Increased appetite? (Hard to tell in an alpha wolf.)
Dark veins spreading.
Killian’s shoulder looked worse this morning. He tried to hide it with a long-sleeve shirt despite the fact that he’s always overheated, but I saw anyway. The black threads creeping outward from the bite mark, branching like lightning frozen under his skin.
It’s only been five days since he woke up, and there’s already a difference.
The slide changes again. Villeneuve’s voice drones on in that cultured baritone that usually commands my full attention. Today it’s just background noise as I stare at the line in my grimoire again.
Dark veins spreading.
Killian keeps looking at me like he’s memorizing my face. Like he’s trying to burn it into his brain before…
I don’t finish that thought. Can’t.
He’s been so careful around me since he woke up. Every movement is tense, like he’s constantly afraid he’s going to hurt me. At first I thought it was the effects of the stasis making him move more carefully, but that’s not it.
If anything, he’s stronger than he was before. He broke the door off its hinges yesterday just opening it.
He’s treating himself like a bomb that might go off at any moment.
The worst part is that I understand why. I’ve read probably every book on the subject of werewolves at this point. I know what the virus does. How it starts slow and then accelerates. How the infected person maintains awareness for weeks, sometimes months, watching themselves transform into something unrecognizable.
The slide changes again and Villeneuve starts fielding questions from students who are clearly hoping they can filibuster him into not giving the exam today.
“Ms. Cook.”
I jerk upright so fast my pen goes flying. It clatters off my grimoire and rolls under the chair of the student in front of me, apixie with purple hair who gives me a wary look as she retrieves it.
“Sorry,” I mutter, taking the pen back. “Thank you.”
Villeneuve is watching me from the front of the lecture hall. His expression is completely neutral, which somehow makes it worse. The rest of the class is also watching me. Nothing like a public moment of spacing out to really cement your reputation as the TA who has her shit together.
“The copies,” Villeneuve says mildly. “For the second part of the exam?”
Right. The copies. The thing I was supposed to do fifteen minutes ago.
“Of course. Sorry. I’ll—yes.” I gather my notebook and bag with as much dignity as I can manage, which isn’t much, and make my escape through the side door.
The copy room is in the basement of Briar Hall, because apparently no one who designed this building had ever heard of convenient access. The elevator is out of order—permanently, I think—so I take the stairs two at a time, trying to outrun my own embarrassment.
The copier is ancient and temperamental as fuck, and it jams if you look at it wrong. I feed in the exam pages and press the button, then lean against the wall while it whirs and clunks its way through the job.
I close my eyes.
Killian smiled at me this morning. For a second he looked like himself again. Then his hand went to his shoulder and the smile died.
The copier jams.
“Of fucking course,” I mutter, yanking open the paper tray. “I should turn you into a paperweight.”
“Can’t be any less efficient, I suppose.”
I spin around.
Villeneuve is standing in the doorway of the copy room like he materialized out of thin air, which he does a lot lately.
In fact, he just did a few minutes ago.
