Origin Exposed: Descended of Dragons, Book 2 (7 page)

U
nconsciousness crept
toward me like a man with a burlap sack. Before it could overtake me, I raised the back of one foot, hoping the movement and the thought of my Sabre Hall room was enough to get me home. It was. I fell roughly onto my bed before everything went dark.

“
S
tell
? Stella? Gods help me,” Timbra’s frantic words were far away. They echoed and bounced within my brain long before I was able to make sense of where I was, what had happened.

I sat up with a jolt as adrenaline coursed through my veins at the recollection of the whispered revelations just before I passed out.

I found Timbra’s gaze. “How long was I out?”

Her face was flushed with concern. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” She lay her hands on my forehead and my cheeks, checking for a temperature, before I knocked them away.

“How long was I unconscious? It’s important. I need to hurry.”

“Ah, I don’t know. Maybe a minute at most? I heard you moan and the bed springs creak. I started to leave you to your business, but when it became eerily quiet, I knew something wasn’t right. You’re fairly loud…”

“Okay, I get the point. Next time, I’m getting a suite mate who’s deaf.”

“Oh!” she said, affronted. “Like who? You want to share a shower with a snake?”

“Dammit. Let’s debate my new accommodations later. I need to know who can create a ward around my room. Fast.”

“What? Why?”

“Now! Who’s the best at wards?”

“Emrynne. She’s just down the hall.” I was out the door and running to the end of the hall before she finished the sentence. Emrynne Brecker was weird as hell, but rumored to be very talented. Her door was embellished with glitter, and fragrant flowers that I suspected were real.

The evidence of her expertise in ward-making hit me like a dog to an electric fence. I lifted my arm to knock on her door and suffered a charge so forceful it knocked me back two feet. And hurt like hell. I looked to the ceiling for patience, but found none. I needed help fast, before Gresham and Professor Lochlain realized I was gone.

“Emrynne,” I hollered through the closed door. “Emrynne, I need your help with a ward. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

I heard shuffling inside, but the door never opened. Timbra caught up with me and smartly stayed clear of the door’s wards.

“What’ll you give me?” a high, thin voice called from inside.

“Give you? What? What do you mean?”

“If you need this urgent help—
my
urgent help—I expect some form of payment. What’ll you give me?”

Oh hell.
Everyone was wasting my precious time. I had to find a way to keep Gresham from tracing to my room, and fast, so I could buy time to think. I didn’t know what he and Lochlain were planning, but it was obvious they’d kept something from me. Obvious Gresham, that cold bastard, was keeping secrets from me. Again. I knew I was right not to trust him. Damn, damn, damn. Damn, I was an idiot.

“What do you have in mind, Emrynne?” She was angling for something.

“I want to meet your friend. The one I see you with at the bar. The big one.”

“Boone?” I quirked a brow at Timbra. “You know he and Timbra are together, right?”

“Not that oaf!” she called. “The one who looks like he could set a girl on fire just by looking at her long enough,” Her voice took on a dreamy sigh quality. “Brown curls. Endless dark eyes.”

“Ewan?”
Does she really think she has a shot with him? Whatever. Not my concern
;
I’m in a hurry.
“Fine. I’ll introduce you to Ewan.”

Timbra elbowed me hard in the shoulder. “What?” I mouthed. Timbra mimed the universal sign for ‘She crazy.’ I shrugged. I didn’t have a lot of options.

“When?” Emrynne asked through the door.

“What?” I was beyond irritated with Girl Crazy.

“When will you introduce me to Ewan?”

“Oh, for god’s—tonight. We’ll go down to the bar tonight. Okay? I need help fast. Let’s go now!”

She opened the door with a flourish and stepped into the hall. Without a word she fluttered toward my room, her flowing white dress and long blond hair trailing behind her.

Emrynne was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. Perhaps she was best described as “ethereal.” She had some kind of magic princess thing going on, complete with a glowing aura. In Thayer, “normal” was a really big tent. When people descended of dragons, of lions, of wolves, the boundaries of conventional were wide…and blurred. Emrynne eclipsed even those.

Today, though, that magical something about her was to my own advantage.

“Who, or what, are you trying to ward against?” she asked, all business.

“I want to keep someone out. Someone who’s been in my room before.”

