The Puppet Master: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 4 Read online

  “I don’t intend on going anywhere, so I have plenty of time to catch up.”

  Then the kissing began and they were tooth-rottingly sweet. Few things made me happier than seeing my friends happy, and honestly, Cole needed it. Someone, at some point in his life, had hurt him deeply, maybe even in his childhood. The echoes from that little sting arose at the weirdest times.

  But as happy as I was for them, I also didn’t want to see them making out all night. Despite all the flak our friends gave us once Gabe and I came out as a couple, we’d never been prone to much PDA.

  “Thanks for the invite, you two. Maybe next time.”

  “You sure about that?” Gabe asked once we were far enough away to avoid shifter hearing. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

  “I don’t really wanna hang where the conversation is gonna turn back to today. I’d rather enjoy an evening in with you.”

  “Does that mean you’re cooking, or are we ordering in?”

  “Depends on what we have in the fridge and pantry.”

  “You should know, since you write me out very detailed shopping lists.”

  The moment of levity was sorely needed and my laughter came out louder than I’d expected. But it was true. Having suffered his bachelor provisions before, I made sure to keep our fridge and pantry stocked.

  We ended up ordering an immense sushi platter from a local restaurant, though it wasn’t as good as Koharo. Nothing was as good as Koharu, where we received preferential treatment using Gabriel’s connections to the owners. They loved Gabe and appreciated my occasional sprinkles of faerie dust on their patrons whenever we visited.

  While he ran down to acquire our meal, I hit the liquor stash and began mixing our favorite cocktails. We were on a snickerdoodle kick recently, which called for entirely ridiculous amounts of Bailey’s, snickerdoodle liquor, vanilla vodka, heavy cream, and milk.

  The end result? Absolute joy.

  I could have chosen something classy like the delicious plum sake his gran gave us over the summer, but we were saving that.

  Gabriel returned with our dinner and we gorged on an excess of food. I refilled our glasses twice and let the cinnamon sweet cream soothe away the day’s heartache.

  “Hey, you okay?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yeah. Just tired is all.”

  “I know it was rough today,” he held a finger to my lips and continued, “and I know you don’t want to talk about it, so we won’t. I just wanted you to know that you did good. I know you’ve been doubting yourself lately, but you shouldn’t. You’re going to be an amazing sentinel. You’d also make an amazing Morrigan, if that’s what you decide to choose.”

  The conversation I’d hoped to avoid all semester came slamming into our evening like a freight train. I groaned and slumped back into my corner of the couch, almost spilling my creamy cocktail.

  “Can we not?”

  “Avoiding the subject won’t change it, Sky. It just puts it off until tomorrow.”

  “I’m happy putting it off until it’s no longer a potential outcome in my future. Someone else more…”

  More what? asked a tiny voice in my subconscious.

  More deserving? More talented?

  I tried to fill in the gap, gaze darting to Gabriel. He watched me with a subtle smile on his face.

  “Can’t finish it, can you?”

  “Shut up,” I muttered, more annoyed with myself than him.

  “Look, we don’t have to have an in-depth talk about it, but there’s something I want you to consider.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Lia,” he answered simply. I blinked at him, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Consider who would better protect your friend than you. Not your queen. Your friend.”

  “Holly,” I said automatically.

  “Who is a vampire and a mage, but not a fae. She can never be a fae, baby. The defenders and personal guard of the king and queen are traditionally fae.”

  “Full fae. Not an ordinary halfbreed.”

  He stared at me. “Is that how you think about yourself? An ordinary halfbreed? Really, Sky?”

  “That came out wrong,” I blurted out in a rush. It wasn’t like me to be so hard on myself, but these insidious thoughts kept creeping into my mind at the damnedest times, despite my attempts to remain upbeat. I scrubbed my face with the heel of my palm. “I don’t know what’s up with me. Maybe it’s losing my light, because lately I…don’t feel like me.”

  “You’re always going to be you, Sky. It’s how you see yourself that’s changed.”

