Starling by Lesley Livingston
That might have already happened, Mason thought as a siren started to wail in the far distance.
Closer, she heard a voice, someone shouting, and then another. Gosforth Academy was waking up to find its venerable oak tree felled and its brand-new gym demolished. What it wouldn’t find were the creatures that Mason was almost sure had been responsible for the devastation.
And now … now that they had all agreed to remain silent … there was no one to tell of their existence.
Emergency personnel and school administration descended on the scene within minutes, along with a crowd of gawking students from the dorm, most of them still in sweats and sporting bedhead. Mason was led, under protestation that she was fine, to sit beside Heather Palmerston on a bench while a paramedic examined the small collection of cuts and bruises the girls had sustained.
“Mason!”
She glanced up in apprehension as she heard her name called out in a familiar voice. Gunnar Starling came striding across the quad, a thundercloud frown on his brow. Mason felt her heart lurch a little—whether in fear or relief, she wasn’t really sure—at the sight of her father. His custom-tailored overcoat flowed cloaklike in his wake, and his thick silver hair was like the mane of a lion. His elegant Nordic features were drawn, and his pale blue eyes dangerously alight with anger.
Maybe not anger, Mason thought. Maybe it was … worry.
Which was worse. If Gunnar Starling was angry about something, he dealt with it swiftly, surely, and permanently, and that was that. If he was worried about something—some problem that he couldn’t immediately solve, make better, or make go away—then Gunnar was someone to be avoided at all costs. Mason hoped he was just really pissed about the rainbow window.
Her father bore down on her where she sat huddled under an emergency blanket. Heather seemed to have lapsed into a kind of dull stupor, unaffected even by the sight of buff firefighters—until the moment two of them rounded the far side of the building, supporting Calum between them. Mason, Heather, and Rory had all been able to clamber over the trunk of the fallen oak tree in order to get out into the quad. But not Calum. Toby had made him stay put inside the ruined gymnasium until the firemen could go around and force open the jammed emergency exit door. It was a decision that had quietly infuriated Cal, Mason could tell, but it was also a moot point. In the state he was in, he hadn’t had the strength to climb over the twisted, massive bulk of the fallen oak, in spite of the Fennrys Wolf’s mysterious ministrations. Which, Mason suspected, had probably saved Cal’s life.
She wished there was some way she could thank Fennrys for what he’d done for them, but she feared she’d probably never see him again. It made her unaccountably sad, but she had more immediate problems to deal with at the moment. Like her father switching course in midstride when he spotted Toby talking to the fire chief. Gunnar looked like he was going to rend the fencing instructor limb from bloody limb.
Mason jumped up off the bench and ran straight toward her father, heading him off at the pass.
“Dad!”
“Mason! Honey …” Gunnar Starling wrapped his daughter tightly in his strong arms and kissed the top of her head. “What in hell happened to you?”
“Nothing.” Mason tried to sound convincing. “I’m fine. It was the storm. I guess the old oak just couldn’t stand against it....”
Her father pushed her to arm’s length and bent down to peer into her face, his stare almost palpable in its intensity. “You shouldn’t have been in the gym.”
“Dad, I had practice—”
“And you shouldn’t have been alone like that with no one to protect you.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Hey, Pop,” Rory said, wandering up next to them, hands stuffed casually into the pockets of his jeans. Mason noticed, though, that they were balled into tight fists.
“Rory. Damn it!” Gunnar rounded on his younger son. “You should have been looking out for your sister.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Rory muttered acidly.
“Rory was great, Dad,” Mason pulled at her father’s arm, ignoring the pointed glare her brother gave her. Mason had learned early in life that Rory did not exactly appreciate anyone standing up for him. “And Toby was awesome, too—he totally took care of us!”
Gunnar’s glance flicked over to where a paramedic had bandaged Calum and was leading him to an ambulance. Cal shrugged angrily away when the woman tried to support him under his arm.
