Not that she expected he would. With the announcement of supernatural beings twenty-seven years ago, Danielle had always grown up knowing they were around. She had never been afraid of them, per se, but she understood just how powerful they really were. And with the recent transformation of two NDS agents into a supernatural being, an impending wedding for vampire Royalty, a wolf pack that had killed and captured people, and one wolf that had killed members of the NDS by himself, there was no question that they could be a threat.
But so could humans.
Danielle had tinkered with majoring in Sociology, which had a huge subsection of Human-Supes Relations but her passion was literature. She wanted to teach literature to high school students, to college students, to graduate students. Her favorite authors were Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. She loved the romance they developed between the characters, the language they used to communicate that relationship. She loved to talk about it and could sit and talk to anyone for hours about the depiction of women in literature and how arranged marriages have been a romantic trope for a while now. She figured if her father was paying for her education, she might as well enjoy what she was learning.
There hadn't been any reading due the first day for her Brit Lit class, which Danielle appreciated. She liked to ease into class rather than immediately dive head in. She took her time getting dressed - a summer dress with a sweetheart cut and her hair swept into a ponytail. She did her makeup to hide the marks her one night stand - she could not believe she hadn't even thought to ask his name - left on her body. Though her breasts were hidden by the cut, the dress - red with white polka dots - was short and covered her mid-thighs. On her feet was a comfortable pair of flip flops. Her hair was pulled into a sporty ponytail, with blond bands straightened and side-swept. She had minimal makeup - her normal routine included lip gloss and mascara but there were times she dressed up a little bit, like last night.
When she got to class, there wasn't anyone there besides a few students waiting outside the door. It was in the English department, located on the first floor of the A building.
Despite the seasonal weather, Somerset University was a beautiful outdoor campus located in the northern part of the city. The Sterling forest bordered the edge of the campus, causing the criminology department to smell like Christmas trees all year round. Like most campuses, the campus was split between schools. Somerset U was known for its Sociology department - it was top three in the country for its program. Foreign Relations was also popular due to the fact that now it dealt with different species rather than different countries. The criminology and law department was top 5 in the country, the school of medicine was top ten. All in all, Somerset U was an excellent university with a wide-range of programs that practically guaranteed some kind of lucrative career for its graduates.
Danielle had the grades and could have applied for multiple scholarships but her father insisted on paying for her education so she buckled down and worked hard to ensure she was on the dean's list every quarter. She hoped to graduate with honors this coming summer.
Stepping into the classroom, she noticed it was set up similar to a high school class rather than a college lecture hall. This wasn't a core class that required three hundred students and a microphone. Brit Lit at eight o'clock in the morning was a specialized class that wasn't required and was an option to fulfill some of her literature requirements, which meant there would probably only be between fifteen to twenty kids in her class.
Danielle preferred small classroom sizes because it was more conducive to debates and conversations. She loved hearing other interpretations of texts she thought she knew so well. She learned more than she would if a professor just talked at the classroom with a PowerPoint for the entire hour and twenty minutes.
Since she was the first student there, she chose a seat three rows back, two from the center to the left. She grabbed a notebook and a couple of pens and proceeded to wait. Students began to trickle in. She didn't pay much attention to who they were or if she knew them; her head was in her battered copy of Pride & Prejudice. Danielle had read it four times and watched the 2003 movie at least twice a month. She underlined, highlighted, and noted in the margins of the pages and she currently went through the pages, refreshing her memory of the points she made and what her feelings were regarding certain sections.
"Dani."
The familiar voice and the use of a nickname her mother and one other person referred to as caused her head to snap up and lock eyes with that other person. Ryder Carson stared back at her with dark eyes and black hair, looking as good as she remembered. The last time she saw him was when he was walking away from her, leaving her behind in the parking lot of the movie theatre. It had been raining that night, and the glow from the lights cast an eerie glow around him, like an angel leaving her behind because she wasn't worthy.
Danielle clenched her jaw and ignored the painful squeeze of her heart. She was over him. Truth be told, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. She had no feelings for him and, after finally moving on, she was glad he had left her. He hadn't deserved her anyway. But seeing him now, in front of her, looking at her like nothing had happened between them, like they could be friends, like he hadn't completely shattered her earlier this year, made her furious.
"You know I hate that nickname," she said, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. There was a biting edge to it that she couldn't quite control, however.
"If I remember correctly," he said, flashing her his patented charm smile, "you had no problem with me calling you Dani before."
Danielle couldn't help but roll her eyes. She wanted to throttle him. "Keyword being before," she told him. Her voice was tight and controlled. She refused to let him affect her. She was over him. "Not anymore."
Ryder kept the smile on his face as he slid into the seat next to her.
Kill me now, Danielle thought, gritting her teeth together. The last thing she wanted besides sharing a class with her ex-boyfriend was sitting next to him in said class.
Danielle tapped her pen on her notebook, trying to ignore the fact that Ryder was sitting next to her in class and would probably be sitting next to her in this class for the next ten weeks. She refused to let it show that it got to her the way it did. Why was he in this class in the first place? He was an Education major, not a Literature major. There was no reason for him to be here, to be in this class. Unless he knew she was taking it.
