down to the tiny dots in his cravat,” Frost confirmed. “Based on
firsthand accounts we’ve secured separate from police reports. But
the connection to the first families goes deeper. The general public is
only aware of one victim, but there have been others. Worse than
that…they’re all related.”
I turned to Tyler with surprise. “To you?”
“To Boston’s one-percenters,” Liam corrected, as Tyler looked
pained. “And not all of them either, but enough of them, as we’re
slowly figuring out.” He glanced over to Frost. “It’s a obviously a
focused attack, man. We’ve got to do something.”
Tyler huffed out a breath. “The student who was assaulted
yesterday—Billy Perkins—is my second cousin, once removed. The
connection is distant, but it’s there. And he’s one of apparently a half
dozen descendants of the first families who’ve been attacked so far.
They were just keeping it on the down low. Because that’s what you
do when in a first family. They’re not very big on scandal. At all.
Which is why we need to handle this, pronto.”
“Okay…” I allowed. “But I still don’t understand. Since when are
monster hunters needed to stop ordinary…” I blinked. “No. No way.
You think that mugger is an actual monster?”
 “There are several indicators this may be the case,” Frost broke
in somberly. “First and foremost, according to information that has
not been released to the public, the speed with which the assaults
are being perpetrated have led the authorities to suspect a team of
assailants working in coordination. However, the assaults are
generally carried off in sequential clusters—one shortly after the
other, with what looks like an identical methodology. The Victorian
attire of the perpetrator isn’t completely out of the ordinary given the
number of historical reenactors in the city, but every description I’ve
found of the man’s costume implies a level of almost delicate
fastidiousness. That, combined with the brutality of the assaults, I
find difficult to assign to an ordinary assailant—let alone a team of
similarly dressed attackers. It assumes a high level of coordination
and discipline, yet every other indicator lends itself to chaos. And Mr.
Graham is correct. On every evening of the assailant’s attacks, one
member of a first family is targeted—all of them linking in some way
to Mr. Perkins here.”
“And half a dozen other families,” Tyler countered, but he
sounded grim. “That still doesn’t help us.”
“Perhaps not, but we’re not without additional avenues of
information. Namely, the network of power outages.” Another button,
and a new constellation of dots appeared, these in purple.
“Correlating the outages and assaults that all happened on the
same night, we see a distinctive pattern,” Frost continued. A few
more clicks told the tale.
I stared. Each night the Boston Brahmin struck, a long line arced
out from the Boston Public Garden to the far reaches of the city.
Then, in wide, lazy arcs, the outages ranged back again, each finally
returning to the Garden. Each attack looked like a bat wing, the
effect of the design swooping in a tight spiral toward the Garden.
Over the past few weeks, the ranges had gotten tighter and tighter,
circling closer to where the monsters had been targeting me in Back
Bay.
“Notably, all the Brahmin’s attacks occur within the course of
ninety minutes, no matter how far afield he strikes, and begin and
end close to Boston Public Garden. At some point, usually late in the
cycle of attacks, a descendant of Boston’s elite families is struck
down,” Frost said. “The points here, here, and here, near Beacon
Hill, represent a cluster of outages, but no bodies have been
identified—which is how we determined that the attacks were going
unreported. It’s quite definitely a pattern of attack, but given the
escalating violence, the why of the attacks has become decidedly
less important than stopping them altogether.”
“But how do we do that?” I asked. “If we don’t know who the
monster is targeting…” I broke off as Frost turned to eye me
pointedly. Monster, I thought. They thought this guy was a monster.
And if I was really monster bait, I could draw him out.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tyler said, putting up his hands, apparently
having already done the same math I had. “We’re making an awful
lot of assumptions here. One, we don’t know if this Boston Brahmin
is a legit monster or just your standard, run-of-the-mill asshole. We
haven’t seen him. We haven’t categorized him. We haven’t talked
directly to anyone who’s been hit by him, just received answers to
some very polite questions. What’s setting him off? Monsters attack
when you stray into their territory—they don’t actually target anyone.”
“Right, except for all the ones who’ve attacked Nina,” Liam
pointed out. “Or the fire bulls who hit us during our fight training.”
Tyler looked like he wanted to argue, then shrugged. “Fair
enough. But we don’t know if this Brahmin is a monster, or if it’s
going to be attracted to Nina—”
“Every other monster is,” Grim put in, in his to-the-point way. He
wasn’t wrong, but Tyler scowled at him, then turned to Frost, who
stared steadily back.
“You cannot be thinking of using her as bait, man,” Tyler
protested. “No way.”
Frost didn’t respond for a telling second, and I lifted a hand to
stop Tyler from spluttering in outrage. “You think this thing will target
me once it knows I’m out there?”
“Oh, it already knows you’re out there.” Frost moved his hand on
the remote, taking away all the dots on the map for a moment and
presenting us with a pristine street map of the city, a city I’d barely
started getting to know. The Boston Public Garden really had been
on my short list of places to see, but it was only one of many
interesting sites in the city, from the quirky wonder of Newbury Street
to the bustling wharf district to the industrial, funky shopping and
manufacturing district of SoWa. Let alone how easy it was to simply
get lost meandering through the beautiful tree-lined streets of Back
Bay and Beacon Hill, ogling the gorgeous old houses and making up
stories about the people who lived in them—people who included
Tyler’s family, I now understood. My mother had told me more than
once that she loved it here. I’d never thought to press her on why
she’d left—accepting her pat explanation of a better job in a better
town to raise a small child with the blind faith any kid would. But
now…
I refocused on the map as Frost added new features, these
simply numbers in a bright blue, one through eight, with small time
stamps appended. “These are the Brahmin’s eight attack series
recorded over the past few months. Notice a trend?” he asked.
Of course, I saw it immediately, verifying my earlier suspicions.
While the original attack clusters ranged all over the city, that trend
had changed a few weeks ago—right around the time I’d been
moving into my cute little walk-up off Newbury Street. The Brahmin
hadn’t hit me yet, but…
“They’re getting closer together in location.” Tyler nodded.
“Time too,” Zach pointed out. “He waited weeks between hits at
the start. Now he’s cycling in. Once every three or four days now.”
“Which puts him on par with any serial offender anywhere,” Liam
pointed out, reasonably enough. “He’s still displaying as a human,
you ask me.”
He leaned back from the laptop, and there was a book at his
fingertips. I scanned the pile of texts in front of him with a shrewd
eye. Was there something already missing among those books and
scrolls?
Liam pointed to the screen. “I’ve found several blue-blooded
student forums that are running with a new Brahmin conspiracy
theory, though. Mostly from Harvard and MIT, but also because of
this newest attack at Boston College. Billy’s apparently a very rich,
very entitled young man. He’s been busy since he was hit, though
circumspect, naturally. He now says the guy insisted that Billy had
stolen something from him, but given the clothing and all that, ol’
Billy thinks it’s all some kind of act. He and his buddies are
convinced it’s a ploy to smear one of the city’s first families. An
attempt to bring scandal to someone no one dares point a finger at in
the light of day, that sort of thing.”
I frowned. “Seriously?”
“That’s what they’re saying. And that’s why they believe there
haven’t been any murders yet—that’s not the point of all this.”
“As far as we know,” Tyler corrected. “There are several apparent
attack sites that don’t have victims, right? It could be there are
deaths that haven’t been recorded yet, that may never be recorded,
if this monster’s smart.”
Zach stepped forward to peer at the map as if it held more
secrets it was willing to give up. “And think about what we do know
about this Boston Brahmin guy, whether monster or otherwise. We
already know he’s fast and efficient. He—and I’m making an
assumption it’s a he. Monsters don’t discriminate, and sometimes
they’re gender neutral, but we’ll go with he for now—can cover a
great deal of territory in a short amount of time. We know that he can
modify his attack route based on stimulus, which we’re assuming is
the arrival of Nina, but there definitely is something that changed his
trajectory. And if he’s killing victims, he’s doing it selectively.”
“He’s primarily sticking to assaults,” Tyler said, scanning the
information Frost had posted alongside the map. “Definitely with the
first family descendants, but also the other victims. Battery, battery,
knife, battery, knife, knife. No robbery, at least not anything that he
doesn’t throw back at the victim in outrage. No rape, thank God.
Murder still questionable—we simply haven’t found any bodies, but
that doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”
“So mindless attacks—or at least attacks without a clear
purpose,” Liam put in.
“He doesn’t need a purpose,” Grim said. A quick hush fell over
the room, but of course he was right. Monsters attacked. It was what
they did. Sometimes they killed too.
“I tend to agree with Mr. Lockton,” Frost said. “But even if this is a
monster, we can’t rule out the possibility there’s a reason behind the
attack. We also can’t rule out that someone human is behind it,
pulling the strings.”
 My eyes shot wide. “People can pull monster strings? That’s a
thing?”
Frost chuckled grimly. “In the world of magic, there can be
players at every level, acting in unexpected concert. Sometimes it’s
just about the monster, but often there’s a second hand setting the
play in motion.”
“But why…?” I began. Liam cut me off.
“Uh, guys?” he said. He’d pulled one of the other heavy-duty
laptops toward him and was scowling down at it. “We’ve got some
movement in the west sector of the hunter quad. Like, a lot of
movement. Human movement.”
“What the…” Tyler muttered and Frost raised his remote again,
clicking fast. A moment later, an entirely different image filled the
screen—students, carrying torches and signs.
“Freedom for all!” the front line of the crowd proclaimed, and right
there in the front was Merry Williams.
“Oh, shit,” Zach said, his eyes going wide. “They’re protesting at
the monster enclosure again.”
“And we’ve got private media at the gates,” Liam said quickly,
clicking through other screens. “Everyone—let’s go.”
“What?” I stared around as Zach and Liam pushed back from the
table, but obligingly fell in line behind them. Grim had already left.
“What’s going on?”
“C’mon,” Tyler began, gesturing to the door, but Frost held up a
hand, stopping all of us.
“It would be better for Nina to remain out of the picture and off
anyone’s radar, especially the type of media that’s covering this
particular protest.”
We all stopped and turned, and Tyler scowled at him. “Why’s
that?”
“A couple of reasons,” Frost said. Despite the urgency of the
situation, he moved slowly, methodically, almost stalking us, and his
expression was tight and focused, but not on us, I didn’t think. On an
equation he was trying to solve in his head. “She’s here to find her
family, a family of a young woman who apparently vanished without
a trace—yet who was able to completely cover her tracks among
arguably the most magical families in the United States.”
 “Which matters, why?” Tyler asked. Then he blinked. “Oh. Oh
shit.”
“Oh shit on a couple of different levels,” Frost agreed.
 15

F rost turned to refocus on me, though I still felt like he was

seeing through me, to a board of interconnected families
only he could discern. “Your mother had to have been a
high-level magician,” he said gruffly. “Given your abilities and…
nature, there’s no other possibility. Yet Janet Cross wasn’t a student
at Wellington Academy, she was apparently some children’s
instructor. We have no record of any Cross in the database, and we
absolutely should. There should be a legacy record here.”
“So what?” I frowned, half-imagining I could hear the distant
shouts of the protestors. I didn’t want the guys to face a group of
idiot students without me. I could help. I knew I could. “I already told
you I’m willing to take classes.”
“And when you officially enroll, that may change things. You’ll be
an actual student and not a member of the general public getting
entangled in academy disputes. Wellington is as pathologically
averse to scandal as Boston’s first families, and some of those
families are the academy’s biggest donors.” Frost’s words were
reasonable, but they irritated me all the same as he continued. “But
the real issue is the fact that you’ve already garnered a fair amount
of attention from dangerous quarters. I don’t want to encourage that.
Or increase your risk.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think there are that many monsters
watching the evening news.”
 “No, no, he’s right,” Tyler said. He ran his hands through his
already tousled hair. “We don’t know if it’s only the monsters we have
to watch out for. There could be other predators out there who know
what you are. Or maybe even who you are. Add to that, we don’t
know if this Boston Brahmin character is a monster or just an
asshole, but he’s locking on to you in some way.”
“And that’s bad,” Zach agreed. “Once you get locked on to,
monsters sometimes won’t let go.”
He didn’t say anything more, but his jaw was set, his expression
stormy. I got the impression this was a guy who’d seen more than he
should have in his relatively short life. Tyler had said he was the son
of a preacher, which would be scary enough, but was there more to
his father’s congregation than met the eye?
“Okay, well, what about this collective thing?” I asked, ignoring
the residual spurt of panic that rose up within me at simply saying
the word. Why had Mom been so freaked about a group of monster
hunters who’d already saved my ass several times? And how could I
make my own decisions if I didn’t learn more about it? “What if I join
that? Would that make a difference, either to the monster or—these
other predator people?”
To my surprise, Frost winced a little. “I’ve begun doing more
research on that, and it’s—more complicated than I originally
thought. Joining the collective isn’t always an easy undertaking for
relationships that haven’t formed organically over time.”
“What are you talking about?” Tyler turned to him, genuinely
startled. “We formed a collective because we all showed up for
freshman year at the same time, or more or less the same time, then
Grim locked on to us and Liam found a reference to collectives in the
archives. You were on board with us joining up after that, so what’s
the problem?”
“We don’t have time to discuss it right now,” Frost said, glancing
down at the laptop screen. “The students have reached the
enclosure. You can take Nina to the wishing gate, Tyler, to ensure
she gets off campus safely, but do not get her caught on camera.
That could go poorly for everyone concerned.”
There was something different in his voice, and not merely
ordinary-level concern for me, for my safety and protection. There
was a nuance that screamed school politics. It would look bad if the
wrong person discovered I was interacting with the guys? Was that
the predator they were worried about? All that angst simply because
I wasn’t a student?
I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to get them in any sort of trouble,
full stop.
“It’s fine,” I said, lifting a hand as Tyler began to protest again.
“Seriously. I don’t have to get involved, not this time. Maybe I’ll get
another chance. It sounds like this is an ongoing problem.”
Tyler snorted. “You’ve got that right. Every time we turn around, it
seems like someone wants to protest us.”
“Let’s get out there,” Liam said, now peering at his phone. “This is
a bigger crowd than normal.”
We all headed outside and down the short steps, angling away
from the library, which gave us the advantage of actually being
behind most of the protesters. I could hear them shouting now,
ongoing chants of “Back to the wild” and “Freedom for all.”
“Definitely not their first time,” Tyler said, hanging back with me
as Liam and Zach ran on. The two of us diverted into a line of trees,
picking our way through the shadows. “It’s been a thing that’s
cropped up from time to time on campus, people wanting to free the
monsters we have in the enclosure, thinking they’re basically wild
animals and should have the rights of wild animals, specifically that
they should be returned to their natural habitat. Only it doesn’t
exactly work like that with monsters. These guys aren’t just
domesticated. They’ve assimilated to living with humans. If we set
them free back where they came from, assuming we even knew
where that was, we’d be signing their death warrant. The monsters
know that on some level, but they do like the attention.”
“They what?” At that moment, a keening wail sounded out over
the group, the most harrowing, bloodcurdling, sorrowful cry you
could ever hope to hear. It brought tears to my eyes.
Tyler winced. “That would be Stella, our dorn.”
“A dorn?”
“Kind of like a Snuffleupagus on steroids. Big and furry, with
enormous, sorrowful eyes. She lives for student protests, and she
can keep up that kind of howling all night long. It’s like the
soundtrack to torture porn.”
Another cry went up, and I forced myself not to laugh. “That’s
terrible. But what are the guys going to do?”
“The usual,” Tyler said. “We stand in front of the closure not
engaging, letting them have their say, but not letting them in. If
they’ve got media on hand, it’s actually to our advantage, because
they can’t use obvious magic against us, but we can use it to
strengthen our wards. It kind of puts us at detente.”
I peered at him in the gloom. “Exactly how much magic is floating
around this academy?” I asked. “I thought you were supposed to be
monster hunters—and only a few of you at that.”
Tyler grinned, an echo of the smug smile I’d strangely begun to
miss. “Everyone at Wellington Academy has some sort of magic. It’s
just the rare few that get to hunt monsters.” He continued drawing
me away from the crowd, and eventually, I saw the break in the wall
and a glimpse to the streets beyond. Lights flashed rapidly outside
the opening, cars and vans drawn to the activity.
“One of the drawbacks of being technically outside campus
grounds, with old walls built two centuries ago,” he said. “We don’t
have the luxury of being completely invisible to the outside world. It’s
still private property, but anyone who looks over the walls can see
there are buildings here and a paddock and currently a whole mess
of students. They can’t see the monsters, but they can see that
something’s going on. Private media—which is what these guys are
—are only able to see us because they’re aligned with the magical
families. Still, they have a lot of pull. We need to steer clear of them.”
“But the guys will be okay? And the monsters too?”
“For now, yes,” Tyler said. “But Frost isn’t wrong. The problem
with attracting attention like this is that it adds fuel to the fire of the
people inside the academy who want to get the monster hunting
minor shut down.”
“But how could they possibly have that much power?” I asked. I
remembered what Merry Williams had said about Tyler’s family
connections, but I didn’t think this was the greatest time to bring it
up. Still, I wanted to understand more. “I thought you said that
Wellington was founded as a monster hunter academy. If you get rid
of the monsters and the hunters, what does that do to your charter?”
“That would be the million-dollar question for sure,” Tyler said.
“But you can bet that people are trying to get around it. There’s an
awful lot of money that gets funneled into the monster hunter quad.
We may be the core of the academy, but there’s a fair number of
people who think that money should be spent in other places. More
than a few times, I’ve been glad I hit the academy when I did,
because I don’t know what the future holds.”
I pursed my lips as we continued picking our way through the
trees, eventually coming to a low wall that we angled alongside.
Merry had said much the same thing. Monster hunters at Wellington
Academy truly did seem to be an endangered species. I sighed. “You
and I both know there are plenty of monsters still roaming around,
apparently even on the cobblestoned streets of Boston. They don’t
simply disappear because you’re not looking for them.”
A distant crash sounded behind us, and Tyler pulled up short.
We’d stopped in front of an opening in the wall, complete with an
overly ornate, wrought iron gate that stood half-open. So much for
the academy’s vaunted security, I thought, though Tyler only
regarded the gate with a small smile.
Another crash landed behind us. “You should get back,” I said.
“Yeah, I should,” he turned to me, but made absolutely no move
to leave. “But we’ve faced this kind of shit before. Whereas this is the
first time I’ve stood next to you next to the wishing gate. It kind of
seems like that should take precedence.”
I blinked at him, then down at the small gate, only now
remembering Frost’s mention of it. “Ah…the wishing gate?” I offered.
“Do I really want to know?”
Tyler’s grin only deepened. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You seriously
do.”
 16

