The car suddenly shifted off of the road onto a gravel track and I was almost thrown into the window. Maybe he’d been right about the seatbelt.
Caleb slammed his foot on the brake, his hand landing in the centre of my chest as he did, clamping me back against the seat so that I wasn’t thrown through the windscreen.
He cut the engine and the lights in the car fell away, leaving us in darkness.
“What’s going on?” I breathed, my fingertips tingling with power but I knew I was outmatched by his skill. I needed to bide my time, find out what was going on and hit him with a strong blast of power when he wasn’t expecting it if it came to that.
The silence stretched for so long that I almost wanted to scream just to break it.
“I’ve been thinking, Tory,” Caleb said in a low voice, turning to look at me in the darkness. “That maybe you’d like to try something with me.”
“What?” I asked, my hand sliding to the door handle again and tugging on it lightly, just in case. It didn’t budge.
“There have been a lot of stories circulating about me and the kinds of things I like to take pleasure from.”
I pressed my lips together but I didn’t offer a comment. I was aware of the Pegasex rumours...obviously.
“So if you and me are gonna work then I guess you’ll have to accept the fact that I’m also hopelessly addicted to Pegasus ass according to the latest stories.”
Silence stretched. I couldn’t see Caleb very well in the dark but I knew he could see me just fine. He would have heard that spike in my heartbeat too. This whole thing was designed to rattle me. But I wasn’t going to let myself get rattled.
I bit my lip and leaned towards him slowly, dropping my voice like we were sharing a secret. “Well...maybe when my Order emerges I’ll be a Pegasus and I can make all of your fantasies come true.”
Caleb locked me in his gaze and his jaw tightened a fraction as he looked at me in the dark. “Would you like that?” he asked in a dangerous voice.
“What?” I breathed, my heart beating a little faster as he continued to look at me like that.
“You wanna be my Pegasus?” he asked, shifting closer to me and catching me by my waist.
He yanked me out of my chair with a surge of his Vampire strength and pulled me over to straddle him. I gasped in surprise as he held me tightly, my heart thundering in fright which I knew he could hear.
“Well?” he prompted, gripping me harder.
My lips parted, unsure what he wanted me to say. I knew he hated that rumour, why was he trying to get me to say I wanted to play a part in it? Why had he brought me all the way up here just to ask me this? Trepidation spilled through my body but I refused to balk.
“You like the idea of me all covered in glitter?” I teased, reaching up to touch his face.
Caleb caught my hand and pinned it to my side. “Maybe the rumours are true,” he breathed, his voice dipping from seductive to dangerous. “Maybe I want to whip you with a riding crop with my name printed on it and ride you around like my own personal pony. Maybe I want you to wear a bridal and neigh while I’m screwing you.”
My lips parted as I looked at him, searching his navy eyes for some hint of where this was coming from. And suddenly I knew. He’d figured it out. Somehow, he knew it had been me who spread those rumours.
I swallowed as I continued to look at him, wondering if I should just call him out on it, try and get him to see the funny side... But everything about his posture and the way he was holding me said he didn’t find this the least bit funny.
I licked my lips slowly and he watched the motion with hunger in his gaze. He might have been pissed as all hell with me but I didn’t want to believe he’d hurt me.
“Or maybe, I want to play a real round of our usual game,” he growled.
My brows pulled together in confusion as he unlocked the doors, the sold thunk echoing in the silence.
“I don’t under-”
“It’s dark up here, Tory,” Caleb snarled, leaning close to my ear. “And there are monsters in the woods. You should probably run.”
The door swung open beside us and he shoved me out of his lap so that I fell out of the car, catching the doorframe at the last second to stop myself from sprawling in the dead leaves.
“Caleb,” I began but he shot out of the car so quickly that my heart leapt in fright.
“Run,” he barked, his fangs snapping out and the look in his eyes making me stumble back a step.
