“Thenstop.” She whirls around, stomping over to my desk, fire blazing in those hazel irises. She slams a palm down on the wood surface, baring her teeth, and it takes every single ounce of strength I can muster not to draw her into my lap and plant a sloppy kiss to her mouth. “If you really care about your students and their well-being, you should stop talking about my sister.”
“I’m not fucking her,” I say softly.
“You don’t have to speak to me like that.” Her eyes shine, glassy with unshed emotion. “Like I’m some rabid animal you’re afraid of.”
“It’s not a fear of being bitten,” I tell her. My fear is that I’ll ask her to do it again.
Her face grows bright red, as if she’s just comprehending this entire situation. She drops the umbrella, crossing her arms over her chest, those perky tits hidden beneath an impossibly tight sweater. It’s plastered to her skin like it was painted on, and I can see the faintest outline of her nipples, though I bite my tongue to keep from ogling.
Sitting up straight, I try to school my features. With decades of acting and directing experience, it should be a lot easier to do, but something about this woman just throws me off entirely.
“Was there…something you wished to see me about?”
She nods. “I’d like to join VisioAternae.”
I bark out a laugh. How long had she been listening to my conversation?
“No.”
“No?”
“That’s what I said. Conflict of interest.”
“How so?” she demands. “It’s been weeks since you were inside me.”
My eyes swing to the doorway, my ears straining to hear footsteps or heavy breathing in the hall. “An anecdote I wouldlike to keepprivate, by the way, and only after noting that I had no idea you were an Avernia student at the time.”
“I bet it doesn’t stop you from getting off to the memory,” she says. When I don’t immediately respond, she huffs a laugh, shaking her head and glancing around the room.
The smile falls from her face as she scans the bookshelves, pausing briefly on one area before slowly dragging her focus back to me. Whatever emotion burned there just seconds ago is gone, replaced by some sort of mask—slid into place as if she’s done it a billion times before.
An actress playing a role.
I can’t help wondering just how many different forms of this woman I’ll get to see before the semester’s end.
Without another word, she turns on her heels and stalks out of the room, so quickly that she forgets to grab her umbrella. I pick it up, balancing it on my knees, and spin toward the shelves, scanning the spines of my books to see what spooked her so badly.
My heart sinks to my stomach as I note the gold-embossed envelope I’d forgotten to file in the locked cabinet where I keep all Death’s Teeth–related items.
Still, I’m not sure she’d necessarily know what it means just by looking at it. Though it’s difficult to be at Avernia for longer than a few hours and not learn about the school’s lore somehow. She didn’t seem to be aware of much when we spoke on her first day.
Maybe she didn’t see it anyway. Maybe she freaked out over how many volumes of completed Shakespeare works I own.
Regardless, I imagine I’ll need to keep an eye on that, if only to make sure it doesn’t progress.
Elle Anderson is a curious woman, and that’s never been a good quality to have at this school.
15
ELLE
“You want my opinion?”
I give my cousin a long look as he stretches out on the couch in his apartment, his six-foot-six frame barely fitting in the scope of the camera. His brown hair is shaggier than I’ve ever seen it, and stubble lines his normally clean shaven jaw, but it’s the brace on his arm that really throws me.
Foxe had been with Lucy and Asher in the Tenarus cave last semester. Apparently, it was a miracle he made it out—much less that he recovered from extensive injuries so well.
Minus the brace and a scar between his brows, you might not even know anything had happened at all.
