Councilwoman Navarro looks across the courtyard for a moment. I follow her gaze, and my blood runs cold. The vampire I stabbed during the trials is staring intently back at the councilwoman, telepathically communicating what I can only assume are either his grand plans for my seduction or my demise. Maybe both. At the same time.
Fuck.
After their silent conversation, she turns and murmurs something to the headmaster. Alpha Dire’s body shakes with rage as he hisses something harsh in the headmaster’s ear. I allow myself a peek at Revyn only to wish I hadn’t.
He’s looking at me like he’s finally lost me.
When he realizes that I’m watching, he shakes it off and tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I’m breaking the man’s heart all over again.
I hate myself for it.
“I will speak with the girl,” the headmaster announces, nodding to himself, “to evaluate her placement.”
My heart sinks. I may have been able to fool the academic council, but adragon?
He’ll incinerate me for lying to him.
I stand tall as Headmaster Loreander waves me through the barrier separating the academy’s latest additions from the unlucky unchosen. Silently, I walk through the crowd of newly-accepted students on the ground level, up a winding spiral staircase, and onto the balcony. The elders of the realm, both council members and those without such titles, step back to let me through. The Dire men’s gazes burn as I walk past, one of them grabbing my wrist before I can escape. His touch sears my skin, and I gasp as heat coils around my wrist.
“What are you doing?” Alistair’s voice is as scalding as his touch, burning with an intensity I don’t understand.
“What I’m best at,” I hiss, tearing myself free. Reddened marks in the shape of Alistair’s fingers wrap around my wrist. “Surviving.”
“You think I can’t protect you, is that it?” He takes a step closer and invades what little freedom I have left.
“Protect me?” I tear my arm free as anger burns inside my throat. “I never asked for your protection—and I damn sure wouldn’t take it.”
He has the nerve to look hurt at my rejection, but it’s quickly replaced with anger as hot as mine. “You would rather mate with a dead man?” Grabbing my wrist again, he holds on tighter. The heat from his touch is unbearable. “You’d prefer acorpseover me?”
Baring my fangs, I push all the venom flowing through my veins into my voice. “I’d rather fuck a corpse than a goddamn psycho!” What the hell is wrong with him?Matewith me? Aftereverything his pack has put me through? “I’d rather die than mate with you, Alistair Dire.” A flash of incredible heat burns my wrist as Alistair’s hand is suddenly wrapped in flames. I gasp and pull free the same moment he releases me, taking his fiery magic with him. Grabbing my scalding hot wrist, I backstep and bump into the headmaster. “Stay the fuck away from me!”
Turning around, I blindly usher the ancient dragon through the crowd and past the towering academy doors, eager to get the hells away from everyone. The Headmaster chuckles as we step into the entrance hall, his snake-like eyes studying me curiously as I finally take my hands off him. I quickly choke on an apology that he waves away.
“No need,” he murmurs. “Your urgency is warranted. Untapped power like that can be dangerous.” He glances at my wrist, its skin a mottled shade of pink. “Best we not test our limits, hm?” Gesturing toward a grand staircase with a broad sweep of his arm, he smiles warmly. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll begin your assessment upstairs, away from prying eyes and ears.”
I follow him through weaving corridors and up multiple flights of stairs, getting lost despite my best efforts to memorize our route. The silence between us is deafening, but my nerves calm the longer we walk. There are only two outcomes: I’m either dismissed from the academy and left to the whims of the wilds, or I’m trapped within its walls with an alpha whose family wants to kill me, a vampire who thinks he can charm his way into my bed, and a man whose desperation to claim me damns us both.
I know in my heart the kind of life I want.
The only question is: what am I willing to do to claim it?
Chapter 7
Sienna
Headmaster Loreander takes a long,winding route through the castle to reach a rotunda within the academy’s tallest tower. By the time we arrive, the aches and bruises of the battlefield have hit in full force, each one a reminder of my inadequacy as a shifter. Even that vampire knew I wasn’t healing like shifters should. The headmaster knows too, undoubtedly, meaning that my fate is sealed.
Why would he ever allow a broken shifter like me into this prestigious academy?
I bite the inside of my cheek as I consider the reality that if a shifter pack won’t accept me . . . a family of vampires might. It’s not the life I’ve envisioned, but would a blood-only diet be so bad if it comes with a loving, supporting family? I can still become a vampire without taking a mate, right? Or will the family’s matriarch force me to take a mate as a condition of joining their bloodline?
Gods, I can’t believe I’m considering it.
I’m more desperate than I thought ifdyingis starting to look appealing.
Loreander remains silent as we enter the rotunda. At first, all I feel is the heat. Cut into the center of the floor sits a firepit as wide as I am tall, the flames within burning deep violet. They flicker as though in greeting, crackling embers popping into the air and quickly turning to ash. Its reflection sparkles off a stained glass ceiling, the image curving the entire length of the room. On one end, a fiery orange sunrise kisses the horizon before melting into a royal blue afternoon at the highest peak, then plunging into the dark depths of midnight on the opposite side. Stone arches along the perimeter open to the sky, but the harsh winter frost is magically sealed away. That, or the fire burns hot enough to tell the cold to fuck right off.
“You must think the trials unnecessarily cruel,” Loreander says suddenly, his pupils cut into sharp diamonds. Flowing white locks threaded with amber strands graze his thighs as he stops beside me, the bronze scales dotting his complexion nearly blending in with his skin. Even in human form, he’s beautiful to behold. I’ve never seen another dragon, not even in sketches, so I silently appraise him as he stares into the fire.