I peered more closely at the small ornamental wrought iron gate,

not even locked, that stood standing open in the hollow of the
archway cut into the ancient stone wall. Then I met Tyler’s way
too amused gaze. “Okay, spill it,” I said, trying not to giggle.
“Enlighten me.”
“Well, gee, I don’t know,” Tyler said, his mouth tugging into a grin.
“What if I were to tell you that if you kissed your true love here, you’d
realize what it was you were truly wishing for—and you’d get it?”
“Hmmmm.” A fizzy slurry of excitement bubbled up inside me,
and I could feel my cheeks heat. I gave Tyler a return smile, as arch
as I could make it. We were flirting, I realized. Me and this gorgeous
monster hunter, on the grounds of a one-percenter magic academy.
How was any of this possible? “I would say there’d be a line a
hundred people deep in front of us, waiting for their chance.”
“Well, maybe they don’t have the right kind of magic to make their
wishes come true.” He leaned toward me, and it was the most
natural thing in the world for me to lift up on my toes and meet his
kiss. This time, there was no crockery around to break, no trees to
lose their leaves, but the impact of Tyler’s lips on mine was every bit
as powerful. I sucked in a sharp breath and lifted my hands to his
chest as he crushed me to him. A jolt of energy rushed through me,
quick and hot, catching my nerve endings on fire.
In that moment, I felt like I could take on all the monsters in the
world, even the ones that lurked inside the academy, and show them
a thing or two about crossing a monster hunter. In that moment, I
thought I could stand with Tyler wherever he was, however he
needed me, fighting with him, connected with him, wanting to
practically consume him, body and soul, Tyler and all the guys—
Wait. All the guys?
Tyler chose that moment to pull away from me, lifting his head as
I gasped in my own breath, struggling for oxygen. He stared at me
with his intense brown eyes as if the earth had moved under his feet.
It certainly had moved under mine, but not entirely in the way I’d
expected. Why had I thought about the other guys while I was
kissing Tyler? That was weird. That was beyond weird. It was wrong.
It was—
“You felt it, didn’t you?” Tyler asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“The pull of the collective?”
I jerked back from him, heat rushing to my face. The what? “What
are you talking about?” I spluttered, trying to get my bearings. I
glanced to the side, then blinked. “Um, Tyler—”
The wishing gate was now hanging off one hinge, its wrought iron
bars looking decidedly…melted.
“Right?” he asked huskily. “Man, Nina, we’ve got some serious
power going on between us.”
I forced myself to meet his gaze, even as his whiskey eyes
flashed with heat. “Yeah, but…what does the collective have to do
with you kissing me or…” I flushed and stepped back from him, not
knowing how to ask the question burning in my mind.
“Hey—hey, it’s okay,” he said, but he didn’t reach for me again,
instead driving his hands into his jeans pockets, as if he didn’t know
where else to put them. “I know it feels strange. But like, the other
guys and me, we have this really tight bond, you know? And that
bond transcends any other relationship I’ve had up to this point. I
kind of figured it would sit up and take notice given how I’m starting
to feel about you, but that’s a cool thing, right? It shows that, I don’t
know, this thing between us, it’s pretty great. It’s as powerful as my
relationship with the guys, and you and I’ve only just met.”
“Oh—oh, right. That makes sense,” I agreed, but everything felt
upside down and sideways to me. “But it’s not gonna take you away
from them, is it? Because I wouldn’t want that.” And oddly enough, I
didn’t. Despite how much I already was attracted to Tyler, I already
knew in the core of my being that I wouldn’t do anything to disrupt
the bond he’d formed with his friends. So maybe that was the
problem with me getting tangled up with the collective…it’d, what,
end up breaking me instead of them?
Mom had definitely made it seem worse than that. Ugh. Why
couldn’t I be normal? Tyler was the first guy I’d ever truly been
attracted to, and even that I was managing to screw up, never mind
the possibility that, hey, his little secret coffee klatch could maybe kill
me. Because that was always a fun twist to a relationship.
“You won’t take the guys from me—we’re monster hunters.” Tyler
laughed, refocusing me. “And heck, if you join the collective…that
would be pretty cool, right? We’d all fight monsters together.”
“Yeah, of course. That’d be cool,” I agreed. Except cool was
exactly not how I was feeling at this particular moment, despite my
best attempts to chill. Freaked out was more like it. I never had
experienced anything like this, kissing one boy and simultaneously
thinking of his three best friends as well. Or kissing a boy and
thinking ‘hey, could this be a one-way ticket to Deadsville?’
For freak’s sake, what was wrong with me? When Tyler and I
kissed, trees shook. Stuff broke, for heaven’s sake. Metal bent. Why
couldn’t I enjoy this without thinking of the potential downsides or
especially about his friends? Was I truly this screwed up?
While my brain tried to cartwheel its way out of my skull, Tyler
grinned at me, looking as happy as I’ve ever seen anyone. “It’d
rock,” he agreed.
Maybe I simply needed practice at this whole relationship thing.
God knew I wasn’t an expert.
It wasn’t that guys didn’t like me. They did. But I’d quickly learned
that explaining away my scars was harder than I would’ve expected,
especially the ones I couldn’t remember acquiring, and then there
was the ever-present monster potential. Even the few intimate
relationships I’d managed to score hadn’t lasted for long. And now,
when I’d finally found a guy I couldn’t scare away, I started jonesing
for his friends?
No. No, that wasn’t possible. More likely I was baselessly worried
about Zach, Liam, and Grim all facing the campus protests, just like
my mom had been way too worried about me taking on more
monster hunters than I could chew. That had to be it. It was the only
thing that made sense.
“What are you thinking about?” Tyler asked. “Besides being
freaked out about the campus protest. Which is gonna be okay, I’m
telling you.”
I gave him a mirthless smile. At least he was only half right. “I’m
thinking it’s kind of nice being with somebody who knows me so well.
Knows who I am, I mean,” I said.
“I do know that,” he said. “And I’m even more excited to be there
to see who you’ll become.”
He spoke with such pride and expectation that it pulled me up a
little short. Then another crash sounded behind him, and he winced,
a newly worried look on his face.
“Go,” I said, pushing him away with a soft laugh. “Go save the
monsters from the monsters.”
“Done,” he said. He kissed me again, hard enough to make the
wind pick up around us and the gate to creak in complaint, and he
was off. I chuckled as I walked under the archway, back through the
wishing gate. Was that really what this was called? I’d have to ask
one of the other guys. Ideally when I wasn’t bizarrely twitterpated
over them.
Like I didn’t have enough complications in my life right now.
I moved up the street, careful to keep some distance between me
and the private media trucks—and as I peered at them, I realized
none of the trucks actually had channel designations. In fact, they
were all super high-end luxury vehicles, looking more like a
presidential entourage than ordinary media. Definitely private, I
decided. Even from the other side of the line of vehicles, the protest
was kind of impressive, with tiki torches and cell phone lights alike
providing plenty of illumination to view the grievances of the
concerned student body.
I hadn’t heard anything about campus protests at Wellington on
the news before, I thought. Then again, I hadn’t really known this
academy existed. Or any of them, for that matter, as I recalled all the
handful of blue dots that had been scattered over this section of
Boston. What was it about Back Bay that made it so suitable for
magic? And why weren’t more people talking about it?
I stepped off the street and onto the far sidewalk—and froze.
There was nothing but silence around me.
I swiveled around, but sure enough—there were no cars, no
lights, no cries of protestors. Sucking in a deep breath, I stepped
back into the street, and chaos crashed around me again, so loud
and abrupt that I quickly hopped back onto the far sidewalk, my gaze
swinging wildly up and down the now completely empty access road.
Were the wards of Wellington Academy that good when the school
needed them to be? With no one but their own private media aware
of what was going on behind academy walls, reporting on all things
dark and magical?
Apparently, that seemed to be the case. So how could I not stick
around to learn more about all this? I mean, what else was waiting
for me out there in the wide world outside of Boston…a lifetime full of
monsters that I’d never know how to effectively fight?
Stuffing down all my mother’s long-ago warnings, I made it all the
way back to Newbury Street without incident, then debated for
another few blocks about whether to get another cup of coffee. The
Crazy Cup was still open, and late-night caffeine never seemed to
bother me much. I was a light sleeper on the best of nights, a hazard
of…well, I guess of my occupation, I supposed.
All this time, I’d thought of the monsters in the closet as some
sort of deeply unfortunate curse, a particular freak sightedness I’d
neither asked for nor wanted. But what if they were simply the signs
of my vocation? Could I really be a professional monster hunter, with
a degree and everything? Maybe mom’s warnings had been just the
fears of an overprotective mother who didn’t want her daughter to
face any danger. Maybe it wasn’t death and destruction that awaited
me at a Wellington, but a whole new future of possibilities.
I thought of Tyler, and the guys, and this strange and foreign idea
of a collective. Maybe I could find a family in Boston, even if my own
kept slipping away from me.
Maybe everything would work out after all.
Those thoughts jangled happily in my mind as I crossed the alley,
my distraction so complete that I almost didn’t hear the panicked
whimper.
Almost.
I did hear it, though. A soft frightened squeak, a horror so
complete that it stole the very breath from my lungs. I backed up to
peer down the alley I’d just passed—and saw one of the baristas
from the Crazy Cup, the girl I’d particularly noticed because she put
her hair up like Amy Winehouse and she was always laughing.
She wasn’t laughing now. And it was at least theoretically
possible that the creature in the top hat and tails who currently
towered over her wasn’t auditioning for a Victorian play.
“You dare…” the creature hissed as the young woman cowered
back, issuing another petrified squeak.
It was a man, or near enough a man that it would’ve been
impossible to distinguish otherwise for any normal person, especially
one scared out of her mind. As tall and broad as a man, certainly, but
the similarities ended there. His arms were too long and thin, his
face too gaunt, and he stank of earth and pungent cabbage roses
long past their prime. This man was dressed in exactly the kind of
outfit you would expect in someone who’d earned the nickname
Boston Brahmin, now that I knew what that meant—a black top hat
and matching cutaway jacket, a richly patterned plaid vest and a
snow-white cravat puffing out from his too-narrow chin. His pants
were a deep crimson, and his pointed-toe boots gleamed black. His
long-fingered, ghostly white hands looked almost delicate—for all
that he was dangling the barista a full foot off the ground.
Even worse, he was sniffing her. He held her up to him like she
weighed no more than thirty pounds, his face bent over her neckline,
where the bodice of the high-cut barista apron met the shoulder. She
hung in his hands, limp as a rag doll, her glossy black bouffant
ponytail nearly pulled free from its band and her neck craned away
from the creature as if by sheer weight alone, she could slide away
from his hold. It was the creepiest thing I’d seen in a long time, and
that was saying something.
“Hey,” I shouted, and the creature lifted his face, giving me my
second jolt, because he had no face at all. The blank oval stared at
me for a second, then became the face of Tyler Perkins—assuming
Tyler had been dead since attending the Billionaire’s Ball of 1853.
 “Jesus!” I stumbled. No wonder this thing was able to get close to
its victims. I shouted, waving my hands. “You wanna fight? I’ll give
you a fight. I’ll give you all the fight you can handle.”
The creature dropped the barista like a sack of flour and raised
his hand.
“Stop, you harlot,” he shouted, his voice high, thin, and oddly
British sounding. He sounded credibly outraged too, as if he was the
injured party. “You won’t get away with this.”
He lurched toward me, then abruptly wheeled around, as if
someone else had called his name. “You dare!” he screeched again.
He leapt toward the other invisible intruder—and disappeared.
“Hey.” I raced forward through the dissipating mist of the
creature, which now smelled faintly of kerosene and rust, oddly
enough. What self-respecting monster smelled of iron?
I reached the fallen young woman a second later, only to have
her scramble away from me. “No,” she gasped, hysterical. Before I
could grab her, she’d crab-walked halfway across the alley, so at
least I knew she wasn’t seriously hurt.
Then her face cleared, her eyes going wide. “Oh my God. Did
you see that guy? He like—he just showed up out of nowhere, right
out of the alley, dressed like a…like a…” she broke off, nearly
hyperventilating. “It was that actor guy everyone’s talking about. He
had his hands on me.”
She burst into tears, and this time when I approached, she let me
come, throwing herself into my arms as she completely dissolved. I
patted her awkwardly, shushing her as she tried to choke through
her sobs, but she pulled back, her eyes shooting wide.
“He was looking for something,” she breathed, her hands
frantically gripping my forearms. “He kept pawing at me, insisting
that I’d stolen his ring. His ring and watch and some p-papers.
Letters. He was convinced I had them, that I was holding out on him.
Like I was trying to keep him from something that was rightfully his,
that I was trying to embarrass him. What does that even mean? I
don’t know what any of that means.” She burst into another round of
hysterical sobbing.
“You’re okay, I’ve got you,” I whispered, holding her tighter as she
fully collapsed against me. I helped her back up to Newbury street
and down to the Crazy Cup, where the entire place exploded, pulling
her from me, sweeping her into their embrace. I didn’t know what
any of it meant, either…
But I knew who would. Commander Frost. The guys. And the
entire freaking staff of Wellington Academy.
I stood in crowd of horrified patrons of the Crazy Cup, alone in
the center of a storm. I wasn’t going to be monster bait anymore,
dammit. Not even a little bit. And I wasn’t going to let my mom’s fear
rule me.
I was going to learn how to hunt like a true Wellington Academy
monster hunter. And if that took me joining the big, bad, maybe-
deadly-to-my-person collective…I was in.
Before I could change my mind, I pulled out my phone and texted
Tyler.
Just as he’d promised, he was right there to answer me.
 17

T yler met me at the edge of campus at midnight, practically

buzzing with excitement. He didn’t ask questions, he didn’t
press for details, he just pulled me into his arms and kissed
me, hard and full.
“This is going to be awesome,” he promised. I’d given him all the
information about the Brahmin attack over the phone, but all of that
had faded into the background when I’d asked about the collective. I
could practically feel his excitement through the phone, and in
person, it was positively electric.
Then we took off. We reached the entryway to a large square
building with an arched dome, something that looked like it easily
could’ve been a mini hockey rink or some sort of sporting enclosure
—but only at the intramural level. Tyler picked up speed as he trotted
up the steps. “The guys are already inside. We’re all pretty jacked,
especially since Frost doesn’t know we’re doing this. He’s going to
have a coronary when he finds out.”
A twinge of worry skittered through me, but Tyler didn’t hesitate
as he pulled open the unlocked door.
We entered the building, which looked much like any ordinary
sporting facility would, with gleaming marble floors, walls lined with
cases fronted in glass, featuring all sorts of plaques, statues,
photographs, and eventually paintings. None of them featured Most
Valuable Monster Hunter, though, or pictures of the severed head of
a Tarken land worm.
 “Does Wellington suck at monster hunting? Or did you guys
never go in for competitions?”
“Oh that.” Tyler rolled his eyes. “There used to be all sorts of shit
in here that celebrated monster hunting, like badass swords, photos,
paintings, and even some stories that had been recorded on wax
cylinders or written down in illustrated texts. It was pretty awesome.
Frost was able to save most of it when they came through last year
and renovated.”
I looked around the space, surprised. It wasn’t like there was a
thick layer of dust over everything, but there was nothing to indicate
that it had been recently redone either.
“I guess they were going for the historical preservation look?” I
asked.
He snorted. “More like their idea of renovation was simply taking
everything out that had to do with monster hunting. They said it was
because they were drawing new students to the school and didn’t
want to answer questions from recruits who would never qualify for
enrollment in the minor anyway.”
That caught me up short. “You have requirements for enrollment
that go beyond just, ah, having an interest in monster hunting?”
“Well, yeah, usually you have to be a legacy student, remember?
Monster hunting runs in bloodlines. It’s probably somewhere deep in
yours as well. If it’s not your mom, it’s got to be down your dad’s line.
There’s no other possibility.”
His words eased the knot that I hadn’t noticed was growing in my
stomach. “You think so?”
“Absolutely. Zach’s different, because, hello, demons. That
throws everything off. But Liam and I both are from monster hunting
bloodlines. In your case, you know your mom didn’t fight monsters
except for when she was protecting you. So that leaves your dad, or,
more likely, someone further back in his line. Because if your dad
was a recent monster hunter graduate, he’d be on one of Frost’s
lists, and you would have triggered the facial recognition software
lickety-split the moment you walked into the library.”
I blinked at him. “You have facial recognition software in your
library?”
 Tyler reddened. “Yeah, I should’ve told you, but I honestly forgot
all about it myself. I was so jacked about you being here and you
getting to see Frost, I wasn’t really thinking about your, you know,
genealogy or whatever. I just wanted you here. With us. I feel kind of
bad about that now. I’m sorry.”
He seemed sincerely abashed, whereas I didn’t know how I felt.
Something else was bothering me. “And Grim? He’s one of these
legacy students too?”
“He is. Frost went totally bananas on his research on him, he
wanted him in the program so bad. But apparently, he comes from a
legit line of Old-World hunters, and of course, we all didn’t care. We
were just happy to have such a jacked addition to the team. Between
Liam’s brains, Zach’s psychic shit, and Grim’s muscle, we’re
unstoppable.”
“Uh-huh,” I deadpanned, slanting him a look. “Do I want to know
what you bring to the table?”
Tyler grinned. “Beyond my off-the-charts sex appeal and natural
charisma?”
“And a supernatural ability for bullshit?”
“Magic fingers, baby,” Tyler said, wiggling his fingers. I felt the
blush crawl up my cheeks, but fortunately, Tyler kept going. “Any
spell Liam can find—I can master like that.” He snapped. “You’ve
seen me in action, though maybe you haven’t noticed it because I
am pure fire.”
I snorted, shaking my head as my mind grappled with this new
information. Tyler had handled the night screamers without
hesitation, and he’d been the soul of confidence since I’d met him.
Suddenly, my makeshift iron knife seemed woefully inadequate.
Exactly how far out of my league was this guy…and how magical
was his super elite family?
I didn’t have much time to stew over these questions, as we
rounded the corner and passed a set of double doors that led into
the gym.
I craned my neck around as we entered a wide-open space.
“Okay… This at least looks newer.”
The multipurpose room was covered with a floor that was slightly
bouncier than usual, definitely not intended for basketball or anything
like that, or the balls would bounce all over the place. But it was fun
to walk on, and I enjoyed having a spring in my step. Along two walls
facing each other was a pretty impressive rock-climbing apparatus
that stretched easily thirty feet high. Between the two walls were
ropes slung with a pulley system, as if the game was to climb one
wall and slide over to the other. Kind of cool, and high enough up
that it would be a heck of a challenge.
“Is that what you guys did for your trials or whatever?”
“We don’t call them trials, here,” Tyler corrected me. “We used to,
way back in the day, but then we got into a trademark fight with
Twyst, bunch of assholes. So instead, we call it the Run. But yeah,
we have to climb up, all four of us, or in this case all five, reach the
top and meet in the middle, like that.”
I studied the web of ropes above us. “And then what?”
A new, already familiar voice rang out over us. Commander
Frost. “And then, Ms. Cross, the real adventure begins.”
Beside me, Tyler froze, but Frost kept going. “Every student who
ever goes through this academy thinks they’re the first ones to fool
the instructors. Fortunately, they’re wrong. But the fact remains—
despite the unknowns, you should be protected. You should be a
part of the collective. You should learn how to bend your natural
monster hunting skills to the discipline of formal training. And so,
now you will.”
Throughout this speech, Tyler had begun grinning wider and
wider, and his smile didn’t dim at Frost’s next words. “I’m sure Mr.
Perkins understands that only a little bit of advance knowledge is a
good thing. Part of the bonding ritual comes in experiencing the Run
together as a group. It’s an important aspect to the effort.”
Liam, Zach, and Grim all entered the room from another doorway,
Liam brightening as he came toward us, cinching his backpack
straps tight. “So, did you find the information you were looking for?
The data about expanding the collective?” he asked, looking up to
wherever Frost was perched, watching us from the rafters.
“Yes, Mr. Graham. The bonding ritual for a mixed group is neither
the staff nor the ball. It is a five-sided diagram made of members of
the collective.”
 “That’s it?” Liam asked, disappointed. “I would think there would
be another totem or something.”
“Apparently, the incidence of a group collective with mixed
genders is more of a rarity than it seems like it should be,” Frost
said. “I’ve never given it much thought when the classes have come
through. They always seemed to sort themselves along gender lines.
And when we did have mixed groups, they generally preferred the
solo path. And to be fair, there wasn’t a need to push the idea of a
collective. It does limit the individualization of the student’s path. But
nevertheless, the need is great, and this collective run is valid. As I’m
sure Mr. Perkins has explained in regrettable detail, you will climb
the wall, then move toward the center of the space via the pulley
system. When you meet, suspended, you will join hands to form a
pentagram.”
“Sweet. Like this,” Liam said, turning to Zach. He gripped Zach’s
right forearm near the elbow with his right hand, then Zach turned to
Tyler and grasped his right arm in the same manner, and Tyler
closed the connection by curling the fingers of his right hand around
Liam’s forearm. The three of them made a tight triangle while Grim
watched. Then I noticed Grim was watching me, not them. Not in any
kind of creepy way, more like his typical Grumpy-faced McGee. I
really hoped that me joining the collective would lighten him up a
little bit.
As if in response to my thoughts, Grim’s expression got even
darker, and he glanced away.
“Hard guy,” I muttered to myself.
“What about the pit?” Grim asked.
Frost grimaced. “Gentlemen,” he said repressively. “You did not
know the full extent of your challenges when you went through them.
I would ask that you extend the same favor to Ms. Cross.”
“Zach didn’t know how to swim,” Grim pressed. “He nearly
drowned.”
My eyes went wide. I looked around the room. “There’s water?”
“And you saved him,” Frost said with the air of a man talking to a
five-year-old. “One might even conclude that was the point.”
The two glared at each other for a moment more, then a gong
sounded. The guys seemed to know what this meant, because they
all headed for the walls.
“Uhhh,” I said. “I guess it’s okay that I’m wearing jeans and a T-
shirt? I mean, thank God I’m wearing running shoes, but—there isn’t
a uniform?”
“Nope, and go ahead and take your shoes off,” Tyler said
cheerfully, gesturing me toward the wall near him. Liam, Grim, and
Zach were already alongside the other wall, obligingly kicking off
their shoes. Grim’s were kind of a short leather boot, not something
I’d want to run in, but he’d taken off like a shot more than once
before. Maybe it was something you got used to.
Frost held up his hands, and when he spoke next, it was clear he
was reciting words from some kind of collective handbook. “The Hunt
calls its hunters by storm and by fire, by rock and by wind. Singly, we
can survive, but as a collective, we can conquer. Join to fight anew.”
Another gong sounded, and Tyler started climbing. I stared at
him, then at the wall. I’d climbed a little before, when I was at college
in North Carolina, but there had been all sorts of ropes and
carabiners and well-muscled spotters standing at the ready. I didn’t
know that I—
The floor dropped beneath me, and I yelped, then leapt for the
wall, scrambling up. Something groaned beneath me, deep and
ominous, and I scampered up the wall, passing Tyler. The wall itself
was not a difficult one, once we started climbing I could see it was
tilted slightly back, making it even easier. It was almost a ceremonial
challenge, I supposed, but I wasn’t one to stand on ceremony.
I couldn’t have if I wanted to, as Tyler immediately grabbed one
of the pulleys and, swinging his arms into it, took off like a shot for
the center of the room.
Without much choice, I did the same, my hands white-knuckling
the straps, my legs twisting. I spun around and around, bracing
myself for the impact of hitting the other guys’ bodies. I was jerked
around hard as the rope above me tangled, and I stopped just short
of the center, swinging crazily toward the guys. They all extended
their arms, linking into a pentagram with one missing spoke—mine.
Seriously? This had to be the dumbest challenge I’d ever
experienced in my life, but if that’s what it took to be American Ninja
Monster Hunter, I supposed I should—
 I grabbed Zach’s forearm with my right hand, twisting so Tyler
could grab my right arm as well. His firm grasp made my heart stop
as blood roared in my ears. Then I realized—my brain wasn’t what
was making that sound. It was coming from the walls around us.
Oh…shit.
All hell broke loose.
 18

I barely had time to peer downward before the smooth, shiny

surface of the floor dissolved completely, leaving an enormous
gaping maw beneath us. Through the smoke billowing up from
the opening, I glimpsed bursts of flame and also, weirdly, gouts of
water. My brain tried to wrap around the physics of that, and failed.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to feel bad about that for long, as the ropes
that were holding us suspended over the open pit suddenly lurched,
and I dropped down in a rough jerk, still holding tight to Zach and
Tyler.
“What the hell is this?” I screeched.
“We’re going down,” Liam announced, his gaze shooting
everywhere—the failing ropes, the faraway climbing walls, the pit
beneath us. “It’s part of the test, and the test is different for every
collective.”
My eyes bugged as I stared from the firepit below us, then back
to Liam. “So you didn’t have this when you guys played capture the
flag?”
“We did,” Tyler said, “but ours was just water. Having fire as well
is kind of cool.”
I glared at him. “What is wrong with—hey!”
My words were cut off into another yelp as the ropes above us
broke free. We hurtled downward, and the guys yanked their linked
right arms closer together, their free left arms wrapping around each
other. I didn’t even know what my arms were doing, but we formed
into a human cannonball and plummeted into the pit, plunging into
the water for a few harrowing seconds before bobbing back up. The
moment we cleared the surface, however, our entire surroundings
changed.
First off, the ring of fire was exactly that, a hula hoop of flames
that we shot right through, getting only a little charred in the process.
The lake of water was…unusually slimy, as if it was three-quarters
baby oil. I scowled down at it as I treaded water, frowning. In fact…
“Fuck.” Grim’s snarl interrupted my thoughts, and I whipped
around, staring at him. He was slick with oil, his hair plastered to his
head, his chiseled jaw locked in a grimace, his eyes wide and wild.
The collar of his shirt had been ripped away and I saw the tip of what
appeared to be a long, vicious scar scoring his chest. The savagery
of him stopped my breath in my throat, which was a little bit of a
problem, because I needed that breath to scream.
“What?” Liam asked, squinting at Grim in confusion. “We’ve got
to stay afloat, but it’s easier than you think. This shit is thick, and the
fire’s way up there. What’s the problem?”
“It’s not the floating. This thing is filled with monsters,” Zach
answered for Grim. “Can’t you smell them?”
I tried, and ended up sputtering. But Zach turned slowly, his eyes
narrowing.
“Demons,” he muttered darkly, as if there was any other way to
say that word.
“More like reavers, I’ll bet,” Tyler countered. I smelled it then, the
distinctive stench of wet hair, sewage, and sweat. I thought it was
because they’d just escaped from some sort of underground
hellhole, but maybe that was a reaver’s distinctive scent? I’d never
encountered one.
“I can detect fourteen different scents, actually,” Tyler continued,
causing us all to turn back toward him. The guys didn’t seem to
share my mounting horror, of course—they only displayed increased
excitement.
“Um, how many monster types are there?” I asked weakly,
treading oil.
Liam, of course, took this one. “Technically, four hundred and
twenty—”
 “Incoming,” Grim roared at the same moment that something
exploded up from beneath us. With so much violence, our arms
broke apart. This sent me spinning off into the center of the pool, but
Liam was right. While it was sort of like water, the viscous nature of
the oil kept me afloat, which gave me a perfect view of the monster
now trying to eat Grim.
It looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, fittingly
enough. Long arms ending in webbed hands, a face with a long
dripping mouth like a fish, and a ridge of fishy bumps along its skull
and down its neck. I’d never seen one before, probably because I
didn’t usually hang out in pools of goop, but the guys seemed
unfazed. Liam already had a long, wicked serrated blade in his hand,
something I could imagine filleting a fish with, and he didn’t hesitate.
He drove the blade between the creature’s shoulder blades as its
lips closed around Grim’s bicep, and the creature immediately lost its
hold. I didn’t have time to admire Liam’s handiwork, however, as I felt
something moving beneath my feet, a lot of things moving, actually. I
reflexively yanked up my ankles, giving me access to my knife. I
wrenched it free as the water erupted around me, and an entire host
of oil-slicked bats burst up, each stretching their jaws wide to reveal
multiple rows of teeth. They screamed, the sound penetrating my
ears to reach all the way to my lizard brain. My lizard brain was not a
fan. With the benefit of the buoyancy of the water, I spun, slashing
this way and that until Zach and Tyler converged on either side of
me, attacking the creatures as well. Any of the bats that soared too
high immediately caught on fire, their smoking bodies plopping back
down into the pool. I craned my neck to peer upward. That…could
be bad, some dim part of my mind understood.
The guys’ help with the bats was short-lived, however, as they
also were set upon by creatures behind them, one a creepy-looking
wraith that seemed to flow in from the very wall, and the other…
Even as my slashing never stopped, I stared.
It was the Boston Brahmin, but his long suit looked far more
tailored now, and he had dark, curling hair beneath his top hat,
tapering into a stylish beard, though his eyes were dead and his
mouth stretched into a ghastly grin. He wore a spotless cravat and
gold cuff links. The image lasted only for a second, seeming to peer
across the violently thrashing pool, studying…studying Tyler,
actually. Then the creature winked out. Were these just holograms,
representations, like what the guys typically fought?
All these questions rushed through my mind as Tyler turned and
sliced a circular blade in a wide arc, the strength of the swipe
surprising me as he cleaved a long slash through the midsection of
the wraith. The creature evaporated, which was more than I could
say for my fucking bats. I bent back to my task, only to hear Grim
shout another warning. I didn’t much care for his warnings.
A new wave of creatures descended like a cloud. Liam started
shouting instructions. “Pair off, pair off! They’ve only got one eye
between each tactical group, so hit the sighted ones first.”
I whirled around, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, as
something out of a Salvador Dali painting lurched in front of me and
Tyler. Three gibbering rubber men, only one eyeball between them.
This was not something I could unsee, and I winced at my
unintentional joke.
Tyler had no such hesitation. He turned toward me and pressed
what felt like brass knuckles into my hand, gifts from Liam’s
backpack, I had to assume. I peered down at them. They were brass
knuckles—only made of iron. I let him strap them on over my fingers,
clenching my fists while he shouted orders. The creatures attacked
before he could explain to me how to use them, but, my legs still
churning in the muck, I improvised.
I continued like that for another thirty seconds, and I was actually
feeling kind of good about myself, when Liam shouted in alarm. I
turned around and saw that he was up on some sort of ledge and
was no longer fighting the eye-sharing rubber men. Instead, he was
grappling with three different women, all of them without the benefit
of legs. Instead they had sort of swirly mist everywhere beneath their
thighs, and what was above their thighs was pretty freaking
impressive. One of them had her hands wrapped around Liam’s
pack.
Beside me, Tyler burst out in laughter. “Goddamn succubi. They
never leave him alone.”
My eyes popping wide, I barely missed a swipe from my closest
blind assailant. “Succubi?”
 “No. Worse.” The shout was from Grim. Then he thrashed toward
us, and I realized the water had drained enough for a tall man to
stand. I tried to bounce up on my toes, but Grim was coming fast,
and a second later, he reached us. “Caralons. They won’t leave him
alone until they get their mouths on him. We don’t want that.”
Curiosity shot through me. “Why are they only bothering him?”
Zach howled, “Long story,” as we raced by.
To my surprise, the moment we reached Liam, the caralons
looked up, their faces turning toward me. Much like the creatures
made of rubber, these monsters were sightless. They had eyes,
large and black, but didn’t seem to be tracking me with them as
much as they were sensing where we were.
“That’s what makes them worse,” Grim explained. “Succubi, you
can bargain with, get out of the trap. These are a step below. And
reasoning is not their strong suit. All you can do is confuse them.”
He was right. No sooner had we burst into their awareness than
they turned and started following us, then became tangled up in
each other, screeching and biting and howling their anger. I twisted
around and saw we were heading toward an opening in the arena
wall, at the base of the rapidly draining pit. One I hadn’t seen before,
presumably because it had been covered in oil. Sure enough, an iron
door peeked out from the top of the arch, indicating that this opening
had once been closed.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Strike!” Grim ordered, and though I didn’t know what I was
lashing out at, I had the benefit of my powerful iron knuckles. I
whirled around, arms flying. I connected with something tall and thin,
my own screech ringing in my ears. Then there were more of them, a
veritable forest of creatures with long pale hair, glittery eyes, and
ravaged faces.
“Don’t look, hit,” Grim commanded, and then we were through the
wall of creatures and diving for the doorway. The guys came piling
after us, swinging blades, their eyes screwed tightly shut.
We splattered into the center of a marble-floored room, the rocks
surrounding us gleaming with spectral light. Without warning, a blast
of water pounded down from above us, hot and cleansing, slicking
off the worst of the goop. I took a step, my feet unsteady, but of
course Tyler was there, ready to grab me and hold me upright.
“You did awesome, you did awesome,” he said. I wasn’t exactly
sure what I had done, but there were no more monsters for the
moment, so I would take it.
“What is this place?” I asked. Liam answered, his shoulders still
shuddering from his wheezing breaths as he dragged his hands
through his oil-soaked hair. Ordinarily, his hair was a sandy brown,
but now it looked as dark as Zach’s.
“Part of the original construct of the academy,” he said.
“Remember, this entire place used to be given over to monster
hunting. They have so many rooms and facilities that have been
bricked up and boarded over, it would make your head spin.”
“And it was owned by a man named Wellington? Or his family,
anyway?”
I thought about the elegant-looking monster I’d seen, the Boston
Brahmin. Was he connected to the academy in some way?
“Yep,” Liam said, answering my original question.
“Philanthropists, literati, politicians. They founded the academy to
combat all things dark and evil.”
“It goes deeper than that,” Tyler said. He squeezed my arm and
stepped away from me, leaving me standing next to Grim. He walked
over to the side of the room and gestured to the bricks surrounding
it. Many of the bricks were inscribed with names. Family names, it
looked like. Sponsors maybe, or contributors of some sort. He found
what he wanted and tapped it, and I read the name clearly.
PERKINS.
“Our families were close all those generations ago. The rumors
were that they became vigilantes to take out a monster that walked
among high society. Back then, they never would reveal who their
eventual target was, but sort of took it upon themselves to kill it
discreetly. Like a gentleman’s agreement. We always figured the
creature came from another prominent family, and believe me, when
I was a kid, I searched long and hard in the Perkins family archives
in case we had a hidden monster in our ranks. I’m still not convinced
we don’t.”
Grim snorted. “Monsters don’t breed with people. Ever.”
 “You don’t know that, man,” Tyler shot back with a grin. “Just
because they don’t get crazy in the old country, doesn’t mean we do
things the same way here.”
Grim rolled his eyes. I shook out my hands, then pulled my shirt
away from my skin, grimacing at its oily sheen. “So now what?”
To my surprise the guys all look around at each other, kind of at a
loss.
“So now, nothing,” Tyler finally said. “You’re part of the collective,
right? You passed the test. We made it to the safe room, so we’re
done.”
The guys shared nods and grins—all except Grim—and a knot of
apprehension unwound inside me. I blew out a long, careful breath.
“Okay,” I said, nodding as well. I could handle this. I didn’t feel
any differently about the guys. I felt a sense of camaraderie and
kinship, maybe even a kind of buoyant joy, but nothing weird, nothing
creepy, nothing like I had feared—
“Give it a minute,” Grim murmured.
Lights exploded in front of my eyes, and a wave of power so
strong it practically pulverized me blasted me to the side. My breath
froze in my throat, I was thrown across the room, while fear, rage,
joy, love, and white-hot blinding passion exploded in my brain.
Everything shorted out.
 19

