Was this real?

“Gautier?” Coach Heffron snapped as he paused next to him and glared down at the floor where Nick was spread out. “I hope you don’t stumble like that during the game. Get up, boy, you’re blocking traffic and embarrassing yourself and your team.”

Caleb stopped by his side and held his hand out to him. Nick took it and let his friend pull him to his feet.

“You all right?” he asked.

Nick wasn’t sure. He glanced from Caleb to Casey to the other students he knew so well. Brynna was at her locker, talking to LaShonda about shopping. Stone and Mason were glaring at him from their lockers. Madaug walked past, his nose buried in a notebook with pages spilling out of it.

It appeared to be right. Everything as it usually was. Nothing strange, other than how he came to be here.

“Yeah.”

Casey reached up to rub his head. “I don’t know. You took a bad fall.”

“Not hard enough,” Kody mumbled as she walked past them and the light caught against the heart necklace he’d given her. She cast a malevolent glare at him that added credence to this being real.

Maybe that was how the doorway worked. It just threw you right back into a normal day.

Casey snarled in Kody’s direction. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, bitch!” Then she leaned into Nick. “Ignore her. You’ve moved up in the world.”

Yeah, this felt normal.

Caleb handed him his nine-thousand-pound backpack.

Nick leaned in to speak to him so that Casey couldn’t overhear anything. “What happened with my mom and dad?”

He blinked innocently. “What about them?”

Opening his mouth to elaborate, he snapped it shut. The busy hallway filled with nosy ears was not the place to have this discussion. “Nothing.”

Maybe the door had reset the past?

Maybe everything had been a dream. How would he know?

Stone “accidentally” bumped into him as he headed for class. “You look even more like a freak in those clothes, Gautier. You should go back to your trailer trash wear.”

Caleb shook his head. “Ignore him, Nick. He’s just jealous you’re the hero and he’s a loser.”

Nick scowled in confusion. “Hero?”

“The game? You scored the winning TD Friday night after Stone fumbled the ball. Don’t you remember?”

Okay, it must have dumped him forward in time.

Caleb arched a brow at Nick. “Maybe you ought to go to the nurse.”

“I’m fine.” Sort of. Since he wasn’t sure which period it was, never mind the day of the week, Nick walked with Caleb, who didn’t seem to think it odd that Nick was with him. Hopefully this was one of their shared classes. But since they were in the back hallway of the school, there was no clock for him to check the time.

Caleb went into Richardson’s stark, bland room. Great … Couldn’t the dimensional doorway have dropped him back later in the day? No, he had to be in the hag’s class. Figures. But at least it was study hall and lunch.

Richardson narrowed her beady eyes at him and his new clothes. “What are you wearing, Mr. Gah-tee-aa?”

Nick bit back a caustic retort at her deliberate mispronunciation of his last name. She hated Cajuns and in particular she hated Cajun French, especially if you mixed it with English. Which was why it was a moral imperative that he break out his most charming grin and thickest accent. “Pourquoi, cher, je voulais pas m’obstiner avec toi. Ça me fait de la peine that you take issue avec mon linge. Je fais le mieux que je peux.”

Why, hon, I don’t want to argue with you. It pains me that you take issue with my clothes. I do the best that I can.

Oh yeah, she was madder than the devil now. Her face was so red, it matched her tacky eyeglasses. “Sit down, Gau-tee-yah, before I write you up.”

Nick winked at her. “Je t’aime, itou.”

“Stop baiting her,” Caleb mumbled under his breath.

“Can’t help it.”

“For my sake, try.”

Nick sat down and opened his books to do homework. He’d just started when someone threw a wadded piece of paper at him. Scowling, he looked to see Ben, another friend of Stone’s, glaring at him.

“What pimp did you shoot for that outfit, Gautier?”

Letting out a breath in frustration, Nick didn’t comment as he returned to work and saw the riddle they wanted him to solve for English:

It can be stolen, but never bought.

It can be given, but never taken.

It can be stepped on, but cannot walk.

It can fly, but has no wings.

It can sing, but has no voice.

It can be broken, but still it works.

It can be left, even while it follows.

And though it’s easily commanded, it can never, ever be demanded.

What was any of that crap supposed to mean? Gah, how he hated homework.

As usual, class dragged on until he was ready to scream. The twenty minutes he had to wait before they could go to lunch seemed like an eternity.

He didn’t relax until they entered the cafeteria. But his relief was short-lived as other people started making comments about his new non–Hawaiian shirt look.

“You think he went gay?”

“Nah, I think he was always gay.”

Nick batted his eyelashes at the all-male table of Stone’s cronies as he stopped after their comment and pursed his lips. “Why, I know all y’all looking for new boyfriends. But I’m happily taken.” He looped his arm in Caleb’s and prissed off with him toward the food line.

Caleb gave him a stoic stare.

“What?” Nick asked innocently.

“Since I’m your boyfriend, the least you could do is buy my lunch.”

Nick scoffed at him. “Chivalry is so dead. You should buy mine.”

Caleb rolled his eyes as he plopped a wad of mashed potatoes onto his tray and moved down the line.

Once they’d paid, Nick headed for Casey, who was at a table with two of her friends.

She scowled as he sat down beside her. “What are you doing?”

He exchanged a confused stare with Caleb. “Having lunch with my girl?”

Frowning even more, she looked at her friends. “Which one of you is dating the loser?”

“Ew! Not me.”