“Does he or she mean you harm?”

“No—yes—I don’t know. I think my opinion and his on what’s in my best interest may be at odds. How about that?”

“Fine. Let’s ward against this specific person.”

“Actually, can I ward against anyone coming in my room? Except Timbra?”

“You expecting trouble?” she asked with a smirk.

“No,” I lied. “I just don’t like the idea of people popping in and out of my personal space. I should’ve done this sooner, truthfully.”

“Yes, you should. You’ll learn. That’s why we’re all here at The Root.”

“Did I say yet that I was in a hurry?” I yelled this last, and she clamped her mouth shut with a scowl.

Emrynne stood in the center of my room and instructed Timbra and I to sit quietly on my bed while she performed the necessary ritual. She began with her eyes closed, her slender arms hanging limply to her sides. She extended only her hands so they formed a right angle to her arms—like a Roaring 20s flapper would. Concentration creased her forehead as the hairs of my arms stood up in recognition of power evoked. It was weighty, earthy, nearly oppressive.

With the grace of a ballet dancer, she arced her arms above her head in one smooth motion, her hands still bent at right angles. I risked a look at Timbra to see if she, too, felt the magical undertones in the room. She did. Her over-large eyes bulged in distress.

Still breathing deeply, Emrynne had lay her head back, and appeared to be pushing something toward the sky. She abruptly arced her arms back down to her sides and I felt, like a ripple through my being, the protective magic encompass me, Timbra, and the confines of my room.

Emrynne stood for a moment breathing, relaxing, releasing the tension that she had built in order to form the ward.

With one last breath she opened her eyes and smiled at me. “There,” she said. “Nothing to it. See you at the bar at eight.”

She left without a backward glance.

“What the hell was all that about? What’s going on?” Timbra fumed the moment Emrynne was gone.

I had a decision to make. Should I tell all to Timbra, my trusted friend, and hope that her love for me overrode a life-long fear and hatred of dragons? I wanted so desperately to tell her. I yearned to unload my burden, to have someone that I trusted know my darkest secret, and to accept me anyway.

I opened my mouth to start from the beginning when I felt a pull on my consciousness. It was as if my mind was a ball of rubber bands and someone had tugged the outermost one. It plucked within my brain, and my eyes watered at the sensation. I shook my head to clear it.

“Stella?” Timbra’s voice was strained. “Stella, what now?”

“I—I think Gresham is trying to trace here. To my room. Only it’s warded and he’s being rejected. Emrynne must’ve wired the ward to me somehow. I really need to learn how to do th—ow!” The plucking went on for several more seconds before it stopped. That’s when I heard Gresham roaring at me from the bottom floor.

“Stella!” he called from the stairwell. I gasped and looked at Timbra, whose eyes were wide as she shook her head in confused denial.

“Stella!” Gresham yelled. “You warded against me? Let me in. Now!”

No way was that happening. Maybe if I ignored him he’d go away.

“
Ste-lla
!” he roared, and his resonant voice ricocheted off of every wall and corner.

People had begun to stick their heads out of the doors of their rooms. It was urgent I shut the situation down fast.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” I called down the halls. “Can’t get enough of this.”

Most of my neighbors rolled their eyes, but a few gave doubtful smirks. Assholes.

To Gresham I yelled, “This ain’t no damned
Streetcar Named Desire
, Gresham. Go. Away!”

“I need to speak to you,” he grated. “Urgently. I know what you overheard. I can explain.”

“You’ll have to explain it to all of Sabre Hall, then, ’cause I’ve warded you from my room.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he said, his voice rough with increasing fury before he gave in to his temper and bellowed, “Come down here!”

From the corner of my eye I spotted Ewan charging down the hall like metal to a magnet. “What’s going on, Stella? What’s he yelling about?”

“We’re having a disagreement. He wants to talk about it. I don’t. I’ve warded him from my room.” Close enough to the truth, anyway.

Ewan’s eyes lit with anticipation at the opportunity to rumble with Gresham. His grin was dark and mischievous before he took on a more resolute expression and nodded once. “I’ll handle it,” he said, and strode away.