  “That’s very Freudian of you.”

  He grinned and tapped my nose. “I know you. You hold the burden on your shoulders, and you don’t have to. I also know you love Lia like a sister. Out of all your friends, she’s the one you’re closest to.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’d make a good bodyguard.”

  “Just keep it in mind is all I ask. And stop bottling your feelings up. Talk to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize for going through a difficult time. I get it. I need you to understand I’m always going to be here for you though.”

  “How am I going to find time to be with you when—if—I become Lia’s Morrigan, Gabe? I always thought once I graduated, we’d work together somewhere as partners.” Like Simon and Sebastian.

  Being his lifelong partner in every way had been my dream since the moment I knew I wanted with all my heart to become his mate. Now, what hope did I have of accomplishing that aspect of my life goals when fate dealt me a different hand?

  “We may not be partners with the SBA, but we’re going to be together, Sky. Dain doesn’t seem to have any issues with being Lord of the Emerald Vale while also sweeping Pilar away on extravagant dates that she wants to brag about and has to stop herself from mentioning every five minutes.”

  “We still don’t know for certain they’re together.”

  “Sure we do.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She’ll never admit it.”

  “Which is kinda odd, don’t you think? I mean, I know Pilar has made great headway in being less of an elitist bitch, but doesn’t dating a fae lord seem like something she’d be proud of? I mean, even her big shot dad can’t be mad at that.”

  “Yeah, I mean, I guess so. But it could be because she doesn’t want people to bug her and ask for things.”

  “Maybe.”

  The latter made sense when I thought about it. Lia was besieged by all variety of fan mail, from letters of devotion written by humble admirers, to requests for special privileges to venture into specific areas of Tir na Nog. During the spring, in celebration of Gabriel and me becoming mated, Dain had allowed the Wild Hunt Club to accompany us into his domain for two glorious full moons of hunting the abundant prey in his lands.

  Different members of the club had asked me twice since then if I could arrange another foray, but I didn’t want to abuse my friendship with Dain for personal gain.

  “Hm…” My attention darted back to Gabriel. He was eyeballing Ama’s cage.

  “Miss her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’ll be home soon,” I tried to reassure him.

  “Oh, I know that. However,” he said, leaning over me, the sheer presence of him forcing me down into the couch all at once. “I was thinking of how little we’ve capitalized on this living room being empty. Missed opportunities.”

  “I think you’re trying to butter me up after some deep and heavy conversation.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe these creamy drinks you’ve made have just put me in the mood for a little romance with my mate.”

  “No chatty bird to ruin the moment.”

  As always, his rakish grin made my pulse thunder. Gabe really knew how to turn me into a mushy, turned-on mess. He knew every tender spot to kiss, every weakness I had. I couldn’t stay distracted, worried, and full of doubts when he tickled that place on my hip and trailed kisses up my neck to my ear.

  “I
’m just sayin’, we’re squandering a lot of potential no-clothes time.”

  By the time Gabriel had my clothes off, I couldn’t think of anything more than guaranteeing a future where we could always be together.

  8

  Fool Me Once

  The days of September dwindled and gave way to October, the best time of year for a pumpkin-spice-loving fae like me. Unfortunately, the campus didn’t feel as festive as it usually did in the days leading up to our big carnival. Holly and I still hadn’t really made up, so whenever she wasn’t on duty with Lia, she was off working on whatever responsibilities she had for the haunted house preparations. Anji and I ended up on opposite shifts both on and off campus, which sucked. Four hours in the guardhouse with Bartholomew the day before had nearly driven me batty, so I actually looked forward to my patrol run with Gabriel and Carter, a vamp in my class.

  Because I’d been on rides with Gabe before, and because I didn’t want to have an unfair advantage being his mate, I let Carter ride shotgun.