M y body felt like it was coming apart, as two totally different

bolts of energy coursed through my body from two sets of
hands. One set was large, rough, and handled me like I
was a side of beef; the other was equally strong, but careful—almost
gentle. I shook my head hard to refocus, but I was still surprised to
lock gazes with Zach as I snapped my eyes open, the visceral shock
to my system at his deep, dark, worried blue eyes enough to send
another wave of convulsions through me. He didn’t just see me, he
saw into me, his concern touching a place in my brain that I didn’t
think was open to outside view.
At that touch my vision blanked, and I could only see my own
mother, her face white as snow, her eyes frantic. “Run,” she shouted,
surging up, blood pouring from her shoulder. “Promise me.”
I reared back instinctively, and Tyler’s voice at my ear sent my
heart jackrabbiting in a whole new direction.
“Jesus, Nina, I’m so sorry,” Tyler said, his words low and fast. “I
had no idea—Frost didn’t—we didn’t know. I definitely didn’t know.
But you’re going to be okay, I swear you’re going to be okay. We
didn’t go through what you’re experiencing, because clearly, you’re
special. You’re safe, though. I swear you’re safe. You’re part of us
now and we’ll never let anything hurt you again, just like you’ll never
let anything hurt us.”
Tyler’s words washed over me in such a deeply relaxing flow that
I felt my eyelids drooping, cutting me off from the shockingly intimate
yet strangely fantastic touch of Zach’s gaze. I didn’t want to let that
go, though, didn’t want to lose him. Panic welled up within me, and I
saw Zach smile as my eyelids fluttered.
“We’ve got you,” he said, and I shivered again, warmth spreading
from my belly to my chest, heat flushing my cheeks even as a new
zing of electricity slid down my spine.
That zing belonged to the fingers holding my head in a strong
and steady grip, fingers that were so sure, so easy and welcoming,
soft fingers, but strong. A guy whose hardest labor, I instinctively
knew, came at the computer keyboard. “Stretch her out a little. Let
her breathe,” Liam said, his fingers spreading wider now, palms
cradling my head.
The sharp, almost brusque pull on my ankles—it almost had to
be Grim doing those honors—would have made me laugh if it didn’t
set off a swarm of electrical sparks that shot up my legs to stop a few
inches south of my belly, the combination finally sending me over the
top. I lurched out of my daze and hauled myself up, my senses
reeling as all four guys reached for me to make sure I didn’t
somehow spontaneously combust or hurt myself or—something.
They touched me all at the same time. I froze in their grip, my
mouth open, my eyes wide, my brain spinning dangerously toward
blackout zone again.
“Nina. Nina, it’s okay. You’re all right. We’re here.”
I turned toward Tyler and reached blindly toward him, unwilling
and unable to process the touch of all the guys at once. Yet as each
of them willingly released me, I noticed the departure with an insane,
spiking ache. The sudden, rough rejection of Grim’s hands dropping
me like I burned him. Zach’s intimate squeeze of reassurance before
he left me, convincing himself I would be all right in Tyler’s grasp for
the time being. Liam’s rough-padded fingers trailing for a second
longer against my neck, almost curiously, gleaning the last bit of data
he could from my skin to study and reflect upon while I was safely
tucked away. Then the sensation was all Tyler. Broad-shouldered,
overbearing, protective Tyler, who smelled of eucalyptus and mint
and whose intense emotions enveloped me in a rush of excitement,
pleasure, and—
 Down, girl. I blinked hard, trying to steady myself, as I hopped out
of the delirium frying pan and into the fire of white-hot need. I’d
barely drawn in a shaky breath when another voice broke over us.
“You can release her, Mr. Perkins. I think we’ve now satisfied
ourselves that she’s not going to break.”
Commander Frost spoke with dry amusement, and Tyler
stiffened. Only then did I realize that he’d practically hauled me into
his lap—no, not hauled me. I’d crawled on top of him of my own
volition and was now clinging to him with all the enlightened
rationality of a blind, low-level caralon.
That comparison was enough for me to straighten and peel
myself away from Tyler, my cheeks flushing. “Ah—sorry,” I managed,
but the look in Tyler’s eye told me way more than his smooth smile
and easy shrug.
“Don’t be,” he said. My body reacted again to him, need coiling in
my belly, but I forced myself to focus on Frost as he strode into the
room from a doorway I hadn’t noticed before, the bricked illusion
breaking briefly to admit him.
“Congratulations. You should all be commended,” Frost said, with
grudging admiration. “That’s the first successful coed collective
Wellington Academy has been able to produce in over a hundred
years. Perhaps not surprising, since such collectives were formally
banned, as I discovered a few short hours ago, in 1913.”
“The first successful one?” As ever, Liam picked up on the
nuance. Zach tucked his hands in his pockets and Grim folded his
arms over his chest. None of them looked happy with Frost’s kudos,
though the latter made me feel unreasonably giddy. Weren’t
congratulations a good thing? I certainly felt like congratulations
were in order, the air around me positively electric with the popping
energy of the guys and my heart pumping so hard, it seemed like
blood was practically frothing in my veins. “You mean there’ve been
other attempts?”
“Of course there have been other attempts,” Frost informed Liam
briskly. “But as I said at the onset, the risks were justified, in this
case. As of two hours ago, for the first time this century, the monster
hunters of Wellington Academy have been directed to take out a
monster terrorizing the city.”
 “The Boston Brahmin,” I said.
Frost nodded. “He’s leveling up the intensity of his attacks every
time. And more and more of his victims are highly placed in society.”
I frowned. “I just saw him attack a barista up on Newbury Street. I
assure you, she wasn’t high society.”
If I’d thought to catch Frost off guard with this mention, I was
mistaken. Tyler had clearly made the report. “Betty Granville, barista
at the Crazy Cup, was targeted because she was handy. You were in
the area, and the Brahmin was agitated, unfocused. Otherwise,
every victim within two square miles of Beacon Hill came from a first
family, a magical family, or both. And those specific instances of
attacks are heating up. Students from other local academies have
now been reported missing. Connections are beginning to be made.”
“Other victims…” My eyes widened as I processed the
ramifications of Frost’s comments. I hadn’t attacked the monster
who’d held Betty Granville, I’d shouted at it, fully preparing to run if it
chased me. It was how I’d always survived. But because I hadn’t
gone on the offensive, boldly attacked it, would somebody else
become its victim? More than one person? For the first time in my
life, I was hit with an overriding sense of guilt and responsibility.
“I should’ve attacked it,” I said. “I should’ve fought.”
Grim snorted, his words like a lash as he tuned his pale-gold
eyes on me. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“You don’t have the tools,” Liam said, looking up from his
backpack.
“It’s not safe,” Tyler declared, his words overlapping the others.
He folded his arms over his chest and scowled at me, as if daring me
to deny it.
Only Zach remained quiet, studying me. Zach, the gothic angel,
all jet-black hair and alabaster skin, who had fought demons with no
more formal training than what he’d gotten from his own father and
the tools of his faith.
Commander Frost finally spoke, squaring his shoulders and
straightening to his full height in his flannel shirt and work pants,
looking strangely unfinished to me because he wasn’t wearing his
longbow and quiver of arrows. Beneath his cap of dark, bushy hair,
his weathered, bearded face seemed drained by the fluorescent
light. This was a man far more comfortable with fighting than chatter,
I suspected. And this was a man who would make sure there were
soldiers to fight, no matter what.
“It’s an unvarnished truth of monster hunting that it’s better done
in a group than alone. There are plenty of hunters who prefer to go
solo because being a part of a collective is a shared burden as well
as a shared joy. But the other members of your team are correct, Ms.
Cross. You are not prepared to face the Brahmin. Not alone. It’s a
monster of unique cunning because it is human aligned—something
you’ll learn all about during your nine a.m. class tomorrow, following
your eight o’clock official matriculation into the academy.”
I grimaced. Only an academy focusing on monsters would have
classes on a Saturday. “Fair enough.”
Frost wasn’t finished yet. “That doesn’t end our challenges
tonight. You’ve been pressed into the service of the collective before
your formal admission. That’s against the rules. You haven’t been
vetted or approved by the academy’s board of directors for
admission into a highly-specialized course of study. Also against the
rules. And you’ve fought monsters alongside our students without
even a single class under your belt. In short, you’re a walking PR
nightmare, and the magic that’s been stirred up with tonight’s
endeavors will draw scrutiny we cannot afford. We need to get you
off campus before anyone sees you.”
“No,” Tyler said, moving in front of me as if he could physically
ward off Frost’s concerns. “I’ll keep her safe.”
“Actually, it’s okay,” I said, watching Frost. There was something
else he wasn’t telling us, something bad, and I didn’t want to push it
right now. “I should go back to my apartment, as if nothing special
happened tonight.” I turned to Tyler, smiling a little at his worried
gaze. “I’ll be safe. Really.”
“I’ve arranged for a private car. You’ll be secure,” Frost said. “I’m
serious. It’s best if you leave right now. Then tomorrow, when you
get to campus, go straight to the bursar’s office in the center of
campus. I’ll have things ready for you.”
“You will come back, right?” Tyler asked me quietly. Our gazes
met, and I felt the now-familiar skip in my heart, the rush of emotion.
I might have joined the big and mighty collective, but nothing had
changed between Tyler and me. Nothing bad, anyway. It was all
going to be okay.
“Tomorrow morning, eight a.m.,” I promised. “I’ll be here.”
 20

F or all my bravado the night before, I remained in bed for two

solid hours longer than I’d planned to the next morning,
debating the value of simply leaving town instead of heading
over to the academy. It wasn’t that I didn’t want everything the guys
offered, though admittedly I didn’t fully understand everything the
guys were offering. I suspected they didn’t either. But I also had
been fighting monsters on my own for a long time now. The Boston
Brahmin was only one monster, and the guys could handle him. I
knew they could.
Still, the Brahmin was apparently hunting me and had gone after
a harmless barista, simply just because I was in the area. If nothing
else, I needed to put the thing out of commission before it hurt
someone else.
I remade that decision fully a dozen times on the way over to the
campus, stopping off for a bolstering cup of coffee at the Crazy Cup.
Walking way too slowly, I’d finished my coffee and screwed my
courage to the sticking point by the time I passed under the archway
to Wellington Academy. Per Frost’s instructions, I made my way to
the administration building, surprised to see Merry waiting for me.
She jumped up as I approached, beaming.
“Hey! I’m so glad you finally made it. They told me to expect you
at eight, then pinged me that you were running late.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “They, who?”
 “The scholarship board! And one Tyler Perkins, hottably hot
despite all the monster hunting stuff. Your meeting with the powers
that be had to be rescheduled, they said, but it’s totally a formality.
You’re in.”
“Wait.” I held up my hands, confused on two separate points—the
first being more important. “Why are you so happy about this? I
heard you were at the monster quad last night leading the charge to
shut the minor down. You do know that’s what I’m going to be
studying, right?”
“Girl, give me a little credit,” Merry said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t
blame you for the entrenched entitlement of the academy and its
absolutely abysmal track record of nonhuman rights violations dating
back freaking centuries. Wellington Academy is a great school for
everyone—except for the monsters it keeps trapped beneath our
feet. I want you to enroll here. That way you can be part of the
solution.”
“The…solution.”
“Exactly!” she enthused. “Look, I know I give Tyler and the others
a hard time, but they’re not total assholes, even if they are freaks.
And they are unreasonably hot, which maybe gets them a few more
points, but still. You’re new. You’re not from here. You have an open
mind.”
I could see where this was going. “You think I’ll—”
“I don’t think anything,” Merry said quickly, holding up her hands.
“I’m not saying you have to agree with me. But look around. See
what you see with your own eyes. Listen and learn, and I bet you’ll
understand where I’m coming from, faster than you think.”
“Merry—”
“That’s all I’m going to say!” she insisted. “But regardless, you’re
totally in. As in Wellington Academy’s newest full-time enrolled
student. I don’t have the deets, but I suspect there was some major
string pulling, and Tyler is a Perkins after all. That counts for a lot in
this neck of the woods. Here. I’ve got all your stuff.”
“Oh—” Any response I might have leveled was cut off as Merry
shoved a backpack at me, emblazoned with the Wellington Academy
symbol, an intertwined W and A on a shield, with crossed knives
beneath it. It looked sufficiently badass, even if it was embroidered
on a hot-pink backpack. “What is this?”
“Syllabi, course schedule, some rando logo gear, and your dorm
and food service keys. I suggested to them that you be my
roommate and not live in the freak ghetto, at least until you had a
chance to see how cool the rest of the campus could be, and they
totally agreed.”
By this time, I could only stare at her. “The freak ghetto.”
“The monster hunter quadrant. I mean, that’s cute and all that the
guys want to stay there, but believe me when I tell you that sharing a
house with four guys does not make for an awesomely hygienic
situation.”
I started, a new jolt of panic slipping through me. Unbidden,
images of the wishing gate danced in my memory, making me
cringe. “The guys all live together? And there’s no women in the
program right now, right?”
“There are, but they’re freshmen, and all underclassmen have to
live on main campus. You’re coming in as a junior, which gives you
options—whoops.” She paled as she glanced beyond me. “Hello,
hottable hotness.”
I turned and realized who she was talking about—Tyler ambled
up, his usual cocky grin firmly in place. “Merry,” he acknowledged,
and she sighed.
“You’re going to make her stay in Fowlers Hall, aren’t you? You
didn’t even give me a chance!”
Tyler laughed. “You don’t need a chance. Fowlers Hall is co-ed,
safe, and large enough for a hundred students. I think we’ll be able
to find her a clean room.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Merry groused. But she gave me a
bolstering smile.
“I’m here if you need me—whenever you need me, okay?”
Surprisingly, I felt a rush of affection for her. I’d never had a
friend, really—not with monsters inviting themselves over on play
dates and sleepovers. “Thanks,” I said, sharing a real smile with her
as she winked, then swung away.
“I mean it on the clean room!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Don’t scare her on her first day.”
 I couldn’t help myself, I chuckled a little wistfully as Tyler turned
me back toward the monster quad.
“Are you okay?” he asked, with enough doubt in the question that
I didn’t think he was reading my mind. Didn’t think, but at this point, I
didn’t know for sure.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You can’t read my mind, right?
That’s not one of your fancy powers?”
“What? Oh, Jesus. No.” He looked at me with genuine concern.
“My fancy powers are all spell craft, not counting everything I’ve
learned about being a monster hunter. Same with Liam, though he’s
got more skill with magical items than any four people combined.
Zach can read minds, yes. But we’ve taken care of that. If you want
to get a permanent tattoo, it’s maybe not a bad idea, but until then,
your bracelet has you covered. And Grim can track like nobody’s
business, sure. We suspect there’s some magic going on there, but
he doesn’t talk about it. Wellington Academy isn’t about inherent
magic, though. It’s about applied magic. The magic of totems and
spells that takes the natural energy of the world around us and
bends it. Make sense?”
“No,” I said sourly, and he laughed.
“You think too much.”
I snorted. “Well, you’re wrong there,” I said. “I’ve thought exactly
enough to keep my ass alive, no more—no less. Not all of us were
born into Boston’s magical aristocracy.”
I’d meant the jab as a joke, but Tyler grimaced. “It sounds stupid
to say you should count yourself lucky, but—count yourself lucky.
The Perkins clan sports one twisted family tree, and that’s the truth. I
wouldn’t be here without that tree, so I’m grateful for it…but I also
know that there are branches of the family that are rotten to the core.
I’ve got a lot of ground to make up for us.”
He spoke with such grim resignation, that I felt compelled to say
something. “I’m sure any seriously old family has a few skeletons in
the closet.”
If anything, that seemed the exact wrong thing to say. “Yeah, well.
In our family, those skeletons were more likely to be real live people
who got walled up and buried under a metric ton of concrete bullshit
for not walking the Perkins walk or talking the Perkins talk. If I had a
dollar for every lecture I’ve endured about protecting the family
legacy…”
He broke off, sounding thoroughly disgusted. By now, we’d
entered the monster quad, but it appeared deserted. Tyler drew me
toward a building with the name “Fowlers Hall” emblazoned across
its roofline. I squinted up at it as we approached.
“Please tell me you do, actually, have a cleaning service.”
He scoffed an amused laugh. “Boy, Merry really did a number on
you, didn’t she? But I guess it’s only to be expected. We try pretty
hard to keep people away. You’ll understand why in a second.”
He scanned open the door, and we stepped inside a very
ordinary-looking foyer, but at least it was clean. I can do this, I
thought. I’d faced a barn full of monkey rats before—this was nothing
more than a dorm left to the questionable housekeeping skills of four
college guys. I probably would encounter nothing more harrowing
than some dirty socks on the floor. Probably. “It looks a lot like any
college dorm,” I allowed.
“By careful design,” Tyler agreed. Before I could ask him about
that response, he stepped ahead to another door and scanned his
card across its reader as well.
“Most of the rest of the campus only sees this hallway, if they see
anything at all about Fowlers Hall. Again, we’ve done a pretty good
job of keeping people out of our business.”
The locks clicked open after a long pause. “And this is why,” he
said, opening the door wide.
My jaw dropped as I stepped through the door…and into a
palace.
 21

