When I transferred from Oxford to Kilbride, it was only to support my mother during her time of need. The obedient daughter coming to the rescue of her broken-hearted parent. Yet, where was she? Off, traveling the world with her divorce winnings and a muscled beefcake.
Honestly, good for her. But where did that leave me?
Alone. Isolated. Left in the chasm of a broken home and stretched thin from two opposing sides of a public scandal. Hunted by monsters seeking revenge for a vow I hadn’t broken.
Coming to Kilbride took so much from me. My routine, the friendships I’d fought to make in a foreign country, the goals I had set for that life and that time. Change—I hated change—and I was dumped headfirst into the mire and told to swim. This wasn’t what my final year of university was supposed to be. And if I’d known the cursed school was concealing monsters and temptation, I would have begged on my hands and knees to remain at Oxford.
As a man had wronged my mother, it seemed I now followed in her footsteps. As mothers handed their inherited wounds down to daughter after daughter, we mimicked that never ending cycle. What a terrible trend—that repeating of history I found myself trapped in.
All it took was one dominant, educated older man with a genuine passion for his field of study and a penchant for making me crave the fire in his touch to undo me. Seduced by his magnetism, lured like a mouse in a trap, and now I faced the consequences of a desire that tasted like obsession.
Had I betrayed my morals by succumbing to temptation?
Did a tryst with my professor make me my father’s daughter?
I’d spent months thinking of my father with only disappointment. His affair brought shame to our family name and broke up our family. But what about mine? My affair with my teacher could ruin me.
Perhaps I’d made everything worse by acting like my father.
Now, that disdain for his actions turned inward and glared back at me. That almost worried me more than the degrees Luther had taken to be close to me—toprotectme. I wished Ihad realized sooner that the center of Luther’s attention was a dangerous place to be.
My thoughts churned violently as the day progressed. I didn’t know how to handle monsters by myself, and Luther’s claim over me frightened me almost as much as the stolas did. I was torn between nightmares made flesh and a man who acted like he wanted to own my soul. Either way, I felt utterly doomed.
Buzzing in my pocket startled me from the turmoil of my thoughts. I plucked out my phone, scanning the text on the screen. It was from Moth.
You still coming tonight?
Fuck, I had completely forgotten about the party.
Normally, I wasn’t one for parties or crowds. Being around an overabundance of people set my teeth on edge, but there had to be safety in numbers. And staying home alone in my current state felt impossible.
Decision made, I texted back:Wouldn’t miss it.
The drive took barely five minutes, but blinked past in seconds. Reality warped as if the roads were elongated serpents winding through trees. Smoky mist twirled off the pavement, muting my headlights into a dim, buttery glow. Brown and yellow leaves tumbled across the streets, skittering over the asphalt.
My heart drummed an erratic beat, and my fingers tightened on the steering wheel as a row of houses rose from the dark. I didn’t need my GPS to tell me which house hosted the party. It was a colonial revival style building with nearly every window flashing from the lights within. Fellow students clustered around the yard holding red solo cups. Music vibrated through the foundation hard enough to reach me through the car.
Dread kept me paralyzed, knuckles white on the wheel, and breath coming out shallow and quick. I regretted leaving the house, but I refused to spend the night alone, wallowing in misery and failing to focus on anything related to my assignments. With each passing second, the walls had closed in around me, and I couldn’t remain in an ancestral home tied to the occult and smelling like sweet tobacco.
Fuck it.
I killed the engine, puffed in three confidence-boosting breaths, and shoved out into the cold. An immediate, bitterly sharp gust hit me, carrying the funky scent of marijuana and beer. Hugging my coat tighter, I jogged across the street to the sidewalk, aiming for the crowded walkway. Halfway there, something wavered in my vision.
On instinct, I froze. Then I looked up.
Yellow slitted eyes blinked, opening wider into moon-shaped discs. The barn owl shifted, twisting its head around before snapping back to me. A soft hooting whispered through the treble and bass of the dance music booming through the front doors.
The sound slithered down my spine.
An exhale snagged in the back of my throat, causing me to choke on the frigid air. My hands clawed up to my neck, squeezing as if that would permit me to inhale and stave off the alarm sparking in my chest.
No, no, no, no, please, no…
A shoulder bumped me, knocking me out of a blossoming panic attack.
Plastic crinkled on the pavement as a red solo cup fell, and sour-smelling beer splattered across the walkway.
“Hey, watch yourself!” An already deeply inebriated man slurred out. He towered over me, sneering at me as if the cup had been the Holy Grail and I’d forced him to spill divine wine.