“
W
hat happened then
?” Mari asked, her eyes shiny with astonishment. Her strawberry blond hair was whipped into a ponytail that swished wildly as she served her patrons. She was waitressing
and
participating in our conversation. After tending her responsibilities her small but curvy body smoothly maneuvered back to our table each time.

“Then I said, ‘Mr. Gresham, you heard the lady. I think she prefers that you
fuck off
.’”

“You did not,” I scoffed, though I knew he had. We’d heard every strained word of Gresham and Ewan’s encounter. We could have even without super hearing. Their growled exchange rumbled through Sabre Hall like thunder reverberating along a riverbank.

“I did,” Ewan said. “And I swear his hands twitched with the desire to choke me. Ha! I wish he’d tried. After that he left, nearly blowing the door off its hinges.”

“You better be glad he didn’t take you on, wolf,” scoffed Boone. “You don’t stand a chance against him. Not to mention the fact he’s got a whole department of badass behind him. You’re just…well…you.”

“Oh! Speaking of which,” I yelped, “why didn’t one of you tell me about his day job?”

“What do you mean?” asked Layla after a swallow of her drink. “What’s he do?”

“He’s Thayer’s director of defense,” Timbra announced with weight.

“So you did know,” I accused.

“Well, sure. I thought you did, too. It honestly never struck me that you wouldn’t. I mean, everyone knows him. Being a Cabinet member is fairly prestigious. Then again, you’re not from here... Um…sorry?”

“Didn’t you wonder why the Director of Thayerian Defense was giving a nobody like me the grand tour?”

“I did,” she said. “I asked several times, if you’ll recall.”

“What
is
his interest in you, Stella?” Ewan had whittled down to the pith of the issue.

And here we were again. I was in the position of telling all or lying to my friends.

If I’d learned anything from the recent mess with Gresham it was that I couldn’t be too careful where I placed my trust. Could I trust anyone at all? Increasingly, I felt the answer was no.

“Hello, Stella,” called a confident, sing-song voice. Emrynne moved through tables toward us, her blond hair swishing just under her butt as she walked. She had changed into a lavender goddess-dress that amplified her etherealness to damn-near radiating love and light. It could escape no one’s notice that her halter top wasn’t halting much.

I had forgotten the deal we’d made.
Damn.
I felt terrible about the situation I put Ewan in, but when I turned to explain I concluded he wouldn’t mind too much. His eyes were firmly affixed to two peach-sized swells shimmying beneath lavender chiffon.

I cleared my throat to attract his attention. No response. I cleared it with more force, and he turned to me with a distracted, “Hmm?”

“Ewan, this is Emrynne. She lives on my floor. I invited her to have a drink with us tonight.”

“Oh…ah…yes. Hello,” he said and stood. She proffered her hand as if he would kiss it, but his intention was clearly to shake it. The result was awkward, limp. “I’ve seen you around The Root,” he said, “though I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“No, we haven’t. I’m so happy to finally meet you,” she gushed as a delicate pink flushed her high cheekbones.

I introduced her to everyone else at the table, and she inclined her head to each before turning eagerly back to Ewan, who I thought went to great lengths to make her feel at home.

After a while I slipped back into my own thoughts, turning both old and new revelations, and my potential options, over in my head.

‘
How did Gaspare react when you told him she’s his own niece
?’ Lochlain had said. I was certain they were referring to me. Who was Gaspare? I had an uncle? Did that mean my father had a brother? Other family? Had they known about me? Tried to find me? No. Gresham and Lochlain’s conversation indicated my pedigree was a surprise to everyone.

‘
I imagine she wants to meet her father’s people
,’ he’d said. Damn right I did. But I knew nothing about someone named Gaspare, or even where to start looking.

‘
He wants to meet her, though I’m hesitant for obvious reason
s.’ The reasons Gresham might be hesitant were not obvious to me. I needed more information.

“I haven’t forgotten that something suspicious is going on with you and Gresham,” Ewan whispered roughly in my ear. I shivered, less at his words than his tone, which indicated he wouldn’t stop until he was satisfied he knew every detail of the day’s altercation.

“It’s none of your business,” I whispered back and turned from him to discourage any further inquiry.

“The hell it isn’t.” He yanked my chair so that I faced him again. “You’re my business, whether you like it or not. And stop trying to fix me up with Emrynne. With anyone. I don’t need your help when it comes to women.”