Nightshade (18 page)

“Want to take a walk?” he murmured into the crown of my hair. “I haven’t been through the school gardens yet.”

“Sure.” I stepped out of his arms.

We left the building, crossing the parking lot to reach the Mountain School’s collection of manicured hedges and flower beds. A few steps into the gardens, we surprised two boarders, a boy and girl, tangled up in each other’s limbs beneath a vine-covered archway. They vanished like spooked deer.

I watched their retreat, wondering what it must be like to steal moments of desire and hide them from the world.

Shay walked beside me in silence. I turned my palms over. The scabs and puncture marks had disappeared.

“I’m sorry I was rude to you at school today,” I said, reaching for his hand.

A mocking, crooked smile pulled at his lips. “You’re always nicer without your bodyguard around.”

“Who?” I frowned.

“Tall, dark, and rabid,” he muttered, twining his fingers through mine.

“You mean Ren?” I didn’t drop Shay’s hand but wondered if I should.

He didn’t answer, but his jaw twitched.

“How I acted had nothing to do with him,” I said, unable to completely curb my temper. “I was angry at you.”

“Whatever.” He shook his fingers from mine. Apparently I wasn’t the only angry one.

“Let’s go this way.” I turned down a small path. Unlike the others, this was untouched earth, not paved by round river stones like most of the garden’s walkways. The trail passed beneath towering evergreens that filtered the late-afternoon sunlight. I stopped when we reached my favorite spot in the gardens, walked to the edge of the pine-ringed clearing, and dropped down, sitting half hidden among the tall ferns.

Shay paused to take in his surroundings. “Very nice.”

“Yeah.” I stretched my arms toward the sky, letting the sun warm my skin. “I come here when I want to be alone.”

“It feels safe,” he said, crouching near me. “Private.”

The hem of my dress had inched up when I settled among the ferns and I caught Shay’s eyes tracing the line where my skin disappeared beneath the fabric. I leaned toward him.

“Kiss me.” It sounded like an order, and his shoulders tightened. “Please?”

I didn’t know it would be so hard, asking for something I wanted. I wasn’t used to making requests.

Just this once, screw the Keepers and their laws. That’s what they got for ordering me to spend time with a boy this beautiful. My first kiss should be mine.

Shay stood up. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Calla. It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“You want to?” A rush of heat chased by emptiness swept through me.
But you won’t.

“Yeah, of course.” His arms were folded across his chest, making the muscles of his forearms taut. “But you’re upset and I’m not really sure why you just asked. Or whatever that was.”

I pulled the hem of my dress down. “Never mind.”

“I’ll help you with whatever’s made you so upset,” he said. “But this morning you blew me off and I’m not going to kiss you today just so you can tell me to go to hell tomorrow.”

An unsuspecting fern took the brunt of my humiliation when I pulled the plant up roots and all.

“I know, I know,” I said, tossing leaves and dirt away. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s going to be dark soon.” He stretched his hands toward me. “You might have wolf night vision, but I don’t.”

“Sometimes I forget about your flaws.” I clasped his fingers in mine.

“Flaws, huh?” When he jerked me up, I was smiling again, surprised by how Shay’s easy manner made all my irritation fade. Once I was on my feet, he kept pulling until my fingertips rested on his chest. His hands released mine and slid around my back, pressing between my shoulder blades so my body molded against his.

I could feel every contour of his chest, the press of his thighs against my hips. I lifted my chin and his lips were on mine. The light touch speared my body and exploded deep within me. I shuddered and took his lower lip between my teeth, biting gently. He groaned, digging his fingers into my back. His lips parted mine, exploring, lingering.

My eyes were still closed when he pulled away.

“I thought you weren’t going to,” I whispered.

I looked at him and he smiled shyly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“I’m glad.” I lifted my fingers to touch the throbbing pulse at my neck. “I didn’t know it would feel like that. It was amazing.”

“Wait a sec.” He rested his index finger under my chin, turning my face up toward his. “That wasn’t your first kiss, Calla. No way.”