I hesitated, looking around at the clearing he’d parked up in. We were in the middle of nowhere, half way up a mountain by the looks of it and there were thick trees all around us. Even if I managed to escape him, I’d be hopelessly lost out here and he’d taken my Atlas from me.
“I don’t want to,” I said, fighting to hide the tremor of fear in my voice.
Caleb lunged at me and I screamed, throwing my hands up as I cast a huge gust of air at him. He was knocked back and I turned and fled, racing into the trees as fast as I could with terror coursing through my limbs.
Caleb’s dark laughter followed me as I ran and I knew in my heart that this was hopeless. He was a fucking Vampire. He could outrun me in a heartbeat and the sound of my feet pounding through the dead leaves was so loud I might as well have been building a fire with my name written in flames and an arrow pointing right at me.
I skidded into a clearing and my sneakers caught on a log hidden beneath the leaves. I hooked it into my grasp without thinking about it and continued to run.
Caleb whooped excitedly as he gave chase and ice splintered through my veins.
I kept running, taking a route downhill in some desperate bid to outpace him.
A force like a battering ram collided with me and I cried out as I was thrown back into a huge tree.
Fire flared to life as I flung it from my palms and Caleb released his grip on me as he lurched aside to avoid getting burned. I swung the branch at him with a scream of defiance and it crashed against the side of his head with enough force to knock him off of his feet.
Caleb snarled as he threw his own magic back at me and vines twisted their way up out of the ground, coiling around my arms and twisting them behind my back.
“Fuck!” Caleb cursed, stalking towards me so that the light of the flames still burning beside us illuminated the blood pissing down his face from the head wound I’d given him. He pressed a hand to the injury, healing it with a grimace before closing in on me again.
I fought to regain the use of my arms but his vines only tightened and with my hands immobilised, I couldn’t cast any more magic.
“You hit me with a fucking branch!” Caleb growled, looking down into my eyes.
“You were hunting me like a goddamn psychopath,” I spat back.
Caleb stared at me for several long seconds, his chest rising and falling deeply as a frown gripped his features.
He shook his head like he was dismissing some idea then snatched me into his arms before I could say anything else.
We shot back up the hill to his car and he pushed me down roughly to perch on the hood.
Caleb’s lips twisted as he looked at me and I fought to calm my panicked breathing as I sat before him, my arms still tied at my back.
“Is this what turns you on then?” I snapped when I couldn’t take it anymore. “Terrifying people? It’s a long way from glitter and riding crops.”
“What’s to say I don’t like both?” he growled darkly, his eyes narrowing. “Everyone thinks I spend my time chasing after glittering horse assholes. That rumour must have come from somewhere. Right?”
I lifted my chin as he moved closer to me, refusing to drop my gaze. Yes we’d started that rumour about him. And no, I wasn’t sorry. It was nothing compared to what he and his friends had done to us. I shrugged slowly, like his question was as interesting to me as talking about the weather.
“Didn’t you just win the game?” I asked, dropping my voice as I shifted against my restraints, leani
ng a little closer to him instead of recoiling. “Doesn’t that mean you get to bite me now?”
“No, the rumours say I wanna fuck a Pegasus,” he reminded me in a growl as he stepped closer too, his knees pressing against mine until I parted them so he could stand between my thighs. “So, maybe I need you to play the part of the horsey for me now.”
A long beat of silence passed between us and I looked deep into his eyes. He was angry as all hell but there was something else in his gaze too. A kind of plea, like he wanted me to prove something to him. I just didn’t know what. But I was willing to push my luck to see if I could find out. Because we’d been playing this game for long enough now. And he should have known that I wasn’t going to bow out.
“Well I heard you have a thing for their horns,” I breathed, shifting my hips forward so that I was pressed against him. I smiled just a little as I felt his body reacting to mine. “So surely that means you’d want me to shove one up your-”
“No,” he snarled, taking hold of my waist between his hands. His grip was tight but not bruising, I was beginning to think he might be backing down a little. “I think what I wanted was a big, plastic Pegasus doll with a hole in its ass to-”
“Don’t you already have one though?” I asked, leaning forward so that my lips were almost touching his.
