A mate who can take a bite that deep without bleeding out might be worthy. If she continues to reject both of her alleged mates, then my path becomes much clearer. A flare of excitement stirs inside my undead heart. It’s almost as though I can feel it beat.
That alone tickles me so much that I can’t wait to reintroduce myself.
Our meeting in the trials was exhilarating . . . but her mind is elsewhere.
I need to turn her focus on me.
She doesn’t sleep, but she dresses her wound in the mirror and cleans the blood from her body. I stare at the waste, knowing that craving blood is for immature youths, but somehow I crave it all the same. If she’d slumber, I could slip inside and?—
Shaking my head, I clear my thoughts. The academy sits on ancient grounds, binding vampires to rules that haven’t plagued us for millennia. I cannot enter without an invitation, and the insult pricks my eyes like hot needles. Everywhere in this godforsaken castle is off-limits until we are invited within, and the headmaster personally saw to limiting our purview. I imagine that the fae wandering the halls are as irritated by their lack of power as the vampires, but it’s the price we agree to pay upon admission.
The one thing that unites us is our common need for survival, and to that end, mating has become paramount.
I close my eyes and fight off the sting of fatigue. I haven’t slept in dozens of sunrises, all in fear of an eternal slumber that no vampire has ever truly escaped—yet we try, don’t we?
It’s why I’m here, watching a wildflower and waiting for its bloom. Judging by tonight’s events, I won’t have to wait for long.
I lick my parched lips as hunger stirs deep inside my hollow chest. All I have to do is watch her world collapse...and wait with open arms for the fall.
The dining hall is bustling by mid-morning, the majority of students buzzing like bees as they take seats at the round tables scattered across the room and gossip about last night’s events. I strayed from vampire festivities once I realized how dull my classmates were, and to my utter delight, the shifters proved to be much more entertaining.
Whispers about the two wild wolves’—Sienna, my wildflower, and her expiring mate Revyn—fighting has spread to every corner of the room, and I stand near the doors to wait for Sienna’s arrival. How will she handle her mates’ distress?
The headmaster claps his hands to gather the attention of the student body for what is undoubtedly a welcome speech, and I quickly scan the room. Neither the Dire boy or the wild wolf is here yet, but Sienna is also missing.
Interesting.
Pushing off the back wall, I leave the room as more students filter in. Magical folk tend to stick to their own species, and the same can be said within the castle walls. Shifters roam in miniature packs, vampires stick to their own bloodlines within the comfort of shadows, what few fae grace the halls float across the floor with an insufferable air of superiority, witches mutter to themselves and cast wary glances over their shoulders, and the merfolk braving dry land are already dripping water droplets into their eyes.
None of that concerns me when my wildflower storms down the grand staircase with her wild wolf behind her. By the tension rimming his eyes and the unkempt hair twisting around his cheeks, he’s irritable, and she isn’t faring much better. Once they reach the landing, she spins on her heel and shoves his chest.
“Stay away from me,” she hisses, glaring directly into his eyes.
“I can’t,” he grumbles, rubbing the spot she touched. “You areeverythingto me.”
“Find someone new to obsess over!”
He watches her walk away with clenched fists. When he unfurls his fingers, blood drips from the sharp tips of his nails, and I watch in fascination as the wounds in his palm close within seconds. When he notices my stare, he grits his teeth and storms after his mate, dismissing me before he’s even assessed my intent.
Foolish man.
I click my tongue and turn to follow them, but not before noticing Alistair Dire appear from an unmarked passage beneath the stairs. Unlike the older wolf, Alistair is dressed to perfection. A sleek, form-fitting jacket with forest green threads hugs his torso, covering an open-chest white cotton shirt that shows just enough skin to turn heads as he walks by. But like the two shifters before him, he ignores the attention, including mine.
So absorbed in their own worlds.
Tsk tsk.
I’ll have to teach Sienna to pay more attention to her surroundings.
I follow the Dire wolf into the eatery. He sits among friends and begins casual conversation as a female attempts to sit in his lap. To my surprise, he accepts her and wraps an arm around her waist without breaking conversation with the man to his right. While she pretends to eat and wiggles in his lap, he reaches around her to take meat from her plate.
Someone holds out a crystal glass in front of me, its contents magically warmed to the perfect temperature. Hm. I flick my gaze to my unexpected companion. “I did not hear you wereenrolling, Dmitri. Did you slip past the council, or have you come with our matron’s blessing?”
Dmitri sips the offered drink when it’s clear I have no intention of indulging. “You know they don’t bless anyone’s enrollment, Callum, much less a prince’s.” He follows my gaze to the shifters’ section of the room. “Has someone caught your eye already?”
“Reporting back, are you?”
He hums softly. “Only what I choose to report, which is little to nothing. You did not hear of my enrollment, cousin, because I did not enroll. I’ve been a professor for ten years.”