D ark marble floors ran the length of the chamber, which was
lined with pillars. Stained glass panels hung from chains
between the pillars, depicting scenes that looked like they’d
been drawn from fairy tales. Brave warriors rescuing villagers from
dragons, princesses from towers, the full monster hunting treatment.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked, awed despite myself.
“Some of it has been here since the early days of the school,
some of it came from other areas of the school as they evolved away
from monster hunting. We’ve always managed to find some way to
keep it from being destroyed or sold.”
“Aren’t you afraid of it being stolen?”
Tyler grinned, waving his key card. “State-of-the-art technology
combined with magical discernment makes theft a difficult
proposition unless it’s officially sanctioned. So that’s the biggest fear,
that the university itself will remember what’s lying in plain sight and
look to make a buck off it.”
“So, what, they’re going to phase out the monster hunting
program? They won’t let anyone else in after you guys?”
Tyler nodded. “That’s the story, anyway. Granted, they’ve been
saying some version of that for the last thirty years, but they’re
getting a lot more obnoxious about it. Come on.”
He reached for my hand and led me up the staircase. The
second floor of Fowlers Hall was as impressive as the first. Marble
passages were inlaid with wrought iron, and a long plush runner of
carpet chased its way down the center to muffle our footsteps. We
passed several shut doors, heavy wood ornamented with more iron.
“Has there ever been an attack on these grounds?” I asked.
“Nope,” Tyler said. “Part of that is because of the iron, part of it is
the spells of warding that hang over the place. No monster with dark
intent can step foot in here.”
I shot him a look. “Oh, but regular ol’ monsters who are your
buddies, they’re okay.”
He laughed. “Believe it or not, there was a time when the
academy worked more directly with monsters. Considered them
nearly allies, even. Not all of them, of course, but the ones that were
a little more acceptable in human society. The djinn, for one. The
fae.”
“Yeah? How did that work?”
“Not well,” he admitted. “They left the program about fifty years
after we were founded, no reason given. But at that point, the rift
between humans and monsters became markedly wider. What do
you think?” He glanced to me. “Are you in the camp that we should
talk first, attack later? Or the other way around?”
I considered the question. “The monsters I’ve encountered have
all been trying to kill me. I don’t doubt that anymore, but back when
all this started, I wanted to believe they simply wanted to reach out.
Not all the monsters were scary looking, so that didn’t help. I knew
they were different and strange, that they were the Other, but they
kept coming so often for a while that I wondered if, I don’t know,
maybe they wanted to talk to me, tell me something. I also wanted to
know why they were targeting me. When I was twelve or thirteen, I
imagined I was some sort of ambassador the monster pantheon
wanted to recruit to their side, something like that.”
I’d never admitted as much to anyone, knowing how stupid it
sounded, but Tyler merely nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “They
were literally coming out of the woodwork around you. Totally
reasonable for you to think there was a higher purpose to it all.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Then I encountered one I could talk to.”
“Really?” Tyler asked. “Liam is going to be all over this. Most of
the time, they don’t.”
 “Yeah, well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” I said. “Even
discounting the fact it could’ve all been bullshit, the things that one
said about me were pretty vile. It knew what I was thinking, knew
what I was hoping, I guess. And took some delight in explaining why
it wasn’t possible. That I was food, basically. Nothing more, nothing
less.”
“Nice.” Tyler chuckled. “But that is what they teach us. You learn
that pretty fast in Intro to Ethics, probably not the same Intro to
Ethics that you guys took back in North Carolina. It’s the main tenet
for the ‘attack first’ credo. Monsters may be thinking, rational
creatures in their own environment, but when they get around
humans, that goes away. They want to attack, eat, and leave,
generally. We typically don’t even hear about them unless they fixate
on an area and don’t move along. Like this Boston Brahmin guy.
Something in his wiring must’ve gotten jumbled for him to keep
circling back the way he does. Monsters typically don’t stick around.”
“Comforting,” I said dryly.
“Isn’t it?” Tyler stopped in front of a door and incongruously
swiped his key card over an ancient-looking metal casing. The door
clicked open, and he pushed inside. I shouldn’t have been surprised
at that point, but I couldn’t help it.
“This is your room?” If I hadn’t already been seriously rethinking
my decision in accommodations, this would’ve put me over the edge.
The room was nothing short of gorgeous. Instead of marble floors,
rich dark wood flowed through the room, covered with thick carpets
that looked genuinely Persian. A large fireplace stood in one corner,
not currently lit, but with charred wood in the grate that didn’t look
like it was for show.
“You like it?” Tyler asked smugly, and I turned to him and rolled
my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before Merry got her hooks into
me? I was expecting a total dive.”
“I didn’t think she was going to move so fast,” he laughed. “But
you’ve got to admit, this is a pretty sweet gig.”
“Ya think?” I snorted.
“I do think,” he said. “And in the interest of being thorough, I feel
like no campus tour would be complete without you seeing an actual
bedroom.”
“How thorough of you.” Still, I followed as he moved across the
room and gestured through an open doorway. Another fireplace, also
with charred wood in the grate, a desk overlooking a bay window, a
large four-poster bed piled with sheets, and a tumbled comforter.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Am I the first girl you brought here
today?” I asked wryly, and he grimaced.
“Nightmares,” he said without a hint of embarrassment. “I didn’t
want to admit it before but—yeah. I still have them.”
I turned to him with surprise. “Seriously? More ghosts?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember that anyway. I just woke up to
what you see here. Kind of crazy, I know. And to answer your other
question, yes, we do have a cleaning service, but only for the main
floor. What happens up here, we keep to ourselves.”
I felt a rush of warmth at his nearness, and I blurted my next
words before I could stop myself. “Well, then, I should probably help
you make your bed.”
Tyler didn’t hesitate. “That would be awfully kind of you,” he
agreed.
“I’m a super kind person,” I allowed. “I think first we should find
where your pillows are underneath all these sheets.”
“I think you’re right.” We both reached for the nearest pillow at the
same time, our hands tangling together and—
His phone rang.
Along with about fifty other sirens within a fifteen-foot radius.
“What the hell is that?” I screeched as sound erupted from every
surface in the room, the walls, ceiling, and floor practically vibrating
with the cacophony. “Make it stop.”
Tyler bounded across the room to where he slammed his fist
against the wall. That didn’t appear to do the trick, but it seemed to
make him feel better. Then he yanked his phone out of his pocket
and danced his fingers across the screen. The chimes mercifully fell
silent. His phone still buzzed in his hand, though, and he scowled
down at it, tapping viciously as his dark hair dropped over his brow.
“What the hell is this all about?” he muttered, and I could see the
tension in his body jack up until he was practically vibrating as much
as his phone. Then he looked up at me with a frown. “Looks like
we’ve been summoned.”
“Already?” I asked, my brows climbing my forehead. “Who’s
doing the summoning—Dean Robbins? Frost?”
But Tyler shook his head, his expression stormy.
“My father.”
 22

T he Perkins mansion was tucked into a corner of Beacon Hill

so overgrown with trees and flowering bushes, I would have
missed the house completely if I didn’t know where to look.
That effect was clearly intentional, because Tyler knew exactly
where to find the doorway cut into the stone wall next to a large,
foliage-covered gate. He stepped through, and I followed. Almost
immediately, the thick underbrush gave way to a paved lane
bordered by impeccably manicured walkways. The driveway led up
to an imposing three-story mansion outfitted with every Victorian
detail imaginable.
“This is where you grew up?” I asked, my voice a little strangled.
“Oh, yeah.” Tyler glanced up at the big stone house, with its
dizzying array of cupolas, peaked towers, and custom-shaped
windows, every angle and inset bordered with elaborate trim. A deep
covered porch ran all the way around the first floor, accessed by a
sweeping staircase flanked by huge pots of lush ferns. “When I was
a kid, I didn’t notice it, really, and even as a teenager, it didn’t faze
me. You don’t see what you’re used to. But now, looking at it…yeah.
It’s a little much.”
“If by much, you mean gorgeous, sure,” I deadpanned. We’d
walked the short distance to Beacon Hill without speaking, Tyler
clearly needing the time to compose himself. Even now, he seemed
way more on edge than I suspected most college guys did going to
have an impromptu chat with their dad.
 “You’re not in trouble, are you?” I asked, though the question
seemed ridiculous. Tyler was twenty-two years old, not seven.
He lifted one shoulder. “It’s hard to say. Growing up with him was
a pain in the ass, but since I started at Wellington, Dad has pretty
much left me alone. Once it was clear that I had the monster hunting
gene in me, our branch of the Perkins elevated a little bit in social
standing among the rich and magical Boston families. Even saying
that is kind of ridiculous, since we were already pretty close to the
top of the heap. But with these people, you can never be too rich or
too magical. Dad let it be known I was expected to act like a deeply
powerful wizard at all times, without ever explicitly saying that’s what
I was.”
“That’s kind of a lot,” I agreed. “All I had to do was keep from
being eaten.”
He laughed and reached for my hand, and we mounted the
staircase together. As we neared the massive front door, it opened,
and a dark-haired man in a subdued but well-cut gray suit stood to
the side, his long, narrow face somehow managing to look merry
despite his passive features.
“Master Tyler,” he intoned, his voice low and vaguely British—
because of course it was. I was pretty sure that’d been a condition of
his employment.
“Paul,” Tyler said. “They haven’t gotten the best of you yet.”
A wisp of a smile flitted across the man’s face. “And they won’t,
Master Tyler,” he said with a tone that indicated this was a long-
standing joke. “They won’t.”
Tyler gestured my way. “Nina, this is Paul, one of the few saving
graces of this house, for all that he should’ve left our sorry family a
long time ago. Paul, I’d like you to meet Nina Cross. She’s one of my
friends from the academy. Our newest monster hunter, in fact.”
Paul turned to me and gave me a genuine smile. “Any friend of
Master Tyler’s is welcome here,” he pronounced. “A pleasure to
meet you, Miss Cross.”
He turned smartly on his heel and led us through the house,
which was like walking through a museum. Ornate, heavily framed
paintings hung on the walls, inlaid wood and marble-topped furniture
lined the corridors, and the hardwood floors gleamed with fresh
polish. The rooms all smelled faintly of lemon and cloves, and Tyler
seemed to fill the space naturally, while I did my best not to feel like
a country mouse.
But when we entered a room that could only be described as a
parlor, I hesitated. A gust of cold air seemed to flow from the room,
and Tyler gave me a conspiratorial wink as Paul ushered us into the
gorgeously decorated chamber. Floor-to-ceiling gilt-framed paintings
lined the Prussian-blue walls, hanging regally above the dark
mahogany floor and a plush, buff-colored rug. Gold-filigreed furniture
upholstered in thick, creamy fabric caught and held my attention. It
was probably the most lavishly furnished room I’d ever seen.
“Don’t be all that impressed. We were born into this,” Tyler
reminded me, though I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the
paintings. Is that a real Rembrandt? “We didn’t make it happen out of
whole cloth.”
“But we could have done so,” a man’s sharp, stentorian
declaration broke over us, and I turned sharply to see that the room
was already occupied by a man who had to be Tyler’s father.
Dressed in a sharply tailored black suit, steel-blue tie, and crisp
white shirt that somehow seemed not at all out of place for a casual
afternoon at home, Mr. Perkins was as tall as Tyler and well-built, his
body not at all going to paunch. Though currently marred by his too-
intense, stony expression, his face was arrestingly handsome. He
was Tyler, just thirty years older.
His gaze dropped to where Tyler and I continued holding hands,
but Tyler remained unfazed. “You rang?” Tyler asked drolly. “Dad,
Nina Cross. Nina, my father, the esteemed Theodore Perkins.”
His father stiffened, as Tyler had clearly intended him to do. “I
would not have been forced to make such an abrupt summons were
you ever to return my calls or read your emails,” he replied, echoing
the injured tone of parents everywhere, no matter their
socioeconomic position. “You do recognize that I am the one who
makes your education possible.”
“Actually, it gives me great pleasure to know that you’re not, at
least not directly. I can thank the founders of Wellington Academy for
that.”
 “Of which the Perkins family is a decidedly large part,” his dad
countered, but the argument once again had the air of a well-worn
exchange, much like the one Tyler had shared with Paul.
I suddenly wondered about Tyler’s mother. He’d said
she’d passed away a long time ago, and given the chill in this room, I
could believe it. It couldn’t have been easy living in this big old house
alone. I glanced to the walls with all their elaborate oil paintings,
remembering Tyler’s story of ghosts. Perhaps not so alone after all.
Mr. Perkins clasped his wrists behind his back and turned,
focusing more directly on Tyler. “There has been a series of rumors
circulating about the Perkins family being involved in these recent
assaults,” he said, emphasizing the last word with a sneer of entitled
derision. “Which is ridiculous. I’m sure you know the events I’m
referencing. We cannot allow these rumors to continue.”
“I figured that’s what this was about,” Tyler said, sounding so
supremely confident that I blinked. I didn’t think he’d figured that out,
actually, but you’d never know it from his attitude now. “We’re on it.
We’re going to track down this Boston Brahmin character and take
him out.”
His father’s lips thinned. “That is not the only problem. I need to
know—we need to know—who is behind the chatter being stirred up.
Someone is trying to assign blame for these attacks on the Perkins
family, and that cannot stand. We have never tolerated the slightest
hint of scandal, and we’re not about to start now. It’s time for you to
do your job, Tyler.”
“Oh, come on. That’s not the biggest issue here. I think we can
survive a little bad press,” Tyler drawled. He pulled his hand away
from mine and took a step toward his father, positioning himself
between the two of us. I didn’t understand the move for a second,
until I returned my focus to his dad. Mr. Perkins’s face had hardened
swiftly at Tyler’s dismissal, his lips pinching together and his eyes
flattening. All at once, he seemed larger, more imposing. He alarmed
me, and I’d never been hit by the man.
He took a step toward us, practically vibrating with anger. When
he spoke, his words were low and intense. “And I will have you know
that you couldn’t be more wrong. You know nothing of the strictures
of our society, by your willful design, and I have allowed you your
freedom. But if I say these rumors are a problem, you can well
believe they’re a problem, and that you should do something about
them right now with your innate Perkins talent—talent that I do not
possess, to my own great misfortune. But don’t delude yourself into
thinking that I cannot act merely because I cannot wield great magic.
That has never been a problem for the Perkins family.”
He flicked snake-cold eyes toward me. Despite Tyler standing
between us, I fought the urge to recoil. “And you’re not helping
matters, Ms. Cross. In fact, I’ll happily recommend to have you
removed from the academy unless I’m given some indication as to
your value.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tyler snapped, his tone as
icy as his father’s. The walls seemed to shiver a little around us,
restless spirits stirring. “You have no authority—”
“I have every authority. Which you would know if you’d paid any
attention to the family history. Do not test me on this, Tyler. It’s
important.”
Tyler set his jaw. “I told you, we’ll get the Brahmin—”
“I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about the Brahmin,” his father bit
out. “I need to know who’s behind this attack against our family, and
we both know who can provide us the information. I want that
information. Now.”
“Dad,” for the first time, Tyler faltered. A hint of genuine alarm
crept into his words. “That’s not how this works. I can’t just snap my
fingers, and—”
“Now,” his father insisted. And I saw it then, the genuine fear in
his eyes covered over and shoved back at the indignation that he
should ever be made to suffer such a base emotion. “I will not let
what is left of our family be ruined by scandalmongers. I want to
know what’s going on.”
Tyler expelled a deep and heavy breath, his hands lifting as his
head bowed. I stared at him as his expression changed, no longer
projecting the gorgeous, confident college guy I’d come to know and
already care for, but an innocent, unlined face with wide eyes, a
child’s eyes, his gaze rapt as his fingers spread wide in supplication.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please.”
 23

F
noise.
or a long second, nothing happened. The fire crackled in the
grate, a far-off clock ticked, and the world seemed to be
holding its breath. Then the walls literally detonated with

A raging roar of wind whipped through the room, rattling the

pictures and spinning the furniture around. I lurched back, toppling
over a chair I hadn’t noticed was there, landing in the embrace of its
giant wingback arms. I immediately tried to scramble upright, but
something kept me in place, a pressure that didn’t hurt me, but
rendered me immobile all the same. I had my knife on me, but it was
all the way down by my ankle, and my wrists were held flat to the
armrests of the chair, my shoulders pinned back.
“Oh dearie, stop worrying so much and enjoy the show,” a creaky,
yet also clearly delighted voice sounded in my ear, the whisper of
lilies tickling my nose above the howl of the wind. “We haven’t had
this chance in so long.”
Tyler whirled on me in the midst of the storm, his eyes going
wide. His hair whipped around his face, and his hands were out, as if
trying to clear a space around him from the press of bodies surging
close. And there were bodies, I could tell, though they were little
more than misty forms to me. In the blink of an eye, the room had
been filled to bursting with…ghosts?
“You can hear them?” Tyler demanded, and his father turned as
well, his aristocratic brows shooting skyward.
 “You can hear,” he declared, but didn’t sound as upset as I would
have expected, more satisfied. A wave of chattering exploded
through the room, the decibel level skyrocketing. Flinching back, I
twisted in my seat, desperately wishing I could clap my hands over
my ears.
“Oh William, William, you’ve done it now, haven’t you? Upset the
largest and the best of the firsts, and that’s saying something. Who is
it, do you suppose? Who could it be? Randy?”
A chorus of scoffs met this suggestion. “Not Randy, Randy
doesn’t have the power for this kind of thing. We’re dealing with
somebody who knows black magic.”
“Black magic,” tittered the grandmotherly spirit apparently
anchoring me to my chair. “My favorite kind of magic of all. Do you
suppose he’ll raise old Myrtle? I do miss her.”
“Myrtle was a cow, and she got what she deserved,” another
spirit snapped. My caretaker hissed with indignation, anger
electrifying her retort—so maybe not so grandmotherly after all. This
continued, while wind whirled and crashed, and I struggled to follow
the conversation. Tyler’s father turned suddenly, as if shoved in the
shoulder, his face going sheet white as he toppled back onto a
couch.
“You dare,” he began, but his protest was lost in a crashing wave
of reaction from the spirit world, equal parts satisfaction and
outrage.
Through all of it, Tyler stood stock-still, his feet planted, his pants
tight against his legs, his shirt untucking and lifting a little to reveal
his clenched abs, his jaw jutting out against the force whipping
through the room. He rocked a little, buffeted by the nearly unseen
storm, but he said not another word.
“Who is doing this?” his dad demanded from his sprawl on the
couch, somehow managing to look elegant even toppled over.
“Well, Malcolm would know, eh?” Someone responded, and
another chorus rose. “Oh, yes, he would at that. But where is he, the
blackguard? Always the way, isn’t it? Needs to put on the fancy, walk
his own solitary path. Insulting, you ask me…” The responses began
to build up, and I could almost see their owners now taking form in
the mist, white-haired and sumptuously dressed, men and women
alike, chattering and preening and now looking around
with unmistakable interest.
“He never did like coming out of the room. I bet he’s there.”
“Oh! Oh, yes, you’re right. I’m sure of it. Off we go, then, time for
answers. I bet it’s the Greens. Nasty pieces of work, them, and that
Winifred—”
Tyler’s father moaned, lifting his hand to loosen his tie. He was
clearly sensing the chaos around him, even if he couldn’t hear or see
what was causing it.
“Dad?” Tyler asked sharply, and his father waved him off.
“Go—please,” he managed, and then, as I stared in utter shock,
Theodore Perkins passed out cold.
Tyler stiffened, then wheeled around and fixed his gaze on me.
“She comes too,” he ordered, and to my surprise, the pressure
lifted from my shoulders and I was able to spring out of the chair.
The wind in the parlor didn’t cease, and I fought my way through it.
Tyler was already running by the time we reached the door. He raced
down the hallway and up a flight of stairs, then a second, this final
floor clearly where the home’s bedrooms were located. We reached
his room, and he flung open the door.
I gasped at the sight. It looked like a museum display of a little
boy all alone—a very unique little boy. Maps hung on every wall,
from Boston’s elegant street grid to the sweeping breadth of the US
to separate images of all the continents of the world. Beside them
hung carefully lettered lists, drawings of weapons, and pictures of
monsters. I didn’t know if the monsters were real or made up, but I
didn’t have much time to study them as the ghosts came flowing in
beside us and around us. Tyler slammed the door shut and locked it
as the other spirits rushed toward a little man made up of slightly
thicker mists, squinting up at a map of Boston. He had a top hat and
long tails to his coat, which somehow made him seem even shorter.
“’Bout time,” he snapped, his voice rushing through me as he
poked his finger at Boston Public Garden, the action toppling back
his ghostly hat, which dissolved in an instant, leaving a corona of
flying white hair over the pinched eyes, long, beaked nose, and
pointed chin with a scruff of a white beard. “You have the right of it,
boy. This is where it starts. But don’t look to us for answers as to
what git is behind this. We’ve got no bloody idea why they’re
bothering poor William. He was a troublemaker and a blowhard,
always thinking someone was after him, but I can’t say he might not
have been right.”
“Poor William, poor foolish William,” agreed the others on a
gusting sigh. “Might have been right.”
“Who the fuck is William?” Tyler protested, the first sign that he
might be dealing with an entirely different level of assault, combining
noise and ghostly imagery, while I only saw the barest outlines and
heard an echo of the roar.
The little man whirled and looked at Tyler with a disapproving
glare, his white hair floating off his head in puffs of mist as he
pointed a long finger at Tyler. “Language,” he said stiffly. “Especially
with a lady present.”
“But why him?” Tyler pressed. “What’s the significance? Is the
family in danger?”
“That’s all I’ve got, boy. I’ll tell you this, though, Mildred has the
right of it. There’s some really deep magic going on here. All sorts of
monsters to be coming out of the woodwork. Long overdue, you ask
me.”
The spectral chorus chimed in on this last, eagerly agreeing.
Tyler rocked back on his heels, but didn’t give up trying to learn
more. “But why us? Is Dad right? Is the Perkins family at risk?”
Malcolm flapped his hands. “Please. We’ve been at risk since we
laid the cornerstone of Wellington Academy. For every light, there is
a darkness. For every good, an evil.”
“But what—how—?”
“You’ll see, you’ll see. But first get Willie out of this mess. He was
a foozler and a flapdoodle, but he doesn’t deserve this, the old salt.”
“That old salt is beating the crap out of people,” Tyler retorted,
and the little man balled up his fists.
“Language, boy. Now go get Willie. The whos and whats and
behinds it will have to wait.”
And then…they were gone.
Absolute silence filled the room, as far below us, there was a
crash, Paul’s alarmed reaction carrying two flights up. “Mr. Perkins.
My God, sir, wake up!”
 Tyler sagged forward, and I rushed over to him, catching him as
he sank to the floor. “Oh, my God! Are you all right?”
“Yeah…yeah,” he said. He shook his head, leaning against me.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” I continued. “You were
amazing.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I laughed, a little unsteadily. “I mean wow. You freaking
talked to the dead.”
He grimaced. “Only my dead,” he said with a laugh. “My family.
That’s plenty.”
“Well, you were awesome.”
“I’m so cold,” he muttered. “Been a while.”
“Shhhh.” It was natural to hug him close, the aftereffects of magic
rushing through us, the sound of spectral chatter echoing around the
room. We rocked together, and gradually, the shock and adrenaline
of the last few minutes ebbed away…inviting something else in its
wake. A closeness I’d never felt before. A camaraderie. And a need
that spiraled through me, slowly at first, then more quickly, more
intense. A need to do more than hold Tyler…so much more.
Tyler seemed to sense it too. He shuddered in my arms, turning
toward me, his eyes soft, unfocused. “Nina,” he whispered. He
leaned forward, his lips brushing against mine.
Something cracked loudly behind us, but I couldn’t focus on that,
I couldn’t focus on anything but Tyler in my arms, touching me,
kissing me. The rush of sensation swept through me as violently as it
had the first few times we’d kissed, only this time, there was nothing
to keep me from giving in to it. I was alone, with Tyler, in his room,
next to his childhood freaking bed, perfect and pristine. We shouldn’t
do anything here. We couldn’t. It was his house. His father lived
here. His father, the house staff, and the ghosts of all the Perkins
past.
“Nina,” Tyler pulled away, eyes wide, heat rolling off us both, the
air crackling with anticipation and possibility—
He reached for me.
 24

