The Darkness Within (8 page)

Ethan laughed. “And Gloria’s worried about
me
?”

We drove to the mountaintop and parked. Even at night, the view was incredible. The stars lit up the sky, and the river glistened below them. Ethan opened the moon roof. The night air was crisp, but I snuggled closer to Ethan to keep warm.

“Think I could move the stars?” he asked.

“What? Why would you want to do that?”

“I could write your name in them.”

I wasn’t sure that was possible, even for a witch, but with the way Ethan’s magic had been lately, I didn’t like him thinking about trying something so huge. “I don’t need my name written in the stars. All I need is you.”

“You have me. All of me.” He traced soft kisses from my temple down to my neck. I was done for. Ethan was using his most powerful magic on me. His love. For a moment, I couldn’t help wishing he wasn’t a witch. That he was just my Ethan again. He didn’t need magic. He’d already been perfect. Maybe binding his magic wasn’t such a bad idea after all. But if I gave in to Dylan and went along with his plan, Ethan would think I didn’t trust him. That I didn’t want him to be part of the coven.

How could I put him through that? Even if it
was
true?

8

I
WAS
up early. After being with Ethan last night, I’d had a change of heart. I couldn’t let Dylan kick him out of the coven. I’d find another way to fix whatever was wrong. I had to. Ethan deserved that. He’d given his life for me. He’d become a witch for me. I couldn’t be selfish now. I couldn’t let Dylan bind Ethan’s magic just because it was the easy solution. Ethan liked being a witch, almost as much as I’d grown to like it. I wouldn’t take that away from him.

Dylan and Shannon met us in the parking lot, as usual. I gave Dylan a look that hopefully let him know I wanted to talk. I wanted to get Shannon in on it, too, to avoid being alone with Dylan and his strange new feelings for me, but having us all talk about Ethan behind his back like that felt too much like us ganging up on him. If Ethan ever found out, he’d be really hurt. I had to suck it up and face Dylan on my own. For Ethan’s sake.

Dylan narrowed his eyes at me, giving me a questioning look every time I tried to hint at a secret meeting. Finally, I gave up. I’d have to text him from class. Ethan walked me to my English Lit class after we parted ways with Dylan and Shannon.

“Have I told you how amazing you are yet today?” He twirled a section of my hair around his finger. His hand grazed my cheek, sending chills down my spine.

“Maybe once or twice, but feel free to tell me again.” I smiled before leaning forward and kissing him good-bye.

“I don’t want to leave you.” He tugged on my hands, pulling me closer instead of letting me go.

“I think you have to.” Yeah, especially since I had to meet Dylan. He pouted, which looked sexy as hell. “You’re playing dirty.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged me closer still. “Ditch with me.”

“Ditch?” This wasn’t like him at all. He was always the responsible one. “Who are you, and what have you done with my boyfriend?”

“Ahem,” Mr. Ryan said, glaring disapprovingly in our direction.

Ethan let go and sighed. “Morning, Mr. Ryan.”

“Mr. Jones.” Mr. Ryan nodded. “I suggest you get to class before the late bell.”

I smiled at Ethan and walked into the classroom before he did something to land us both in detention. I took a seat next to Shannon, who was eying me suspiciously.

“You seem to have Ethan on a short leash.”

“What? No, it’s not like that. Why do you think that?” I never thought of myself as the overbearing girlfriend.

“He’s so into you. He’d probably permanently attach himself to you if he could. Which
of course
means you two are having sex.”

I dropped my copy of
Frankenstein
on the floor. I’d never told anyone that Ethan and I had…well, that we’d slept together. It wasn’t like we did it all the time. Living together complicated things. I mean, yes, we slept in the same bed each night, but that didn’t mean we were all over each other. It was kind of the opposite. We didn’t want our relationship to get old by moving too quickly. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than turning into an old married couple at seventeen. No, thank you.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Shannon picked up my book for me and put it on my desk. “You two have been together for practically forever. I’m sure everyone knows you’re sleeping together.”

“Could you stop talking about it?” I looked around, paranoid that the entire class was tuned in to the conversation. “For your information—not that I think it’s any of your business—we’ve only done it three times.”

She shook her head. “No way. You two liv—”

I slapped my hand over her mouth before she could rat me out to
the class. I could deal with people knowing Ethan and I had had sex. But letting people find out we were actually living together was a completely different story. We could get in serious trouble. We were lying about where we lived, having parents to look after us, and even our last names. Hell, we were assuming the identities of two strangers. It was all so totally illegal.

“Sorry,” Shannon mumbled under my hand. I pulled away, noticing her red lip gloss had left a big smear on my palm. “Oh, great. Now I need to reapply.” She whipped out a compact mirror and a tube of shimmering lip gloss. “Want some? I bet Ethan would like it. It tastes like raspberry.”

Ethan didn’t need any encouragement lately. His hormones seemed to be on overdrive. “No. I need to go wash this off.” I raised my hand, getting Mr. Ryan’s attention.

“Yes, Sam?” He walked over, carrying his copy of
Frankenstein
.

I showed him my hand. “Can I please go wash this off in the bathroom? I don’t want to get it all over my books.”

He nodded. “But try to be a little quicker than last time, okay? I don’t want you to miss important information that will be on the test.”

We’d just started the book and already he was thinking about the test. Typical teacher. “Will do.” Shannon was applying her third or fourth coat of lip gloss as I left the room. As soon as I turned the corner, I grabbed my cell from my pocket and texted Dylan.

Bathroom. Now
.

Two arms encircled me from behind, and Ethan’s familiar scent hit me a second before his lips found my neck. “Texting me to meet you?”

Damn it! What was he doing here? “Um, I was just going to say I missed you. I promised Mr. Ryan I’d only be gone for a second. I just have to wash Shannon’s lip gloss off my hand.”

