by A. Vers
My concern was finding out who killed Eliza. Even if they closed Lokworth for good, I would make sure whoever killed her didn’t kill anyone else. And for that, I needed a little help.
Chapter 18
Morgan
The stares would have been a lot easier to swallow if Riki and Roman didn’t seem to be in on it.
My best friends—or maybe former best friends—huddled across the room with other members of the Lokworth colony. Because even in an academy setting, pack stuck with pack, and vampires stayed with vampires.
I remained in my seat at the back of the chamber, eyes locked out the dark window to the courtyard below. And that, I was sure, was their topic of choice.
Me.
In my heart, I think it hurt more that I had not been sure I was innocent. Oh, I knew I didn’t kill Eliza. But she wasn’t the first dead human found around me either.
I looked away from the dark expanse of glass as memories of that long ago day sprung back to me in startling clarity.
I remembered the storms that had raged for nearly a week. The shadows of the colony house. The chill to the air.
But most of all, I remembered the screams. The confusion.
Shutting my eyes tight, I tried to force away that dark day.
Ames shifted beside me. His slacks whispered softly, making me open my eyes. His feet were propped up on an empty chair and a slim leather-bound copy of The Hobbit was in his long, agile hands.
But even his new confusing facade and underhandedness about his blood wasn’t enough to pull me from the past.
Climbing to my feet, I slipped quietly through the network of chairs and along the back wall to the stairwell. I knew Ames was watching. His gaze was like a new weight on my spine. Not condemning but calculating.
I ignored him and the new silence from the others as I left the room.
The stairs were chilly. Or maybe it was me. The attic had always been a kind of sanctuary for me. The old furniture, stacked paintings, and trunks of discarded clothes added to the timeless warp that seemed to engulf me whenever I entered.
Only this time, it wasn’t empty.
Ryder looked up from my usual window seat as I slipped inside. “Hey,” he said, his tone holding just a hint of surprise where his expression did not.
I raised a brow and looked pointedly at my spot. “Aren’t you supposed to be in homeroom?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Supernaturals don’t have homeroom,” I said.
He smirked. “Fine. I’m playing hooky.”
I rolled my eyes and walked over the old wood slats to the window. He didn’t rise or even move away. Instead, he went back to staring out the slightly grimy glass at a world encased in night.
“If your school wasn’t so damn creepy,” he murmured after a time, “you guys would have one hell of a view.”
I shifted a bit and tried to see what he did.
The high canopy of the forest stretched in an endless sea of dark boughs and branches. Our long drive cut through the thicket like a soft grey snake, winding and curving into the distance. But far off sat Easthaven.
Each building was a dim silhouette against a blanket of sporadic street lamps and open businesses. The occasional high rise closer to Salem was like a castle turret. Reaching and reaching. But never quite touching the stars.
I huffed and leaned against the windowsill, surprised he could see it for what it was.
“What?” he asked.
My eyes dipped over to find him watching me. “I was just thinking it’s surprising you can see the beauty of it.” Though I didn’t owe him my honesty, something told me he would appreciate it more.
His lips quirked. “I don’t have enhanced sight, vampire girl. But my eyes still work just fine.” He gave me a slow, lazy appraisal.
I flushed hard enough it left me dizzy. “Never said otherwise, human.”
He chuckled softly and went back to taking in the world just outside. “Fair enough.”
We both fell silent for a time, and I took turns trying to better understand him by his free expressions and what he spent the most time looking at outside. After nearly ten minutes, I knew his attention shifted between Easthaven’s lights and my reflection beside his.
“So if vampires don’t have homeroom, what do you guys do?”
“Gossip mainly,” I quipped and turned away to search for another chair that wasn’t caved in. Even wearing the Lokworth heels for nearly four years had not made them any less painful.
“Seriously?” he asked.
I couldn’t quite hide my smile. “Mostly. Also, the younger of my kin have Blood Drinking 101 three times a week.”
“Okay, that’s gross.”
I snorted. “So are humans who eat meat,” I said honestly.
“Oh god. You’re a vampire and a vegan?” I peered back in time to watch him shudder.
“Pescatarian, but yes.” I propped my hands on my hips. “So?”
His brows knit together. “Isn’t that a bit of an ... oxymoron?”
“I drink blood because I have to. But I don’t have to eat meat.”
He slipped around to face me head on, leaning his broad back against the windowsill. “I’m not saying it’s wrong. Just ... how? How does that work?”
“I just don’t eat meat,” I muttered, cheeks burning brighter. “It’s a personal decision. An intensely personal one,” I added for extra ‘stop asking’ power.
Truthfully, I was raised in a pescatarian household. We ate fish and most other forms of seafood. This close to the ports, seafood was easy to come by. But because most full-bloods don’t have to eat to survive, the colony decided long before I was born to stop eating meat. I’d never questioned it. And even at Lokworth, I just automatically fell into old habits.
Ryder held up his hands. “Sorry. It’s not any of my business.”
“Any progress?” I asked, forcing a drastic subject change.
He stood and stretched.