S urging upward and swinging me around like I weighed

nothing at all, Tyler threw me on the bed, sending the pillows
flying. He pulled off his shirt, and my eyes nearly fell out of
my head. I knew he was ripped, but this went way beyond fit and
well into model category. His arms bulged with muscles, his skin
stretched tight, and he seemed—bigger, almost. Not like he was
turning into the Hulk or anything but—
“Tyler?” I asked. He lifted his eyes to me, and they glowed with a
ferocity I’d never seen in him before. It didn’t frighten me—though it
probably should have. But alongside the deep-seated want vibrating
off him was a flood of protectiveness so strong that I knew deep in
my soul this man would do nothing to harm me. He simply wouldn’t.
“Nina,” he groaned, or I think he groaned, because at that
moment, he sprang at me.
What happened next was a flurry of panicked movement. Ripping
off clothes, tumbling and twisting in the sheets and pillows, most of
which ended up on the floor, until we both were naked and I lay
stretched out beneath him. His lungs heaving, his entire body
shaking, he pinned my hands to the bed and stared down at me, his
eyes slowly regaining their focus.
“Nina,” he said again. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?”
I shook my head, my own eyes going wide at the genuine worry
in his words. “No, you didn’t hurt me. You can’t hurt me, Tyler.”
 As they had before, the words had an instant effect on him. He
shuddered, coming back to himself even more, then looked down the
length of my body. I both felt and saw the surge of heat roll through
him, and with seemingly great effort, he pried his fingers off my
wrists. “Man,” he muttered. “I don’t know what comes over me when
I’m with you, but…it makes me insane. In a good way, but I can’t
help but want to—”
I didn’t hesitate. I reached for his face, pulling him toward me,
and kissed him hard. Another violent shudder made Tyler convulse,
but I didn’t stop. Tyler was mine—totally mine—and in this moment, I
was seeing him in the full burst of his power. He didn’t know his own
magic, but I did. He was stronger than he could possibly imagine,
and he was magical too.
Power whipped and eddied around us as Tyler pulled his head
away, staring at the sparklers zinging through the room. “What is
that?” he whispered, but I turned him back to me, glorying in the
intensity of his eyes. They glowed an almost incandescent blue,
completely unlike his normal shade, and when I stretched up toward
him again, he met me more than halfway. Our lips touched, and
something shattered across the room. I no longer cared. My
attention was focused solely on Tyler.
Though we’d technically already explored each other’s bodies
with our clothes still mostly on, this was different. This was more. He
brushed his lips over mine with an almost heartbreaking tenderness,
drawing in a shuddering breath. I leaned up for him, and he shook
his head, his hair falling over his brow. “No,” he said, almost pleading
as his gaze raked over me. “Let me…let me learn everything about
you.”
At his words, I flushed. “I—um, sorry about the scars,” I muttered,
my cheeks heating as his gaze swept over me again. “I don’t
remember where they all came from. I wish I did.”
Tyler ignored my embarrassment, taking in every inch of me.
Then he huffed a low, wondering sigh. “You are a warrior,” he said.
“Your scars make you more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.”
I sank back into the bed as he kissed me again, deeply, then let
my eyes drift closed as he dragged his lips across my cheek. He
murmured words I didn’t understand into my ear, something that
sounded Latin and arcane, which created another hiss of noise in the
general direction of the fireplace. Neither of us turned toward it, Tyler
because he was now drifting butterfly kisses down my neck, and me,
because I was losing myself to the sensation of him exploring me.
Whether it was the result of his murmured incantation or simply
the whisper-soft hush of his breath against my skin, my toes curled,
my heart rate kicked into high gear, and heat pooled in my belly. I
held my own breath as he dropped farther down, tracing the curve of
my collarbone with his mouth, and screwed my eyes more tightly
closed as he sighed against my left breast. He drew the nipple into
his mouth, sucking and teasing as I groaned beneath him.
The heat in my core was now spreading fast. I reached for Tyler
again, only to stop at his murmured plea. Instead, I twisted my hands
in the sheets as he drew his mouth along my right breast, then over
the curve of my belly, lifting as he reached the vee between my legs.
My eyes fluttered open to meet his strange and terrible gaze, and
though his mouth worked, no sound came out.
I took a guess at what he was trying to say—what I hoped he was
trying to say, anyway, and nodded quickly. “Yes,” I blurted. “Yes.
Whatever you’re thinking of doing, if it involves touching me, yes.” I
felt my cheeks flush crimson at the urgency of my words, but he
braced himself through another jolt of magic, then leaned down
toward me.
The moment his mouth touched the completely over-sensitized
bundle of nerves at my clit, his tongue sliding down, tasting,
exploring, I nearly burst out of my skin. I knew better than to reach
for him, but it was all I could do not to cry out as he lingered, then
edged away, somehow knowing exactly how to touch me, exactly
what I needed, wanted, craved. My breath came faster, my hands
clenching into fists, and still he played, bringing me to the brink of
climax and then slipping off again, each spiral growing tighter, tighter
—
When I shattered, I lost all sense of time and space. I wasn’t in a
bedroom—I was in total darkness, then a lighting storm, then
billowing clouds, then back to darkness, stars shooting around me in
a fury of movement. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, and then
Tyler’s mouth was back on mine, his breath was my breath, and I
coughed, spluttering, then sucked in an enormous lungful of air.
“Breathe,” he ordered. His voice filled the room, compelling me,
though I was happy to comply.
I dragged in another lungful of air and issued my own command.
“Please, Tyler. Now.”
He knew what I wanted, but he still hesitated, levering his body
over mine. He pressed his thick shaft up against me, and I practically
whimpered, then groaned with unadulterated relief as he slid into
me. I arched beneath him, gasping, somehow still short of breath,
and realized I’d shut my eyes again. When I opened them, Tyler’s
eyes were no longer an incandescent blue, but the warm, happy
whiskey brown I knew so much better. But he was staring at me with
such wonder, it was almost as if he was still in whatever trance or
haze he’d been transported into.
“Hey,” I managed, and a smile flashed across his face. We were
moving together in perfect sync.
“Hey,” he echoed. “As far as cleaning crews go, you’re totally
hired. Especially since you’re really good at making messes, too”
I laughed, then my eyes flared as he leaned farther up into me,
stoking me toward a newer, higher climax—when I was barely
recovered from the first one. I gave myself over to the sensation,
gripping his arms and pulling myself up to get closer to him, as if I
was trying to merge our bodies together. The lights started spinning
again and our eyes locked, and as darkness descended once more
and everything started swirling, the blue cast returned to his eyes.
We shouted, our bodies surging at the same time, and something
else crashed in the distance, a whirlwind shooting through the room.
Then we were kissing and laughing and clinging together, enjoying
the shared emotional high of climax. I screwed my eyes tight again,
willing the world to slow down, but not too soon, reveling in the
moment.
A second later, Tyler collapsed over me, pinning me to the
sheets. “Totally hired,” he said again, and I snorted, then moved to
push him off me. I succeeded only a little, but it was enough for me
to shove a pillow out of the way and peer around his room.
Or…what was left of it.
 “Oh my God,” I blurted, and there apparently was enough
urgency in my surprise to break through Tyler’s boneless haze,
because he instantly rolled off me, lifting himself to his knees—and
saw what I had.
The room was completely destroyed. The logs in the fireplace
were now piles of ash, every picture had crashed to the floor or now
hung askew on its nails, the chairs were all on their sides. The sound
of water finally pierced our awareness at the same time. Tyler
yelped, leaping from the bed to dash over to a door I hadn’t noticed
before. I heard him sliding across the floor and cursing as he shut off
all the spigots, wincing as I heard the splash of his feet in water that
had apparently overflowed the bathtub.
The sheets around us weren’t merely disheveled—they were
shredded, and I held one up in stunned surprise as he came back
into the room, a towel slung low around his hips. “What the hell
happened here?” he asked. “Did we do that?”
“You did that,” I said. “I’m not magical.”
“Neither am I, not like that,” he protested, looking adorably
confused as he rubbed his hands through his hair. “I mean, I’m a
Perkins, but Perkinses are magicians, not inherently magical. That’s
more Graham’s family’s claim to fame. Those in my line who do have
some ability channel it into spell casting and monster hunting. That’s
why Wellington Academy was founded, honestly. To capitalize on the
discreet magic of prominent families, because we knew we could
serve—wanted to serve.”
“Well, I’m not so sure your magic is all that discreet,” I said.
“Because you were muttering to yourself, and every time you said
something different, something else broke. I wasn’t the one doing
that.”
“But…” He shook his head, still staring around. “Not to put too
fine a point on it, but this isn’t the first time I’ve ever had sex. I
would’ve noticed if this was a side effect. And you and I have kissed
and stuff before. That was intense, but…”
I thought about the time we’d kissed in my apartment, and then
the interlude in the trees next to the outer wall to Wellington
Academy. The trees had whipped around as if there’d been a terrible
storm brewing, but Tyler was right. It was nothing like this. “I don’t
know,” I said. “Unless…”
He came to the same understanding I did, at the same time. “The
collective?” His eyes shot wide. “Because you’re like—bonded to me
now? Frost didn’t say anything about, ah…this kind of side effect,
though. Don’t you think he would’ve?”
I grimaced. “Well, I don’t know exactly how close you guys are,
but I can see how that might be kind of an awkward conversation to
have with somebody. And maybe he didn’t know. Maybe those
weren’t the kinds of records he was able to uncover about previous
collectives. Or, you know. Maybe we’re just lucky.”
He snorted. “Or something, but still I think he had to have known.
Maybe he didn’t think it would be an issue, but this is an academy
that prides itself on getting its research right. There should be some
mention of it somewhere.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” I held up the shreds of his sheets.
“But you’re gonna need some new linens.”
A sharp knocking came at the door, then Paul’s aristocratic call.
“Master Tyler? Master Tyler. Are you all right?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth as Tyler’s eyes popped wide,
his gaze shooting around the wrecked room. Pictures hung at crazy
angles or had dropped to the floor altogether, a few of them
shattering. The linens were shredded into strips, and the pillows had
lost their stuffing. Dozens of tiny down feathers still floated in the
sunlight, twirling their way to the floor.
When Tyler spoke, however, it was with absolute authority. “I’m
good, Paul. It—it got a little rough in here. With the Perkins ghosts.”
The door handle jiggled, and my heart spasmed with panic until I
remembered that Tyler had locked the door. “Can I assist you?” Paul
asked. “After attending your father, I waited until the worst of the
clattering was finished but—”
“What about dad,” Tyler cut him off. “He’s okay?”
“He’s…out again, I’m afraid, but resting comfortably,” Paul said.
“He was quite overwhelmed. I suspect a short nap will restore him,
though.”
Tyler nodded, though Paul was on the other side of the door and
unable to see him. Thank God. “Excellent. I need to explore the
room to make sure there are no additional messages from the family
spirits.”
Once again, Tyler spoke with total assurance, but I stared at him
like he was a madman. What? I mouthed, and he flapped his hands
at me, his lips pressing together as he fought to keep the grin off his
face.
“Very well, then,” Paul replied without hesitation. “I’ll be
downstairs should you need my help.”
“I’ll call you if I do. This, I think I need to handle myself.” After that
pronouncement, Tyler looked like he was going to burst into
maniacal laughter, but we both managed to hold it together as Paul’s
footsteps retreated. Then I let out the tiniest squeak of relief.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, the words a frantic bleat. “We need to
clean this up.”
Tyler, however, merely looked at me and grinned. “Well, you
know. Since the room’s already destroyed, maybe we should take
advantage…”
I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
He arched a superior brow. “I mean, it makes sense. The only
thing worse than having to clean up a room is to have to clean it
twice.”
I bit my lip. “True,” I allowed.
He came toward me, and I found myself bracing, waiting for his
eyes to turn blue again. They didn’t, not exactly, but as he drew
close, there was no doubt that something had changed. It took me a
second to figure out exactly what. “Ah… Tyler? Did you take a look
at yourself when you were in the bathroom?”
He shrugged, but didn’t stop his approach. “My eyes looked a
little off to me, but everything looked off to me. It’s like I’ve been
jacked up on steroids. I wondered if you’d changed too.” He swept
his gaze over me. “Nope, still beautiful.”
“Yeah, right.” I shook my head. But as he crawled up on the bed,
making his way through the remains of exploded pillows and
shredded sheets, I had to admit he was right. “You’re bigger,” I said.
His mouth lifted in one corner. “That’s what all the girls say.”
“No, I mean your body. You’re right, it does look like you’ve been
jacked on steroids. Here. Let me try something.”
 I moved closer to him, and leaning forward, I kissed him firmly on
the lips. When I pulled back, he was grinning.
“I think you should try that more often,” he said. But his eyes
remained the same whiskey brown, without shifting into the deep
incandescent blue.
“Huh,” I said. “Before when you kissed me, your eyes completely
changed—everything changed. Now, it’s like, I don’t know. Like
you’ve got it under control, maybe?”
“Maybe. But I think this is going to take an awful lot of research.”
He reached for me again.
 25

W e’d barely finished putting the room back to rights, as

well as we could, anyway, and piling the destroyed
sheets in the corner when Tyler’s phone pinged. He
checked it. “It’s Frost,” he said. “That’s odd.”
I snorted. “After what just happened here, I’m re-examining the
meaning of that word.” I closed the last drawer, having assured
myself that nothing that’d been hidden away had been damaged. It
was only the visible items that had been torn to shreds. And the
second time we’d made love, our environment had calmed down a
little bit. Things had shifted but not blown apart. Progress.
“Frost is asking us all to come to the library, but he knows, or he
should know, that Grim and Zach are in the middle of their battle
finals. Normally, he wouldn’t interrupt that for anything. So I don’t
know what this is about.”
“Well, if they’re in the middle of their finals, they probably won’t
hear him anyway, right? So they’ll be fine.” My brain caught up to his
words. “Battle finals? What does that involve?”
“You’re back in the arena, suited up in holosuits, going to war
against imaginary monsters,” Tyler explained. “I planned on taking
you over there. Technically, we’re not supposed to watch anybody
else’s finals, but you know. There are ways around every rule.”
“I’m beginning to see that.”
We stopped by the Perkins house’s enormous kitchen—clearly
built for a family ten times larger than Tyler and his dad—to give Paul
the update that we’d survived the, ah, ghost attack, and that we’d
update his father as soon as the elder Perkins woke up again. Then
we headed back to campus. We were almost to Lowell Library when
Liam emerged from a building I was pretty sure was another
research lab, catching sight of us immediately.
“Hey!” he said “How’s it…whoa.” He stopped short and eyed
Tyler with curiosity. “Dude, why are you looking so jacked? Did you
take something?”
Tyler grimaced. “I… I don’t know what happened,” he said. More
or less true. “I didn’t take anything, but…”
“Oh shit, are you kidding me?” Liam looked at me, aghast. I was
pretty sure I was supposed to be embarrassed when his gaze met
mine, but all I could register was a flare of undeniable attraction.
Liam’s hazel eyes pricked something deep inside me, a love of
learning, of discovery, of the sheer joy of the unknown. His mouth
seemed softer than I remembered it, while his face was more
angular. His sandy-brown hair tumbled over his ears, practically
begging me to run my fingers through it.
Unexpectedly, I wondered what Liam’s hands would feel like
brushing through my hair, drifting along my skin, those river-stone
eyes trying to pry out my most careful secrets as he bent toward me
—
Stop it. I whipped my head back around, staring forward and I
breathed out a sharp, gusting breath. What the hell was that about?
Was I seriously jonesing for Tyler’s best friend, practically thirty
seconds after I’d…no. No, this couldn’t be happening. I forced myself
not to flinch, but it was a near thing.
“Okay, ah, right,” Liam said in a rush, falling in beside us. “I gotta
tell you this then. You know how Frost was acting weird about the
whole collective idea? Like first he was into it, then he wasn’t, then
he got all squirrelly? I figured there had to be shit out there he wasn’t
telling us. So I did some research and, um, not to get super
personal, but ah…did you guys, I mean, well…did you—”
“We had sex,” I said, putting him out of his misery. Tyler turned to
me then back to Liam, surprise evident on his face.
“How did you know that?” he asked Liam. His words were tight
but not upset, more surprised.
 Liam blew out a long breath. “Well, so sex automatically amps up
the magic of the Twyst trials’ teams, right? But we’ve got ridiculously
little data on its effect on collective members. Wellington doesn’t
teach it, doesn’t acknowledge it, and if there’s a co-ed group of
students going through, the academy doesn’t even breathe the word
‘collective’ in their general direction. That could explain why we
haven’t had any females in the program for, like, twenty years plus. I
only found references to co-ed collectives in the archives after a
serious deep dive.”
“Seriously?” Tyler asked, while I tried not to gape. “Having sex
can amp up everyone in the collective?”
“What do you mean, the Twyst teams?” I put in, but Liam was
shaking his head—clearly in response to Tyler. He also was
blushing, and it made him, if possible, even more adorable. No. I
corrected myself. No, it did not.
“I couldn’t find anything on the team as a whole, so I honestly
don’t have any idea, but you got jacked up, so—clearly there’s
something there. But mainly what I wanted to warn you about is,
well…shit.” He sighed, his cheeks now flame red. “If what I read was
correct, forming a co-ed collective results in a sort of compulsion on
the part of members of the team to, ah…want to hook up. For the
sake of the team. Just so you know.”
Now it was my turn to redden as a wave of mortification swept
through me. Did this explain the completely inappropriate urge to
merge I’d developed regarding the other members of the monster
hunter squad? And did this mean it wouldn’t ever go away?
My brain struggled to wrap itself around that concept as Tyler
stared at Liam, openmouthed. “Wait a minute, are you telling me you
want to hook up with Nina?”
“Hey,” I protested. “I’m standing right here.”
“No,” Liam insisted, then he flushed even more. Liam, I decided,
was a terrible liar. “I mean, yes. Sure. But I won’t. Because that
would be wrong. And weird,” he continued, stammering now. Tyler
wheeled around to face me.
“And you want to hook up with Liam?”
“What?” I managed, blinking fast as something flashed over
Tyler’s face. He murmured a word I didn’t know, and the truth came
spilling out of me.
“Well, no. Not exactly. Like, Liam is perfectly great—and hot.
Totally. I don’t want to be with him because I’m with you and that isn’t
right, but there is some sort of strange sort of vibe I’m feeling, I have
to admit and— Hey,” I snapped, gaining control of my mouth again.
“Did you just throw magic at me? Because that is not cool.”
Tyler blanched, but Liam was staring at both of us now. “You did,
Tyler,” he said. “You totally spelled her, better than I’ve ever seen
you cast a spell, ever. It was like automatic.” He turned to me, his
excitement trumping our combined awkwardness.
“Tyler’s a baller, one of the best spell casters I’ve ever seen, but
he can never remember actual spells for shit. I pretty much always
had to be around to give him his line, and once I do, he’s awesome.
But that spell he just dropped on you—I don’t even know it.”
Liam’s gaze grew more distant, and for half a second, it occurred
to me that he might want to hook up with me just to upgrade his
skills. I shook off that thought.
“Why am I not upset about this?” Tyler asked in such confusion
that we both turned toward him. He spread his hands.
“Because I’m not. I’m not upset at all. In fact, my main reaction is
how cool that would be if you two got together.” He turned to me. “I
know that sounds horrible. I don’t mean it to, but that’s how I feel.”
I shrugged, lifting my hands as well. “Yo, I’m the one who is
fighting a weird attraction to your best friend. You don’t have to
explain anything to me about how bizarre this is.”
“How could Frost not have told us?” Tyler demanded, his tone still
wondering. “This is kind of a crucial detail to withhold.”
I had to agree with him, but Liam held up his phone. “Maybe
that’s why he’s calling us all together. Maybe he figured it out and
wanted to let us know before we stumbled on to it ourselves.”
Tyler groaned, shaking his head before he started to laugh.
“Okay, well, that will pretty much qualify as the most awkward
conversation ever.”
Liam grinned. “Yeah, but I’m kind of stoked to see how he
handles it, right?”
With that, he turned and fell into step with us again, and we
walked on to Lowell Library, Liam and Tyler chattering back and forth
about the other impacts of the day’s, ah, work. As weird as this all
was, I couldn’t help being intrigued as well, like this bizarre group
attraction was something happening to other people, not to me—or
Tyler. Hell, Tyler and I had barely established our own relationship.
How would it work if there were suddenly three other people
involved?
It wouldn’t work. Full stop.
“Guys,” I said abruptly. “I don’t think we should tell Zach and Grim
about this. I think it’s too weird. I can handle it. I know you can. But
the others may not even feel anything, right?” I said this last to Liam
who, for the record, didn’t look too convinced, though he nodded.
“So don’t think it’s something—”
“Agreed,” Tyler said abruptly. He looked hard at me. “Your rules,
Nina. Always yours. You want to act on this particular bit of crazy,
you do. You don’t, then you don’t.”
“I’m absolutely down with that,” Liam agreed. “Full stop.”
“Ah—fantastic, then,” I said, but I couldn’t help staring for a
second longer than I should have at Liam’s mouth, while feeling
intensely aware of the warmth of Tyler’s hand in mine, his thumb
caressing my palm. Then Liam started grilling me about the
particular hue of Tyler’s eyes during his transformation, and the last
moment of awkwardness whisked away.
By the time we reached the library, Frost was waiting at the door,
once more clad in khakis and a brown work shirt, his heavy beard a
bit shaggier than I remembered it, his face worn and weary. His eyes
looked like they’d been staring into computer screens for three
weeks straight.
“Where are Grim and Zach?” he asked hoarsely, and I blinked. I
think it was the first time he’d ever called them by name on first
reference.
“They’re in the middle of their battle finals,” Tyler said, clearly
startled by the question.
Frost jolted. “That’s right. Fuck.”
I didn’t know the man well, but based on Tyler’s and Liam’s
reactions, clearly his use of a swearword was also somewhat
unusual. He turned on his heel as the guys stared after him.
 “Well, I don’t have all day,” Frost snapped over his shoulder.
“You’ll have to brief those two when they’re done. When did the
battle start?”
Liam checked his watch. “They’re about an hour into it. They
should wrap in another thirty minutes or so.”
“Let’s hope they get done sooner,” Frost said, only it seemed like
he was muttering more to himself, not us. “Check that. We’re going
to make a side trip. We need more gear.”
With that, he strode up to the elevator and punched the button
with his fist. Everything about him screamed urgent energy, and
Tyler, Liam, and I all exchanged wary glances.
“Ah…what’s going—”
“It’ll wait for the briefing,” Frost rubbed a heavy hand over his
brow.
The elevator opened, and we all filed in, the tension thick enough
to cut. We dropped down to the basement, but the elevator kept
going easily another two floors before it finally stopped. Liam’s eyes
had now popped wide. Frost hit two buttons at the same time, and
the doors whooshed open onto a dimly lit chamber filled with floor-to-
ceiling shelves.
I could almost feel Liam’s rush of questions building up, but Frost
lifted a quelling finger.
“Yes, Liam, it’s a secret sector. No, you didn’t need to know about
it before now. No, you wouldn’t know about it at all except for I don’t
have time to screw around here. We’ve got to move. Liam get the
weapons, short, flat bladed daggers, smooth edges, nothing curved,
nothing jagged. Tyler—” Frost turned to Tyler and stopped short as if
seeing him for the first time. “What the hell happened to you? Are
you on something from the chem lab?”
Tyler grimaced. “Um, no I’m not,” he said, the words heavy with
emphasis.
“Then what’s wrong with you? You look like you’re taking
steroids.”
“And he threw magic spells from memory,” Liam put in helpfully.
“Just pulled ’em right out of his hat.”
Frost jerked his glance toward Liam, the intensity of his glare
wiping Liam’s grin off his face. “You know what’s going on here? If
so, spit it out. I don’t have all day.”
“Yeah, Liam,” Tyler drawled, clearly enjoying his friend’s sudden
horror. Liam look like a deer caught in the headlights. “Spit it out.
Since you’ve got all the answers.”
I hid my own grin as Liam floundered another second more,
flushing scarlet. Then he spoke.
“So, ah, after you didn’t seem so keen on us forming a collective,
I did some more research and…well, it seems like with certain
collectives, though not all, there is a bonding effect that is similar to
the teams at Twyst—”
“Jesus wept,” Frost blurted, his face going pale as he held up
both his hands. “Those stories of magic amplification are locked in
the apocrypha. How’d you get them to unlock for you—never mind.”
He turned to me and scowled. “What’s important though, Nina—it’s
not true. It can’t be.”
Beside me, Tyler whispered a stream of soft, shirring words, and
the entire room illuminated with a hundred different floating globes of
light. Some of them red, some blue, and some a brilliant white,
exposing every corner of the chamber.
“Well, ah…it’s kinda true,” Tyler offered.
 26

“S
here.”
top that,” Frost growled, lifting a hand and making a
sharp, cutting motion. Instantly, the room returned to its
previous gloom. “There are light-sensitive artifacts in