  “How do you know all these side roads?” Carter asked after we’d left downtown Chicago to start making our way back to campus. The night had been dull, a few hours of patrol interspersed with answering the occasional disturbance. We’d taken a nuisance call about some folk peddling “magical trinkets” around midnight, but those turned out to be bullshit fixed together with superglue from China. Supposedly it was powdered unicorn horn inside a vial made from glass harvested from the Lake of Mirrors.

  It was a ten-cent vial painted with some iridescent film and filled with glitter. Desperate people would pay for anything.

  “I studied a bunch of maps, but what really helped was just driving down here and getting myself lost,” Gabe replied. “You don’t have time to pull up Google Maps when you’re in pursuit.”

  “Yeah, but your partner—”

  “Doesn’t have time either,” I chimed in from the backseat. Carter twisted around to look at me. “You gotta help lookout for your partner while he’s driving. Sometimes you’ll be holding a spell or returning fire.”

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  The number of sentinels on duty at any given time varied, but their number was substantially less than the population of paranormal beings in any given city. The mortality rate didn’t help. Thanks to the Plague Doctor’s viral outbreak last year, numbers had taken a hit and recruitment was at an all-time low.

  Bearing in mind Holly’s words, I quieted after that and took a passive approach to our ride-along while Carter fired questions at Gabriel. I’d had three years with him to ask all the questions.

  It wasn’t all about me.

  “Hey, Sky, you could probably answer this better than I could,” Gabriel interjected, slicing through my thoughts as if he’d sensed my introspections.

  “Huh? I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Could you repeat that?”

  “I asked, uh…well, I wondered if fae, um…” He rubbed his neck with one hand and muttered something too quiet for my ears to pick up.

  “Say that again?”

  “I asked if it’s true about fae worrying about our kind losing it around them?” He blurted it out so quickly and his face reddened so fast my gut instinct was almost to laugh at the incredulous question.

  “No! I mean, I don’t.”

  “Sorry, I know it must be an awfully ignorant question, considering how many fae are at school. It’s just…we don’t interact with them much. You’re the first fae I’ve actually said more than three words to.”

  “Oh, well, glad to pop your cherry, so to speak.”

  Gabe and Carter both chuckled at that, and I felt a lot better about things. Even though it felt weird to think about fellow students thinking fae at PNRU worried about the vamps going crazy on them.

  “All Sentinel units, we have a 10-11 at West 98th St.”

  Prowler alert? I perked up and leaned forward.

  Gabe tapped his radio on its mount. “This is Sentinel Fujimoto. I’m two miles out from that location.”

  After a brief pause, Sebastian’s voice replaced the school dispatcher. “Gabe, Philip Barnes called in reporting that he and his ward were possibly being followed.”

  “Adrianna Wallace, right? A fae.” Gabe said.

  “Yes. Her charge had a near call tonight, necessitating a late-night visit.”

  “We’re en route,” Gabriel said. Then he switched on the lights affixed to his dash, red and white igniting against the dark interior.

  “Oh shit. Is being followed really that big of a deal?” Carter asked, his red eyes growing wide with concern.

  “Normally? No. But given the recent situation with the queen and the murder in the area, we’re under a standing alert. Could be nothing, in which case, we arrive and escort them home and call for backup sentinels to keep an eye on his ward for a few days.”

  “And if it is something?”

  “We stall and protect them until backup arrives. The SBA will be prepared this time.”

  “Adrianna Wallace is a year behind me, pretty sure.”

  “She is,” Gabe confirmed. “We keep a record of all student-sentinel pairings.”

  Gabe and his near-photographic memory never ceased to amaze me. As did his sense of direction. Within minutes we reached the designated street, turning the corner near a Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “Sky, try Barnes’s phone again. We need to find them.”

  “I’ve been trying. Still going straight to voicemail.”

  “Ok, eyes sharp guys. We may need to go on foot and sniff them out.”

  “No need, I smell blood. Shifter blood,” Carter said, his window down. “Turn right.”

  “Good nose,” I commented, rolling down my window as well for an unobscured view of the street and sidewalk. My heart raced, pulse flooded with adrenaline. Shifter blood could mean only one thing—Barnes was injured, or Barnes was in the process of tearing their stalker a new asshole. I prayed it was the latter.

