Channeler's Choice (36 page)

His fists doubled up and he had to swallow a surge of burning energy as he moved to go around her. Whatever she had to say, he had no intention of hearing it. Apparently she was stubborn
and
stupid because she moved to block him. It took a lot of control not to just slap her aside. He hated that she brought him so close to losing control of his anger.

“
Eren’s in danger,” she said.

He stopped trying to go around her and really looked at her for the first time. Her energy was filled with fear but there was no hint of a lie in it. A deep sadness sagged her features and he thought he detected a hint of regret.

“
Are you threatening her?” he demanded.

It would be just like her to think she could get Eren in trouble for what happened. But there was no way he was going to allow that. It had been Bridget’s fault.

“
No! I never wanted to do any of this, but Luke said if I didn’t he’d let his Society hurt me,” Bridget said in a small, frightened voice.

The name hit Aiden like a splash of frigid water. His mind tried to wrap around how Luke could be involved and why.

“
Luke is in Romania. What are you talking about?”

Watching Bridget flinch under the sting of his angry energy was satisfying but it wouldn’t get him any answers. Taking a deep breath, he shoved his anger down and pulled his energy back. Bridget breathed a sigh of relief and gave him a weak smile. While he could stop hurting her, he wasn’t about to smile back.

“
Not for long. He’s coming to Spruce Knoll this summer. He’s coming after Eren,” Bridget whispered.

Aiden leaned in close, not wanting to miss a word of what she said. He didn’t see her move until it was too late. Bridget threw herself into his arms, pressing her body as close to his as it could get. Repulsed, he froze.

“
He made me do it Aiden. I really like you. I never wanted to see you get hurt. But the things he threatened to do to me were horrible,” she whispered, her breath hot on his neck.

Footsteps sounded in the grass off to their right. When the steps stopped an anguished gasp filled the still night. Looking over Bridget’s head, Aiden saw Eren flanked by Fane and Caitlin. The devastation in Eren’s eyes made it feel like his heart was going to explode. As she whipped around and ran back into the trees, Aiden shoved Bridget away and moved to follow Eren. Caitlin stepped in his way and slapped him so hard it made his teeth hurt. She spun away and ran after Eren before he could recover from the shock.

“
That better not be what it looked like, Bro,” Fane said before dashing after the girls.

Aiden was too stunned to take another step. He turned back to look at Bridget who was picking herself up off the ground.

“
You meant for her to see that,” he said.

His distaste for raising his hand against a woman was swiftly fading. He forcibly stopped himself from taking a step forward. No matter what, he would not let it come to that. In spite of how he’d been raised he wouldn’t become that kind of guy. Besides, if anyone was going to hit Bridget it should be Eren.

“
I never wanted to do any of it,” Bridget mumbled with a distant look on her face.

She started to crab crawl back from him. Her fear-filled eyes weren’t looking at him, though; they were looking beyond him into the trees.

As he spun around Aiden expected—hoped—to see Luke standing there in the darkness, but it wasn’t Luke, it was the four jerks who called themselves his Society. One of them he’d never seen before, but he knew the boy’s energy from somewhere. Before he could place it, the boy he recognized as Nick, Luke’s best friend, stepped in front of the others. His smirk was so malicious when he looked at Bridget that Aiden realized she’d been telling the truth. While the realization mustered up a bit of sympathy, Aiden wasn’t about to forgive her. Afraid or not, she’d had a choice and she’d made the wrong one.

“
Sense something familiar?” Nick asked as he turned that smirk on Aiden.

Anger flashed through him, clearing his thoughts. Dammit, she’d almost distracted him again. He placed where he knew the fourth boy’s energy from; the college pamphlet from Eren’s room. He was the one who’d been following her. Green and gold energy poured from his hands as he stepped toward the new guy.

“
What’s your name?” he demanded.

The boy had a sharp chin and eyes that were set a little too deep. His dark hair was slicked back like he was trying to emulate a 1950’s movie star. Aiden put his face to memory in case he had to hunt him down later.

“
Greg Florescu, hunter extraordinaire. Why?” the boy said as he executed an exaggerated bow.

His lack of fear would make breaking him all the sweeter. Aiden smiled. He would break every one of them down until they submitted, he had to. It was the only way to ensure they’d never bother him and Eren again. And he couldn’t allow anything to threaten her, especially when Luke was behind it. What kind of Rector would he be if he couldn’t protect her?

“
So I can tell the elders who you are if they can’t identify your body,” Aiden said.

Greg’s eyes widened and began to dart back and forth between his friends. Aiden didn’t really plan on killing them. But since he knew they weren’t above it, it didn’t hurt to make them think he wasn’t either. He was a good fighter but four against one wasn’t going to be easy.

Nick laughed and swept his arms wide. “Says the guy who stands alone.”

“
Yeah, where’s your Society now, Aiden?” Claud said.

That hit a nerve and Aiden struggled not to let it show on his face. His Society was where he should be, chasing after Eren. His eyes flashed in the direction she had run. But he couldn’t go yet. He had to make sure these jerks never bothered them again. If Luke really was coming to Spruce Knoll, Aiden wanted him to arrive to find his Society already defeated and submissive to his enemy.

“
Thanks for your concern, Claud, but I can take care of the four of you on my own,” Aiden said.

Aiden had seen Nick and Claud compete in the tournament, they were pretty good fighters. There was a good chance they would pummel him unless he came up with something spectacular. Swallowing his doubt, he smiled and beckoned for them to bring it on.

