A wave of disgust coursed through me, and I tensed.
She pulled back carefully, blinking her green eyes and frowning. “What’s wrong, Reed?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, reaching up and scratching my head as I padded back a few steps. “I just…keep thinking about something.”
Or someone.
Specifically, a beautiful soul eater named Pandora.
But I probably shouldn’t be talking about her since she was Death’s daughter and a noble.
“Other demons giving you shit about your mom?” She knocked her red curls out of her face, concern shining in her eyes.
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I’m rooming with Bram Hemlock.”
“Hemlock?” She turned her nose up. “I’m sorry. Their son is a good-for-nothing drunk.”
The Vane family wasn’t nobility, but they took pride in knowing everything about everyone. I got most of my news and gossip from Charlotte.
“He mentioned that Pandora’s a noble, so she probably won’t be interested in being friends,” I muttered, filling my reserves up.
“He may be right about that,” she said softly, walking closer and squeezing my shoulder. “Nobles usually stick together, and with her dad’s reputation, I’d stay away from her.”
Frowning, I shrugged her hand off of me. “I think I’m all filled up. I need to actually sleep, though. Talk later?”
“Reed…” Her eyes widened in surprise, but I booted her from my dreamscape with a hefty magical push.
Guilt swam in my gut, but it hurt to hear my best friend tell me to stay away from a woman I couldn’t stop thinking about. Even Gumdrop had been more supportive.
There was one thing I knew as the abyss of sleep latched onto me, and that was that I wasn’t going to stay away from Pandora no matter what anyone said.
11
DEXTER
“Is this the part where you ask,how does that make you feel?”I snorted mockingly, crossing one leg over my knee as I sat across from Darkmore—my mandated fucking counselor—on an admittedly soft sofa. It was not soft enough to make me cut my chest open and bleed for him, though.
“Yes,” Darkmore said smoothly, lips curling in a small smile. “Howdidit make you feel when your shadows cut into her skin even after she asked you not to use them on her?”
The muscles in the back of my neck tightened. “How do you know she asked that?”
Darkmore’s lips flattened into a straight line.
“She told you?” I asked.
“What if she did?” He cocked a brow. “Does thatmake you angry?”
Frustration leaked out of me as I gritted my teeth. “Why would that make me angry?”
“I don’t know, Shadowheart.” He leaned forward, steepling his fingers together as he put weight on his elbows. “You tell me.”
“A little.” I squinted my eyes at him. An overwhelming urge to let my shadows hack at his smug face spread through me. I wanted to feel his blood on my skin and taste his pain, but I quelled the desire, for now.
If my parents heard about me actively fighting back at the academy, it wouldn’t do me any fucking good.
Darkmore’s a noble who got the Vengeance representative title because his daddy stepped down, and while I didn’t give a shit about his standing in society, I guessed the assholewasdoing his job.
“I’ll be frank,” he said with a better-than-you tone that crawled under my skin. “Refrain from using your shadows around Pandora Gravesend. She’s under my protection, so if you hurt her, I’ll hurt you. Clear?”