“Yeah,” Mason continued, trying to recapture her father’s attention. “I mean, poor Cal got pretty banged up, but that’s because he was just in exactly the wrong place when the oak came crashing down.”
Gunnar turned back to his daughter, frowning.
“But nobody panicked and Toby made sure we all knew what to do and we’re all okay.” Mason tried to smile brightly. “He made us stay in the storage cellar overnight, until the storm passed, just in case and … and …” She faltered to a stop, willing her father to remain calm and not kill anyone on her behalf.
“The car’s around front of the academy,” Gunnar said. “Go wait for me.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re coming home with me for a few days until I get to the bottom of this.” He glanced at Rory. “Both of you.”
“Dad—no! It’s the middle of the semester.” Mason was horrified. “I have exams. And practice. The national qualifiers are coming up. I can’t leave.”
“Mason—”
“It was just a storm.” She glanced at Rory, who frowned deeply at her but stayed silent. “That’s all. It could’ve happened anywhere. It could’ve happened on the estate.”
“Where I could have taken care of you—”
“I can take care of myself. Please. I’m really, really okay.”
She watched anxiously as Gunnar exchanged a long, laden glance with Toby. She was doomed, Mason thought. Her father was going to drag her out of there kicking and screaming—because that was the only way she was going to go—and she’d be locked up in the gloomy, gothic Starling estate for who knows how long. Rory had been right.
But then suddenly Gunnar’s arm muscles seemed to relax a bit beneath Mason’s fingers. His glance had shifted and he was looking over her shoulder. Mason followed his gaze and relaxed a little, too.
Roth. Oh, thank god, Mason thought. Saved.
Her other brother, Rothgar—except nobody really got away with calling him Rothgar except their father—had arrived, dressed head to toe in the motorcycle leathers that made him look armored. He stalked through the quad archway and headed toward them, his gait relaxed, casual, supremely confident. He would keep her father calm.
Roth’s presence had a way of acting like a mute button or a freeze frame. Everyone always seemed to get very quiet and still around him. Mason was used to it, but it always secretly amused her. He was only twenty-two years old, and it wasn’t like he was some huge, muscle-bound biker dude or bouncer or something. And yet people always tended to behave themselves around him.
With Gunnar, he was simply a calming influence, because anything the elder Starling required, Rothgar Starling would simply make happen. He was the epitome of the strong, silent type; usually the only thing anyone heard out of him was the sound of his thick-soled, steel-toed boots as he stalked into a room. Rory had once secretly referred to Roth as their father’s errand boy, but really it was more like he was Gunnar’s second-in-command.
“Hey, Mase.” Roth held out a hand as he walked toward her. Mason took it, and he drew her into a quick embrace. “I heard you had an unscheduled sleepover in the gym last night, little sister.”
“Yup. Complete with light show and bonus random acts of God. Or Goddess. Apparently it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.”
“Better believe it.” Roth bestowed a grin and wink on her. “She has a temper.”
“Hope Gosforth has insurance.”
Gunnar Starling’s expression darkened, and he turned and glanced over his shoulder at the g
“I’m really sorry about the window, Dad,” Mason said. “It was so beautiful and I know how proud you were of it....”
“Don’t you worry about that, honey,” he said without turning back to look at her. “It was only a thing. Things aren’t important. Possessions are fleeting....” He trailed off before he could really heartily launch into one of his signature “material things are of no consequence/life beyond this life is what’s important” lectures. It was a fave theme of his. Which always struck Mason as kind of funny. Her father was one of the wealthiest men in North America, and yet he was always telling her how unimportant it all was. From anyone else, it probably would have come off as disingenuous. But coming from Gunnar Starling, they seemed like words to live by. Mason wondered if any of Gosforth’s other wealthy patrons thought that way. Patrons like the tall, striking woman who walked through the archway at that very moment, pausing with one hand on her angular hip to scan the assembled crowd with a sweeping gaze.
Daria Aristarchos. Calum’s mother.
