Courts and Cabals by G.S. D'Moore (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

We were quiet for a long time, and I could feel myself drifting off to sleep despite a literal Sword of Damocles hanging over me.

“If I haven’t said it yet, thanks, Dani. You’re literally trying to save my life.”

She didn’t respond, and for a second, I thought she didn’t hear me. “Shut up and go to sleep, Cam,” she finally said. “It’s going to be a long few days.”

For maybe the first time since I’d met her, I did what Dani said.

Chapter 14

I was a little surprised when I woke up on Monday morning. After all Chloe’s talk and bluster, I’d survived seven hours past the deadline. During the night Dani had nodded off where she sat by the closet. It wasn’t a good sign, but I was still breathing, so I couldn’t complain.

“Dani,” I prodded her shoulder. “Time to get . . .”

I didn’t even see her move. One second, she was asleep, and the next my legs had been knocked out from under me, and gravity smashed me onto my back. The wind rushed out of me, and my lungs spasmed as I tried to draw breath.

“Fuck,” Dani’s face appeared above me. “Sorry, Cam, but in the future, best not to touch. Yell and I’ll wake up.”

“Ok,” I wheezed, and accepted an offered hand.

Mid pull-up, her head snapped around and she dropped me. I smashed back into the ground as my door was kicked open and Jerome rushed in ready to fight with two other Clan Whitepaw shifters. My best friend nearly impaled himself on Dani’s sword before pulling up short.

“Stop,” I wheezed as Dani stood guard over me. She looked like a child next to the massive shifters, but something in her stance told me it was an evenly matched fight. “She’s with me.”

I rolled onto my stomach and leveraged myself up. This time, I swatted away Dani’s hand and glared at her. She just shrugged and sheathed her sword.

“We should probably work out a shift change of some sort,” Jerome insisted. He’d been really close to the tip of that blade.

The dwarf and werewolf worked out my protection scheme as I caught my breath and stretched my back. It was ok in a few minutes, but having your lungs spasm in pain from blunt force trauma was not the way I wanted to start my day.

It got better from there. I had at least two allies by my side at all times. I didn’t even see Jerome smoke at all during his shift, or smell weed on him after he came back from classes. That was sacrifice. For the time being, I wasn’t holding court under the bleachers, which due to the impending midterms, pissed people off. It was bad for business, but my inner circle was circulating word that someone was gunning for me. Most people just saw that as an excuse, but they’d never had a pissed-off Fae on their ass.

I caught sight of several groups of changelings during the day. All their eyes were drawn to the mystical tattoo on my hand, and several pulled out their phones. I don’t know if orders changed some time during the day, but I didn’t get a “kill on sight” vibe from them by lunch.

“It looks like Lilith wasn’t lying about this mark. No one wants to fuck with my cabal.”

Lilith sat with me at lunch and dinner, and our conversations were surprisingly normal. She talked about her English midterm. Her professor was notorious for getting it done early, and she was confident she’d aced it. I had no reason to doubt her abilities.

My own first midterm was on Tuesday. I was up late with Dani again, practicing with my knife, and learning a few tricks. I tried to impress her at one point by pulling a move where I dropped the knife out of one hand, caught it with the other, and stabbed. Basically, I tried to pull and Arya Stark on her.

It didn’t work out as well for me as it did on Game of Thrones.

“That’s so fucking stupid! You take the cake for most retarded retard,” she didn’t hold back. “That shit doesn’t work in real life. Maybe, just maybe, if you’re a supernatural master swordsman you can pull it off, but you’re a human facing Fae. All you did was leave yourself open and defenseless.” She seemed genuinely pissed at me, and where I usually didn’t give a shit what other people thought, her hurtful barrage put me down in the dumps.

“Sorry,” she said a few minutes later. Judging by how awkward it was, I doubted she’d apologized a dozen times in her whole life. “I just don’t want you to die. You’re pretty cool.”

That was the best compliment I’d ever gotten from her; right above being called a love-sick puppy. I passed out after midnight, and woke up Tuesday with my head still attached to my shoulders.

“Fuck you, Chloe,” I felt like every second I was alive was a giant metaphysical finger in that bitch’s face.

This morning, Jerome and Dani had it worked out, and it was a smooth handoff. The problem today was that I had history with Miller, but more importantly, Aveena was in that class.

I entered the room wary and surrounded by my shifter bodyguards. They forewent their usual seats and clustered around me. Even Sam Little, who I knew wasn’t really involved, took a protective seat between me and the noble Fae. His girlfriend, on the other hand, was happily chatting with Aveena until Miller arrived and she returned to her seat right in front of me.

I didn’t think Sally McDougal would have trouble stabbing me in the eye if it got her family into the Fae’s good graces. Ireland was as close to home turf as the Fae had in our world, and buying