“As if!” Stephanie raked a sneer over Nick’s body. “I’d go all-girl school first.”

Stone shoved Nick from behind. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Even more confused, Nick stared at Casey. “What game are you playing?”

“Stone!” she snapped. “Do your job and get this stupid dork away from me.”

Stone and his friends fell on Nick so fast and furiously that he didn’t even have time to swing a single punch. One minute he was standing, the next they had him on the ground, stomping him like Alan, Tyree, and Mike had done.

“Caleb?”

For once, he didn’t come to his aid. Instead, Nick’s entire being changed. He went from his current self back to the day he’d started at St. Richard’s.

Barely five two, he was gawky and scrawny as Mrs. Pantall introduced him to the class. “This is Nick Gautier. He’s a new student.”

“What’d he do?” Stone had laughed. “Cheat to get in? I know he didn’t bribe anyone. He can’t afford shoes that fit, he dang sure can’t afford to bribe somebody. And what Dumpster did he steal that 1985 backpack from?”

Laughter erupted.

“Loser! Go back to the trailer park!”

“Is this really what you want?”

Nick turned around, scanning the room for the source of that voice. “What?”

A shadow manifested beside him. “You don’t have to go back to this. It’s your life, you control it.”

How easy the voice made it sound. “I don’t control other people.”

“Don’t you?”

Well, he did have the power of persuasion … when it worked, which was rare. “Not really.”

“Yes, you do,” she whispered in his ear. She placed a dagger in his hand and pushed him gently toward Stone. “Kill him and put your past to rest so that you can move into your future.”

Nick’s heart pounded at the unexpected order. “What?”

“You want to go home … it requires a blood sacrifice. Cut his throat. He’d never hesitate to cut yours.”

Nicky? He heard his mother calling for him. Where are you? I need to you to help me. Nicky, come home!

“Your mother will die if you don’t get to her.”

Nick gripped the knife tight and stared at it. He wanted to go home more than anything. And he had no love whatsoever for Stone.

He took a step forward, then stopped. Something wasn’t right about this. It felt wrong.

Real wrong.

Turning, he ran for the door and jerked it open. But instead of exposing the school’s hall, he found Ambrose in the doorway, glaring at him. His eyes blazed that evil demon red that Nick despised.

“You have failed me,” Ambrose growled.

“How? I’m trying.”

“You are failing … again.” Ambrose seized him and turned him around in his arms so that he could keep Nick from moving.

One moment, they were in the classroom, and in the next, they stood high atop the Jackson Brewery that looked out over a burning New Orleans landscape.

“Embrace your destiny. We are the end of all things.”

Horror filled him as he watched the things he loved most perish. Ambrose’s wings unfurled and flapped around them.

“There is nothing we can do. The harder we fight, the sooner it comes. Give in…” Tightening his grip, Ambrose launched into flight with Nick in his arms. “Say the words, Nick, and we will be one.”

“No!” Nick punched him hard, causing Ambrose to drop him. Winds rushed over his body, tearing at his hair and skin, as he plummeted toward the ground at a frightful pace.

I’m going to die.…

The ground came closer, faster and faster.

Nick kept waiting for Ambrose to return and save him, but he didn’t. There was no Caleb. Nothing.

No one was going to save his life. It was over.

Closing his eyes, he waited for impact.

CHAPTER 19

Caleb paused as he left Kody’s bathroom and a flash of something caught his eye. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar. Pushing it open more, he skimmed the frilly pink room in search of what had called out to him.

It must be my exhaustion.

He stepped back, then froze as it happened again. It was a symbol she’d painted into her wall. Barely discernible, it only flashed in response when he touched the perimeter of the room. That was normal since he was a demon. It was how protection symbols and spells worked.

What wasn’t normal was the design of it.

Or the ancient bow that was fastened above her headboard.

His breath left his body as he was thrown back in time to when he’d last seen those items. It was impossible for Kody to have them. The lady who’d owned them would never, ever have allowed another to use either.…

“What are you doing?” Kody snapped, moving around him so that she could shut her door.

But Caleb was in no mood for her attitude. Stepping past her, he entered the room, causing the emblem to blaze like fire on the left-hand wall. A stylized woman, she had her long hair flowing back while she held a bow and arrow aimed for the skies. It was the symbol of Dexaria Belam … the huntress. The same emblem that had adorned his battle shield.

His hand trembling, he reached for the bow. Just as his fingers brushed the wood, it flew from the wall, into Kody’s grasp.

“No one touches my bow.”

“Your bow?” he asked incredulously.

She lifted her chin in defiance. “Yes.”

Fury set him on fire and he closed the distance between them. It took every piece of patience he had not to grab her and shake her until she answered his questions. “Where did you get that?”

“None of your business.”

He gestured to the black feathers that were attached to the top of it by a thin leather cord. “Do you know what those are?”

“Tributes.”

“From?”

“None of your business.”

Caleb felt his eyes change to his demon’s vision as she awoke the dangerous part of him with her repetition of the same useless answer. “There you’re wrong. And if you want to live another minute, you will tell me what I want to know or we will go to war until one of us is dead. Where did you get Bathymaas’s bow?”

He watched indecision play across her face as she debated if she was going to answer or fight.

After a full minute, she drew a ragged breath. “My mother gave it to me, and I invoke your most sacred oath that you pledged to her when you offered her your tribute that you will never tell another being who and what I am.”