Her dark brown hair was caught up in a messy bun and she wore yoga pants and designer sneakers, and yet somehow she still managed to convey an air of movie star or post-career runway model. It was easy to see where Cal got his looks from, although Mason wondered if his father was even half as good-looking as his mom. She had never seen him. Cal’s parents were divorced and his dad lived somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic. It hadn’t been a very pleasant parting, Mason gathered, and Cal had adopted his mother’s last name in the wake of the split.
Mrs.—Ms. Aristarchos, Mason mentally corrected herself—looked like she was barely managing to contain a simmering rage as she pulled Gosforth’s headmaster over to a corner of the quad for a private discussion.
Mason turned to see her father looking in Cal’s mother’s direction, and his expression had hardened again. “Honey,” he said without looking at Mason, “get your things and meet me at the car.”
“Dad—”
He swung a blazing glare on his daughter, and Mason’s mouth snapped shut. Then he stalked across the lawn to join the headmaster and Daria Aristarchos. Interrupt was more like it, Mason thought as she watched Cal’s mom turn to her father with a look on her face that might have turned a lesser man to stone. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it seemed to be a bit of a heated exchange.
Roth rolled his eyes and took Mason by the arm. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to your room and you can grab a few things. It’s Friday. There probably won’t be any classes while they’re doing cleanup anyway. You can spend the weekend at home, and I’ll talk Gunn into letting you come back in time for class on Monday morning. Deal?”
“You will?”
“Trust me, Mason.” Roth gave her one of his rare smiles and led her toward the door into the res wing, past where Heather still sat on the bench, looking just a little lost.
“Hey,” Mason murmured as they passed.
“Hey.” Heather nodded back, and then seemed to notice that Mason’s brother was there. “Hi, Roth.” She turned on a bright smile and tossed her thick blond mane over her shoulder.
“Hello, Heather.” Roth’s mouth ticked upward in a half smile. He was pretty used to that kind of thing from girls, and Mason had never once seen him fall for it. “Are you okay after last night? Do you need anything?”
Heather looked on the verge of making a flirty comment but then seemed to rethink the idea, realizing that it wouldn’t do her any good. Or maybe, Mason thought, she really was just too shaken up by things to actually make the effort. Whatever the case, Heather slumped forward a bit and shrugged a shoulder, saying, “A new gym would be nice.”
“Pretty incredible.” Roth shook his head. “You know, there were blackouts over half of Manhattan last night. But I didn’t see anywhere on the news that took as big a hit as this place....” He glanced back at the gym and the grotesque tangle of oak tree roots that stuck up into the air like so many grasping fingers. “That’s a lot of damage.”
“Yeah.” Heather traced her thumb over a bit of graffiti carved into the wood of the bench: H+C, surrounded by a heart. “Well, the tree falling did most of it,” she said absently.
“Most of it?” Roth asked sharply.
Mason and Heather exchanged a look.
“Uh …” Heather shifted on the bench. “I mean, all of it. I mean … what else could it have been, right?” She laughed, and it was an awkward, shrill sound.
Roth blinked at her and then glanced back at Mason, who shrugged and tried to look nonchalant.
“Why don’t you walk with us back to the dorm?” Roth asked Heather. “You look like you could use some sleep. You both seem a little on edge.”
“A tree almost killed us, Roth. You probably would be, too.” Mason smiled wanly at him. “Or not. Knowing you. C’mon, Heather. Roth’s right. It’s only quarter after eight, and I’ve already had more than enough excitement for one day.”
They dropped Heather off in front of her door on the second floor, and then Roth escorted Mason down the long hall toward her own quarters. He put an arm around her shoulders, and Mason leaned wearily against her big brother as they walked.
“So,” Roth said quietly as they left Heather behind in her room. “You and Heather Palmerston. Pals?”
“Hardly.” Mason snorted at the very thought. “It’s more like … temporary bonding through shared adversity. I predict that by Monday morning, she’ll be back to wanting to duct tape me upside down to my locker.”