But why would he want to be in class with her when he was the one who broke up with her in the first place?
"You know anything about this professor?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "I know he's a vampire" -
Danielle shushed him.
"What?" he asked through a laugh. She used to find that so sexy, how he could laugh and speak at the same time. Now, it annoyed her and made her feel as though he was just being condescending. "It's not like supes are underground anymore. They came out in '85. Saying someone is a vampire isn't a big deal."
"What if they don't want you to know that, Ryder?" Danielle pointed out. "That's their personal business."
"Not as far as I'm concerned," Ryder said. "I have a right to know who I'm dealing with just in case I need to protect myself."
"Protect yourself?" Danielle asked, aghast. "From what? That would be like saying I need to know what someone's ethnicity is or what their race is because I have a right to know who I'm dealing with."
"Actually, it's different," Ryder said.
"And how could it possibly be any different?" Danielle asked.
"Humans can't kill you with their bare hands," Ryder told her, speaking as though this was the most obvious thing in the world and the fact that Danielle didn't know this just showed her ignorance.
Danielle furrowed her brow, confused. "Are you kidding me?" she asked. "You could kill me with your bare hands. You could wrap your fingers around my throat and squeeze until my oxygen got cut off and I couldn't breathe anymore."
"Well, yeah," Ryd
er said with a nod of his head. "But that's not what I'm going to do. You know that. With a wolf or a vamp, we don't know."
"As a female who lives by herself in her dorm, I am constantly on my guard," Danielle said. "I have to be careful about what I wear, how late I stay out, what I drink, what could potentially be in my drink, and not because I might run into a supe, but because I might run into a male who doesn't know what the word no means," Danielle said, her voice tight. "Or worse, he does know and simply ignores it because he feels like it. I don't know what to expect and just because someone's a wolf or a vamp or a human, it doesn't matter to me. I'm on guard when it comes to him being male. I could give a shit what race or species or whatever other factors go into it."
Ryder pressed his lips together and looked away. Danielle knew he wanted to argue but he stopped himself from pushing. She could appreciate the control.
"I don't get it," she continued, furrowing her brow. "Clearly you have a problem with vampires. Why are you even in Brit Lit? Everyone knows Eriksson is a vampire. You don't need the class to complete your credits."
Ryder shrugged. "So?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "The units count toward my English credit. I heard Eriksson is an easy pass. This is my senior year; I don't want to worry about working hard. I want an easy ride. I want to worry about whether or not I want to apply for grad school or if I can just get certified."
Danielle gave him a look of disbelief. Easy? Did he seriously think that Eriksson was easy?
"Typical," she muttered, shaking her head.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Ryder said. He took a step forward before taking a deep breath. "You know, I get it. I get it. This whole thing with your father" -
"Don't."
At that moment, the professor walked in. He was tall, blond, and from what Danielle could make out from his backside, a sharp dresser.
Then he turned around, and her entire face blew up in flames. Alekssander Eriksson was her professor. And her lover.
Somehow, his eyes found hers and they narrowed in on the makeup covering the marks on her throat. “Stay after class,” he told her in a low, dangerous voice.
Danielle gulped. It was probably not going to be as sexy as it sounded.
3
Danielle stayed in her seat as the class trickled out. From her right, she noticed that Ryder attempted to stay. She clenched her jaw and tried not to roll her eyes. She didn't want Eriksson or Ryder to know how annoyed she was that Ryder felt he had any right to know her business. He was the one who broke up with her due to her overanalytical nature and her over-the-top romanticism. He couldn't handle being with a girl like her and while she was heartbroken, she understood. Not all guys were going to like her. She knew she was pretty but she was kind of a nerd who would much rather watch superhero movies and read fanfiction on Tumblr than go out to a club or a party. The fact that she had gone out last night before school and had a one-night stand was a big deal for her.
"You," Alekssander said, his icy blue eyes on Ryder. "Go."
"But I'm" -
"I need to speak to Ms. Darrow alone," he said. "What we discuss has nothing to do with you and unless she wants you to stay, I am telling you to go."
Ryder looked at Danielle. His dark eyes were narrowed slightly, telling her to say that it was okay that he stayed. If they had been together, she would absolutely want him to stay. Since they weren't, she had no desire to even be around him right now.
"I'll be fine," she told Ryder. She hoped the annoyance was out of her voice, despite the fact that she wanted to flip her hair at the thought that he would even think should need his assistance, especially since he broke up with her.
After the door softly closed behind his retreating figure, Danielle forced herself to lock eyes with her professor. She would not let him intimidate her, nor would she be ashamed at what happened between them. It wasn't like they knew what they were when they had sex.
For a long moment, he simply stared at her with those penetrating sky blue eyes. The lower half of his face was filled with slight dark blond stubble and it made him look more rugged than vampires typically did. She felt her pelvis throb with desire at the intensity of his stare, of the beauty of his appearance. It didn't help that he was in a tailored black suit with a white collared shirt that exposed that collarbone and...
