“Fine,” I say reaching up to rest my finger on my chin, my other hand grips my elbow, hard. My attempt to keep my cool composure. I hope that it works and that on the outside I look entirely unbothered even though my mind is racing with questions and theories. “Let’s make a deal. We both want answers for the other, so I will answer your questions if you answer mine.”
He raises a brow, the white hair glowing in the starlight. “A question for a question?”
“A question for a question, and don’t even think about lying to me, Wilder. I’m very good at figuring out people’s tells.”
“Likewise, Eel.”
I swallow hard when I realize that he is actually agreeing to this. A part of me wants to walk away. None of this is actually important to my grander purpose here. The vampires, Wilder, even the paper with my name on it—none of these things actually matter in the long run. I am here for a spellbook and nothing else.
If anything, this game of sharing secrets will reveal too much and threaten what I’m actually supposed to be doing.
And yet… my curiosity will not allow me to continue onward. Not without knowing, not without figuring out what is happening.
There is something foul afoot here at this academy, and it involves the undead.
And Wilder might just be my best bet at figuring out what it is. Which is how, despite my better judgement, I find myself arching my brow and smirking slightly. “So, who should go first?”
Chapter Eleven
Wilder
Despite my better judgement, I find myself playing along to Bronwyn’s insipid little game. And all on the grounds of accursed curiosity.
I should walk away, wash my hands of her. If she wants to get herself killed by picking a fight with a bloodthirsty vampire, then that is her problem.
I have my own issues, a host of them. If there were droplets of water, I would drown in them. I do not have time for this girl, and her windblown brown hair, and her problems.
I should turn around and stride right back down those stairs, but I don’t. Instead, I find myself adjusting my cuffs and watching her. “If you are going to jetting suggest that the gentlemanly thing to do is allow you to ask your questions first then I will remind you that I am no gentleman.”
“You don’t need to remind me,” she grumbles. I wonder if she is thinking of the toad in her bed, my parting gift to her last year. I had thought it would be the perfect final prank because then it could go on to eat any remaining bugs I had put in her room that she had failed to catch.
I smile slightly at the memory. Ah, what a time that was, back when I was at the luxury of being cruel and my whole life wasn’t inverted on itself.
I had always thought highly of myself then, never stopped to consider my actions or wonder who I was. That all changed when my father made me a monster.
Maybe I always was one, after all, I shared blood with one. But it was easier to pretend then.
“But you kissed me, so…”
I let out a frustrated breath. “If I offer to be the first to be interrogated, will you stop bringing up the kissing?” The sooner she does the sooner I can get my mind to stop replaying it over and over through my memories.
“Not remotely,” she says with a small smile. “It’s my destiny to never allow you to live that down. When I draw my last breath, it will be to recount that moment.”
I groan.
“But I will offer a temporary respite from it if you tell mewhyyou kissed me.”
“I didn’t do it from any desire to do so if that’s what you’re accusing me. It was simply the only way that I could think to save your life in so little time and with you affording me so little opportunity.”
She snaps her mouth shut. It’s dark, but I swear I can almost make out that quizzical gleam in her eyes. She takes a small step toward me. “How would that have saved my life?”
I hold up my finger with a smirk. “Ah, it’s not your turn to ask a question, now, is it?”
She glowers but says nothing. “What were you doing in the professor’s chambers when I caught you?”
“Trying to find a secret compartment in his desk. Now, tell me what you meant when you said you were saving my life. What was I in danger of?”
“That was hardly an answer,” I growl when I realize that she is looking at me expecting me to tell her.