I retreated to the shadows of the circling pines, wanting to hide the hot flush in my cheeks.

He didn’t follow. “Come on. What’s wrong?”

“It was my first.” I brushed dirt from the back of my dress. “That’s all. Just drop it.”

His hand followed the curve of a tall fern. “I’m having a hard time believing that. But if it really was your first, I’m glad it wasn’t a disappointment.”

“No.” I could still feel heat pouring off my limbs. “No disappointment.”

He started toward me, but I held up my hand. “But not something we can do again.”

“Excuse me?” His eyebrow shot up.

“That was my first kiss,” I said, “because I have to follow different rules than other girls.”

“Kissing rules?” He looked ready to laugh, but when I nodded, he swore, kicking the ground with the heel of his hiking boot.

“I’m not telling you to go to hell.” I came back to his side but didn’t touch him. “But I’m not like other girls, Shay. I can’t be selfish.”

“And kissing me is selfish?” He stroked my cheek.

“Very.” I turned my face, brushing my lips against the inside of his palm, reveling in his warmth, his scent.

“What if I want to kiss you again?” he murmured.

“Don’t.” I pushed his hand away from my face, wishing I didn’t have to. “If you really want to help me, don’t.”

“I do have something that I think you might be interested in seeing.” He reached for his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a book. “Something I found.”

“You want to tutor me?” I glanced up at the darkening sky. “Remember that whole lack of night vision issue?”

“This will only take a sec.” The book he held was thick and very old; its spine looked on the verge of crumbling. “I wanted you to see this.”

“A book?”

“My excuse for trespassing on your mountain.” He turned the front cover toward me.

The moment I caught sight of the title, black letters that looked as if they had been branded onto the front cover, I shifted into wolf form without thinking and backed away from him, wary, hackles raised. Shay stumbled backward, gaping at me. The book lay on the ground where he’d dropped it.

“Calla, Calla.” He spoke my name like a chant, low and resonant. “What is it? What did I do?”

I kept my eyes locked on him, canines bared.

“Please turn back.” His voice began to shake. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

I sniffed the air for the presence of others, signs of a trap. But there was nothing; we were alone. I scrutinized him, finding no hint of treachery in his fearful expression. With some reluctance I shifted forms. He let out an explosive breath, stepping toward me. I jumped back.

“Stay where you are.”

He froze.

“Calla, what’s going on?”

I shook my head. “My questions now.”

He nodded quickly. I let my gaze fall on the book, pointing at the thick volume with a shaking finger.

“Who are you, Shay? Who are you really? And where did you get that?”

“You know who I am; I’m just me. I haven’t lied to you about anything.” A guilty flush crept up his cheeks. “And I got the book from my uncle’s library.”

I kept my hands outstretched, ready to hit him if I had to. “Your uncle doesn’t mind you borrowing his books?”

He toyed with the zipper of his coat. “Not exactly.”

I looked at him and saw how much he hated that he’d frightened me. I lowered my hands and crouched near the ground, my fingers moving over the soil in the hopes that the touch of the earth might calm me.

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”

“Bosque gave me the run of his house but asked me not to go into the library. He’s a rare book collector. He implied that a teenager might not take proper care of them.”

“Like that?” I glanced back at the abandoned tome that lay on the soil. He grunted and snatched the book, brushing away dirt.

“That wasn’t my fault. You scared me.” He pulled the book close to his chest. “I usually take very good care of books. I wouldn’t have taken it out of Bosque’s house, but I wanted to show you. And I thought his ban on my use of the library was unfair.” He rolled his eyes. “He even keeps the door locked.”

“If the door is always locked, how did you get the book?” I traced my fingertip over the bark of a nearby tree.

An impish smile darted over his lips. “I don’t read just philosophy. I went through a rebellious phase when I was pretty young and decided I wanted to be a professional thief. I was reading a lot of Thieves and Kings at the time.”