Caleb tightened his grip on my wrist, stopping me. “You wanna come back to my room and watch me screw it then?” he offered in a tone that was all threat.
“Only if you let me film it,” I countered, trying to push him towards laughter. If I could just break through this anger then maybe...
“If you wanna make a dirty movie with me then you’re gonna have to star in it too,” he said, his breath washing over my lips.
“The last time you and your friends filmed me you were trying to kill me,” I reminded him.
“That wasn’t me.”
“You were still there.”
Silence hung between us for a long moment and heat built in the space dividing us but neither of us moved to close the distance parting our lips.
“You promised to punish me for that,” Caleb murmured eventually.
“And maybe I did,” I whispered.
Caleb’s hand moved to my face in the dark and I flinched a little at the unexpected touch. He trailed his fingers down my jaw, tipping my chin to the side slowly, exposing my neck to him. My heart was still pounding but the fear was slipping into a thrill, excitement buzzing through my veins. I was toying with a monster and I might have actually wanted him to bite me for once. I needed it. A release to this tension coiling between us.
He leaned in close, running his nose up the arch of my throat and inhaling deeply. “Do you still hate being my Source, Tory?” he asked softly.
“Most of the time,” I replied.
“What about now?” His hand slid to grip my ponytail and he tugged it hard enough to make me gasp. The vines fell from my arms and I used my hands to steady myself on the hood of his car.
“I think that right now...I might just like it,” I whispered.
Caleb groaned and his fangs snapped out, driving straight into my neck as he continued to hold me tightly. He wasn’t gentle with me like he usually was, his anger showing in the depth of his bite and the growl which clawed up the back of his throat.
I moaned as he drank deeply, taking more and more until I began to feel light headed. My hands landed on his shoulders, my fingers biting into his flesh in return for the rough treatment. But I was pulling him closer not pushing him away. My head spun dizzily and for a fleeting moment I wondered what it would be like to die like this. Held in the arms of a beautiful monster...
He finally released me and I sagged back against the hood, blinking at him as a wave of dizziness washed over me.
My body was thrumming with the remains of fear and more than a little desire and I could feel how hard he was between my thighs too.
“You still wanna go to the fair?” Caleb asked, smiling darkly, riding the high of my power.
“Yeah,” I replied with a small smile of my own. “I wanna go to the fucking fair.”
Caleb leaned forward and kissed me hard. It was punishing, bruising, the taste of my blood coating his tongue and the feel of his skin making heat rise everywhere he touched me. I bowed to his desire as he pinned me in place, feeling the anger burning lower in him with each passing moment. He knew it had been me. But he wanted me more than he wanted revenge. At least for now.
He stepped back, looking down at me with heat in his gaze, healing the bite on my neck with a brush of his fingers.
“Then let’s go have some fun.”
I offered him a smirk and he left me to slide off of the hood and return to my seat. As soon as the ridiculous door had closed beside me, he started the engine and the headlights blazed to life.
The car shot away down the gravel path and I leaned back into my seat in a bit of a daze. Caleb had taken so much blood and power from me that I felt dizzy with it, but all in all I felt I’d escaped that fairly unscathed. Especially if I’d been right in thinking he knew the truth. Clearly neither of us were going to address it directly. But it seemed like we’d come to an understanding at least. I just had to hope it stayed that way.
I sat with an untouched veggie burger on my plate while Diego made his way through his own hamburger.
“You okay?” he asked around a mouthful of meat.
We were under a gazebo which looked over an ice rink and I’d been staring at the couples circling it for a solid ten minutes. Maybe longer.
“Yeah,” I said, turning to him. “Sorry I just…” I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. I just saw the teacher I screwed kissing another woman and now my heart hurts.