“Yeah, but—”
“But your point is well made. I got it,” Frost snapped. He glared at
Tyler. “What effects are you noticing so far?”
“Size, recall, some improved spell casting, and apparently, my
eyes glow pretty,” Tyler said this last with a grin.
Frost grunted. “All right then. Keep a careful watch. I’ll want a
complete log.”
He turned to me. “What about you?”
I blinked. “There’s nothing about me,” I said, genuinely surprised
at the question. It was the first time it even occurred to me that
maybe I should have upgraded as well. Despite my best efforts, my
mom’s warning clamor sounded in my ears again. Run. “I haven’t
changed at all.”
Frost’s grimace didn’t make me feel any better. “Fair enough.
That doesn’t affect our mission today, though. Liam, knives. Tyler,
you get the tech. We want decorative pins that look like jewels.
There will be a box of them labeled something else entirely. Over
there.”
Frost waved in the general direction of the far wall, and Tyler
stared for a moment at the overstuffed shelves. “We don’t have all
day, gentlemen,” Frost bit out. “Move it.”
Tyler and Liam took off, and Frost turned to me, his face
positively mournful as the guys moved out of earshot. “Ms. Cross…
Nina. I owe you an apology. I should have more thoroughly
investigated the ramifications of you joining the collective. I didn’t do
the research first, and ignored my own misgivings.”
He spoke with such resignation that I felt my stomach clench.
Run! I wasn’t going to tell him about my mother’s warnings, but that
didn’t mean I didn’t need some clarity. “What exactly is in the
apocrypha?” I asked. “I mean, I get that all this is weird, but you’re
making it sound like it’s a really bad thing.”
“Not bad exactly, but we’re dealing with old magic. Old,
unpredictable magic—which Tyler, of all people, should have
known.”
Something in his voice caught me up short, and I frowned at him.
“Really? Tyler was as surprised as anyone at what’d happened to
him.”
“The circumstances of it, maybe. But perhaps not the value of a
female member of the collective. He’s read every piece of Arcanum
there is on how to amplify his magic, and that information is out
there, even if it doesn’t include this…unorthodox element. He
probably expected the team to get energized as a result of the
Collective Run with you.” He glanced at me. “He ever mention a
power surge, something he noticed between the two of you?”
“Um, no,” I lied. Every time we’d kissed, there’d been a mini
environmental disaster. Of course, Tyler had noticed it.
Was that why he’d kept after me so hard to enroll?
And if so…how did that make me feel?
I wasn’t sure, but not especially good, at least not until I learned
more. “Where is this apocrypha book?” I asked. “Seems to me I
should read it more thoroughly.”
“And I wish you could do that,” Frost agreed. “Unfortunately, as
Liam may or may not realize yet—there’s very little of it left. The
relative pages on the outcomes of male-female bonding within the
collective, whether physically or emotionally, have been largely
destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” I gaped at him. “Seriously?”
 He nodded. “Yes. And it gets worse.”
I snorted. “Oh really? Because I’d like to see how that’s poss—”
“No male-female collective has been authorized in more than fifty
years—and I finally learned why. Apparently, far too often, they turn
on each other soon after bonding, causing injury, even death. When
this happens, the female members of the collective never make it out
alive. On that score, the archives are absolute.”
Run!
My mom’s long-ago objections were starting to make more
sense. I blew out a long breath. “Well, you’re right. That’s worse. But
back up a step. You said that there are physical and emotional
bonding options—?”
“Hey, I found something,” Tyler effectively interrupted us by
calling out from across the room. We turned, and he held up a small,
round wooden box. “It’s labeled jacks, but there are stickpins inside
with jeweled tops.”
“Bring it.” Frost turned to Liam. “What do you have?”
Liam offered a tray of knives of varying lengths, all of them flat
bladed and straight, none of them curved.
“Excellent. Now, before we go, say nothing about this room until I
say the word. Not even to each other. Trust no one.”
Liam looked like he wanted to argue, and Frost pointed at him.
“No one,” he said.
We rode back up the elevator in silence, and emerged into the
hallway as Grim and Zach strode in. Grim’s eyes narrowed
immediately as he took in Tyler, then his gaze shifted to me. He
curled his lip but said nothing, while Zach rushed on excitedly, his
dark eyes practically sparking.
“We totally nailed it,” he said. “They threw four different
generations of ragers at us, and we took them all down. It was epic.
If we both don’t get straight As, I’m going to lodge a complaint.”
He practically bounced on his toes. “So what’s the deal? Why’d
you need us all here?”
At this point, we were all walking at a fast clip, until Frost turned
into the monster hunting war room tucked behind the stacks. The
long table was filled with books as before, and the screen showed a
map of Boston. But now emerging from Boston Public Garden, there
was not one line, but six.
“Wow,” Liam said. “Somebody has been busy.”
“Not somebody. Somebodies,” Frost said.
“And not a random somebody either,” Tyler said. Everyone turned
to him, and I thought again about what he’d known or not known
about me, and the impact I might have on the collective. Had I been
some sort of battle strategy to him all along?
Oblivious to my growing disquiet, he continued. “I may have a
lead on who this guy is. Was. When he was alive, anyway.” He
shared the barest minimum of his impromptu séance with the
Perkins ghosts, and by the end, Liam was bent over a laptop, typing
furiously, while Frost’s eyes had gone wide and thoughtful.
“William Perkins…” he murmured.
“I’m getting nothing so far, which screams manipulation,” Liam
said from his laptop. “Friggin’ first families and their friggin’ issues
with scandals.”
“Keep searching,” Frost ordered. “But the who of the monster is
less important than what it’s doing now. The Boston Brahmin has
replicated like a multiplying genie, and his attacks are escalating by
the hour. Assaults are leaving victims bloodied and battered, and
we’ve had our first near death. The young man is in a coma.”
“A coma,” Tyler groaned. “Caused by someone in my family.”
“Not your family.” To my surprise, it was Grim who spoke up. I
turned to see his pale-gold eyes fixed on Tyler, his stance tense with
readiness. “Whatever animated the corpse is acting here. Not the
corpse.”
The words were flat and unassailable, and Tyler nodded,
resolute. “Fair enough. Who’s the victim?”
Frost sighed heavily. “We’re working on that, but it’s slow going.
The young man is apparently one of the legacy students, a Choate,
I’m told, and—”
“Choate,” echoed Tyler. “Liam, cross-reference it. Any slurs
leveled to the Perkins family by the Choates or their relatives?
Wouldn’t be in any sort of formal media, but maybe a gossip paper.
Letters, maybe.” His hands were working, fingers moving through the
air, as if he was taking its measure. Was he talking to the Perkins
ghosts again? There was no windstorm, but as Tyler turned and
stared at the wall, the rest of us exchanged uneasy glances.
Frost merely studied Tyler with renewed interest, his dark eyes
narrowed below his bushy brows. He gestured for all of us not to
move, and I realized with a start that Tyler’s eyes looked different.
They were glowing the faintest blue.
“It’s not enough,” Frost agreed, and his words carried a curious
resonance. “How will you find what we need to know?”
“It’s here—the answer’s here. It’s always been here,” Tyler
muttered. His lips tightened, then spoke in a rushing hiss. I was the
closest to him, but I couldn’t make any of them out—though across
the room, Liam’s eyes flew wide. He almost surged forward, but
Frost’s sharp gesture kept him in place.
“Choate…why Choate?” Tyler demanded suddenly, sounding
strangled. His hands were clenched into fists, his face mottled with
fury. He looked…for a moment, he looked exactly like the Boston
Brahmin as he’d glared at me over Betty the barista’s inert body.
“How dare they try this again?”
A whistling wind blew through the room, blasting the books from
their piles on the table and knocking them open, pages whipping in a
frenzy. The computers slid across the table and crashed into each
other, while more books crashed to the floor outside the room and
slid forward, banging into the doorframe of the war room. Frost
pointed with a sharp, discreet gesture, and Liam and Zach surged for
the newly arrived tomes, grabbing them and tossing them onto the
table. The moment the heavy books hit the marble surface, they
flapped open, pages whipping furiously.
The wind stopped. Tyler slumped, and Grim and I bolted forward
to catch him and help him into a chair as Liam fairly leapt onto the
table in his haste to read the books.
“Perkins,” he gasped. These are all references to the Perkins
family—Tyler’s great-great—I don’t know how many generations
back. Obituaries, articles, purchases, and accords…”
“Same thing over here,” Zach said. “Every reference ever written
in the newspapers or journals of the—I guess the 1850s?”
“Dude,” Tyler muttered from his seat at the table. He leaned
forward, his hands flat on the marble surface. “What the hell was
that?”
I blinked at him. “It wasn’t the ghosts?”
“The what? They’re back?” Liam’s head bobbed up from behind
his laptop as Tyler shook his head, wobbling a little.
“No ghosts,” he managed. “Something different.”
“Something quite different,” Frost agreed. “That, Mr. Perkins, was
a spell of discernment the likes of which I haven’t seen in twenty
years—and then by a grand master instructor, not a student.
Information on William Perkins doubtless lies within these books. But
I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury to review them at our leisure.
With the escalation of the Boston Brahmin’s activity, we’ve been
commissioned into battle.”
We all turned and focused on him, Tyler shaking off the
aftereffects of his spell casting. His eyes were still a hazy blue.
“Commissioned by whom?” he asked sharply.
Frost regarded us steadily. “There was a time in the academy’s
distant past when it was held in high esteem by Boston’s elite
magicians, a time when Wellington Academy served a very real and
immediate purpose. That time, it appears, has returned. The first
calls came in around ten a.m. this morning, through channels that
have lain dormant for generations. Monsters have returned to
Boston, and they are attacking the richest and most magical families
in the city. It’s time for us to act.”
 27

O f all the guys, Tyler reacted the most. “The families?” he

asked. “Which ones? What’s the connection between
them? Are there any enemies of the Perkins in there?”
“Unknown,” Frost said, the force of his words making his beard
jerk. “Reports of the Boston Brahmin’s appearance are all over the
place, however, aided in no small part by the disorientation of the
victims. However, what’s clear is that the attacker is dressed like a
member of the elite cast of Bostonians, circa the mid-1800s, that
he’s searching for something, and that he knows the area intimately.
Which led me to my original suspicion that this is no monster, but
some sort of curse laid upon a past generation of the families—a
suspicion which is, frankly, aided by your work here, Mr. Perkins.”
Frost gestured to the books on the table. “But no curse ends up
replicating like this. There’s something more at work.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Liam said. He was rummaging through the
books on the table and pulled one up, spinning it around toward us.
“I mean, if ol’ Willie Perkins has been reanimated, we’re dealing with
necromancy magic, right? We have to be.”
I blinked, and Grim issued a low, feral growl. “Ah, man,” Zach
sighed. “You do not want to get me started on that.”
He spoke with such world-weariness that I shot him a glance.
What horrors had Zach seen as the son of a preacher that I didn’t
even know about? What monsters had he fought before finding his
way to Wellington Academy?
 “It’s possible,” Frost said thoughtfully. “If the original monster was
a cursed member of one of the first families and was awakened,
that’s one thing. But if a necromancer is involved, perhaps raising
some unfortunate soul who had no intention of being raised, then
yes. Yes, there could be a replication.”
“But how does that work?” I protested. “There’s only one
Brahmin, right? So you can only raise him one time. Are the other
versions of him illusions?”
“Not exactly,” Liam said, paging quickly through the book. “More
like overlays. You bring more bodies up, and they get the Boston
Brahmin treatment too. You knock them out, they’re going to turn
back into sweet Aunt Sally and Cousin Jojo. But until they get
walloped…”
He turned to Frost. “Best way to kill a zombie, which is essentially
what we’re dealing with here, is to chop off its head. Those aren’t the
kind of blades you had me bring up.”
“They are not,” agreed Frost. “Because we have two missions
here. The families want us to stop the attacks. We will. The Brahmin
will not survive the day if we hope to retain the monster hunter minor
another year. That’s been made loud and clear: you cannot fuck this
up.”
“Appreciate the vote of confidence,” Tyler drawled, but Frost
waved him quiet.
“This isn’t simple necromancy, however. William Perkins, if that’s
the real identity of the Brahmin, is looking for something. Letters,
from several different accounts. A watch. A ring. There’s a scandal
here, and that scandal is important. To Mr. Lockton’s point, the
monster isn’t to blame here—the magician behind the monster is.
What is his motivation? Because even if we take out the Boston
Brahmin…”
“He’ll try something else,” Tyler said. He was still staring at the
map, as if committing it to memory. “The necromancer. He won’t
stop.”
“He will not. And if he’s able to create multiples of poor Mr.
Perkins, he’s a powerful magician indeed.”
We all considered that for a second, silence heavy in the room.
Then Liam gave a startled, satisfied laugh. “Got it,” he said, spinning
his laptop toward us. A scan of a handwritten letter filled the screen.
“According to the esteemed Griselda Collins, widow of Judge Collins,
mother of approximately fifty-seven children and grandchildren, the
foozler William Perkins died in 1853 from a knife to the heart.
Inflicted by an unknown burglar, it says here, under circumstances
the family deemed private. She thinks he killed himself with drink, but
—there you go. We’ve got our dead guy.”
“Knife to the heart.” Frost nodded. “Then our course is plain. You
have to go out and find these six Boston Brahmins and knife them in
the heart. If they are not the Brahmin, they’ll die regardless, returning
to their natural forms, which at this point will be an advanced stage
of decay and desiccation. If it’s the Boston Brahmin, then the spell
holding him will shatter when you replicate the killing blow.”
“And if he didn’t die from a knife to the heart?” I asked. “What if
William really did drink himself to death?”
Tyler turned to me, twirling one of the jeweled stickpins. “Then
after we’ve tried all the slicing and dicing, we’ll offer the poor man a
shot of whiskey,” he said. He stepped forward and affixed the
stickpin to the collar of my shirt. It lay nearly flat against me, close to
my collarbone. “I’m thinking these are going to be our
communication devices, a little more hands-free than our phones,
and we don’t have the right tech yet for anything more elaborate.”
“Plus, they’re super fancy,” Zach deadpanned, eyeing the pin as
Tyler affixed it to his shirt. Liam picked up another of the artifacts and
tossed one to Grim, who caught it with a slashing movement of his
hand, almost too quick for the eye to follow. He scowled at the piece
of jewelry, but put it on.
“We go out together, as a pack,” Tyler said, and the way the
others turned to him, I got the impression he typically led their hunts
—even though the hunts up to this point had been against fake
monsters. My jaw tightened, as I wondered about his real feelings for
me, but I couldn’t argue with his logic. I had helped the team by
joining the collective. I’d helped him.
Was that all I was supposed to do?
“There are six monsters,” Tyler continued. Are they all working
singly or are any in pairs?”
 “Excellent question,” Frost said. “One pair that we’ve been able to
identify so far, both looking exactly like the Brahmin.”
“Still, that duo probably won’t be our guy,” Zach put in. “He’s
worked alone up to now. Why would he suddenly want to bring on a
partner?”
That logic seemed sound enough, and Frost illuminated a new
set of dots on the screen. “The initial attacks today took place on the
sidewalk beside the Boston Public Garden. Ultimately, that has to be
the origin of the dark magic.”
“It can’t be, though,” Tyler argued. “You’re talking zombies here,
and zombies need cemeteries, or at least a mausoleum. You’re not
going to find that in Boston Public Garden.”
“I am aware of the logistical inconsistencies with this theory,”
Frost informed him, well, frostily. “I’m simply giving you the most
likely locations and a potential reason for them. Since the beginning
of the Boston Brahmin strikes, the garden has remained a primary
origination point. It has also served as such for the monster attacks
separate from the Brahmin. There’s no reason to discount it out of
hand.”
“And at a minimum, it’s a good place to start,” Zach said,
stepping toward the map. His focus distracted us, and I studied him
with a little more appreciation. He had to have drawn our attention on
purpose to deflect the negative vibe growing in the room. Did he
always do that?
“Okay, what’s the closest report to the garden we have?” Tyler
asked. “We’ll start there.”
Frost pointed at the map. “Mt. Vernon Street. The call came in
right before I summoned you. Not an assault, only a sighting. The
families are now on alert.”
I lifted a brow. “You guys have a magical neighborhood watch?”
“You’d be surprised at how helpful it can be.” Tyler laughed. “Let’s
hit it.”
We headed out of the library, looking for all the world like a group
of college students on their way to a two-dollar-beer happy hour. The
knives Liam had dispersed among us were tucked safely in belts and
pockets and in my ubiquitous ankle sheath, snug up against my own
trusty blade. The guys had wanted me to leave my dagger behind,
but that was a nonstarter. I never left home without it. Still, that didn’t
stop them from trying.
“You’ve got to understand,” Liam continued arguing as we hit the
cobblestones, traveling on foot so we could spread out if necessary
at a moment’s alarm. Mt. Vernon Street was barely a mile away, and
we were already moving fast. “Your blade is great, there’s nothing
wrong with it, but it hasn’t been spelled. The blades we got from the
basement have special juju on them. They’re going to be stronger.”
“Then I’ll use that one first,” I replied, easily enough.
“But what if you—”
“She won’t.” To my surprise, it wasn’t Tyler defending me, but
Grim. I glanced over to see his flat, unnervingly pale eyes studying
me, his lips curled in his usual sneer. “She learned a long time ago
how to defend herself against things that go bump in the night.”
The guys all accepted this, but I found myself glancing away,
trying to parse out Grim’s words. They sounded sexual to me…but
everything sounded sexual to me lately. And of all the guys, Grim
was not on my radar for that. Seriously. Never mind that he was big,
powerful, vital, and real. Never mind that I suspected he also had
scars on his body he couldn’t remember having gotten. Never mind
that the idea of his huge, calloused hands closing around my
shoulders, pulling me close enough to smell the fire and cinnamon of
his skin, to taste the salt and anger on his lips, to—
Dear Lord, will you stop. I shook myself, hard. Here I was on my
first group monster hunt, and all I could concentrate on was how
impossibly strange it felt to be with four different guys who turned me
on. I refocused on Tyler, not missing the way my heart surged when I
considered him anew…or the whiff of betrayal that now chased that
swell of attraction. He’d always seemed larger than life to me, but…
was I seeing the true him? Not a boyfriend at all, but a leader—first,
last, and always? Giving orders, he strode as quickly as Grim, and
moved to the front of our pack as soon as we cleared the walls of the
academy.
We reached Mt. Vernon Street a few short minutes later, and I
exhaled on a low whistle, glancing around.
“Well, if he’s hunting the upper crust of Boston, he certainly came
to the right place,” I allowed.
 “Not just the upper crust,” Liam agreed. “The top one percent of
all magical families in the city.”
“He’s got good taste, I’ll give him that,” Zach said as he nodded
to several people puttering in their tiny gardens or walking along the
sidewalks.
“Don’t they know there’s an alert out?” I asked.
Tyler shook his head. “Sometimes you can’t fight stupid.”
“But it serves us well,” Grim countered. “There’s something
watching them besides us.”
Tyler turned ever so slightly. “Where?”
“One of the yards ahead.” I was the one who spoke, and Grim
nodded.
“Just one, I think, not a pair.”
“Got him,” Tyler murmured. “His energy’s high. Excited, not
panicked. Not afraid. This thing isn’t worried about dying. I don’t think
it even knows that’s a possibility.”
“Bravado?” Liam asked, clearly mentally cataloging the reactions
of our target.
“Controlled,” Tyler clarified. “These things aren’t rational, they’re
vessels for another person’s magic. And they’re already dead,
despite all appearances. May not make taking him down any easier,
though.”
As we spoke, we all moved forward, maintaining an easy walk. In
this regard, the blitheness of our fellow walkers was in our favor as
we all moved casually down the street.
“Gardener?” Grim asked as we approached a deep-set mansion
with a surprisingly wide yard. There were trees and ornamental
hedges, and I saw the same man Grim had, with his long pair of
pruning shears. There was definitely a weird energy around him…
“I don’t think so,” Tyler murmured. “Look beside him, in the chair.”
I squinted, and Tyler was right. There was a second person in the
front yard with the worker, an old man, wizened and frail, sitting in a
rolling chair.
“He’s not the Brahmin. No way,” Liam breathed. “Zombies don’t
sit that still.”
“Shut it, Liam,” Tyler said tersely. “All of us head that way. Easy
now, easy.”
 We were still a house away when the bushes beside the
gardener and the old man exploded, and a figure leapt out. I got a
flash of a top hat and flying, glossy tails, then Tyler and Grim surged
forward. I picked up speed as well, but I couldn’t believe how fast
they moved. Grim ran like he was born to the hunt, but Tyler was a
revelation.
He launched like a sprinter out of the blocks and ate up the
ground between him and the monster, knocking it flat as Grim
reached his side. The old man screeched in fear, drawing the
attention of the neighborhood walkers, but with one vicious plunge,
Tyler lashed out, his blade driving into the chest of the tall, gangly
aristocratic form struggling on the ground. I rushed forward to catch
a glimpse of the creature’s face, but it was shaking it too fast, all the
features blurring.
There was a whoosh of released air, then something hard
crashed—the yard worker, I realized as I raced past him, fainted
dead away. The old man stared with horror as Tyler stood, while
Grim squatted down to the pile of bones and dust at his feet. The
body had already all but disappeared into the dirt—the fastest
decomposition act I’d ever seen.
“Decent compost, anyway,” Liam observed, and Zach punched
him in the shoulder.
“Jonathan! Jonathan.” The old man’s thin voice startled us all,
and he struggled out of his chair as Zach shifted over to him, giving
him an arm to lean on.
“Jonathan,” the old man shouted again, and the gardener on the
ground stirred. Liam squatted to help him up.
Then the old man turned with a sharp, fierce glower, strong
enough that even the most curious of the watchers flinched. “Stop
your gawking,” he shouted to his neighbors. “Be about your
business.”
It was a testament to the man’s tone and perhaps his reputation
on this block that the flood of curious onlookers stepped back. And in
fact, the Boston Brahmin had attacked so quickly, anyone would
have been hard-pressed to believe much of anything had
happened…especially if they didn’t notice the small pile of bones
and ash at Grim’s and Tyler’s feet.
 The old man turned and glowered at us. “You’re from
Wellington?”
Tyler nodded. “We can’t stay.”
“Well, I should say not. Be off with you, and if you want to know
my thinking on it, target the Saltonsalls’ mansion, or the place that
Ames upstart ruined. Fools, the both of them. You’re a Perkins,
right? You should know the truth of it.”
“I know where they are,” Tyler said, but I was watching the old
man. It wasn’t the location he was referring to with the word “truth.”
“I don’t know, though,” I said quickly. “Why them?”
The old man turned and stared at me, clearly realizing for the first
time that there was a female member of this group. He didn’t sneer,
but his expression turned crafty.
“So that’s the way of it,” he muttered, without answering my
question. “This will get worse before it gets better.”
Frost’s gruff voice suddenly sounded in our head. Inside our
heads. Not crackling from our fancy little totems, but right inside our
brains, or at least inside mine. “We’ve got another hit,” he said, and
rattled off an address.
“The Willow House,” Tyler said aloud, and the old man, who
presumably was not privy to our internal conversation, nodded, his
eyes as hard as coal.
“Willow House now, maybe. The Saltonsalls owned it originally.
Someone’s being tricky.” He shooed us off imperiously. “Go on, then.
The last thing we need is a sensation.”
Fortunately, this part of the Boston elite neighborhood was fairly
compact. The Willow House was only a couple of blocks over, Frost
informed us, and Tyler and Grim took off immediately, barking orders
for the rest of us to circle around from the other direction. If they
found the monsters, they would herd them toward us, sandwiching
the monsters between us. It was a good plan, but I was still out of
breath by the time we reached the Willow House. This time, there
was no question of what we were looking for. Two men dressed in
Victorian suits and top hats were at the top of the street, running
hard, and a couple lay crumpled in the street, apparently attacked as
they’d gotten out of their car.
 “Go,” Zach shouted, stopping to assist the injured parties as the
rest of us charged off down the street.
Tyler once more led, but it was Grim and Liam who buried their
blades in the creatures, Grim from the front, Liam from about fifteen
paces distant as he whipped the knife out in a sharp, decisive throw.
Both monsters dissolved into bones again, then burst into dust
before they even hit the pavement. There was nothing left behind but
Liam’s and Grim’s blades, shining in the sunlight.
“Nice throw,” Tyler offered, and Liam grinned.
“Just because it’s not a throwing knife doesn’t mean you can’t
toss it,” he said smugly.
Zach hustled up to us as sirens sounded in the distance, then
were immediately cut off.
“They’ll be fine,” he shared. “They have no idea why they were
attacked. They hadn’t been paying attention to the reports, didn’t
even know the reports were out there, but they practically bled blue.
The men in the suits screeched at them, said this poor, hapless,
confused couple wouldn’t bring down the family name, then they
struck, breaking off almost as quickly. The couple didn’t know how
their attackers got startled off, but they were happy enough about it,
and I made sure they didn’t see them go poof.” He shook his head.
“Again, they had no idea what was going on, that was for sure. I get
the feeling the magical families of Boston aren’t as connected as
we’d like to think they are.”
“Maybe because the couple was younger,” I pointed out. “The old
man seemed pretty on top of things.”
“That he did,” Tyler said. “We’ll be circling back to him, after all
this is done.”
Grim grunted from where he was examining the quickly
dissolving remains. “Sulfur,” he said. “They stink of it. These bones
were burned at one point.”
I made a face. “Who does that?”
“Necromancers do,” Liam muttered as he yanked bags out of his
pocket. “We need to get samples, and then we need to get the hell
out of here. That old man may be able to convince his gardener that
he’s got some fancy new compost on hand for the short term, but
there’s no denying these are human remains. With all due respect to
the deceased, we need to examine them. Because Boston Brahmin
or no, somebody is using necromancy, and if the old stories are true,
that sort of shit is going to bring monsters out quicker than anything.”
“You’ve got that right,” Zach said. Between the two of them, they
gathered up bits of bone and dust before they completely
disintegrated, stowing the small packets in Liam’s pack.
“But what—” I began.
My words were cut off as Frost spoke in our heads again, his
words tight with urgency. “I need you front and center, the Reid
mansion,” he said. “There’s been another attack. A bad one. This is
starting to feel like someone’s cleaning house.”
 28

