by A. K. Koonce
I grunt, discreetly testing how much pressure I can put on my leg. “Tell that to the headmistress and a so-called doctor—” I bite my lips.
Fuck.
I was about to give away the mysterious Dr. Hyde.
Rueren’s eyes snap to me, narrowing as if he gauges what it was I was about to say.
“Anyway, thanks.” I gesture at my leg. When I stalk past him, I’m almost to my door when I hear the whispered, obscure tone of his breath in my ear.
“Do you plan your escape?” His chest presses against my back, presses my body against the door. The strange thing about this is, it doesn’t make me feel crowded or intimidated. It makes me feel something else entirely. Maybe it’s the after effects of my shitty day, the adrenaline and violence catching up to my tired mind. Or maybe it’s the magic of his blood coursing through my veins. His fingers slide up my arms. “When you leave to hunt, do you plan their demise and your freedom?”
It feels like a sin to answer that question, but I’ve courted darkness my whole life. “Yes,” the word hisses out of me softly. “Every fucking time.”
“I’ve heard things.” His lips graze along the lobe of my ear, and I fight back a shiver. “I’ve heard of creatures and mad doctors who make them. They say the bad supernaturals are thrown out, and the good ones go missing.”
My whole body stills at those softly-spoken words. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Information. Someone who knows, someone I can glean for answers in the most discreet way possible. I just never expected Rueren DeVoure to be the one who held the key to that mystery.
“What do you know about it?” My voice is equally dark.
His chuckle vibrates across my skin. “Less than I wish and more than you know.” It’s an answer and yet . . . not. “We should learn more together sometime, little Sekar.”
And then he’s gone, leaving me in the darkened hallway, with my whole body on fire and my mind desperate for answers.
Groaning, I open the door to my dorm and nearly fall into bed next to Styx. No matter how badly I want to sleep, it won’t claim me. Not when my mind is racing miles, demanding answers, confused with Rueren’s words and behavior. Does the vampire really know something, or is he just fucking with me? Is this some sort of setup?
At Hallow Hill academy, it’s hard to discern who you can trust. I’ve never trusted anyone my entire life.
And I certainly don’t plan on starting now.
Chapter Eight
“Pair up,” Professor Sills says with far too much enthusiasm for one a.m.
Night classes blow. I could be sleeping right now. I could be oblivious to kills, Sialen, the Academy, all of it.
Instead, I’m here. Scanning the little group of classmates and trying not to make eye contact with the vampire setting his hopeful sights on me right now.
I wander toward Kira’s side, but a cute guy with black horns and a silver brow piercing is smiling at her like he wants to devour her whole. Starting between her thighs.
Like a good little anti-cock block, I awkwardly walk away before she even sees me, and the two of them pair up at her table.
Leaving me with . . .
“Don’t look so lost, Pretty Sekar. I’ll find you,” he purrs. Literally purrs.
Gag.
I hate how much he gets to me. And so easily! My sex drive doesn’t even try to put up a fight.
The bitch.
He waits at our table with shining dark eyes with the slightest hint of red around the pupil, and it’s painfully hard for me to sit back down. At his side. And be his fucking partner.
Night class blows monster dick. Do monsters have dicks? I think back to that thing in the alleyway and imagine it with a metal monster penis. Bet it cums black grease and everything. I wonder if whoever made it thought to add that specific part of the anatomy to it? Great, now I’m thinking about weird monster schlong. Gross. Get out of my fucking head.
“Turn to your partner and take their hands in yours.” Professor Sills waddles down the aisles and looks all of us over as he goes.
I don’t turn. I glare at the vampiric asshole out of the corner of my eyes. “Touch my hand, and I’ll curse your dick to never get hard again, DeVoure.”
His mouth opens slowly without sound, and I’m surprised when a smile carefully forms against his tragic good looks. Seriously. Ugh. He looks like someone who just jumped out of a Jane Austin novel and found himself locked in a creepy Edgar Allen Poe poem. He’s all dark, slashing lines, and perfection with thick brows and lazy half-lidded eyes.