They surrounded him and moved in all at once. Two swung high and two kicked low, making it almost impossible for him to block all four. Using his energy to launch him, he jumped up and over Claud, kicking him in the side of the face on the way. He punched him once in the back of the neck and twice in the left kidney, all before his feet touched the ground. Claud fell into Greg and another guy, tripping them up for a few precious seconds.

Nick threw a spinning back kick that nearly broke through Aiden’s defenses. It came too fast for Aiden to use its momentum against Nick, so instead he grabbed the leg, twisted it, and drove it knee first into the ground. To finish him quickly he knew he should follow him to the ground, but he couldn’t, not with three other opponents to deal with. He delivered a hard kick to Nick’s ribs instead—hoping he’d stay down for a bit—then kicked backwards with the same foot to catch an advancing Greg in the stomach. A punch swung at him from the other side. Aiden blocked it mostly by instinct and jabbed out with a punch that caught the fourth guy right on the chin. He stumbled away but didn’t go down.

They were good at fighting as a team, too good. It made Aiden think that he and his Society should practice together. First he had to get out of this. It wouldn’t take them long to wear him down. It was now or never.

He thought back to what Eren had done in the gym, the way her power had worked like a vacuum, sucking in the others. No, a vacuum wasn’t quite right. It had felt vampiric, drawing strength and weakening the others. Dropping the walls around his power, he concentrated on pulling instead of pushing. It felt like a switch inside him flipped. With the switch rose a rage that had long fed off the horrible things Luke and Virgil forced him to endure. That rage wanted to devour the energy of the boys in his path and he fought hard to control it.

The four boys surrounding him gasped and cursed, Greg even stumbled backwards.

“
What the hell?” Claud exclaimed.

Aiden turned his green-tinged gaze toward him and curled his lip up from his teeth. The look of fear on the muscle-bound boy’s face was so intense it was comical.

“
It’s true. You are a freak. So what, you still can’t beat us all,” Nick said with a huge dose of false bravado.

Behind him Aiden heard the click of a knife being whipped open. He didn’t have to look to know it was iron, he could feel it.

“
No he can’t,” the knife wielding Greg agreed.

Claud and guy number four didn’t look like they shared their friends’ confidence. In fact, they looked like they’d turn and run if their legs weren’t so wobbly. The feel of their fear-corrupted energy was intoxicating. It was hard not to give in to the instinct to let his power fall mercilessly upon them and feed, but Aiden resisted. The problem was, he wasn’t really sure he could stop.

Nick kicked at Aiden’s face. He ducked under it, anticipating an attack from behind at the same time. But he’d underestimated just how willing they were to kill him. Instead of trying to slice him, Greg tried to stab him. Aiden’s dodge moved his back out of range but the knife still sank hilt deep into the back of his arm.

Pain scorched through his left arm and he roared in anger. He kicked at Greg, pouring power into his leg. A groan escaped Greg as he tumbled to the ground next to where the fourth guy still cowered. A kick landed in Aiden’s ribs and another came flying at his face. His hands made it up to block lightning fast and he grabbed Nick’s fist, using it to slam him to the ground.

With a hand on Nick’s throat, he followed him down. Nick went very still. Every inch of Aiden’s body shook with the effort of holding back his power.

A twig broke and the air pattern to Aiden’s left changed. Moonlight flashed on something iron. Aiden sprung off Nick and kicked the knife from Greg’s hand. Slamming into him, he bore him to the ground and wrapped his power around his neck. Greg’s brown eyes went impossibly wide until Aiden could see just as much white as iris. Greg began to tremble and Aiden smelled urine. Disgusted, he jumped to his feet and scanned for more threats. The restraints on his power snapped and he sucked their power into him, drinking it down as if he were dying of thirst.

The four boys lay on the ground, some shaking and whimpering, others trying to cower away. Their eyes were filled with a primal fear, the kind that left a person a quivering mess.

Releasing all of his anger with a heavy sigh, he poured his power—along with their stolen energy—down into the ground. The knife wound stung even worse now and the fingers of his left hand tingled.

A gasp alerted him that they were no longer alone. Despite it being a decidedly feminine sound, he whipped around with fists clenched, prepared to fight again if he had to. Droplets of blood flung all over the students and faculty that were standing there gawking at him. From the horrified looks on their faces, it was obvious they’d been standing there long enough to have seen a bit of the fight. He must have been concentrating ridiculously hard on controlling his anger to have missed their approach.

Not one of them had tried to help him, he would never forget that.

Aiden found Bridget in the crowd and fixed her with a hard stare that felt as cold as the grave, even to him. Who had she been trying to help by bringing them out here, him or Luke’s Society?

“
Don’t any of you ever bother my Society again,” he warned while he met as many eyes as would dare meet his. There weren’t many.

Whipping away from their judging gazes, he jumped over those he’d defeated and took off into the forest. He had to get to Eren and make sure she was alright. Once he made sure she was safe from Luke he could explain everything.

“
A channeler’s life is not an easy one.

Great power comes with great responsibility.”

~from
Life In A Channeler Society

Chapter 34

Both Caitlin and Fane called out to Eren but she ignored them. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, she just wanted to run. Seeing Aiden with that repulsive girl’s arms around him after what she’d done to Eren was proof enough. It felt like the magnet that kept her rooted to this world had exploded inside her chest.