His jacket was turned the right way today, but his button-up was untucked and his tie undone. He looked comfortable and a kind of forbidden delicious that made my heart race.
“About as much as I expected,” he said on a masculine exhale once he was back flat on his feet. “I scoured the nurse’s office and the hallway. There was no splatter or anything that would say Eliza was moved.”
Was that what he was doing yesterday when I found him, or what he was doing before he came here?
I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
I wrapped my arms around my body. “So she was drained?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
I bit my lip. “What now then?”
He walked closer, and I was hard pressed not to admire how well he moved for a human. “You let me worry about that.”
That caught me off guard. I blinked a few times and cocked my head. “What?”
His shrug was nonchalant. “Look, I appreciate you being upfront with me. Not shutting me out and giving me all the info you did. But, it doesn’t look good to have the original suspect playing tag along to the scene of the crime. If you get what I mean.”
“But I’m innocent. I proved that.” I gestured wildly to the now dark exterior of the school.
“As far as your kind is concerned, maybe. But to the humans—the ones who didn’t show for school and all their now concerned parents—you’re still suspect number one. A person of interest.”
“So I do nothing?” I snapped. I didn’t want to tell him that even my kind still seemed unconvinced.
“Not nothing,” he murmured, stalking casually around me in a loose circle. I went still. It had been a long time since anyone made me feel like prey. But there it was. The odd notion that Ryder may be a bigger predator than I was. “I still need someone to help show me around. Someone who can help me blend in and go places I wouldn’t normally be able to go.”
“What would I have to do?” I asked, voice breathy as my pulse sped.
“I want you glued to my side when possible. Let people think you’re taking the ambassador part seriously.” Something rough passed over my wrist and I whirled. He was feet away, with a more than decorous amount of space between us. And yet …
My eyes narrowed. “How serious?”
His lips curved into a small smile. “Enough to make them second guess their own theories.” There was a keen glint to him that had not been there before. “Everyone is waiting to pin this on you. We need to make them disoriented enough that the real killer slips.”
“If I stay close to you ... It shows my willingness to be around humans? How easy it is. How calm I can be with your kind,” I said, mulling it over.
If I thought he smiled before, then his grin was plain wicked. “Exactly.”
I turned fully to face him, knowing I was toeing a line I probably shouldn’t cross. “You said glued to your side. How glued?”
His hazel eyes glinted softly in the dimness of the solar lamps outside. There was no glow, no additional beat of power. But something in him screamed other. Oh, he may have been human, but even among his kind he was different. “As close as you want.”
My heart slammed inside my chest walls.
I was playing with fire.
I took a small step. He didn’t back up. So I took another, easily closing the distance until there were mere feet between us. “Is this too close?” I had to tilt my head back just a little to see his face.
“You can come closer.” His voice was gruffer than before, and the dark ring of his pupil seemed blown wide.
Was it from fear?
Another shuffle had us one hard breath away. His body heat was palpable. And so much warmer than my kind. His spicy scent was mouthwatering. But oddly, my thirst did not rise as it had before.
Could it be Ames’ blood?
That was like a bucket of ice water over my head. Some of my bravado faded, and I stepped backward, reopening the distance. “This will have to be close enough.”
His jaw flexed. “You’re not having trouble being near me, are you?”
“Not like you think,” I muttered. When I remained quiet, he cocked his head back in an arrogant tilt to his chin. My eyes rolled. “I’m not salivating to open your vein, Ryder. But Ames is feeding me right now. I don’t know how he will react to my being … ‘glued to your side’.”
Some of his tension eased. “I see.” And I had a feeling he did. Until, “Are you dating?”
My jaw hit my chest. “Ames and I?” My head shook so hard I stumbled. “No. Not even a little.” That small voice in my head chided that we had been very close only a few mornings before. But it was to be expected with any vampire feeding. It could be as empty or as charged as the vampire wanted. And in that moment, with the weight of all that had happened, I would’ve welcomed Ames in any way he would have me. It didn’t mean he felt anything but a kind of duty in response.
Though even that made no sense to me.
“He …” I grasped for a phrase that would fit, and finally settled on, “Ames is complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
My face flamed. “Like ... arranged marriage complicated.”
He blinked. “So you two are …”
“Betrothed since birth?” I finally suggested. “Yes. Ames’ parents and mine sought an alliance between our colonies. When I came to Lokworth, Ames came too. Kind of like a chaperone. Or guard.” I waved my hand. “Pick a term.”
Ryder rocked back on his heels. “Damn. I didn’t know anyone but third world countries did that anymore.”
I glowered. “Most colonies originate from the old country. We are traditional.”
“Not the word I would use but sure.” I looked at him. He ran a hand through his hair, tousling the strands. “Fine. Agree to disagree.”
I nodded.
His exhale was soft. “You keep as much distance as you feel comfortable with. All we need to do is make it seem like you’re just as at home with the humans as you are with the supes.”
I dipped my head. “Agreed.”
Pounding footsteps echoed through the stairwell. Ames burst through the doorway, his open jacket billowing. He stopped dead in his tracks, gold gaze sliding from Ryder to myself and back.
