“Just stop avoiding me, okay?” Her bottom lip quivered, and she tucked it behind her teeth.
“Okay.” My voice cracked.
I hadn’t been lying. I’d had back-to-back sessions booked, with so many students wanting to meet with me. Tensions were high on campus with the impending war, but I was avoiding her. It hurt to look at her sweet face when I could’ve stopped her from getting hurt if only I’d insisted on walking her to the dorm that evening.
“I’ve, um, had a lot of anxiety today,” she said, twiddling her thumbs in her lap. “Especially when I walked past where it happened on the way to class. I haven’t walked that way since it happened.”
A gruesome feeling of regret washed over me, and my jaw ticked. “Anxiety is normal. You experienced a traumatic event.”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I suppose I did. You know, when he grabbed me, he could identify my species. He actually referred to the last time they… encountered one. The humans had thought my kind to be extinct. Rhett, it was like he was talking to someone.”
“We’re doing everything we can to find out more about it. Rowan and Norman have been researching it. The zombie, I mean.”
“Zombie… I’m not sure that man, specimen, whatever it is, was alive to begin with. His green eyes were so void of life.”
My notes on her were in front of me, and everything I’d figured she’d say was already written. Rowan had talked to me about how jumpy she’d been. “I’m sorry, Wren. I—”
“Don’t do that. You have nothing to apologize for. I pushed to walk by myself.”
“But if I’d just—”
She let out a surprised squeal as a black tendril shot out and wrapped around my coffee cup in a slow, deliberate manner. I blinked a few times before my gaze followed the shadow to her chest. The black shadow came from Damien’s mate mark, and it had sliced her tie at the top.
The shadow squeezed, shattering the cup. Bits of porcelain littered my desk and the floor. I let my disappointment at losing my favorite coffee cup fade as I stood from my chair.
Thank Fates it was empty.
“I’m sorry!” Wren jumped to her feet and covered her mouth with her hands. “I didn’t mean to!”
My incubus nature stirred within me. “By Kalista, Wren, you’re the cutest fucking person I know.”
“Cute?” She dropped her hands. “How was that cute?”
“It was cute because of your reaction.” I stepped closer to her. “Still having problems controlling the shadow?”
“How could you tell?” Her cheeks were tinged pink, and I chuckled.
“Lucky guess.” I turned and walked back to my desk to ruffle through my drawers until I pulled out one of my ties.
“I keep stabbing Damien with it,” she huffed, fumbling with what was left with her tie and pulling it off. She bent down and picked the other half of the tie off the floor and tossed the pieces into the trash next to my desk. “No matter how hard I try to control it, it just does what it wants.”
“Knowing Damien, I’m sure he doesn’t mind,” I assured her, stepping in front of her.
She closed her eyes and focused. The black tendril swept across my arm softly before sinking back into the mark. Opening her eyes, she sighed and offered a shy smile. “There.”
“And here.” I held up the red tie. Her cheeks blossomed pink as I reached behind her and tucked the tie under the collar of her shirt and brought it to the front. My fingers grazed her exposed flesh as I tied it, since she was missing a few of her top buttons.
Once the tie was secured, my hands fell to my sides. “I have to admit, my tie looks better on you.”
“Even though my uniform is blue?” She arched a brow at me, letting her fingers glide up and down the red tie.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat and stepped back. “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
Nodding, she let the tie fall and pushed a hand through her hair. “Alice never responded to the letter Rowan sent to the village, so I sent another letter. I want to go back and see how she’s doing, but I was banished, and I’d be killed on sight.”
A deafening growl tore from my chest as my horns poked through my skull ever so slightly. “You willneverbe harmed.”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at the tips of my horns before I sucked them back in. “I’m not planning on going there or anything, but I just worry about her.”