“Do I even want to know how it got there?” He flipped my hand over to see the smudge of red.

“She almost outed us to the class.” We turned the corner. Dylan was approaching from the other direction.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Ethan asked him.

Dylan’s eyes flew to me. “Um…”

I prayed he wouldn’t tell Ethan I’d asked him to meet me. “Did Shannon get her slimy lip gloss on you, too?” I asked, holding up my hand.

“No. I just needed to use the bathroom.”

“It’s down the other hall, man.” Ethan laughed. “How long have you been going to this school? A month, and you still don’t know where the guys’ bathroom is?”

“Must have slipped my mind.” Dylan’s gaze lingered on me before he turned back down the hall.

I paused in the doorway, not letting Ethan follow me inside. “I really do have to get back to class right away.”

He cocked his head to the side and gave me his puppy-dog eyes. He was so good at this look because of his killer eyelashes. I wished mine were as long as his. Combine that with his bluest-blue eyes, and it was hard to resist giving in to him.

“Not today.” It broke my heart
and
his.

“Is it because of last night? Did I do something wrong? I thought you wanted to—”

“I did. It’s not that. I promise. Everything’s fine.”

He still looked disappointed, but he nodded. “I’ll wait for you and walk you back to class.”

“No.” I swallowed hard at how quickly I’d answered. “I just mean, if Mr. Ryan catches us together, he won’t let me out of class anymore, and then we’ll never get to sneak back to our stall again.”

“I’m really starting to not like him, you know.”

“He’s not bad at all. Actually, he’s one of my favorite teachers. Him and Ms. Matthews. And speaking of Ms. Matthews, I’ll see you next period.” I kissed him lightly on the lips. He groaned before reluctantly walking back to class.

I washed my hand, not expecting to have my meeting with Dylan after Ethan had almost caught us. But his reflection in the mirror made me jump. “You scared me.” I whipped around.

“I wouldn’t have if Ethan hadn’t been with you. What was that about?” He stepped into the bathroom and motioned for me to follow him to the last stall. Ethan’s and my stall. Too weird. I stayed outside, which prompted a suspicious look from Dylan. “What, you want me to get caught in here?”

“No, it’s just that Ethan and I kind of meet in this stall.”

Dylan rolled his eyes and moved one stall down. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” I knew it was stupid, but since I was feeling weird around Dylan
and
I was going behind Ethan’s back, I didn’t want to add any more weirdness into the equation.

“So, why’d you text me to meet you if you were with him?”

“I wasn’t with him at the time. He sort of snuck up on me. I couldn’t text you and cancel. He would’ve asked who I was texting and when I said you, he’d want to know why.”

“He still doesn’t like me, does he?”

“He’s over what happened before. He doesn’t have a problem with you.”

Dylan didn’t look convinced, but he dropped it. “I’m guessing since you texted me, you know we need to stop him from doing magic. Make sure he can’t tap into any dark magic again.”

I still didn’t believe it was dark magic causing the problem. How would Ethan even get access to dark magic? He had no reason to, and I doubted he had the first clue what it even was. But I didn’t have time to explain all that to Dylan right now. Mr. Ryan was expecting me back in class. “Actually, I texted you because I wanted to let you know he’s been fine. No problems at all. He hasn’t done a single spell.”

“Good. But that just proves my point. We need to bind his powers.”

“I don’t see how that will help. He’s still learning. We have to teach him. Show him how to control the magic. Cutting him off from it isn’t going to help. The magic is part of him. He won’t feel right if he can’t tap into it.” I couldn’t help but wonder if Ethan’s efforts not to use his magic had anything to do with why he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Maybe that pent-up energy was finding another outlet.

“So, this is about protecting his feelings? The only reason you don’t want to do this is because he’s your boyfriend and you don’t want to upset him. What if it was Shannon? What if it was me? How would you feel then?”

“What if it
were
you? What if
your
magic was going haywire and the rest of us wanted to bind your powers? Would you still think this was the best solution?” My blood pressure was rising. If Dylan wasn’t careful, he was going to get my fist in his face.

“I
was
in Ethan’s position.” He pushed past me and out of the stall.

“What?” I crossed my arms, waiting for him to explain.

“I did lose control of my magic once. Things got really bad. My parents wanted to bind my powers. I refused. I said the same thing you just said. I didn’t want to be separated from the magic that was so much a part of me. My parents freaked—they turned their backs on me.”

My mind raced to the conversation I’d had with Shannon.
Ask him why he wasn’t in school before we formed the coven. Ask him where he’s been and where his family is. Ask him what his last name is—his real one
. I was about to hurl those questions at Dylan, but he kept going on his own.

“Ben took me away. He looked after me. Helped me get control.” Dylan sighed and met my eyes. He didn’t look angry. He looked sad, like someone who had lost a lot. “I know you don’t believe this, but I want to help Ethan. I want to fix what’s wrong with his magic. But I’m not Ben, and since he’s not around…” His stare turned icy, and it was all I could do not to turn away. “I’m doing the best I can.”

He really didn’t have a thing for me. I had it all wrong. Dylan had been looking out for Ethan. It wasn’t about me at all. Well, except for the part where I took away the only family member who hadn’t abandoned Dylan.

“You and Ben lived on your own?” I choked on Ben’s name.

Dylan nodded.

“Where were you before you started school here? Did you and—?” I couldn’t say his name again. “Did you just stay home and practice magic?”

“Ben said we had to stay under the radar. He hadn’t exactly gotten my parents’ permission to take me away. They tried to find us, and let me tell you, it’s nearly impossible to stay hidden from a locator spell, especially when the people searching for you are blood relations. The connection is too strong.”

“So, you were hiding from your parents?” That sounded all too familiar.