Roth chuckled. “Just as well. Her whole family is whacked, y’know.”
“Really?” Mason stopped in front of her door and fished around in her bag for her key. “And here I thought Heather was just a natural-born bitch.”
Roth answered his sister with a grin. He leaned against the door frame. “I hear the Aristarchos kid got hurt,” he said.
“Yeah.” Mason dug harder through the depth of her bag and avoided making eye contact with her brother.
“I also heard he’s gonna be okay. Basically.”
“I really hope so.”
Mason could feel Roth’s keen gaze on her, and she struggled to keep from blushing. The last thing she wanted Roth to know was who she was crushing on. She also didn’t need him to suspect that Calum hadn’t, in fact, been injured by the tree falling through the gym window. She hated the fact that she had agreed with the others to keep the details of their terrifying ordeal secret. But she had, and she would. And even if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have even known where to begin to tell Roth the truth of the matter. Thankfully, her fingers brushed her key ring in the corner of her bag, and she opened her door and gestured Roth inside.
The room was cold and smelled of rain. Mason glanced over at the open window and saw that the sill, along with a circle of carpet directly beneath it, was soaking wet from the storm. She ignored it. Mason never closed her window, and a little dampness was a small price to pay for her mental and emotional stability.
She’d suffered from claustrophobia ever since she was a little girl and a game of hide-and-seek had gone horribly awry. At six years old, Mason had thought herself very clever when she’d hidden in the abandoned garden shed on the edge of her father’s rambling Westchester estate. But Rory had seen her pick her hiding spot, and he’d thought it would be a big joke to lock her in and leave her there for a while. Except that … about an hour after sneaking up on Mason and sealing her into the tiny shed with the slid-bar lock, he’d forgotten all about their silly game—mostly because he was already in a car, on his way to a two-day sleepover at a friend’s cottage … a cottage in the Hamptons that had no phone and no way to contact Rory to find out if he’d happened to have seen his baby sister before he’d left. Mason had blocked out most of her memories of the experience, but she’d been told that they still hadn’t found her by the time Rory got back.
Roth glanced at the window b
She dropped her gear bag on the bed and yanked open the zipper. Then she rummaged through her dresser, tossing her makeup bag and toiletries and a couple of favorite T-shirts into the bag, along with her laptop and a few textbooks she needed for homework. The thought of having to go home made her angry and anxious, but if Roth said he’d get her back to school for Monday, she’d go. Roth never went back on a promise.
She glanced over to where her brother perched on the edge of her desk, arms crossed over his broad chest. The gesture made his arm muscles bulge and Mason grinned a little, remembering how lucky she had considered herself when she was a kid, to have such a big strong brother to take care of her if she ever got into trouble.
She wondered silently what Roth would have done if he’d been in the gym with her only a few hours earlier. She wondered if he would have fared as well as the mysterious Fennrys Wolf. She felt her cheeks grow hot at the thought of the gorgeous, lean-muscled blond guy, and she looked away from Roth and cast around for something to say before he asked her why she was suddenly blushing.
“Hey, um … so what’s the deal between Dad and Cal’s mom?” she asked. “They sort of seem like they hate each other or something.”
Roth frowned faintly. “Yeah. There’s a bit of history there.”
Mason gaped at him. “You’re kidding. You mean, like …”
“No, Mase.” Roth shook his head and laughed. “Not that kind of history. Just Gosforth interfamily crap. You know.”
She nodded. Mason tried to avoid anything to do with it, but it wasn’t easy in a place like Gos. The Gosforth Academy had been founded in the late 1800s by a handful of extraordinarily wealthy, extremely influential “Founders,” men and women who had decided that public schools—even other private schools—just weren’t good enough for their little darlings. Gosforth, they claimed, would be a haven. A super-elite sanctuary, as well as a place of exceptional learning and culture. Mason had always been a little embarrassed by the entire situation and had routinely petitioned her father to let her go to a regular school, with no success.