“W hat is with this guy?” I protested as we headed off. “If

he’s attacking people at will, we’re screwed. We can’t
keep up with that.”
“Oh, I’m sure if we don’t knock him out today, the academy will
waste no time informing the families of our incompetence,” Tyler said
drily. “I’d like to avoid that.”
Something about that rubbed me the wrong way. Was it seriously
all about his family, the academy, and his precious monster hunter
minor? Did he not care about protecting people too?
“We have to distract him, throw him off his game,” Zach agreed,
interrupting my mad. “If all the attacks up to this point were simply
priming the pump for this run on the families, what’s going to disrupt
that?”
“Bait,” Grim said. I could feel his gaze on me, but he wasn’t
wrong. Right now, it was probably my best skill, as sad as that was.
“Okay, fair enough, but that means we need to take this thing out
for good before it runs back to its hidey-hole in the park,” I said. “And
there’s still three versions of it out there. What’s the attack at the
Reid house, a single monster or multiples?”
“Single,” Frost reported in our heads, clearly following our
conversation. “Which means there’s an unaccounted-for pair out
there, probably close by.”
“Roger that,” Tyler said. We took off, angling through the
gorgeous neighborhood, chock-full of brownstones and brick walls
behind which loomed more stately mansions. Finally, we rounded a
corner, and Grim turned sharply, his head tilting almost like a dog
scenting prey. Not for the first time, I wondered how he’d gained his
tracking skills. I remembered the glimpse I’d caught of the scar
ripped into his chest. It hadn’t looked man-made.
“That direction,” he said.
Tyler didn’t hesitate. “Nina, you’re with Grim and me. Zach and
Liam, go wide and circle around. If we’re going to draw out these
things, we’ll have our best luck in the park.
“Agreed,” Liam said. He and Zach dashed down an alley.
“Meanwhile, we slow down,” Tyler said. I didn’t even try to argue.
I was already wheezing my guts out, as much as that annoyed me. I
generally prided myself on being a good runner, but these guys were
kicking my ass.
“Suck it up, buttercup.” Tyler chuckled, while Grim edged ahead. I
waved off his words, not willing to point out that only one of us had
recently leveled up as a result of the collective’s unique side effects.
“I’m working on it,” I muttered, but there was enough of an edge
to my words that Tyler heard it. He glanced my way, then slowed a
half-step.
“Hey,” he said, and it was a credit to him that he sounded
legitimately concerned. “What’s wrong?”
I opened my mouth—then shut it again. I wasn’t good at
relationships with boys. I wasn’t good with relationships, period. I
was alone in the world, and no pinky-swearing, arm-clasping, wall-
climbing, swamp-monster-fighting ritual in an academy rec room was
going to make that fact magically go away. “Nothing,” I muttered.
“Just trying to process all of it.”
“No, it’s more than that.” Tyler peered at me harder, his eyes
sharpening. The softest hint of blue flared in those whiskey irises—
and that was enough to send me around the bend.
“Stop it,” I snapped. “Stop it right there. You don’t have my
permission to use your magical mojo on me, especially because I
was the one who helped you unlock that mojo. I think it’s great that
you’re playing leader of the band here, and I’m happy to fight with
you. But not because I give a shit about the academy and its
problems or your precious monster hunter program. I’m doing it
because these monsters are hurting people, Tyler. They’re making
them bleed, they may even be killing them. That’s why we have to
fight monsters, okay? It’s the only reason why. And if you’re too
caught up in your personal mission to be Best Perkins Descendent
ever, you’re going to fuck up, and more people are going to get hurt.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tyler shot right back. “I
pulled you out of a monster’s mouth. I gave you a place to learn–”
“And why did you do that, anyway?” I countered, my own mad
building. Around us, the trees shimmied a little in the breeze,
blossoms starting to dance and swirl. “Was it just to be a nice guy?
To show off how much you know about hunting monsters, and
eventually, to add me to your monster hunting squad? If so, hey, I
get it. You don’t know me. You sure as hell don’t owe me anything—
but—”
“Guys,” Zach’s voice came over the speakers, and Tyler and I
both jolted. I barely avoided slapping my hand over my mouth, and
Tyler’s ears went bright red as his eyes shot wide.
“There’s a ton of static coming over the wires,” Zach continued.
“We can’t hear a damned thing you’re saying. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Tyler said, eyeing me for approval and looking
certifiably miserable as he did so. I nodded vigorously. “Keep
focused. We’re almost there.”
“Got it,” Zach said. “We’re coming around, but slower, watching
everything.”
Instead of moving forward, however, Tyler stopped. He pulled out
his phone and typed something on it, then showed it to me. Okay to
spell this shit off for a second?
I nodded, surprised, and Tyler breathed something long and Latin
sounding.
Zach’s voice crackled in my ears immediately. “Yo—you there?
Dammit, we’ve lost Tyler and Nina, it’s totally dead.”
Tyler ignored them both, turning to face me square. “Hey,” he
said, his eyes wide, focused, and oddly bright, but not with magic
this time. “Nina. We can’t do this now, but we do need to do this. You
deserve better from me, better than I’m able to give.”
Something in his voice cut deep into me, poking at the lonely,
isolated girl I’d once been—the lonely woman I still was. “Tyler, I—”
 “You’re right,” he said, the admission seeming wrung out of him.
“I’d do anything to be a better leader, to show everyone that I’m not
just some silver spoon who lucked into this family and this school. I
know Wellington Academy can be big—huge—again. It’s all I ever
think about, all I ever wanted. But you’re wrong about you, Nina. I
want you to be a part of our team, to be safe and to help us be
strong, but I want you for more than that. I want to help you be
strong, too. To show you how important you are, how amazing. I
just…”
He set his jaw and glanced away, then glanced back to me. “I
guess I’m not all that great at it.” He reached out and brushed a lock
of hair back from my face, and the sizzling fire of our connection
crackled between us. Suddenly, a lifetime of images flowed over me
—Tyler in his room, studying, training. Tyler as a young boy running
with Liam, both of them so fierce and determined. Tyler, hunched in
his room, his hands shoved over his ears as the ghosts of Perkins
past howled around him, clamoring to be heard. As lonely as my life
had been—how had his been any better?
“Guys,” Zach’s voice cut in again, and Tyler’s lips twitched as he
muttered a soundless spell. Then he straightened, turning away.
“We’re back,” he told Zach. “Not sure why these comm units are
glitching, but we’ve got you now.” He glanced forward and gestured
me ahead. “We’re catching up to Grim now.”
I blinked. Grim had stopped at the corner, obviously waiting for
us, and Tyler and I hustled forward. I’d nearly recovered my
composure by the time we reached him, and Grim lifted his hand to
slow us down. Unfortunately, it was right as I swayed toward him,
and his fingers drifted along my bare upper arm. A jolt of energy shot
through me.
“Whoa,” I managed.
To my surprise, Grim looked slightly abashed.
“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “Not intentional.”
“No, man, that’s excellent,” Tyler said, his voice only slightly
clipped, earning him a sharper glance from Grim. Tyler turned to me,
nodded. “Grim’s a hunter from the old school. He’s legit electric when
there’s a target in sight. Which is awesome—it means we’re close.”
 I gave him what I hoped was a bolstering smile. “Good,” I said.
“We’re good—”
I didn’t get a chance to say more. Without any further warning,
two Victorian-dressed males, barely more than skeletons but
practically bursting with magic, exploded through the hedgerow
beside us. They moved so fast, it was like being attacked by a
windstorm. The first one got his hands on me, while the second,
screaming like a banshee, blundered into Tyler and Grim.
“Avoid the skin,” Tyler yelled, and I twisted away, hopping for a
few seconds as I reached down to my ankle for my knife. But I’d
forgotten there were two blades stuck in the small sheath, and both
went flying as I fumbled for them.
Freaking fantastic.
I sucked in a deep breath, knowing what I needed to do as Tyler
and Grim grappled with their attacker. No matter how wrung out I
was, how tired, bait was made to be chased. So by God, I needed to
—
Run! My mother screamed in my head.
I took off. Tyler shouted an alarm, but Grim howled with
something far more animalistic that chilled me to my core. I didn’t
have time to turn around, however. I pounded down the street, the
Brahmin hot on my heels. I could practically feel its breath as it
barked and snarled at me. It was far more feral than it should be for
something supposedly humanoid, but there was no doubt it was in
shape. And I was flagging fast, the effects of the previous run almost
immediately catching up to me. I doubled down, trying to go for
another burst of speed, when I felt something grab hold of my
ponytail, jerking it back hard. My feet went out from under me, and I
went airborne.
A second later, I crunched heavily to the ground, the wind
knocked out of me. The creature loomed large, mouth open, teeth
bared. It did look like a man, I decided, an old man with sunken eyes
and hollowed-out cheeks. Its mouth gaped wider, glorying in its kill,
its expression identical to the creature I’d seen looming over Betty. A
shout rang out behind it, then the Boston Brahmin’s eyes widened as
I heard a solid thunk—a thunk I sincerely hoped was a thrown blade
burying itself between the creature’s shoulder blades.
 It yelped something inarticulate as Tyler’s voice jolted through
me, howling something I couldn’t understand on an intellectual level,
but that certainly registered on my limbic brain. I rolled out of the
way, the sum total of my physical capacity at that point, but not in
time. The creature exploded into dust and gore over me.
The gore burned like acid.
“Grim, get it off her, get her clothes,” Tyler shouted, or at least
that’s what I heard. Both guys dragged me into the trees. I stared at
them in a daze as they wiped roughly at my face and arms, scraping
up my shirt, then the shirt went too. That’s when I noticed that the
guys were shirtless too.
“Goddammit, you guys have all the fun.” Liam protested, and he
pounded up a second later. “I’ve got you covered, literally,” he said.
And a second later, I was treated to a face full of holy water spray. I
was able to open my mouth again and sputter, but Liam was already
working on my arms and hands.
“Good thing you wear jeans. Yoga pants are shit for this kind of
thing,” he said, while beside us, Tyler and Grim pulled on new shirts,
Grim turning away. I got the barest glimpse of thick, ugly scars
ripped across his back, then he straightened and I refocused on
Liam.
“Two more exploded zombies, but not the right one,” Liam said,
half to me and half to Frost on the line. “We’re still not any closer to
our guy.”
“Not entirely,” Zach said, still hovering over the newest skeleton
as it slowly sunk into the ground. “He’ll be back. He may be near us
right now, actually.”
He stood and proffered something shiny, a gold ring. “We’ve gotta
be getting closer. You know how our Brahmin was trying to recover
something? Well, this version of him succeeded.”
“What is that, a signet ring?” Liam asked.
“Minus its ring finger, yup.” Zach pointed to the ground, and I
winced as Liam knelt to bag the finger. “Hate to tell you this, Tyler,
but…” He handed the ring over.
“The initials W and P,” Tyler said, squinting down at it. “And that’s
our crest. Hello, William. Pleasure to meet you.” He sighed. “Looks
like it’s my family caught up in this mess, for sure.”
 My heart twisted, hearing the self-judgment in his voice. All he
wanted to do was lead his team to victory, but he was being blocked
at every turn. First I lit into him with my meltdown—which deserved
or not, was poorly timed—and now he was faced with literal
skeletons from his family’s closet.
Liam put out his hand. “Gimme,” he said, and Tyler passed the
ring to him. Liam tucked it into his bag like it was the Hope Diamond.
“I vote we get an Uber to take us the rest of the way to the Reid
mansion.”
“I can walk—” I began, but Tyler already was pulling his phone
out.
“Save your breath—we all may need it,” he said. After he’d
punched something into his phone, a car appeared so quickly from
around the corner that I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. We piled in
without further discussion, with Tyler barking orders. A few minutes
later we reached the far end of the park, and turned onto yet another
cobblestone street lined with stately mansions.
“Here we go,” Tyler said as we exited the car, Grim jerking away
from me like our close proximity burned him. Well, join the flippin’
crowd. Tyler stood a little distance away from me, his shoulders
squared, his jaw set. “This is it. I know it.”
“We’re off the main grid,” Liam said, studying his phone. “These
homes don’t belong to the first families, not anymore. There’s
something going on here.”
“But we’re definitely close,” Grim said quietly.
“What do you know about the Reid House?” Tyler asked
suddenly, speaking to Frost. “Is there anything in the books?”
“Nothing so far,” Frost said. “Which is a red flag right there.
Someone has buried any information about them. I’ll keep looking,
but there’s a lot of material to go through.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zach said. “I’m with Grim. This thing is nearby,
and closing fast.”
“Let me go out ahead,” I blurted. “It’s probably going to be drawn
to me.”
“No,” Tyler countered immediately, but I turned to him.
“Yes,” I assured him, giving him a smile I truly meant. “I won’t be
that far ahead, and you and Grim will be right there. You’ll reach me
in time if something goes sideways—and you’ll be great. I know you
will.”
“Nina—” Tyler began and there was something in his voice that
rippled through me, making my heart tug, hard. Not giving him a
chance to say anything more, I turned away and hustled down the
street, grateful I was able to hide my reaction from the other guys. It
wasn’t that I was embarrassed at Tyler’s obvious affection for me. It
was that when he’d looked at me, the intensity of his emotions had
been multiplied three times over by the reactions of the others.
They were all genuinely worried about me, even Grim, though I
suspected he would never admit it. Their concern should have made
me more nervous, but it totally didn’t. Up to this point, I’d only fought
monsters alone. Now I had an entire team to help me take them
down or fight them off. That was a whole new ball game.
Tyler spoke in my ear. “The Reid House is down the street and to
the right. It’s got gated walls. If the Boston Brahmin is there, he won’t
be on the inside. He’ll be hunting, and probably pissed. Him or
whoever is behind him.”
“Got it,” I nodded.
“I’m right behind you. I sent Grim around the other way, so he’ll
have eyes on you when you turn the corner. Okay, there, easy does
it.”
I continued on for the couple of minutes it took me to stroll
leisurely down the block, trying hard to emote victim. I palmed my
knife, tossed my hair, swung my arms, and generally acted as
carefree and happy as any young college girl would be caught up in
her first crush—other than the knife part. I was in such a good mood,
I turned the corner without thinking too much about it, only to hear
Grim’s sharp, muttered curse in my mind. “Fuck.”
That was all the warning I had.
Once again, the thing that attacked me from point-blank range
seemed to be the mirror image of the creature I’d seen standing over
Betty. I snapped my wrist and slid my knife forward, feeling the
familiar heft of it in my grasp. It was the iron knife I always carried
with me, not the spelled one. It simply felt more natural, as did the
wide slashing arc I executed to back the thing up.
 Only now that I got a good look at this version of the Boston
Brahmin, I realized it had changed—and not for the better. Its face
was decaying, its eyes bugging wide and almost manic. It took the
slash without stopping, its thick layers of clothes ripping, and I
wasted precious seconds yanking my knife free—
Then it was on me.
I’d been nearly killed three times in my life by monsters, at least
so far as I could remember. One resulted in a bite mark on my right
side as I’d struggled to get away. I’d managed to club that monster to
death with a metal crowbar, but had nearly bled out before someone
had found me. The other two times had been neck wringers, and this
bastard, with his long fingers, seemed to prefer that method as well.
He sunk his hands around my neck, somehow almost seeming to
encircle it twice, and stared at me, his voice ringing with pain as he
howled.
“You dare! You dare try to steal from me—from my family! Your
trick will not succeed—never! You will never bring shame to—”
“William!” Tyler called out behind me, and the old man’s rheumy
eyes snapped up, his brows shooting skyward. “William, it’s okay. I
got your ring back—the letters too. The watch. We’re safe.”
“You lie—” the Brahmin wheezed. “You all are lying to me.”
“Not lying.” My voice cracking with effort as I struggled to breathe,
I wrapped my hands around the Brahmin’s bony wrists. The chill
from the resurrected bones leached through me, but I pressed on.
“Tyler is the best Perkins that ever lived. A born leader, a born
fighter. Someone who’ll make you all proud.”
“A Perkins,” the Brahmin breathed, his hands beginning to shake,
though they didn’t loosen their hold on my throat. “Not one of those
squatters trying to t-take advantage of our family.”
“Not even close,” Tyler said, stepping closer. “I’m a Perkins, just
like you. And the family’s safe, thanks to you. You fought hard to
save our honor. Very hard. Because you aren’t just born a Perkins,
right? You have to earn the right.”
“You do,” the Brahmin breathed, quivering with feeling. “You verily
do.”
It still didn’t let go of me, unfortunately, and something shifted in
its expression. Smoke began to seep out of its face as William’s thin,
aristocratic image was replaced with a black, gaping maw. And this
guy was definitely not a Perkins.
Uh-oh.
“You dare…” it hissed, glaring down at me with eyes as dark as
midnight, smoke billowing forth—
I was ready for it this time, though. While Tyler had done the
world’s best job of distracting the creature, I’d managed to close my
fingers around my knife again, and now I turned and buried it deep in
the Boston Brahmin’s chest.
Its hands fell away, its howl little more than a bubbling gasp—
Then it collapsed.
 29

A sonic boom seemed to shake the entire street as the

monster dropped to the sidewalk. I swung away from the
guys, from the monster, as everyone burst into motion while
all I could focus on was the screaming in my ears.
“Run!” my mother shouted. “Promise me.”
“You dare,” the monster’s voice echoed from the corpse. I’d
expected it to catch on fire, to explode—but instead the corpse rolled
over, staring at me with wide, frozen eyes. “You dare,” it seethed
again. Didn’t this thing know when to die?
Tyler seemed to be reaching for me too, but he was too far away.
I felt like I was floundering through Jell-O, trying to reach him, but he
kept hovering out of reach. His face blanked with real fear as he
turned toward me with a panic that I felt all the way to my bones. He
blamed himself for this, I knew. He felt he’d failed me.
I needed to do better.
I would do better. For him…and for his team. My team, too.
For now, anyway.
Forever?
“Nina,” Tyler whispered.
“Run,” my mother tried again—but her voice was falling away…
Time rushed forward again, and I jerked back to awareness as
Liam turned toward us and pocketed his phone. “They’re on their
way,” he reported, and I shook my head, hard. Clearly I’d missed
some critical seconds in the transition.
 “Who?”
“The kind of cleaners magical families require to take care of their
messes,” Tyler said. “We didn’t want to leave Willie to decompose on
his own.” I could feel his focus on me, warm and sure, while I peered
around curiously.
The only onlookers we’d drawn were the upper crust
homeowners of this neighborhood, silent witnesses who stood and
watched as Grim and Zach covered the body with tarps pulled from
Liam’s backpack. They continued watching as a large, unmarked
conversion van pulled up.
“Cleaners, you said?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Liam said, practically bouncing. “I’ve never seen
these guys in the wild, but I knew they existed. The families used to
employ them all the time, when magic was a bit more…loosely
regulated. The fact that Frost had them on speed dial still is pretty
friggin’ awesome.”
Three people exited the van, two men and one woman, all of
them dressed in dark-gray coveralls, gloves, and knit caps. They
nodded to Tyler, then moved smartly to the tarp-covered body,
shooting a questioning glance at Liam as he stood back.
“Keep it,” Liam said. Then he checked himself. “Can I have your
card?”
A brief flash of gray card stock appeared in one of the workers’
hands, which then disappeared inside Liam’s backpack.
Was he planning to follow up on the removal process of the
monster? Or was he collecting new names for his contact list? In any
event, the body looked like it was already well on its way to
disintegration, based on the diminishing size of the figure wrapped
up in plastic.
Tyler followed my gaze as I watched them load it into the van.
“Decomp is already happening. Sort of like any monster, yeah?
This poor guy was human, but he’d been made into…something
else.”
I nodded, shifting closer to him. It felt good to be on the other side
of a monster fight. And even better to not be alone.
“Let’s go,” Tyler put in quietly. “These people watching us aren’t
moving until we do, I don’t think.”
 “Kind of creepy, you ask me,” Zach said under his breath as we
turned and began walking away.
“Well, they haven’t seen hunters in a while,” Liam offered.
“That they haven’t,” Tyler agreed. “And remember what Frost said
—we’ve got nothing on this family. So having this scene play out on
their doorstep is probably throwing everyone off a little bit.”
“Why here?” I asked, squinting at the house. “This isn’t even in
Beacon Hill. Why did the Brahmin end up here?”
Tyler blew out a long breath, but before he could speak, Frost’s
voice crackled in our ears.
“I may have the answer to that,” he said heavily. “But get back
here first. Don’t rush, don’t draw attention. But get here.”
Obligingly, we made our way back to campus at a normal pace,
for which I was eternally grateful. By the time the walls of Wellington
Academy came into view, my adrenaline rush had nearly evened out.
I couldn’t help the sense of apprehension that I had, though, as I
approached the campus.
“So what happens now?” I asked. “After I kill a monster, or at
least chase one off, I usually treat myself to junk food and crawl into
bed for a while, if I can. But is there actually, like, a protocol you’re
supposed to follow here?”
That question stopped all the guys, and we paused at the
threshold of Wellington Academy, a school that had been founded
originally to do exactly what we’d done today: hunt and kill monsters.
But nobody knew what to do next.
Frost broke in. “An excellent question, Ms. Cross. One that our
students haven’t had to deal with for quite some time. But there is a
protocol, reports to be filed, and an after-action review is to be
completed. That’s why I needed you return. Report to the library. I’ve
canceled your classes for the rest of the day.”
We headed into the campus and down the main street, but
everything was different. There were as many students as there
always were, but, much like the people at the Reid House, they
looked at us oddly. Some of them surreptitiously, over their coffee
cups and books, some of them more deliberately. Some of them
curious; some of them openly hostile.
 “Did we miss a memo?” Zach asked. “The last time I got
eyeballed like this, I was standing beneath a church revival tent
facing rumors I was the antichrist.”
“There are probably parallels,” Liam chuckled. “I bet the word got
out.”
“How?” I protested. “Nobody knew where we were going, and it’s
not like the Reids’ neighbors had a phone tree set up.”
“Wellington Academy was first and foremost a monster hunting
academy set up to protect the richest and most powerful families in
Boston,” Tyler said thoughtfully. “What if it’s something that’s
hardwired into the system? What if all of Wellington’s students could
be mobilized if needed?”
Grim stirred beside us. “That would be a very bad thing.”
Zach nodded. “You’ve got that right. These guys aren’t equipped
to do what we do. Hell, half the students here think monsters are
little more than oversized teddy bears. If something actually tapped
their limbic brain to go to war, they’d probably freak out.”
“Guys, I think it’d be a good idea if we got to the library sooner
rather than later,” Liam murmured.
I felt it too, the encroaching awareness of the students, and
another pressure I didn’t recognize. Was it the school itself? The
creatures we kept in the monster quad?
By the time we reached Lowell Library, my skin was crawling.
Tyler opened the door, but before we could enter, someone called
out. “Mr. Perkins.”
We all turned. At the bottom of the steps stood a man in a
somber charcoal gray suit, his face aristocratic, his hair slicked back
with the barest hint of silver at the temples.
Tyler visibly started. “Mr. Wellington,” he said. My eyes widened
at the name.
“I understand you’ve had a bit of excitement today,” said the man,
who was maybe, what…the owner of the school? I stared. “All of
you.” His gaze lingered on us, finally coming to rest on me. If he was
surprised to be meeting the newest student at Wellington Academy,
he didn’t betray it.
“We haven’t had to file a formal report for some time,” he
continued. “I trust Dean Robbins has given you the information you
need?”
I barely restrained a frown before remembering Dean Robbins
was actually in charge of the monster hunting minor, not Commander
Frost. Tyler, however, recovered smoothly.
“All the paperwork will be filed by the end of the day,” he assured
Mr. Wellington. “We look forward to any counsel that will improve our
handling of such matters going forward.”
Wellington’s brows lifted. “You expect there to be additional
opportunities to field-test your skills?” He spoke with supercilious
condescension, but I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking Tyler or
truly curious. He might simply speak asshole as a first language.
Tyler shrugged. “I couldn’t say, but we’re here, and we’re trained.
We’ll serve the school as well as we can, for as long as we can.”
“I see,” Wellington said, his eyes narrowing for a second. His
expression cleared. “But carry on, all of you. The initial reports I’m
receiving have been quite positive, and if it wasn’t the sum total of
your purpose at this academy, I would say congratulations are in
order. As it is, you apparently comported yourself well today, at least
pending a full review. I look forward to following up with Dean
Robbins.”
Tyler shot him a megawatt smile, so blinding in its enthusiasm
that even Wellington’s lips twitched upward in response. What was
this, some sort of new magic that Tyler had dialed in to? If so, it was
powerful stuff.
Wellington gave the rest of us a brief nod. “Gentlemen, and Ms.
… Cross, is it?” he asked, once more settling his gaze on me. It felt
cold, with a touch of steel. I nodded and smiled back.
“That’s right,” I said and left it at that.
“Indeed,” Wellington said. “We’ll be seeing more of you, I
suspect.”
He turned away, effectively releasing us from his spell—or what
felt like a spell, anyway. I didn’t know what Wellington or anyone in
the administration might want with me…but I had a feeling I wasn’t
going to enjoy finding out.
 30

