Uncharted Territory (The Compass Series Book 3) (8 page)

“They used to say that was a sign of being a witch, did you know that?”

“Yes, sir.” I did know that. I’ve heard them all. This one in particular trips my fight-or-flight reflex. Despite my efforts, my breath is coming hard, and it’s not because I’m turned on.

“I’d never believed that before now.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that so I stay silent, on high alert, my muscles tensed until my brain makes the call. I don’t like where this is heading and I’m right to be suspicious.

“Are you a witch, baby?”

“Hunter!”

I’d forgotten Rey was here, and now I’m glad I asked him to stay. Tears are pooling in my eyes. My insides are being crushed by panic. I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s not that this never happens—it happens more often than you might think and I’ve learned how to laugh it off while screaming inside—but I’m nearly naked and I’m overwhelmed.

“Red.”

*

Several things happen
in quick succession when I safeword. Hunter yanks his hand away like he’s been burned, and his face falls into baffled alarm. Rey appears from the back wall he’s been leaning against, taking his jacket off as he hurries toward me. In seconds, he’s by my side, laying his coat over my shoulders. I start to cry.

“Get out.”

“Rey, I—”

“I said get out.”

“I’m sorry, Kit.”

“Hunter, please,” Rey says more mildly, holding me tight and starting to stroke my hair.

“Of course. Take as long as you like, no one will bother you. I—” he starts, but thinks better of it. Instead, he leaves, shutting the heavy door behind him.

“You’re all right, kitten. He wasn’t going to hurt you.”

Now that Hunter is gone, I’m covered up, and Rey is holding me, murmuring comforting words into my hair, I know that’s true. Nothing other than Hunter’s words had set off alarm bells, and there’s no way Rey would ever let anyone harm a hair on my head. But it didn’t feel that way a minute ago.

“I should’ve stopped him sooner, I’m sorry.” Rey continues his soothing prattle until I’ve stopped sobbing. “Do you want to go home?”

“Yes.” I’m too raw to go back out to the party, and my private audience with Hunter is clearly over. Not that I could look him in the face right now. Or ever again.

“Will you be okay if I get your coat? There’s a door in the back we can leave through so we don’t have to walk through the main room.”

“Yes, that’s fine.” I pull away from him to see that I’ve made a mess of his white shirt. It’s streaked with eye makeup, lipstick, and tears. “Oh, jeez, Rey, I’m sorry.”

“No worries.” His tone is casual, but I know people will be staring when he goes out. He always looks flawless and having bawling wannabe submissive smeared all over his pristine shirt doesn’t make the grade.

He stands up and offers me a hand. Rey gives me one last hug and, when he lets go, smooths some hair out of my face and kisses my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

I collect my dress, slipping Rey’s coat off and tugging the scrap of fabric over my head. To my surprise, he’s back in a minute flat. There’s no way he had enough time to get my coat, but there it is in his hands along with what looks like a white dress shirt.

“Hunter is the consummate host.” Rey unbuttons his soiled shirt and slips into the crisp clean one. It’s the slightest bit too small for him, but it’ll do. He holds my coat out for me to shrug into. When I’ve cinched the belt tight around me, he takes my hand.

The driveway seems longer than it did on the way in. It takes forever to get back to the car. Humiliation has a way of stretching out distances, and I’m glad that at least my walk of shame gets to be played out in private. The debauchery in the house is still in full force, and I doubt anyone will be leaving for hours.

When we’re on our way back to school, I say, “Well, that was an unqualified disaster.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I thought you did beautifully for your first time out.”

“He punished me, Rey.” And that was
before
I had a nuclear meltdown.

“Because he wanted to. He was being awfully picky with you. Did you mind?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. And a good thing, too, because he’s always going to find some fault with you. But the quiet and still—that will come with practice.”

“Yeah, he’s never going to want to practice with me again.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

I roll my eyes and sink into the soft leather of my seat. Yeah, a newbie who safewords and bursts into tears when you call her a witch is everyone’s idea of a dream sub. I stare out the window, watching the white and yellow lines of the road disappear as we coast over backroads. Maybe Rey is like those delusional pageant parents on reality TV, so enamored of his creation he can’t see the hot mess everyone else does.

‡

Year One

Y
et another knock
at my door. Why does dorm life consist of people constantly knocking at your door? At least it’s a respectable hour. I needed my sleep after the royal clusterfuck that was last night. I cringe just thinking about it.

“Come in.”

But nobody does.

“Come in!”

Goddammit. I’m comfortable in my bed with my book. I don’t want to get up, but it looks like I have no choice. It’s with considerable annoyance that I fling off my blanket and haul myself over to the door. When I open it, I’m greeted by the biggest bunch of yellow roses I’ve ever seen. There must be three dozen of them.

“What the hell is this?”

“Good morning to you, too.” Rey pushes by me to set the enormous bouquet on my desk. They take up my entire room.

“Seriously, Rey. What the fuck?”

