Once the furor had died down, she managed to extract herself from the group as they formed plans for the next attraction they wanted to hit up. She moved around the side of the tank to locate her victim.
Professor Donovan was drenched, standing on a mat and shifting his weight from one bare foot to the other as if he didn't know where to begin to tackle the drying process. Kira alighted by the side of the tank and observed him, half in shadow, a hand raised to guard against the smile tugging helplessly at her lips. The man shook himself all over like a dog, before turning abruptly to find her when she gave vent to a little laugh. The look in his eye invited her to approach; she realized too late what a mistake this was. She hadn't even put one shoe down on the mat before she felt him pulling her in hard against him for a hug.
"You son of a bitch!" Kira exclaimed before she could censor herself. He had her wrapped tightly in his arms, so tightly that she didn't stand a chance of drawing back from the cold, wet press of his chest. She had no choice but to suffer in agony as the water seeped into the front of her own shirt. She might as well have been the one to get dunked for all the good the chalk line was doing her now.
"You have no idea," he said strangely. She was already rigid against him as she suffered through his payback, but his voice made her go still all the same. They were so close that his words felt like a murmur in her ear, and its proximity sent chills racing down her spine that had nothing to do the transference of water. When he finally extracted himself from her, Kira found herself staring up into a genuinely kind, if a bit roguish, smile.
The smile appeared to collapse somewhat when he got a good look at her. Kira blinked, uncertain about what could have caused the change, until she glanced down at herself. The front of her chest was completely soaked through—the white tank top that she had worn beneath her open flannel shirt was now rendered completely translucent, clinging to the swell of her cleavage and revealing her black-laced pushup bra.
"That was a bad move," Donovan said, his eyes raised to the sky as if prayer could bleach the image from his memory. "Very, very bad."
"It's all right." Kira blushed as she wrapped the flannel across her front and hastily set to buttoning. She wasn't faring much better having to look at him. Her teacher's white V-neck was currently leaving nothing to the imagination: it molded to his pectorals like a second skin and excavated a six-pack that she had no indication had existed before this moment. She felt a flare of momentary desire in her belly, but angrily forced the feeling back down. He was her professor, and she was… hormonal. Possibly more so than any other freshman, considering the silent war currently being waged within her on a cellular level. She was glad when Professor Donovan finally turned away to grab a towel and reclaim his jacket.
"You did that on purpose," she said eventually.
"It was for charity. Believe me, I did not want to plunge into freezing cold, bacteria-infested water on purpose," Donovan returned as he pulled his clothes on.
"You wanted to include me," Kira said. The man turned to look at her, and after a moment, her mouth flexed into a tired smile. "When you saw me walking through the crowd alone."
"I meant what I said about your GPA," her teacher responded. It didn't escape her notice that he had avoided confirming her suspicion about his intentions. "You need to get a handle on it, now, before it's too late."
"Yes, professor," she replied. Donovan turned on her then, startling her, and Kira took a step back off the mat. For a moment, she could have sworn his eyes flashed at her, and not just with frustration. She took another step away just to be certain of their distance, but her teacher surprised her by following her. She felt her shoulders connect with the backboard of the dunk tank, and her heart fluttered wildly in her chest as he overshadowed her. It occurred to her that they were hidden from the midway behind the tank. Possibly it occurred to Donovan, too, because he didn't move any nearer to her… but each exhalation of breath seemed to bring his chest closer to pressing once more against her own.
"Don't just pay me lip service, Miss Bentley." Storming gray eyes dropped to her mouth unconsciously at the word. "Be a good student. It's your future on the line."
Kira was staring fixedly at his mouth as well. Was he holding back his anger, or was it something else? She could feel tension radiating from him, could sense something barely leashed inside him, but what was its source?
"Why do you care so much about my future?" she whispered harshly. "You're a complete asshole to me. You barely even know me."
"I know you better than you think," he replied. "And I care. Let's leave it at that."
Professor Donovan thrust his towel into her chest and detached from her, striding around the side of the dunk tank and disappearing into the crowd. Kira turned to watch him go, feeling confused, and as if she really, really, didn't want to leave it at that.
She had a horrible night. She woke well past one in the morning to the crunching of bones as her body shifted and contorted at disturbing angles beneath her sheets. She had been dreaming about running through beautiful fields of wildland green, dodging between trees, skimming over undisturbed puddles left fresh for her after a long day of rain. The reality of her room, and of the betrayal of her own body, was like a nightmare by contrast.
She managed to stumble to the adjoining bathroom without knocking over more than a desk lamp. Her roommate was at home for the weekend, thank God. Kira barricaded herself inside the tiled room, moaning and sobbing as she contorted in pain on the floor. She just wanted it to stop.
In her worst moments, she recalled Professor Donovan's face. She tried to remember what it had looked like when he smiled at her, what it had felt like when he banded her tightly to him, even as a joke. For a brief instant, she hadn't felt so horribly alone. But it was his words to her, his assertion that she was sinking herself and her education, that kept cycling through her thoughts in the darkest hours of the morning.
And she knew how to put an end to it all tomorrow.