“I think you should partner with Kira. I like messing with you, Sekar, but I’m not a total dumbass to not know when a girl doesn’t like me. I’ll trade with Kira.” His big palms push against the tabletop, and he’s halfway out of his seat before I can even process his sweet words.
Because holy shit, they really were sweet. It was kindness. It was completely fucking weird for him. It goes against everything I know about him. The teasing, lazy flirtations, I wonder if it’s all just a mask he wears to survive this place.
I suddenly look at him differently, at the loose dreadlocks falling against his temples and pushed away from his face with an impatient hand. A timelessness rests over his features, and I know he must be ancient, even with his youthful appearance.
My hand slips over his before I can stop the stupid little limb.
He pauses, eyes wide and searching into mine.
Shit. I’m going to have to cut my right hand off if it screws up like that again. I take my hand back immediately and cradle the fucking thing for it the mistake it made.
As I hold my hand to my chest, I slowly try to use words. “You—you don’t have to do that.”
A carving smile slices his features. “Do what, Sekar?”
My eyes narrow on him. He wants me to say it.
Asshole.
“You can stay.” I lift my head and try to find normalcy in all of this.
“You want me to stay? You want me?” He barters, clearly trying to get to me since I showed him that minor slip-up of humanity.
“No. I don’t want you. But I’ve seen your test scores, and you’d be an okay partner.” I shrug like maybe I don’t give a fuck about him, maybe I have thought about the grunts he makes and wondered if he sounds the same in bed.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
“Mmm, why didn’t you say you needed me, Sekar? We could have gotten it on a long time ago. Gotten on with it, I mean.”
He’s so damn obnoxious.
The truth is, I’m fucking grateful to him for saving my leg a few nights ago. Even if we never spoke of it again, even if we never made plans to meet up and investigate because I don’t trust easily, I am still grateful.
I turn to him, and his features are blank and devoid as I extend my hands. Empty emotions but watchful eyes. Always watching.
Even as he slides his smooth palms under mine and takes in my every changing emotion. I give away none. My face is as stoic as a general’s.
“Your breath just hitched, little Sekar.” A smirk toys with the sharp corner of his lips. Heartbeat did too. Erratic. Demanding. Wanting,” he whispers.
“I was just thinking how soft your skin is and how vanilla you must be in all points of your meager little life.”
The vampire’s smile turns wolfish.
“I do believe you’re the first person to ever call me vanilla. But I do appreciate you telling me how much you think about my sex life, Sekar.”
Holy Lady of Death, have mercy on this stupid, stupid man.
“Now that you’ve initiated skin-to-skin contact,” Sills says, and of course, the wording just causes DeVoure to smile harder, “let’s create a temporary Soul Search.”
“What?” I ask loud enough to gain every person’s attention in the room.
“A temporary bind,” the Professor explains like it’s nothing. Like tying my soul to this vampy limp dick asshole is no big deal.
“I think I’ll pass,” I blurt.
&n
bsp; And now my heartbeat really is hammering. It’s pulsing in my ears so loudly, it’s like an ocean just flooded my brain, and all I can think about is being tied to another living (or unliving) soul. I—I’ve never had anyone. I’ve never needed anyone.
And I especially don’t want or need this ridiculous man attached to me. I don’t even trust him enough to do this.
He’d be like an idiotic leech. A leech I’d put in danger, I’m sure.
And I refuse to be responsible for him. Even for however temporary of a time Sills has in mind.
“You’ll pass?” The professor repeats with high-raised brows and hard-narrowed eyes. “I think you mean you’ll fail. And failure is not an option here, Miss Lucero.”
A strange tingling of pain cuts into my spine from the cruel academy gift I’ve been given. The thing sinks deeper into my skin. So deep, I gasp, and worst of all, fucking DeVoure tries to comfort me.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he whispers, his fingers sliding gently over mine in a more pleasant way than I’d have ever expected.
