“Wow,” I whisper. “How many decades have you been here?”
“Oh, only four years,” she says. “But I’m pretty sure the Night Dean told us the average age of Tynahine’s students is eighty-nine. Plus, some of our faculty have been here since the university first opened its doors in the thirteenth century.”
I try to picture someone working the same job for eight hundred years. Ife walks off to get another round of blood, and as Stephan chats away with Julia, I feel myself growing awkward.
“So,” Ife says, putting down two steaming glasses of blood. “You were telling us you have a vampire roommate?”
“I haven’t met them yet,” I say. I bite into my wrap, lettuce, spinach, and crispy Halloumi filling my mouth. I glance towards the edge of Ambrose Hall just as a new crowd appears.
A dozen girls, all with an ethereal vampiric beauty.
One stands out amongst them. Tall, hair short and white. The same girl I saw up on the fifth floor of the library. The fifth floor was near-empty when I ran away, so I’m pretty sure it was her voice I heard, either begging to be bitten or saying,We’ve got company.
“Not her, right?” Ife asks, noticing who I was just staringat.
“Uh…” I clear my throat. “I don’t know.”
“As if Aliz Astra would share a room,” Stephan scoffs. Every muscle in my body tenses when I hear the name.Astra?
“Never mind live in a hall,” Julia says, looking up from her paper to stare at the white-haired vampire. “Doesn’t she own the hunting lodge?”
“More like huntingpalace,” Stephan says.
“You’re right. She does own it,” Ife says, pouting. “Damn it.”
“Astra?” I whisper the name, still not believing it. “TheAstras?” I ask. Ife nods, amused by my reaction. The vampire in question, Aliz Astra, joins the queue to the blood stall, while the girls around her fight for her attention. The Astras are the most powerful vampires in Europe. And I was bad-mouthing her father in our last class.
Before I look away, Aliz Astra turns, and our eyes meet from afar. Just like last night, something tightens inside me, as though there’s a chain drawing me towards her.
She cocks her head slightly, her cool features broken by a sly grin. My heart skips a beat.
“Why is she looking at us?” Ife asks, drawing my attention away from Astra.
“I—” Why indeed? “Well, I may have accidentally overheard her last night.”
“Saying what?” Ife asks in a hushed voice, eyes wide with excitement.
“More than saying, it wasdoing,” I say, and for some stupid reason, my cheeks burn.
“Shocking,” says Julia, rolling her eyes. Astra must have a reputation, then. I look back over at the crowd. She’s no longer looking at me, and air flows easier into my lungs now that her attention is gone. I wish I knew which of the girls flocking around her was the one I heard her with in the library.
I also wish I could get her out of my head.
“Most of the vampires here are serious about their education,” Ife says, playing with her straw. “And if I remember correctly, Astra was, too, at the start. I had a few classes with her during my first year here. Then she started failing.”
“Failing?” I ask, glancing back at the white-haired vampire.
“She may come from the most powerful family in Europe, but she is surprisingly stupid.”
“She’s had to retake the same classes four years in a row,” Julia says, her slender neck elongating as she turns to stare at Astra. “Vampiredom is truly doomed ifsheis going to become the next leader of the Council.”
“So, humans can be expelled for failing Integration, but Aliz Astra gets to stay here for as long as she likes?” I ask, and Ife nods.
“She treats Tynahine like a playground,” Julia says. Her pale eyes meet mine, and for a second, I forget that she, too, is a vampire. “So, you better hope she doesn’t decide you’re her nextplaything.”
Chapter
Three
