Read Online Fate Forsaken by Chauntelle Baughman - Free Book Online Page B

It’s exciting for us to teach again.”
    “That always was your gift.” Beyond their countless magickal skills, both Lukas and Evette had the extraordinary gift of patience. They’d made excellent tutors when Eldon had been in school. Most of his passing grades were attributed to their hours of help.
    Just another reason he owed them. Man, he was going to have to come up with a badass Christmas present this year.
    “But the funds,” Lukas interrupted his train of thought. “They’re disappearing and we cannot find the leak. We have brought this information to the school leadership many times, yet they do nothing.”
    Eldon frowned. “No one has investigated?” Missing school funds were serious business. Magick wasn’t easy to supplement. The ingredients they required for spells and potions were expensive and rare, and the children needed to be trained with proper materials.
    “We did have an investigation once, when it first started. Max said they’d found the problem, but still the money is disappearing.”
    “Max knows about this?” Eldon knew Max fairly well via business, but he wouldn’t quite consider the man a friend. He’d been Cadence’s assistant for years, and he represented the western European region for decades.
    “Yes. He says it’s being handled.” Lukas sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “We’ll have to begin eliminating educators in the fall if we cannot find the solution.”
    “The Collective has always put education first.”
    “That’s exactly why we cannot understand their lack of urgency.”
    Still, they shouldn’t need to abandon their home just for some missing funds. “I’m missing something here. Why would you feel like you have to leave your house?”
    Lukas’s brows knotted as his jaw clenched. “Last night Evette discovered her ward had been broken. From the outside in.”
    “Someone tried to get in your house?”
    “Someone did get in.” Lukas glanced over his left shoulder and met Eldon’s stare. “We took your friends for a true Parisian meal, and when we returned, the house was trashed.”
    Damn it. “What happened? Evette makes stronger wards than anyone I know.” When they’d been in school together, no one could break her magickal protection structures. They’d made games out of trying to best her—she’d been practically impenetrable.
    “Not stronger than someone out there. The house was tossed.”
    “You know what they were looking for?” Eldon asked.
    Lukas and Evette were by no means poor, but they weren’t extravagant, either. There would be little other than jewelry to steal from a home like theirs. No valuable magick materials either, since those were kept under lock and key at the school.
    Lukas lifted a shoulder. “Nothing seemed to be taken.”
    “None of this makes sense.” He’d only told Cadence where he’d gone. It was possible Max could have figured out where they were going because of his position as Cadence’s assistant, but it wasn’t likely. What did he stand to benefit by hurting Eldon’s friends? And why would anyone go after Evette and Lukas in particular? It had been years since the last time he’d visited Paris.
    “We made a judgment call,” Lukas said. “The Collective knows of our loft, so we removed your friends just in case. They are with Evette at our other home now.”
    Eldon blew out a sigh of relief. “Thanks for taking care of them.”
    “That’s what friends do.”
    Neither of them said anything for a moment before Eldon broke the silence. “So I take it you’re here to take me to your other home?”
    “Yes. And because of this incident, no one is to travel alone. It’s unsafe.”
    Eldon gripped Rho’s hand a little tighter. She still hadn’t budged, which wasn’t a surprise. Usually her keen hearing could register the pattering of a heartbeat, but not when she slept. Right now her mind was far away, and he’d have to work just to bring her back into