“I don’t know, little one. You’ll have to read the card to find out.” He sprawls across my rumpled covers, bunching a pillow under his head. I scowl but reach for the card attached to the vase nonetheless. It’s not your typical thin, cheap envelope with a florist’s logo, but a luxuriously thick, off-white one. When I open it, I find a forest green liner and a flat card of a similarly heavy weight with an engraved monogram: HLV. Hunter green then.

With my most sincere apologies. I’d like to see you again.

Yours,

Hunter

What
? I read it through over and over. He wants to see me again?

“And?” Rey prods. “Who are they from?”

“You know who they’re from.”

“Unless Hunter’s hiring Ben out as an errand boy, yes, I do.”

“Ben brought these?” The idea of Ben just down the hall, like Hunter by proxy, sends my heart skipping in a way I want to ignore.

“He did.”

Whoa. I hand Rey the card, and he whistles through his teeth. “Damn, girl.”

“Yeah. I guess Hunter Vaughn likes his girls with a big ol’ side of crazy.” I’d like to pretend that insulted and wary are the only things I’m feeling, but there’s also a low-burning glow of hopeful pleasure in my chest.
He wants to see me again.

“Don’t be like that. Some guys love high-drama girls, but I’ve never known Hunter to be one of them. He likes you and he feels bad about how things ended, that’s all.”

I lie on my bed with Rey, and he spoons me, slinging a heavy arm over my ribcage as we stare at Hunter’s enormous and beautiful apology. The guy doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. He had no way of knowing. I wonder what I’d get if he actually screwed up.

“Fine,” I allow, trying to smother the excitement under a scowl.

“I’ll give him a call in a few hours. He doesn’t need to know you live down the hall from me. And besides, it’s good to make him wait. Not to mention I’m hungry. Brunch?”

*

“Thank you for
seeing me. I’m sorry about last night.”

Hunter’s sitting across the table, looking heavenly in a navy suit, light blue button-down, and red tie. I take a sip of water. “It wasn’t your fault.”

We’re sitting in a small private dining room in a very swank restaurant in midtown Manhattan. Alone. Rey had called Hunter after brunch, and Hunter had invited me for dinner at his home. A home I’ve since been informed by Rey was purchased with family money—the same way I’m likely to purchase my first property—though Hunter’s job on Wall Street would probably be lucrative enough to afford it regardless.

“No!” I’d mouthed at Rey.

“Perhaps drinks. And someplace more…public would be more appropriate?”

Hunter had acquiesced, said he’d text with the details, and here we are five hours later.

He’s staring at me, waiting for an explanation, although he doesn’t seem impatient. I take another sip of my water and clutch the glass while my anxiety pings around my head. I don’t like talking about this, and I start to curl in on myself, make myself smaller. It would be embarrassing to have to excuse myself and I’ll probably regret letting my fear of something so ridiculous keep me from Hunter, but I don’t think I can do this.

“Look at me.”

I tear my eyes away from where they’d been fixed on the fine white linens on the table.

“Sit up, take a breath, and then you’ll talk to me.”

Though my parents have been scolding me for ages about my terrible posture and I generally slump more to spite them, Hunter’s demands don’t have the same effect. I want him to want me so badly, to feel that I am worth having. And when I do as he’s asked—straighten my spine, settle my behind into the chair, and fill my lungs with air that he’s breathed—I feel better. Willing to be persuaded by his coaxing, no matter how difficult it may be.

“I have a sister. An older sister.”

He must be confused by my spluttered non sequitur, but all he offers is a sip of his martini, a dip of his head, and a softly commanding “Go on.”

I swallow and take another deep breath, finding comfort in following his instructions. “She doesn’t like me. Never has. She wanted my parents to take me back to the hospital when I was born. She used to blame things on me all the time and try to get me in trouble.”

That probably sounds like standard sibling stuff, and maybe it would have been except that, as with most things, Ivy took her dislike of me to extremes. Destroying my school projects, ruining my clothes, dismembering my favorite dolls. She took a knife to the down pillows on my parents’ bed, threw the feathers all over, and told them I did it. Hunter seems neutral on the point. He must not have siblings.

“She also used to tell me that I was a witch. Because of my eyes.”

In a compulsion I can’t fight, I close them. I can’t say how much time I spent as a child with my eyes tightly shut, hoping to hide my freakishness from the world. My eyes made me different in a way that made people uncomfortable. I got teased about it some at school, but no one was as bad as Ivy. Again, Hunter’s voice echoes in my head, telling me to breathe. I look at him, try to be brave, and tell him the story he’s asked to hear.

I want to be pretty and polished for him, so I swallow the sick and pretend I’m telling a fairytale. One of the original, incredibly horrid ones, not the Disney remakes. I never liked those much, was always more drawn to the dark tales that made me feel things I didn’t totally understand.

“When I was six, and she was…old enough to know better, she decided to conduct her own personal witch trial and told me if I didn’t pass, our parents would send me away to live with the other witches. She looked up some of the real things they used to do during witch trials and put together her own.”