“Morgan.” His voice was perfectly level, and not a strand of hair out of place. But I alone may have been able to see the tick in his jaw. “You need to come downstairs. Bring the human.”
Ryder went still. “Why?”
Ames looked him dead in the eye. “They found another body.”
Chapter 19
Ryder
There were a lot of phrases that could make a guy’s heart race.
But being told there was a new body?
That was the fastest way to stop mine.
Morgan gasped next to me, the sound feminine and filled with a breath of fear. But I couldn’t wait around to gauge her reaction fully. Or to comfort her like a girl of her status probably needed.
Besides, she had Ames for that.
I took off at a dead run for the stairwell and jumped halfway down. My boots barely made a sound. I skipped every other step and still felt like it took an eternity to reach that bottom riser.
At the end of the stairwell there was a narrow hall. One direction led to a closed door, the other an open archway barricaded by a single length of chain.
It wasn’t much of a deterrent before, and it damn sure wasn’t now. I vaulted over it and kept going.
The halls were mostly empty, and I realized I had no idea where to go.
“Take a left.”
My head wrenched sideways as Ames sped up beside me. Morgan was close on his heels. Her high pumps had been discarded somewhere. She ran agilely in her stocking feet. I smiled before I could stop it and turned away, taking the vampire male at his word.
We careened down the next hall and with Ames’ direction, we wound up near the front of the school in no time at all.
A crowd had formed, and this time the professors were working hard to usher students away. “Back to your dorms,” Headmistress Harrington called, waving her hands. “I have already reported the situation. Stay in your rooms and do not leave the grounds.”
I craned my neck to see over those nearby, searching for any telltale glimmer that I knew the newest victim.
A group of older looking students, and I was basing this on the fact their Lokworth crest was the same as Morgan’s and Ames’, caught sight of the three of us. They glowered and pointed.
“Morgan did it,” one girl called. “She had to.”
“Yeah. What are you playing at, Morgan? Is this some kind of sick joke?” another yelled.
I stepped sideways as Ames did the same. Blocking Morgan from view.
But the calls had been enough.
Headmistress Harrington caught sight of the three of us and her lips pursed in obvious discontent. “Ms. Read?”
A small, cool hand closed over my arm. Morgan slipped between the vampire and myself, her pink bottom lip between her teeth. She ducked her head. “Ma’am?”
Harrington appraised her. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt, Ms. Read. But this is too far.”
Morgan flinched. “I didn’t—”
The Headmistress waved her hand sharply. “Silence.” Her eyes were glowing a pale yellow in the lowlights of the front hall. “You’ve left me no choice. I am forced to call your parents.”
Morgan stopped breathing next to me.
I threw my arm out across her midsection. “Morgan has been with me.” My voice carried through the vaulted foyer.
Harrington blinked. “Mr. Hanlon …”
“We were in the attic together for nearly an hour.” I purposefully left that open for interpretation. Considering she was barefoot, I knew what direction everyone’s mind would go. “I’m sorry I skipped homeroom, but I wanted to see her. Alone.”
Harrington glanced at Morgan, but she had gone as still as a statue next to me. “Morgan? Is this true?”
/> Morgan’s dark head came up, and she jutted her chin forward in defiance. It was in that moment that the iron will I had glimpsed before grew in her eyes. “Yes.” She shuffled closer to me, winding her hands around my arm. I idly turned my own until it cradled the lean curve of her waist. No longer baring her path, but holding her to me.
She was petite under my touch, and so much softer than she looked.
She made no sound. Just continued to glare at the students with a world of superior anger in her gaze.
Harrington shrugged it off faster than I expected. She coughed a bit and turned away. “I will need statements from you both. And …” Another cough. “Mr. Hanlon, I will need to have you tested for donor approval. I’m sure you understand.”
My stomach clenched.
Donor? What—
It hit me.
They thought Morgan was feeding off of me. It was the only way they could understand the abrupt change between us.
I’d heard it before. A vampire’s bite could be better than sex and more addictive than some drugs.
I waited for the disgust. The anger. There was nothing but a kind of blank emptiness.
It didn’t take a genius to understand that Morgan was condemned by her own kind. And if I wanted to use her to find the real killer, I had to let them think I was a besotted blood whore.
My features went blank. I pulled Morgan tighter to my side, shielding her with my larger frame and knowing I was probably signing my death warrant. “Whatever you require.”
Chapter 20
Morgan
I could still feel Ryder’s hand on my side long after he pulled away. It seemed to sear into me, branding me with a strange heat.
Ames remained quiet, brooding, beside us as we traipsed upstairs to the dorm rooms. The professors had ushered everyone off to their respective halls with an adult or two in tow. We got Giroux, who gave Ryder and myself a creepy wink before booming at the top of his lungs that we were all to remain in the dorm. If we tried to leave, he would know.
I led both quiet males down the hall and opened the door to my room, unsure where else to go. Inviting myself or Ryder into Ames’ rooms seemed like asking for a battle for territory. And the attic seemed equally like a bad idea.