I don’tneedto. I just need him to get out of my way. My palm is still stinging, and heat is seeping over my skin at his nearness and the intensity of his gaze.
Apparently my hormones don’t know how to tell the difference between disgust and lust.
I make my tone as tart as possible. “I’m sorry it’s so hard to believe that your teaching strategies might have improved my divination abilities, but that sounds like a you problem. Unless you have some kind of proof that I cheated—which I know you don’t, because again, I didn’t—I’m pretty sure this counts as harassment. So how about you fuck off?”
I shift as if to brush past him, trusting him to back off when it’s either that or purposefully block my way.
Instead, he pushes forward. In two brisk strides, he closes all the remaining distance between us.
I stumble into a retreat, my shoulder blades smacking the shelf behind me. There’s nowhere else to go, no way to dodge him in the narrow space.
Cole’s scent washes over me, a cool piney tang as sharp as his attitude. He braces his gloved hand against the shelf close enough that a contrasting heat courses down my arm.
The jab in my palm shoots straight to my heart.
“I’ll find the evidence.” His gaze trails down my body. Even as my skin wakes up in giddy awareness of my would-be match’s presence, a deeper chill hits me in the gut.
He’s getting as close as he can to try to read the ephemera clinging tome. He won’t find any proof of academic misconductthat way—but there’s a shit-ton of other things I don’t want him seeing.
As I focus on the energies around me, the impression washes over me of being two places at once.
Cole frowns at me from behind his desk as the rest of the class files out. I’m the only one he called over for “a word.”
He waits until the door thumps shut for the last time. “You don’t have much practice at containing your ephemera, do you?”
Standing this close to the match who’s spent the last two months unwilling to acknowledge our bond sets off a thrum through my body—one he’s not interested in answering, at least not yet.
I hug myself. “I—I didn’t know that was a thing. They’ve never taught it here.”
He lets out his breath in a soft huff. “Of course not. The academy tyrants want to be able to get a read on you whenever they like. It’s a more advanced aspect of divination—or anti-divination, if you want to be strictly accurate—but I could teach you the basics.”
He’s offering to spend more time with me, beyond what his job dictates?
I waver, guilt momentarily clogging my throat. “Why do you think I need to?”
Hashesensed what I’m hiding about Asher’s death?
Cole lifts his chin toward the desk I was sitting at. “You’ve had an even harder time than usual since you sparked your matches. I’d think limiting the ammunition your classmates can gather would be worthwhile.”
I hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention to the caustic remarks and vicious rumors. But he has.
He has, and even if he’s not ready to go forward with the match yet, he cares enough to help me.
The guilt pools in my chest—he has no idea how badly I want to hide certain things fromhim—but I can’t resist the kindness he’s offering. “Okay. How do we start?”
Cole’s posture pulls straighter with obvious tension, but he makes a beckoning gesture. “It’ll be easier to get through the basics if you come over here so I can direct your attention…”
With the memory of the careful graze of his fingers and his lessons echoing through me, I will the ephemera wound through and around my body to harden into a thin shell, blank and unreadable.
The Cole with me now leans even closer, his lips pulling back in a silent snarl. A wobble runs through my pulse.
“Back off!” I snap.
His expression stutters between hesitation and determination. The wildness I saw before wins, searing through his gaze. “You…”
He outright touches my arm, his fingers squeezing just hard enough to send an unwelcome shiver straight to my core. His body sways as if he’s fighting his own instincts—or better judgment.
The aching plea that radiates from my palm kicks in harder. I can barely breathe.