  “Barnes,” Gabriel barked over the radio frequency. “This is Sentinel Fujimoto.”

  We waited a second, still cruising eastward down West 98th. Meanwhile, Carter resembled a hound out with his master for a joyride, practically hanging from the car window. “Slow down!” he hissed suddenly.

  Gabriel touched the brakes a hair. He repeated his call into the radio outfitted in his car. My mate’s voice reached me, a distant whisper in the shadows of a residential yard. Goosebumps tingled over my bare arms and every fine hair rose.

  Maybe he’d dropped his radio.

  Maybe during the fight, he’d lost his grip or it came unfastened from his belt. Before I could wonder, Carter burst from the car and took off running toward the source of the sound. I phased through the Twilight without bothering to open it, aware of Gabriel parking his vehicle right there, lights still spinning.

  Even I smelled the blood, but more than that, I felt the terror and the pain vibrating through the air like a subwoofer in a car trunk.

  The scent led us from a house’s yard, where we found the discarded radio, to Philip Barnes, who sat propped against a dumpster in a school parking lot half a block down.

  “He’s alive,” Carter said.

  “Philip, can you hear me?” Gabe asked, snaking off his belt. “Sky, w—flashlight.”

  My wings would have provided better light, but that wasn’t an option. I told myself it wasn’t an option for most teams, my past abilities unique to me, but it still was a glaring reminder of what I’d lost. Flashlight in hand, I held light for them while Carter and Gabe tended to Philip’s bleeding.

  “Adrianna…” the wolf whispered.

  “Where did she go? Who did this to you?”

  “Told her…told her to run.” He coughed and wheezed in pain from the effort. “Mage kept us from Twilight.”

  “A mage?” Gabriel’s gaze darted up to me.

  “Spell. Some kinda…some kinda spell, man.” The fight must have collapsed a lung. Only one side of Philip’s chest moved during hi
s difficult, labored breaths. I’d read about it during one of our first aid courses. There was nothing we could do to help him until paramedics arrived.

  “Help is coming. Can you hold on here?” Gabriel asked him.

  “Yeah. You gotta—” Frothy blood foamed on his lips as he coughed. “Gotta save her, dude.”

  “We will.” Gabriel finished tying the tourniquet around Philip’s thigh.

  “You want me to stay here with him?” Carter asked.

  “No. Regenerative abilities should keep him stable long enough for help to arrive. We need to get to his ward.”

  While I hated to leave an injured man behind, Gabriel was right. We needed to find Adrianna. But we had no reliable way to track her.

  “I’ll get an aerial view. You two have better noses.”

  “That way.” Philip nodded weakly toward the nearby fields. “She went…went that way.”

  “On it.”

  I jumped and brought out my wings, the powerful beats lifting me into the air, but not before I caught Gabe giving me a look that said to be careful. I wasn’t the only one with wings.

  This late, it was hard to make out much. Almost every home was dark, but there were street lights. Not that they helped much when so much was left in the dark.

  And then there was the pain I’d felt. The fear. I’d first assumed it was Philip, but no, it was Adrianna. She was close.

  Below, Gabe and Carter were running, which could only mean they’d picked up on some sort of trail I couldn’t see.

  Then I sensed it, a darkness I’d felt before, on more than one occasion. An anger and a hunger for blood. A cold determination and a sick sort of glee.

  Without hesitation, I dove toward my mate, wings folded back and shaped like a hawk for the most speed. But it was already too late to warn them. I landed in the same instant they broke through the trees into the dark softball field.

  I wished I hadn’t.

  A treetop canopy had obscured my view, preventing me from witnessing the grisly tableau tainting the pitch. Tricia crouched above a petite girl with scrawny, gangly limbs and bright ginger hair. She held a tool that resembled the world’s most horrifying gun and drill, melded into one blood-smeared weapon.