W e all seemed to feel the same level of oppression from

Mr. Wellington’s surprise appearance. We headed out
again, not saying anything more until after we entered
the library and crossed the main foyer, heading for the war room
deep in the stacks.
“Well, that was pretty creepy,” Zach said finally, breaking our
silence.
“I’m not liking all the Dean Robbins references either,” Liam said.
“He’s a waste of skin.”
“Well, he’s skin that we need to pay more attention to,” Tyler said,
his words thoughtful. “Like it or not, he’s in charge. In fact, it wouldn’t
surprise me…”
Grim lifted his head. “You’re right,” he grunted. “We’ll be watched
the moment we enter that room.”
“Ditch the pins now,” Tyler said tightly. Minding the cameras, we
pulled the jeweled communicators free and handed them over to
Liam, who shoved them into his bag.
I swiveled my gaze between the two guys, but didn’t have time to
ask any questions before we entered the war room.
It had undergone a massive transformation. Gone were the
jumbles of old texts and scrolls, the souped-up, industrial strength
laptops, and the lit-up screens. Instead, five very ordinary-looking
campus laptops lined the table. Frost sat to the side, not paying any
attention to us, apparently texting his bestie on his phone. But the
real star of the room was a man who had to be Dean Robbins. Tall
and painfully thin, with paper-white skin, an unexpectedly pink,
pursed mouth, and heavily hooded eyes, he peered at us down a
long patrician nose and equally pointed chin. His closely cropped
hair was so dark, it seemed nearly blue in the fluorescent lights, and
he wore a fussy, gray, well-tailored suit with the kind of ease that
made me wonder if he ever took it off. He looked like a particularly
ugly mannequin in an off-priced men’s store display. I’d never seen
him before, and he didn’t pay me any attention.
“Before you prepare your reports, gentlemen…” He paused, his
gaze finally slithering to me, then back to Tyler without
acknowledging me further. “I have only one question. How did you
know the attacks were happening?”
That question was so open-ended that it was impossible to tell
where it was leading, but once again, Tyler had a ready response.
“We didn’t,” he said. “We were off campus, heading for lunch, and
the monsters found us. Or at least the first one did.” He shook
himself. “It was pretty intense. After that, I can’t really describe it, and
obviously, we’ll make it sound more official, but it was like we knew.
All those tracking classes paying off, I guess. But we understood we
had to follow them and pick them off one by one, all the way to Reid
mansion.”
Robbins’s brows lifted. “And how were you able to identify it as
the Reid house? That family hasn’t been part of Boston society for
generations.”
“We didn’t. These guys did, after the fact,” Liam lied smoothly. In
his hand, he held the cleaners’ card, and I forced myself not to stare.
“You may want to talk to them. They seemed way more in the know
than we were.”
The card, strangely enough, seemed to please Robbins.
“Thank you, Mr. Graham,” he said, taking the card after Liam
walked it over to him. “Very well. Reports, all of you, except Ms.
Cross.”
He slid his gaze toward me, his expression cold and distant.
“Your status here as an adjunct student does not require paperwork.
In fact, I believe you have an Introduction to Arcane Languages
course right now. I suggest you get to it.”
 I opened my mouth to protest, but Robbins continued. “You
should be aware that you are here under the graces of Wellington
Academy. However, your admission on this campus is highly
irregular. We wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize your
continued enrollment. I understand from Mr. Perkins that it is for your
own safety that you gain some rudimentary training, but we can only
stretch the goodwill of the academy so far.”
I plastered a bright smile on my face and avoided looking at Tyler,
though I could feel a renewed fury radiating off him.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll see you guys later.”
Frost stirred as I stood up. “I’ll walk Ms. Cross to her classroom,”
he announced. “She probably doesn’t have the lay of the academy
yet, and I don’t want her to get lost.”
“Good,” Robbins said, practically rubbing his hands with glee
while the guys shot Frost sideways glances and Grim huffed a short,
disgusted breath. Apparently, escaping Robbins was tops on
everyone’s mind, but the guys were stuck. Frost and I moved out of
the chamber without further delay as Robbins started in again.
“Dickhead,” Frost muttered, and I pressed my lips tight until we
exited the library.
“What was that all about?” I asked. I glanced around, realizing
something else. “It’s gone.”
He glanced at me. “What’s gone?”
“When we first came back to campus, there was this messed-up
feeling, sort of like an energy where everybody was watching us, but
not for good reasons. It was the same way at the Reid house. The
neighbors walking by stopped cold as the van pulled up to secure
what was left of the Boston Brahmin. They didn’t talk, they just
stared. It was completely creepy.”
“Interesting,” Frost said. “The Reids are a family we will be
looking at more closely. I’ll be forcing at least one of the others to
give a full report regardless of whatever bullshit they manage to
compile for Robbins. Tyler is going to get himself into trouble with
that quick mind of his. He can talk himself into a situation that might
not be so easy to talk himself out of.”
I snorted, a little wearily. “It’s a gift,” I agreed. “Did you ever find
out the truth about William Perkins?”
 “Enough of it.” Frost shrugged. “It would appear that the
necromancer behind the Boston Brahmin played a twisted game.
William Perkins was a harmless enough old man, a widower who’d
never had children. But he was a miser, and fiercely proud of his
family. When a distant niece married into a rival family, they started
some talk, it would seem. A whiff of impropriety about letters
apparently written by the old man to some lady love. The Perkins
family put a stop to it, but the old man complained loud and long
about his innocence and his outrage, maintaining he’d been
burglarized. And then—he killed himself.”
“He knifed himself in the chest?” I asked, shooting Frost a hard
look. “You believe that?”
“I…believe there are some inconsistencies in the tale, yes.
Because after his death he was, in fact, missing some items of
personal importance, according to familial accounts.”
“The signet ring and watch,” I said. “Who…ah…whose finger had
it been attached to?”
“From what we’ve been able to learn, an unfortunate who’d
purchased it in a pawnshop, not a blue-blooded first family member
at all,” Frost said. “The academy will follow up once we fully analyze
the digit in question, but other than within our very select group,
there’s no way that anyone can connect this series of events to Tyler.
In fact, it’s rather neatly turned into a win for the monster hunting
minor, not a loss.”
“But the necromancer is still out there.”
“He is. Almost certainly, he isn’t done. In the meantime, there are
other concerns. It would not be wise for you to get on Dean
Robbins’s bad side, Nina. Be careful.”
“Why is he so against me, exactly?” I asked. Run, my mind
whispered. Too late for that now, but…
Frost shrugged. “Dean Robbins is determined to dismantle the
program after Tyler, Liam, Zach, and Grim graduate. If he could find
a way to do it before, I suspect there’s a hefty incentive that would
be paid out to him. He’s not interested in today’s heroics. He’s
definitely not interested in a monster outbreak. Which makes the
timing of your arrival an inconvenience for him.”
“So, he wants me gone,” I said.
 “It would be far better for him if you had never showed up in the
first place. Now all the members of your team are very much on
some highly sensitized radars. That’s not good.”
“Are you sure?” I offered. “Maybe you have more fans out in the
community than you think.”
“Even if we do, that’s also not necessarily a good thing. The kind
of fans who welcome the return of monster hunters might also wish
to find a way to break more monsters out for the fighting.”
I made a face. “Oh. Oh, that would be bad.”
“Exactly,” Frost sighed. “As is generally the case, you should be
careful what you wish for at Wellington Academy.”
 31

T yler was waiting for me when I exited my classroom an hour

and fifteen minutes later, my head swimming with an entire
dictionary of Akkadian. The teacher had insisted on giving
me the full year’s worth of student materials, apparently delighted to
share the wonder of the Akkadian language with a new, willing
victim.
“How in the world do you keep it all straight?” I moaned, tucking
two workbooks and a folder full of papers into the crook of one arm.
“You don’t. That’s why we keep Liam around.” Tyler laughed and I
looked up at him, stopping still in the hallway, never mind the other
students flowing around us.
“Hey,” I began. “I owe you—”
“Nothing,” Tyler said, leaning down to give me a quick kiss. The
zing of energy between us remained, and a student squeaked in
surprise as she passed, her backpack slipping off her shoulder and
her long hair blowing straight back. “You owe me nothing but
continuing to be the awesome hunter you are. For being simply,
amazingly you.”
“Yeah, but my timing…”
“Was exactly what I needed. Seriously,” Tyler said, taking my free
hand and turning to walk with me down the hallway. “Especially in
the middle of a battle, I need to remember what I’m fighting for. What
—and who.”
 He squeezed my fingers, and I squeezed right back, a giddy fizz
of emotions buzzing inside me. My road with Tyler Perkins was only
just beginning, but it was a road I found myself really wanting to
travel. For the first time in…maybe ever, I had something to look
forward to.
As we made our way through Cabot Hall, however, something
eventually penetrated my happy haze. I found myself sneaking
peeks into the classrooms as we passed. Tyler noticed. “It’s the most
interesting classroom building on campus, and one of the oldest,” he
said. “I love it in here.”
“It’s kind of…cold, don’t you think?”
“Oh—well sure,” he grinned, then pointed to the ceiling. “That
would be the demonology department, upstairs. They always blow
cold up there. I don’t mind it so much. Then again, I ran all the way
here after we got done with Robbins’s reports so I could catch up
with you.”
I blinked up, trying to wrap my head around demonology on a
college campus, then focused on Tyler’s words. “Oh, right. How did
that go?”
“It was brain destroying,” Tyler laughed. “Seventeen pages of fill-
in-the-blank responses, with the whole goal being that we were
supposed to say the same thing. Fortunately, Liam performed some
sleight of hand and we were able to get our communication game
back on with the pins, so we managed to write down substantially
equal responses without looking like we were cheating. And since
Robbins was there the whole time, he can attest that there was no
cross talk going on. Thank God he didn’t figure out what we were
doing, or we’d still be there.”
“Did you tell him anything about William?”
He snorted. “I didn’t. Frost gave us all the lowdown on that after
Robbins took off, and I came straight to… Um—you okay?”
He frowned down at me, and I realized I’d stopped in the middle
of the corridor, my gaze fixed on the staircase that led to the next
floor. I shivered, then forced myself to move. Why was I freaking out
about the demonology department? A monster was a monster was a
monster…right? “Are there actually demons up there, too?”
 “Well, only by special request,” Tyler said with a wink, as we
finally passed the staircase, and the air around me warmed again.
“The demon majors were transplanted from Swift Chapel, which they
way preferred, but it’s all part of the academy’s plan to clean up our
act for PR purposes.”
We pushed through the main doors to Cabot Hall, and stepped
out into the sunshine. I drew in a grateful breath, refocusing on Tyler.
“They taught in a chapel?”
“Sacred ground, natch. Not that demons are super high on our
list of evil bads. Most churches have people in place in the outer
world to handle those. Still, pays to be prepared. And the entire
demonology department glommed onto Zach when he arrived.
Nothing like having some in-the-wild experience to talk about during
class. He was their golden child.”
“Was?” I asked. “He isn’t anymore?”
“Oh no, he still is. He’s probably dished the least amount of grief
of any monster hunting student. Demons, people can wrap their
head around. They’re monsters, sure, but they’re also part of most
major religions’ beliefs. They’re not fairy tales gone hideously
wrong.”
“So he’s what, your spokesperson?”
Tyler snorted. “He would be if Robbins wanted anyone to
advocate for us. But he doesn’t, and Zach’s fine with that. He keeps
to himself, most of the time.”
“Yeah…” I thought about Zach’s darkly angelic beauty, the jet-
black hair and deep purple-hued eyes. What secrets did he hide
behind those eyes? And why, of all the monsters that’d plagued me
in my day, had I never encountered demons?
Something to consider—but not today, with the sun shining bright
over Boston. Demons could wait.
Tyler and I walked for a few minutes more, deeper into the
campus. Eventually, the streets gave way to cobblestoned pathways
dotted with the occasional sculpture and fountain. Not for the first
time, it struck me how much Wellington Academy looked far more
like a museum than a college campus.
“I can’t believe all this exists and nobody on the outside really
knows about it,” I said, and Tyler glanced around.
 “Well, I’m glad you figured it out. Even if it was due to a pair of
Tarken land worms. For that, they’ll always hold a lock on my heart.”
“I can’t say I feel the same,” I laughed. “Strange, isn’t it, how
quickly everything happened? One minute I was covered in monster
vomit…the next, I’m here. With you.”
“Strange is one way to describe it,” he said, turning me and giving
me his full attention as I hugged my books and papers tight. “I can
think of a few others. Like awesome. And amazing. And so,
incredibly right.”
I grinned, another round of bubbly joy frothing up inside me.
Tyler sighed, tugging me closer. “You do belong here, you know.
Despite what you said during the chase—you can’t really believe
that. You belong here with me, with the team. You have to feel that.”
“I do,” I said, as earnestly as I could. “I just don’t understand how
it’s all supposed to work.” That was the understatement of the year. I
thought of Frost’s apocrypha, the destroyed sections of text that held
the secrets to my connection with the guys…secrets I needed to
learn, pronto.
Tyler, of course, wasn’t privy to any of that. “You don’t have to
understand it,” he assured me. “At least not right at first. We’ll have
time to work through it.”
I grimaced. “What about the other guys—what Liam said? Like…
what if something comes of my connection with them? Doesn’t that
seriously bother you?”
“What? No way.” Tyler tilted his head, his whiskey-colored eyes
sparking with the faintest hint of blue as he held my gaze. “Did you
think it would? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought the way the
teams work for Twyst Academy to be the height of weird. But the
guys…I mean, I’d lay down my life for any one of them. I stand with
them when they’re hurting and laugh with them when they’re stoked.
It was that way even before we even bonded as a collective. It feels
right. Just like you feel right.”
He lifted a hand to brush a fringe of hair out of my eyes, tucking it
gently behind my left ear. “I found my best friends at this school, and
then one day, you ran into my life with a monster on your heels, and I
found you too. I’ve been waiting my whole life, I think, for you to
come running into me. And I swear on everything I’ve ever wanted to
be, I’ll spend the rest of my life fighting by your side.”
“Oh.” I blinked fast, overwhelmed by his words and the emotions
they inspired—then I shook my head. I’d run alone for so long. The
idea of this beautiful, powerful spellcaster wanting to dedicate any
portion of his life to me, to fight by my side, was too much. “No. I
can’t ask you to do that.”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m begging you to let me. You
helped make me what I am in a very real sense. You made me
stronger just by being who you are. And you stood with me even
when I wasn’t as strong as I should have been. I—hell, I think I may
be falling in love with you.” He said this almost as a confession, his
eyes practically glowing with intensity. “How crazy is that?”
“Ahh…Pretty crazy,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks heat as Tyler
stepped closer. He gently took the pile of books and papers out of
my hands and set them on the bench, then lifted his hands to my
face.
“I’m so glad you found us, Nina. It’s like my life started over the
day you showed up.”
Then his mouth came down on mine, and I felt a flash of
awareness of all four guys in the collective, a surge of energy that
seemed to leap up and add itself to ours. It was gone as quickly, but
by then, I was fully immersed in the emotion rolling from Tyler. Much
like his magical abilities, his size and his strength, that emotion only
seemed to increase. I’d never felt so wanted, not like this. I tightened
my hands over his, almost clinging to him. He didn’t hesitate.
The trees had grown extra thick along this stretch of the campus,
and no one else seemed near. Maybe that was just what we were
telling ourselves, or maybe we simply didn’t care. He pushed me
back into the shadows until I felt the cool, smooth, flat surface of
stone against me. I looked up, surprised to see that we had bumped
up against a statue. “What are these?”
“Monuments from when the academy was first built. They line the
campus,” he said. “They let the trees grow up around them. I never
knew why, but right now, I’m pretty happy they’re here.” With that, he
lifted me, seating me on his hips, my back against the column. I
could feel the effect I was having on him through his jeans, and I
didn’t want anything else between us. Not right now. Not ever again.
“I don’t suppose…” I whispered.
His laugh was low, husky, and certain. And when he stepped
away from me again, it was only to set me back on my feet and lift
his hands to pull my shirt free of my jeans. The brush of his soft skin
against mine set my heart pounding, and even the trees shivered
with anticipation.
“Anything,” he murmured with a smile. “Anytime you want me,
Nina, I’ll be right here, waiting to answer you. Forever and always.”

I long time before we reemerged from the shadows,

but only a slight breeze sighed through the branches. And not a
single tree had lost a limb.
Tyler glanced around, his lips moving soundlessly, and a gloom I
hadn’t even noticed lifted around us. I shot him a curious look. “You
put a spell on us?”
“Not on us, but on the space. It was just something that came to
me. Seemed like a good idea.” He grinned. “I need to preserve the
school, you know. We tend to shake things up a bit too much.”
“You know, I kind of like you as a repository for cool spells I never
knew existed.”
At that, Tyler laughed, the sound remarkably free and easy. “I can
say without hesitation that I look forward to every new discovery you
bring to me, Nina Cross.”
He reached for me, and I took his hand. Together, we moved
back into the sunshine. I gathered up my books and papers, and
then we quietly, even casually rejoined the rest of the campus.
Nobody looked at us oddly, everyone else distracted by their own
problems. Their own relationships. Their own monsters in the
shadows.
“What do you think will happen to the monster hunting minor?” I
asked. “Is it really in danger?”
Tyler shook his head. “I’d love to say no. But I could tell Dean
Robbins’s mind was churning, trying to figure out what would suit
him better. Everything getting shut down, or a newly rejuvenated
minor with all the attendant money that would go to the academy.
The fact that he was having such a hard time deciding didn’t bode
well. But we can’t really focus on that. We’ve got a job to do, getting
you ready to do your job as a monster hunter, getting all of us closer
to graduation—and maybe taking a necromancer out of commission,
or whoever the hell put ol’ Willie through it.”
I grimaced. “Poor Willie. He put it all out on the line to be a
Perkins, didn’t he?”
Tyler squeezed my hand. “He definitely did. But there’s not much
you wouldn’t do for your family, in the end.”
I smiled at his enthusiasm, but as we continued walking,
something brushed against me. A cool, whispering touch along my
skin, taunting me. Challenging me. Whispering of dangers in the
shadows…and a threat I couldn’t quite understand.
I’d come to Boston looking for my family. What would it be like if I
found them? And how would they feel about me? I didn’t know why
Mom had never sent her letter, but she’d never thrown it away,
either. Having her family know her story had mattered. To her—and
now, to me. I wanted to find the family of Janet Cross, get to know
them. Maybe even stand with them, in the end. I wanted it more than
I ever expected .
“Yeah,” I agreed, stepping a tiny bit closer to Tyler, letting his
warmth soothe away any last, nervous chill. “There’s not much I
wouldn’t do.”

T you again for reading and reviewing THE HUNTER’S CALL!

For a sneak peek of what’s coming next for Nina and the hunters of
Wellington Academy, read on—Zach can’t wait to meet you!

THE HUNTER’S CURSE

Prologue
Zach
S .
I lifted my hands to test the cool morning air. Today’s
demonstration was supposed to be something simple, easy. I’d done
this demon sunrise ceremony a half dozen times now, though the
ones in the late spring were always better than the ones in the fall.
Demons weren’t afraid of sunshine, in the right circumstances. They
liked showing off.
They weren’t the only ones. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to the rush
I got from watching the faces of students move from skepticism to
belief to awe. Not so much of a rush that I craved my own group of
followers like my dad, but enough that I enjoyed impressing people.
Especially certain people—like a brand-new monster hunter I had
no business even looking at twice, even if she was now technically a
part of our team. Hell, especially because of that. I should treat her
with care, respect. Let alone the fact that she was Tyler’s girl—a guy
who’d been nothing but awesome to me since I showed up on
campus, a fish out of water flopping up on the banks of Boston
Harbor.
But I couldn’t help myself. Nina Cross had a certain attitude in the
way she carried herself, a power that called out to me like nothing I’d
ever experienced before. She has a fierce, relentless need to find
her family, and even though I know she should be careful what she
wished her, I wanted her to succeed. To be happy. To shine. Simple
enough, right?
Only, nothing about Nina was simple. When she looked at me, it’s
like she could actually see me, deep inside. Where no one else even
thought to look. And though she’s warded against my psychic
pushes, I can’t stop thinking about pushing her more. Harder. In
ways I shouldn’t even be considering. The moment Tyler, Liam,
Grim, and I had all worked together to bring her into our monster
hunting collective, it got a million times worse. Something had
seemed to crack wide open inside me, dark and forbidden.
Something that poked at the well of crazy hidden inside me, one I
thought I’d emptied long ago. Instead, it’s apparently been lurking,
waiting for a girl I could never claim.
I blew out a harsh breath. She shouldn’t have come here.
 Setting aside my personal issues, we had a job to do. We were
on the brink of a full-on monster outbreak, if the former head of our
department was to be believed. Nina wasn’t just a hunter, she was a
harbinger…and that meant monsters would be following hard behind
her.
I could handle that. Darkness shouldn’t be feared or even
respected, necessarily, but it did need to be understood. Right before
it was blasted back into the bowels of hell. I was good at doing the
last bit, though I tried to keep that particular skill under wraps, at
least as far as the academy was concerned. These once-a-semester
demonstrations for Wellington Academy’s demonology 101 class
were the only time I tried to tempt the demons out of the shadows.
The demons didn’t always play along, of course, but part of me
really wanted them to put on a show this time. Which was stupid. I
needed to stay focused.
All I wanted to do was focus on her.
A light moan reached my ears, followed by a low, haunting laugh,
as if someone was watching me from the decrepit old chapel that
served as the stage for this sunrise ceremony. Bellamy Chapel had
always bugged me, though it had long since been abandoned, its
doors hammered shut and sealed off from idle eyes. Now the old
chapel served little purpose other than to look spooky on the edge of
a monster hunter academy, but that moan strangely heartened me.
The demons were going to show up today. I could already feel them.
Like I could feel her, never mind the bracelet she wore to keep
me from getting too close. That first moment we’d met, I’d touched
Nina’s mind, and my heart had nearly exploded. Liam had given her
the bracelet to shield her, and she was clearly Tyler’s girl, so I’d
tamped down my emotions, hard. But then, there was something
about that collective run that did me in. She’s so fierce, determined,
and fantastic…
The scornful laugh rolled over the cemetery, making my skin
crawl. There was definitely something there. The soft sneer was
unmistakable, taunting me from the shadows. Your time with her will
come, boy. Enjoy it. Because then she’s going to die.
I rolled my eyes. Demons had been my father’s stock-in-trade for
as long as I could remember, but he feared them more than I did.
And he respected them far too much.
Fuck you, I thought back just as succinctly.
Fuck me too. Because what I felt for Nina Cross wasn’t care or
concern for her safety. It definitely wasn’t respect. It was far more
dangerous—for everyone.
“Mine,” I whispered.
She should never have come here.

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 ABOUT D.D. CHANCE

D.D. Chance is the pen name of Jenn Stark, an award-winning author of

paranormal romance, urban fantasy and contemporary romance. Whether she’s
writing as Jenn or D.D., she loves writing, magic and unconditional love. Thank
you for taking this adventure with her.

www.ddchance.com
Copyright © 2020 by D.D. Chance
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organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and
are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn
from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

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