Pleasant?
Shit. I must be stroking. That must be it. Why else would I think that?
I blink hard at the slicing agony as it begins to dull to a piercing ache.
“You’re okay,” the vampire coos annoyingly again.
“I’m fine,” I grit out through my teeth and readjust my hands out of his coddling touch.
“Ready, Miss Lucero?” Professor Sills’ gaze isn’t conniving. It also isn’t sympathetic either, though.
Business is business. I get it.
And I, too, hate when people waste my time.
“Yes,” I say with a lift of my head, my gaze settling on the man seated in front of me as I place my hands beneath his.
Those dark judgmental eyebrows of his lift in surprise. The pity in his eyes isn’t what I expect. I suppose I expected Rue’s emotions to be as shallow as a puddle of piss.
Color me all too surprised by everything about him tonight.
“If you need a minute, just say it,” he whispers, his head tilting low to really look into my eyes.
“Stop.” My smile is tight, and my words are to the fucking point. “Stop with the weird emotion play today. Just do the fucking task so we can be dismissed.”
“Emotion play?”
“Rueren Ivance DeVoure, do you pledge your eternal life and damned soul to me?” I say over his question, repeating the words I’ve read in chapter one of the Soul Searching textbook.
I never realized how much his name sounds like Ruin until I just said it like a praising prayer.
And that’s exactly what he’s going to do to me if I let his soul bind to mine: he’ll ruin me.
I know his full name because I spied his neat scripture on a test once. At the time, I wasn’t sure what surprised me more. The fact that his handwriting was prettier than mine could ever hope to be, or how beautiful his name was. It’s beautifully dark.
I don’t know why I think those things. They’re dangerous fucking thoughts.
His full lips part with a slow breath, but he doesn’t reply with the statement I need to move forward to the next step. With impatience, a heavy sigh pushes from my lungs, and that seems to be all he needs to kick his ass into gear.
“I pledge my ever-silent soul, my eternal life, and all that I have to you, My Beautifully Enchanting Sekar,” he recites with a sultry smile tilting his lips.
Wow, paraphrasing much?
Doesn’t matter.
“Emmera Lee Lucero, do you pledge your mortal life and your dark-kissed soul to me?”
I can’t explain the shiver I feel rattling my soul. A sensation strokes delicately against my heartbeat, touching. Feeling. Caressing.
It’s salacious, in a way. Beautiful and alluring.
Completely fucking terrifying.
“Trust me, pretty Sekar,” DeVoure says on a hushed, rumbling tone. I know what he’s asking in that one sentence. I know what the fuck he’s implying without words, without anyone else looking at us suspiciously.
Trust.
Trust him to spy with me around the Academy and find answers on Dr. Hyde and the hybrid monsters I’ve been killing every night.
Trust him. Ha! That’s laughable. I can’t even trust him to look at me without saying something disgustingly obtuse.
And yet . . . my soul does.
It opens up. I feel it grow against the touch of his bindings intertwining with mine. Our magic, our beings, our every breath strum in sync without even trying.
“I give myself to you, Emmera Lee Lucero,” Rueren says in such a breathless way, it feels erotic.
Every single part of this feels erotic.
So much so that moans and low heady gasps fill the room.
Including my own.
The moment the reckless breath of pent-up pleasure slips from my lips, his eyes dilate. His fangs extend. His hold on me tightens to a dominating feel of need.
“I—I give myself to you, Rueren Ivance DeVoure,” I recite, trying so damn hard to keep a steady tone.
And failing.
Fuck.
It all collides within me as soon as the vow is spoken. His emotions slam into mine. Our cutting, surprised breaths slice into one another as too many sensations flood my body. It trembles through every single part of me.
But then something I hadn’t thought about makes itself known.
“I can feel your heartbeat,” Rueren whispers with awe and lust shining in his gaze. “It’s . . . it’s so strong.” His other hand pushes over his chest as his eyes close slowly. “You’re scared,” he adds on a worried tone.