She squeezed her pelvis muscles, attempting to stop herself.
His nostrils flared, as though he could smell her. And maybe he could.
Danielle felt her breath hitch in her throat when he suddenly reached up and dragged his fingers across her neck where he had sucked on her skin. She had done her best with the makeup and the only reason Eriksson noticed it was because he knew where the marks were.
"Your skin looks beautiful marked up," he murmured in a slow, raspy voice.
Danielle clenched her jaw. "That's a sick thing to say," she told him.
He shrugged elegantly., dropping his hand from her neck and letting it fall to his side. "Perhaps you think so," he said. "In my culture, marks during sexual activity forge a bond between partners,"
"Why would you claim me?" she asked.
"Because I want everyone to know that I've tasted you," he said. "Not now, of course. I didn't realize you were one of my students. But at the time..." He let his voice trail off and his eyes lingered on her neck once more. She suppressed a shiver sliding down her spine as best as she could but wasn't completely successful. "It won't happen again."
"No," Danielle agreed. "It won't."
He nodded his head once cryptically, his eyes trailing up and down her body. Memories from the previous night and early this morning flashed through her mind and she squeaked. He smirked at the sound, as if he knew exactly why the noise came out of her mouth.
"You have a mouth on you," he continued. "You know what you're talking about in regards to this class and its subject matter."
Danielle nodded. "I do," she answered.
"Good," he said, turning around and slowly heading back to his desk. "I don't give out extra credit." He glanced over his shoulder once he reached his chair and arched a blond brow. "That's all."
Danielle clenched her jaw. She was furious. She could not believe he dismissed her so condescendingly. Her eyes turned over to Eriksson but his back was completely to her so she couldn't see his face. She grabbed her bag and thrust it over her shoulder. She would have slammed the door shut behind her but she didn't want him to know he got to her.
Fine.
If he wanted to be an ass, he could be an ass.
She knew how to deal with asses.
"Whoa there, tiger," Ryder said when Danielle walked through the door. He was leaning his tall, lanky frame against the brick frame of the building, his hands resting casually in his pockets as though he had all the time in the world. "You okay?"
Danielle furrowed her brow but didn't slow down. She had Supe Poetry in seven minutes in the next building over and she didn't want to be late. "Yeah," she replied. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Ryder shrugged, pushing off the building in order to follow her. "It's not every day a student gets called to stay after the first class," he pointed out. "I get a bad vibe from him."
"Please." Danielle rolled her eyes. "I know you don't like vampires, Ryder. Don't try to bullshit me."
"I'm just being protective," he said, placing his hand over his head and splaying his fingers out.
"If I remember correctly, you rescinded that right when we broke up," Danielle told him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a class to get to."
"Dani." He cut her off so Danielle was forced to stop so she wouldn't run into him. "I'm sorry." Danielle opened her mouth as he cupped the back of his neck with his palm. "Not about... I'm sorry about your dad. I heard about it. On the news. This morning. If you need anything, anything at all, please don't hesitate to let me know. I know how much he meant to you."
Danielle clenched her jaw. The thing was, he didn't mean a lot to Danielle. She barely even knew him.
But he was still her father.
She managed to get out a quick thanks before she stepped around him and headed off to her class, hoping he wouldn't try to follow her again.
By the time Danielle got through her second class, grabbed a smoothie from the juicery at the food court, and made it back to her dorm room, Danielle was ready for a nap. Except by the time she changed out of her sundress and into a baggy t-shirt, closed her blinds, silenced her phone, and crawled under her covers, she couldn't fall asleep. Her mind was buzzing with energy. Energy that surrounded her body and smelled like the ocean. Energy that belonged to him.
Her professor.
Her one-night stand.
Shit.
What was she going to do now?
Obviously she was going to pretend that nothing had happened between them. She was going to ignore her pelvis when it squeezed painfully every time she looked at his face. His eyes were filled with sin, despite the angelic blue. His lips innocent and pink were hungry and knew exactly how to please. His teeth could rip out her throat and let her bleed with one bite, and he knew exactly how to use them to grant pleasure, the inflict pain, and how to combine the two simultaneously to make her weak at the knees.
She shuddered just thinking about it. Her body temperature started to rise and she shifted uncomfortably. He had left his mark on her and he didn't care. He didn't even care once he found out he was her professor.
Danielle wasn't an idiot. She was almost positive he said those same words to others he bedded before her and would say the same words to those that came after. She knew she wasn't special in the long run. She was just another human girl, a notch on his belt.
And that was okay.
It wasn't like Danielle had feelings for him or anything crazy.
But God, he was something special to look at.
In that moment, with him, he made her feel special. A flicker of pride teased her heart. He had been consumed with her in that moment, consumed with her touch, her taste, the noises she made, the way she looked, the way she smelled. Under normal circumstances, she might have been embarrassed, but truthfully, Alekssander Eriksson made her feel like a woman.
The Somerset Series: A Box Set: Books 2-4 Page 33