Silver (Wicked Woods #3) (15 page)

Her next lesson was Geography. Briony stil had a lot of catching up to do in this one, and she found herself trying to keep her head down during the class so that she wouldn’t be asked any questions she wouldn’t know the answers to. If she just got through it, it would be lunch, and Briony could turn her mind to more relaxing things, like the final stages of rehearsals for the play.

The lesson seemed to last forever, but final y, it was done. Briony hurried across towards the theater, knowing that she couldn’t afford to be late. So, when Pepper Freeman chose that moment to step out in front of her, alone except for Tracy, the brunette girl who was one of Briony’s few friends in the popular crowd, Briony groaned inwardly. She did not need trouble from the pretty blonde cheerleading captain right now.

“What do you want, Pepper?”

“Me? I just wanted to thank you, Briony. You’re hardly ever here, but you stil seem to have did me a favor.”

“Thank me?” Briony asked cautiously. “What for?”

“For pushing Fal on straight to me, of course.”

Briony reeled for a moment. “You and Fal on…”

Pepper smiled in that way she had when she knew that she had managed to upset someone. “Oh yes. What?

You didn’t think he’d wait for you when there were better offers on the table, did you? He’s a great kisser, isn’t he?”

Briony froze, stopping herself from wiping the smile from Pepper’s face with a wel -aimed punch only through an effort of wil . “I don’t believe you. Fal on would never kiss
you
.”

“I thought you would say that. It’s why Claire is here.

After al , you’l believe her, won’t you?”

Briony looked to Claire. Pepper was right. Claire wouldn’t lie to her. So if Pepper had brought Claire with her for this, it meant…

“Fal on real y kissed her?”

Claire looked uncomfortable, glanced to Pepper for a moment, and then nodded. “But-”

“Just tel her, Claire,” Pepper interrupted. “Did Fal on and I kiss, or not?”

“Yes.” The word came out very smal .

Pepper smiled once more. “We’l be seeing you around, Briony. Come on, Claire.”

The two cheerleaders headed off together, leaving Briony to her thoughts as they did so. Fal on had kissed
Pepper
? Briony knew that she shouldn’t feel anything. That she didn’t have any right to feel anything when the two of them had broken up, and when she had gone back and forth between both Fal on and Kevin, but why
her?

Probably because it was the one person who would hurt her most, Briony decided. Wel , she wouldn’t let it. She would go on as though things were normal. She would… be incredibly late for rehearsals if she didn’t hurry.

That thought had her running down the corridors to the school theater, getting inside to find that the rehearsals had not begun yet. That was because the stage was currently occupied, by a figure playing the school’s old piano.

Briony stopped. The music was entrancing, almost al uringly sad. The young man at the piano was lost in the music, and Briony found herself being transported with the haunting melody into thoughts of another world, a beautiful realm ful of soft golden light and flowers of every shade.

Notes spil ed from the piano in waves, combining feeling with the kind of virtuosity that spoke of years at the piano.

Briony had been absorbed in the music, that it took her a moment to realize who was playing it.

The dragon shifter’s clothes were more suitable for the environment now; jeans and a white hooded top that matched his sneakers, yet even from where she was, Briony could make out the almost white paleness of his hair, the golden tint of his skin. He turned his head as though he knew Briony was there, without missing a note, and looked straight at her with those deep, amber-gold eyes.

Briony took a step forward, just as Miss Smith came into the theater.

“What’s al this? We’re supposed to be having a rehearsal in here, not a recital.”

The dragon shifter brought things to a halt. His voice stil held those strange echoes when it came, but no one other than Briony seemed to notice them. “Sorry, am I in the way?”

The choice of words seemed to amuse him, and he kept his eyes on Briony as he said them. He obviously knew what she wanted from him.

Miss Smith caught the look. “Do you two know one another, Briony?”

“Um… sort of, Miss Smith. Could I maybe have a word with him?”

“There wil be plenty of time for that afterwards. Right now, we have a production to practice.”

Briony thought about rushing forward to talk to the dragon shifter anyway, but he had already slipped down from the stage, and was making his way through the incoming crowd of students. In just seconds, he was gone.

For a second, Briony even considered abandoning the rehearsal to look for him, but one look at Miss Smith told her that would not be a good idea.

Besides, Briony knew two things now. She knew that the dragon shifter was spending time around the school in some capacity, and she knew he knew she was looking for him. That had to make it easier to find it again later. Briony decided to concentrate on the rehearsal for the moment.

Between the shifter and the news about Fal on, Briony’s performance wasn’t the best it could have been, yet it was stil more than enough to satisfy Miss Smith, who seemed to be happy to get her star back. The rehearsals went wel , overal , and it wasn’t long before Briony was out in the hal s, ready to resume her search for the mythical beast that was wandering them somewhere.

She didn’t get a chance though, because Fal on was waiting for her. He started to say something, stopped, and looked down at Briony’s hand.

“Is that what I think it is?” Fal on asked.

Briony wasn’t in the mood to be nice about it.

“Kevin’s ring. Yes.”

“Wel , at least you’re protected now.” His voice was very restrained. He was obviously fighting hard not to say the wrong thing. “Though I thought I was doing a pretty good job of protecting you.”

“Up until you broke up with me, stormed off, and kissed Pepper Freeman.” Briony hadn’t realized quite how angry she was about it until she said it.

Fal on looked away. “I’m sorry we fought,” he said.

“I’m sorry I brought up what I wanted. I thought I was being honest. I thought you wanted the same thing. And now I see that you just wanted Kevin.”

“The way you want Pepper?”