CHAPTER 5
He found her in his office after class.
"Did you really decide to skip class and come straight to my office?" Donovan asked her incredulously. He had a mug of steaming coffee from the staff room in one hand, and a folio of assignments tucked under his other arm as he entered.
Kira Bentley was standing in front of his desk. She looked like hell. Beautiful hell. Her tawny hair was a tangled mess, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but he wasn't of the impression that she had been crying. Donovan seated himself behind his desk, but the girl remained standing. After studying her critically for a moment longer, he pushed the mug of coffee toward her. "Here. Drink this. You look like you need it more than I do."
"Thank you," she said in a stilted voice. "I don't know if I can."
The overture did succeed in getting her to sit down, even if it didn't succeed in caffeinating her. When he noticed the aroma seemed to be troubling her, Donovan pulled the mug back over to his side of the desk.
"I'll go easy on you today," he said finally. "You can bring me lunch tomorrow, but I want a dessert, and I want it homemade. It's either that, or you help me grade the multiple choice quizzes from today. What do you want to do?"
"I came to tell you that I'm dropping out," Kira said.
The room lapsed into a stunned silence. Donovan was leaning across his desk, staring at her intently, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. At least she didn't have the damn sunglasses on today. Her pale skin looked translucent and fragile, almost as if a thoughtless touch could bruise it. The effect was breathtaking on her, but not in a good way. She looked hopelessly, heartbreakingly ill, and Donovan was starting to feel afraid that he wouldn't be able to save her.
But she had come to him. Him. He could tell by her tone of voice that he was the first to be notified of her decision. If she hadn't talked to anyone else at the school or put in the paperwork, then there was still hope.
"Jesus, Bentley, just tell me what it is. Is it drugs?" The girl flinched, but Donovan
passed over his first guess quickly. "Did you have a death in the family? Is Dracula entering your room and sucking your veins dry every night?"
"That is the weirdest thing anyone has ever said to me," Kira responded haughtily. "And probably the nerdiest. I can't believe I was actually considering pursuing my degree in English."
"I'm not… wait, what?" Donovan blinked in confusion and removed his glasses. Now the girl was staring wildly all about the room in an attempt not to meet his gaze. She looked utterly miserable, and Donovan realized that she had never intended to tell him that part. "English? Really?"
"Yes, really." She still wouldn't look at him. "I wanted to do what you do. But I've decided that I can't. And it's not because of my family or vampires or anything."
"What I meant by that…" He was struggling. He was trying to open the door to the conversation they needed to be having, but he didn't have the proper key to get in. He had to enter through the side window; vampires it was. "I'm saying you can tell me anything. No matter how crazy it might sound."
"The only reason I'm talking to you right now," Kira said, voice shaking, "is because I wanted you to be the first to know. I don't know why, I just… wanted you to be the first. I know you don't respect me, or even really like, but you… you've done a lot for me." She rose suddenly from her seat. "And I'm sorry that your efforts were wasted."
"They're not wasted." Donovan was out of his chair. "I refuse to let them be wasted. And I refuse to let you leave this room until you tell me why you're about to throw away a perfectly good education."
Kira scoffed at this, and he watched as some of the fire behind her eyes rekindled. "You can't prevent me from leaving your office."
"Can't I?" As Kira came around the side of his desk, Donovan moved in front of his door. His shoulders were broad enough to almost fill the frame. While the healthy, athletic Kira Bentley he had observed walking around campus weeks ago might have stood a chance against him, the thin and hungry-looking young woman standing before him wouldn't hold a candle to his strength.
She didn't look forlorn anymore; she looked furious. "Get out of my way," she growled, through teeth that suddenly appeared far sharper than before. "I knew it was a mistake to try and tell you anything. You can't hold me in here!"
"You haven't told me anything," Donovan pointed out to her pleasantly. Kira paced away from him, agitated, before returning to him with a sudden vengeance.
"I'll scream. I'll throw that mug of coffee on you," she threatened.
"I'm prepared to bear it," he said nobly.
"I can do worse than that," she promised.
"I'm afraid I don't believe you, Miss—"
Kira, whose rage at being held captive had brought her only inches away from the man, now shed the remaining inches as she raised herself up on her toes and kissed him.
The move stunned Donovan. He remained planted where he was, unable to process what was happening fast enough. He felt a vengeful body pressed against him in cold fury, but her lips… her lips were soft and warm. And her closeness triggered something inside of him.
He snaked an arm around her waist and flipped her over, until Kira Bentley was pinned beneath him against the door. She gasped quietly in surprise, and Donovan took full advantage of the involuntary parting of her lips to take command of a second kiss. He swept his tongue between that natural, maddening purse, and Kira reacted to him instinctively, inviting him in with a sweet moan as she wound her arms around his neck. His hands were on her ribcage, sliding up past her heaving breasts to her shoulders, and he felt her shudder beneath him. His mouth roved against hers, forcing her to open to him, again and again, willing her to take everything she had asked for before he pulled away suddenly with a gasp.
"I know what you are." No more pretenses. She was gazing up at him, stricken, her beautiful face a map of every agony Donovan had ever experienced and was currently experiencing now, with this forbidden girl in his arms. He had to release her from her secret before it was too late. He had to release them both.
