His dark eyes lingered one, his lips twitching. “Curiosity.”
I hummed, not quite believing him.
That heavy feeling of someone watching me prickled along my skin. Except, this time, the one watching me wasn’t Kyren.
Julian’s eyes bore into me from the front of the classroom where he stood by his desk. Some female student lingered near him, twisting her hair around her finger and giggling. Her hand touched his arm and stroked it much longer than was socially acceptable.
Yet he didn’t stop her, his eyes watching me even as he answered her question with a terse response.
“You seem to know the professor well.”
My head jerked back to Kyren, and I went from one intense stare to the other. Uneasy underneath his full attention, I tapped my pencil on my desk. “An unfortunate acquaintance.”
Throughout the entire class, I felt Kyren’s gaze on me, watching, analyzing, and for a brief moment, I thought I caught a hint of lust in his eyes. Since I was sort of dating his human servant, I felt kind of on the spot.
Why was he here? Was he worried about Tate? Or maybe he was curious about me? I might have been interested in knowing the person taking all my companion’s time if I was him.
Julian’s voice droned on about the hunter’s guild. Their history. Their rules. All things I’d learned about as a child. Passing tests wasn’t going to be a problem for me. Even if Julian decided to give me something harder because of who I was, I was confident I could handle anything he threw at me.
Still, I took notes. Only because if I didn’t focus on something, I was going to overanalyze why Kyren was here or look at Julian. Neither choice was one I wanted to entertain.
“Most hunters work in teams,” Julian explained as he flicked through a few hierarchy charts. “Sometimes, they work in pairs for special missions. One goes undercover while the other works as their handler.”
My eyes shot to Julian, eyes narrowing.
What was he playing at? It was like he was blatantly telling everyone what we were doing here and our plan of action.
“In some instances, the hunter has to integrate themselves with the supernaturals to weed out ones breaking rules.” His gaze slid over the crowd of students, as if daring one of them to speak out of turn or claim they were the ones we were looking for.
Obviously, it wouldn’t be that simple. Sometimes I thought Julian just liked to make people stew for the sake of it.
The smell of sweat and anxiety burned my nose. I rubbed at it, jerking my eyes away from him only to have them land on Kyren.
The vampire wasn’t even pretending to take notes. In fact, there wasn’t a single book or computer on his desk. He simply sat there in his cream-colored sweater, dark slacks, and loafers like a king overseeing his court.
“What?” I whispered, flicking my eyes back to my paper, where I’d given up taking notes and was just doodling.
Kyren’s hand reached over and shifted my notebook toward him. “That’s an amazing likeness.”
I peered down at the crow on my paper, surrounded by a circle. To most, it would have looked like I was just drawing the academy’s sigil. In fact, I’d been looking at the crow most of my life. It was all over my house and even tattooed on my dads’ chests.
I spent most of my childhood staring at these crows, trying to recreate them. I could draw it by memory now.
Of course, I didn’t tell Kyren that.
“Thanks, I have a knack for birds.” I tapped my pencil on the desk.
“Something you want to share with the class, Miss Billings?”
My eyes ripped back to Julian’s accusatory gaze. “No, Professor Fawley. Was just answering a question Kyren had.”
Julian’s eyes shot to Kyren. “Save your questions for after class.”
I rolled my eyes.
“See me after class, Miss Billings,” Julian snapped. How’d he even see me roll my eyes?
My teeth ground together. “Fine.”