“We can just go home, if you want?” he asked.
My eyes trailed to the ice rink again and I spotted Tyler twirling Sofia around by the hand. Diego followed my gaze and I checked to see his reaction but his expression didn’t give anything away.
“Diego, I did something bad,” I said, guilt eating me up.
“What?” he asked, looking to me with a frown.
“I…” I glanced down at my burger. “I helped set Tyler up with Sofia.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as silence spanned between us.
Diego rested a hand on mine and I glanced up in surprise, his intensely blue eyes making my heart squeeze. “Because you feel this connection between us?”
“What?” I gasped. “No…I’m sorry. I mean, you’re a great friend, Diego.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry about Sofia,” I reiterated.
“Well she looks happy,” he sighed. “And you’re right, we weren’t exclusive. I’m not sure she wanted to be anyway. Maybe we’re better as friends.”
“Like us?” I asked hopefully and he broke a smile.
“Yes, chica.” He stood. “How about we take a turn on the Faerris Wheel with some hot fudge?”
“That sounds like heaven.” I stood and followed him out of the gazebo.
We were soon queuing for the Faerris Wheel and I gazed up at the large white carriages which slowly revolved above us, finishing the hot fudge we’d bought on the way to it. As we reached the front of the queue, we walked onto the metal platform and I climbed into the carriage as a couple vacated it.
Diego moved to follow but a shadow bashed into him and I gasped in horror as Orion knocked him onto his ass and climbed into his place beside me.
“I need my Source,” he barked at Diego as he scrambled upright.
“Hey – no!” I shouted, fury tearing through me. I jumped up to get out but Orion caught the back of my dress, tugging me down into my seat. He locked me in place with one arm and sank his fangs into my throat.
A short scream ripped from my chest, the sound piercing and travelling right across the fair. It wasn’t any harder than he normally did it, but it felt like an utter betrayal to do this to me now.
The guy attending the wheel whistled
to himself as he casually locked the gate and we moved upwards at an ever-climbing pace.
“Get off of me!” I shoved Orion, trying to force my magic to work, but he had it firmly in his grasp.
He grunted, tugging his fangs free, but not removing his arm where it was locked around my waist. He moved his face into mine, his teeth bared, making real fear push into my veins. In that moment, he was a wild animal and running from him was impossible. We were stuck together for the next twenty minutes and I knew for a fact he’d done this on purpose. He waved his hand to cast a bubble of silence around us and anger pierced my chest.
“This has gone far enough,” he snarled, the ferocity in his tone making my heart beat out of rhythm. “You brought him here to piss me off.”
My mouth opened as disbelief coursed through me. “You asked me to talk to him. And you’re not exactly here on your own, Professor,” I snapped.
“Lance,” he demanded forcefully.
“No,” I hissed, trying to unknot his fingers from my dress. “I’m not calling you that because we’re not a thing anymore. I do not screw taken guys. If Fran doesn’t give you what you need in the bedroom, then I’m certainly not going to.”
His eyes glittered and a dark smile pulled at his mouth. “She isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Right. Is that why you rammed your tongue down her throat earlier? Because she’s not your girlfriend?”
“You’re a hypocrite,” he pointed out and his smile fell away dramatically. He dragged his thumb across my mouth, wiping it hard and I wriggled to try and stop him, but I was completely cornered.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shoved his arms, but he ignored me, keeping me in place as he pushed his knee into my thigh.
“I’m trying to get Diego Polaris’s saliva off of my girl,” he growled.
That sentence did so many things to me it was unreal. Anger, rage, delight at the last bit. Then confusion at the last bit too because in what world was I his girl? We’d gone from flirting, to screwing like we loved each other, to tearing each other’s throats out in the space of a few days. The relationship had expired before it had even started and I was left in the aftermath of a tornado, unsure how to put my life back together.
Zodiac Academy 3: The Reckoning: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 43