"You've changed these past two weeks. You're sick, and you're tearing yourself apart inside. You think you're alone, but you aren't.
"Kira, you're a werewolf."
CHAPTER 6
Kira, you're a werewolf.
The revelation was more startling than the kiss. Of course, the kiss had been her idea, as much as you could call a frustrated impulse an "idea". She wasn't sure what possessed her to lock lips with Professor Donovan, but it wasn't an expectation of having her heated kiss returned—that was for damn sure.
But he had her backed against the door of his office, which was exactly where Kira Bentley needed to be. As brown-gold eyes met his in disbelief, her shaking fingers groped behind her for the door handle. His gaze shot to her hand, but he was too late—in the next instant she was out the door and running down the hallway of the English building.
Kira's need to escape was all-encompassing, especially now that he had revealed to her what he knew. Professor Donovan knew. She had to get away before fear overwhelmed her. Whenever strong emotion overwhelmed her these days, she—
Kira felt the change already starting. Her spine was shifting and bowing, and as she took the stairs of the fire escape down, she could see that the hand she used to brace herself on the railing had twisted into a claw. She trapped a low sob of despair in her throat and pushed herself to run faster. The English building was right on the edge of campus near the woods. If she could just make it to the safety of the trees…
She was out the door and sprinting. She had arrived early that morning to speak to Professor Donovan before classes, and she didn't encounter any other students or staff as she ran for cover. She made it about thirty paces into the woods before a larger body brought her down.
Kira tried to scream, but all that escaped her was a strangled noise as her attacker carried them both to the ground and knocked the wind from her lungs. She overturned herself to kick and slash at the body atop her, but felt her limbs slammed back into the dirt; the person astride her had driven her legs down beneath him until he was pinning her with his knees. She felt strong hands manacle her wrists and restrain them.
"Get off me!" Kira sobbed aloud. The fact that she could still find her voice was a good thing, even if she was too hysterical to recognize it—it meant that the change hadn't advanced as far as she thought. Not yet, anyway. Who knew if the wolf would still decide to rear its ugly head, and with someone forcing themselves so close to her, she had no hope of concealing the change before it was too late. "Please," she begged.
"Look at me." Professor Donovan's face resolved above her. Kira blinked. She hadn't realized who it was before who held her pinned. Shafts of early morning sunlight that penetrated from the canopy above darkened his handsome silhouette. Wisps of brown hair hung in his face, and he was breathing as heavily as she was from their run. How had he managed to catch up to her? She had always been fast, but ever since the bite, she had been almost superhumanly so…
Donovan leaned down, and Kira finally saw what he was trying to show her. The familiar silver of his irises had vanished completely; in their place, she gazed into a pair of inhumanly gold eyes. The pupils were still black, but reduced to thin, vertical slivers. She could see her own stricken expression reflected in them.
"Please don't make me spell it out for you," Professor Donovan said to break the silence. "I already have a lecture on Jane Eyre I have to give in the next hour."
"You're…" Kira struggled with the words as she struggled to raise herself off the ground. Perhaps still wary of an escape attempt, the man didn't budge. "You're like me! You're a werewolf!"
"The clinical term for it is lycanthropy," Professor Donovan said. "If there was a clinic established for this sort of thing. And yes, it's an affliction we both share."
"You knew," Kira said in wonder. "You knew all along. All those stupid detentions and manufactured excuses for me to come to your office after class…"
"You earned every one
of those yourself," Donovan clarified in a low murmur. Kira suddenly became aware of just how closely their bodies were positioned. It reminded her a little too much of their brief entanglement in the doorway to his office—only out here, the handsome professor asserted complete control of her capture by using gravity and superior strength to his advantage. Professor Donovan had an animalistic side. She felt her face heat at the realization. It was a side she had become all too familiar with when she baited him with a kiss.
Why had she done that, anyway? To throw him off? To force his hand into letting her go? Or was there another reason?
She felt his weight shift atop her, and her heart slammed heavily against her ribcage. But Professor Donovan wasn't looking to resume whatever it was that had happened between them earlier. The older man pushed himself off her, and Kira sat up, absently bringing a hand up to feel for leaves tangled in her hair.
"Am I…?"
"You're fine now," he confirmed for her. "But you weren't when you left my office. Your eyes were the first thing to visibly give you away, and I have a feeling it didn't stop there."
"No." Kira blushed harder. "I… I could feel the transformation coming."
"It's flaring up in public because you haven't learned to control it yet." Donovan sat back effortlessly on his haunches as he considered her. She saw that his eyes were back to their usual gray, and Kira couldn't help but envy how easily he had managed to banish the wolf back down inside him. She would give anything to be able to exercise the same control.
"I know," she said quietly. "It keeps coming on when I least expect it. I feel like I'm living in hell." The hand combing the leaves from her hair was shaking now. She dragged the other through her scalp and hung her head, staring hard at the forest floor to prevent herself from giving over completely to exhausted tears. "I don't know what to do, professor."
Bears of Burden: THORN Page 42