“Pepper…” Fal on hesitated. “She kissed me, Briony. I think she did it mostly because she knew how much trouble it would cause. And I didn’t dare push her away. I figured that since her parents are important in Wicked, they might have some connection to Pietre.”

Briony thought about the way Claire had hesitated.

The way Pepper had stopped her from tel ing the whole truth. It made sense. Even so…

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

Fal on shook his head. “It just made me think about how much I want you.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “And now you don’t want me anymore.”

Briony couldn’t stop herself. She moved forward, putting her arms around Fal on’s neck. “Fal on, there’s a part of me that wil always love you. After everything we’ve been through together…”

She didn’t finish that, because Fal on kissed her.

Briony knew that she should pul away, but she didn’t. She suspected that a large part of her had been hoping for this moment. She kissed Fal on back eagerly.

“Give me another chance,” Fal on whispered to her.

“Don’t say it’s over.”

Briony remembered herself just in time. “Fal on, there isn’t time for us to talk about this. When I came out here, I was looking for the dragon. He’s in the school somewhere.”

Fal on kissed her again, lightly this time. “Then I’l help you find him. Just tel me that we’re okay. Please.”

Briony nodded, just barely, and Fal on moved back from her.

“I’l find him, Briony. I swear I wil .”

The next couple of days passed without incident, except for the usual run of the mil kind. A piece of the set fel down at rehearsals, and everyone had to help put it back in place when they should have been practicing their lines. A couple of customers at the diner didn’t quite get what they ordered. They were the kind of things that might have ruined many people’s days, but to Briony, that they were the biggest problems to show up meant that things were going very smoothly indeed.

There was no further sign of Pietre, perhaps because of Kevin’s presence at the inn, or perhaps simply because the master vampire had said everything that he had needed to. Either way, Briony was stil glad to have Kevin in her home. The more time she spent around the werewolf, the more she realized what he meant to her. They would do simple, ordinary things, like watching TV together, or cooking in the inn’s big kitchen, and just having Kevin around would seem to make them special.

Not that it was entirely without problems, of course.

Spending so much time in close proximity to Kevin, Briony could feel the desire they had felt for one another back at his cabin rising in the background. More than once, such as when Briony was making her way from the shower to her room wrapped in a towel on the second day and Kevin happened to spot her, or when they were kissing on one of the couches in the lounge and Briony found her hands drifting under Kevin’s shirt, it threatened to spil over into something more.

Yet they managed to pul back from the brink both times. The inn was big enough to let the two of them put distance between themselves when they needed to. That Kevin was wil ing to do so despite obviously wanting to take things further only made Briony care about him al the more. It made things a little tense at times in the inn, but it kept them simple.

They were a lot more complicated once she got to school. Briony would go there thinking only of Kevin, but the moment she actual y got there, the moment she saw Fal on, things would change completely. Just being close to him made her skin tingle with excitement. Looking at him made her ache. And as for any time that they happened to touch…

It was almost like magic, except that Briony was fairly sure that Fal on was not in her head. She was wearing her cross, and in any case, she could not believe that he would use that kind of tactic to win her heart. No, it was something else that seemed to be creating a connection between them, whether they wanted it or not. It made Briony feel like they were meant for one another, and if Fal on’s behavior was anything to go by, he felt exactly the same way. He spent much of his time trying to track down the dragon, as though that would be the thing that final y persuaded Briony to leave him alone.

The things that Briony felt meant that, in the minutes after she got back from school, when Kevin kissed her by way of a welcome home, she always felt guilt rising up in her. Guilt that she could spend the day feeling like that when she loved Kevin so much. Guilt at kissing him when part of her could stil remember how intense the connection to Fal on had been. Briony knew that she couldn’t go on like that. Not without doing something that would feel like a betrayal of at least one of them.

By the third night of Kevin’s stay at the inn, Briony knew that she couldn’t leave things as they were any longer.

They were sitting together on the couch, close enough that Briony could smel the sweet scent of Kevin’s skin, doing nothing more than talking, and yet Briony found herself more tense than she might have been if a vampire had walked through the door.

Even Kevin picked up on it. “Briony? What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

How could she tel him? How could Briony say that she spent her time with him thinking about Fal on, or at least about the strangely intense feelings that she had for him whenever they were close?

“It’s not nothing.” Kevin’s hands drifted up to Briony’s shoulders. “Your muscles are so knotted that they feel like iron. Here, let me help.”

Slowly, gently his fingers started to knead away the tension. It felt so good. Too good, when Briony couldn’t tel him the reason behind the stress she felt. Too good, when they were supposed to be keeping apart.

Far too good, when an image of Fal on jumped into her mind.

“No, wait.” Briony practical y leapt away from Kevin.

“Briony, what is it?”

Briony stood, sliding the promise ring Kevin had given her from her finger. “I can’t wear this, Kevin.”

Kevin looked dumbfounded. “Why not? I thought we were exclusive.”

Briony knew that she ought to explain. That she ought to tel him how she had kissed Fal on the other day, and explain that as much as part of her loved him, she did not want to be exclusive. The trouble was, she simply couldn’t do it. Briony grabbed for the next obvious excuse, one that wasn’t untrue, but which wasn’t the real reason, either.

“I just can’t wear it. Putting on your ring feels like the next step towards giving in to you. We’ve come so close to giving in to temptation again in the last few days, and I’m sure that the ring isn’t helping. It’s like it makes it… okay, somehow, when it isn’t. It real y isn’t what I want” She held the ring out to him.

Kevin’s face couldn’t hide the hurt he obviously felt at that. He stood. “I didn’t mean it like that when I gave it to you, Briony.”

“I know you didn’t, but that is how I feel. Take it back, please.”