He watched my eyebrows lift and he laughed. “It’s a comics series. But anyway, I taught myself how to pick locks. I’m still pretty good at it. It was great to sneak in and out of my boarding school dormitories whenever I wanted to.”

Despite my roiling nerves, I giggled at the image of Shay slipping out late at night from the sleepy halls of an elite prep school.

“But why would you move?” I asked. “If you were already at a boarding school . . .”

“That’s what you’d think, right?” He began to pace through the clearing. “My uncle said familiarity breeds sloth, claimed I needed to see more than one part of the world. I think I’ve seen more than my share.”

“Sounds like,” I agreed.

“But moving is tough. I have no roots. No real friends. So I think he kind of owes me,” Shay mused. “I also hold very strong personal convictions against censorship. I don’t believe in forbidden knowledge.” His words were so self-assured I felt queasy. He had no idea what thin ice he stood on.

“So you’re a big fan of Eve?” I asked.

“She gets a bad rap. I’d take the Tree of Knowledge over Eden any day.” He grinned. “I’ve been to Eden. I thought it was overrated.”

“I have a feeling the original was better than Efron’s version,” I muttered, half shielding my body behind the tree trunk.

“But even with the temptation of breaking and entering aside,” Shay continued, “I thought my uncle’s request was ridiculous and kind of insulting. We’d been moving all over the world, I was always stuck in some lame dorm, and this was the first time we’d been in his family’s original house—and then he set up this rule. I love books, especially old books. I wouldn’t mistreat any of them. This one caught my eye. I think it’s early modern, maybe late medieval, but I can’t quite put a date on it; it doesn’t have a publisher’s imprint or anything.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” I murmured.

“You’ve read this book?” he asked.

“No.” My hands began to tremble again. “I have not.”

“But you recognize it.” He stepped toward me.

I flashed fangs at him. “Stay back. Don’t bring that book near me.”

He turned it over in his hands so that the cover faced him.

“You’re afraid of it.” He stared at the book and then looked at me. “Why are you afraid of a book you haven’t read?”

Can I really tell him the truth?
Too many pieces of a puzzle I had no idea how to put together were piling up all around me.

He opened the book. I whimpered and he snapped the cover shut again. “Okay, no looking at the book; I get it. I just wanted to show you the map.”

“The map?” I asked.

He nodded. “There are four maps. They seem totally random, places from all over the globe.” His voice grew wistful. “I’m sorry you won’t look; they’re unbelievable. You have no idea how surprised I was to find a map of the North American West in a book this old. I guess it’s no wonder my uncle didn’t want me messing with it; if there’s evidence in this book that medieval Europeans knew about this continent’s interior, that’s pretty big stuff. This text is probably worth millions.”

He hefted the tome as if weighing its value. I grimaced, waiting for him to speak again.

“Of course, it doesn’t have any contemporary place-names. The whole book is in Latin. But the geography is recognizable. When you found me and that bear, I was looking for the cavern system. I’ve been toying with the idea of spelunking for some time.”

My skin grew cold. He looked at my face, frowning. “Spelunking is cave exploration.”

“I know what spelunking is,” I said. “You were looking for Haldis?”

He blinked in surprise. “That’s the name on the map, Haldis.”

I thought about running.

“So if you haven’t read this book or seen the maps, then how do you know about the cavern?” he asked. “I’ve read all the hiking guides and topographical maps, and the only place I’ve found a reference to this cavern—or this mountain—is in my uncle’s book.”

His gaze moved back to the book. I could see how much he wanted to open it, to review the images he had just described.

I didn’t take my eyes off his face, making my decision, wondering what sort of fate I’d seal for myself. “My job, the duty of all the Guardians here, is to protect Haldis Cavern from our enemies. The Searchers.”

I stared at the book’s title, a single Latin phrase seared black onto the cover.

I closed my eyes, but I could still see the ebony lettering, as if the brand had been scorched on the inside of my eyelids. The forbidden words echoed in my mind.