Oh. My. Fucking Holy Lady of Death.
No. No. Nonononoooooooo.
I tear my hand from his and turn to look at Professor Sills. He seems oblivious to the emotions inside me. “Now, renounce the binding of souls to break the connection. That’s it . . .”
Murmurs break out of our classmates unbinding their souls.
My voice stutters through the words, and Rueren repeats them, his voice dark and steady.
But nothing fucking happens.
“Unbind yourself from me,” I hiss, loudly enough for it to sound like hysteria. Loudly enough to draw everyone’s attention.
“I’m trying!” Rueren grits out. “It’s not working.”
This can’t be fucking happening. I all but shout the words again and again, but nothing happens. I still feel his soul inside. Stuck, ramming against barriers and invisible walls of my own consciousness.
“Professor!” I shriek.
Professor Sills waddles over on his stocky legs, looking put out. As if he’s the one suffering here. Bastard. “What seems to be the problem, Miss Lucero?”
“He’s stuck! It’s not working!” Panic fills my chest, and I sense Rue’s tranquility inside, stroking as if he means to calm me.
I slash him a glare.
“Now, now, calm down, Miss Lucero. I am sure I can fix this.” He lets his fat palms hover over our joined hands, and he closes his eyes. A deep humming sound fills the classroom, and I wait impatiently, foot tapping against the floor, for him to break this unwanted bind.
Professor Sills furrows his brows. “Huh, I can’t seem to break it.” His eyes open, and his shoulders shrug carelessly. “Seems like the two of you are more compatible than you thought.” He turns.
“Where are you going?!” I demand, nearly choking on the words. “Unbind us!”
“No, sorry. I can’t. Your emotions are too high and your magic is too powerful for my own. You’ll just have to get used to it.” His tone says he doesn’t care and that this whole situation is beneath his pay grade.
So that’s it.
He’s not going to do a fucking thing to pull us out of the mess he put us in.
I’m bound to the fucking vampire. If I didn’t trust him before, I don’t trust him now, and yet I feel him embedded into my soul.
“We’ll figure this out, ma chère.” His tone is gentle, but I feel anything but com
forted. I feel suffocated. Dread. All these emotions threatening to drown me. Rue senses my panic and smirks, trying to make light of the mood. “At least now, we can do the thing together, and you won’t have to worry about me betraying you because you can feel my intentions.”
It’s all just too much.
“I have to go.” I stand so fast, my chair slams to the ground behind me. My hands push over the notes, and I shove them all together in a mess of crumpled pages as I rush one foot after the other so fast that I stumble on the way out.
“Emmera!”
I run from the room and Rue’s voice. I run down the halls. I run faster and faster and faster. Even when I feel him at my heels, chasing after me, I run.
Until the door of my bedroom is safely slammed shut.
Ragged breath shudders from my lungs, and I stare into the darkness. And still, all I can think about is how much of him I can feel inside of me.
And how much I know he feels me.
He knows.
He knows my happiness. My sadness. My fears.
And to know what someone fears, that is a deadly truth when surrounded by so many enemies.
One I never should have given to a careless vampire.
Chapter Nine
“You act like this is my fault,” he drawls the moment I open the door and find him on the other side, seeming more amused than upset. Although upset doesn’t even begin to cover what I’m feeling. Violated. Livid. Strange. These cover a smidgen of the turmoil my emotions are in.
After taking a few minutes to calm my turmoil, I finally find the courage to face him again. I wonder if it’s a terrible idea. If I should just keep the space between us.
It’s like . . . I can feel a sliver of him inside me. Holy Lady of Death, I hate how that sounds in my head. But I don’t know any other way to describe it. A bit of his essence is there, like a soul that doesn’t belong residing beside mine, wriggling around like a worm on a hook. I can feel bits and pieces of his emotions, and they’re mingling against my own. It’s a soft hand caressing down my subconscious with lascivious glee.