His brow arches as Jullia starts pulling her sister towards us. I watch the exact moment the sister sees me and realizes what I am. Her reaction is not like Jullia’s.
“I don’t,” he clips. And he gives me the same look I gave him after he tasted my blood.
“Don’t want?” a voice asks. A slightly deeper voice than Jullia but same note. Her lavender eyes that look exactly like Jullia’s glare at me. “Are you bothering Asher?”
Jullia makes a distressed noise and pulls her sister back. She has the same silver thread through her jacket as Asher and a matching blue water mage symbol to Jullia on her blazer. So she’s a third year, and I can almost taste salt in the air from where she must be pulling magic towards the surface.
“Hanna,” Jullia grits. “Stop it. Mavyn is my roommate and she’s non-threatening.”
Jullia’s sister – Hanna – scoffs. “Sis we’re gonna have to up your instincts if you’re telling me a newly turned vampire is non-threatening. She turned barely a month and a half ago. We’ll all be lucky if she doesn’t suck us all dry in our sleep.”
Every eye around is now solely focused on us. Hanna was not quiet and exhaustion begins to weigh again. I really do just want to go home now. Or at least be eating something.
“Hanna,” Jullia snaps, making her sister turn towards her. “Mavyn made a blood oath to Asher. She can’t hurt me. That’s first of all. Second, we’ve been together all weekend and she barely cared at all not only when she must have been hungry, but when I cut myself she didn’t even notice. Stop being overdramatic and causing a seen.”
I glance down at Jullia’s thigh where there’s not even a scar. Asher made sure there wasn’t a scar. He also glared at me when Jullia had been cut but I only rolled my eyes at him and rolled over to the wall my bed was against to go back to sleep.
Hanna blinks at her sister and then at me. “You,” she jabs a finger at me, “were in the presence of fresh blood not even two months after turning and didn’t devour my sister?”
All eyes are turned to us now and the line for the food has stopped. Even the workers are watching us and at the worst moment a waft of eggs and buttery toast comes by making my stomach grumble. Hanna, Jullia, and Asher all look at my stomach with perplexed expressions and I groan.
Pulling the sunglasses off I rub at my face. “The only thing I want to devour right now is a full plate of breakfast foods. I don’t even care what’s on it at this point. I haven’t eaten in three days and I’m fucking hungry. Now is everyone going to continue staring at me or can we move this damned line along?”
Hanna is still staring at me with shock though now suspicion is threading in through there. In the blink of an eye she takes her nails and rips into her palm before shoving it in my face. Salt explodes in my nose as I step back and try to push her hand away.
“You said you were hungry,” she urges. “Come on then. Have abite. Let’s go, vampire.”
Her sister and Asher both try to stop her but before they can she rubs her bloody hand over my mouth. Jullia stares in horror at me with Asher furious and a commotion at the other end of the cafeteria sounds.
“What the fuck is going on,” a voice thunders. Cloud cover comes out of nowhere darkening the room and blocking out the sun.
Asher pulls out a piece of cloth from his blazer as he holds Hanna back and gives it to me. Jullie turns towards the owner of that voice and starts stuttering with an explanation trying not to get her sister in trouble but also trying not to get me in trouble either.
Hanna is still glaring at me, though the longer I keep my mouth shut and don’t let my tongue lick up her blood her fury starts turning into disbelief.
“Enough,” he thunders again. Silencing Jullie as he finally stands before all of us. “Mr. Ruleten, would you tell me why you are holding Ms. Hanna Waterstone and why her hand is bleeding.” I can feel – actuallyfeel– his eyes shift me and I finally look up. “And why the fuck is Ms. Waterstone’s blood on a vampires mouth.”
There’s people behind the male, but I can’t quite focus on them yet. Before me is a god. At least, that’s what Ms. Elaycia would say. She would say that any time a male came through the brothel that even she would serve for free.
He’s tall. Not quite as tall as Asher, maybe an inch or two shorter. His hair is wavy and longer, just barely covering his ears. It’s dark red, but the kind that would look black in lower lightning. Skin a shade or so lighter than Asher’s and red eyes ringed within gold.
I’ve never seen eyes like that.
Finished with my assessment, I look behind him to four others. Two of them having to be students because they’re wearing more or less the same thing as me, and the other two I’m sure are staff – professors or deans or whoever else.
“Mr. Ruleten,” the man growls. It makes Asher jerk with Hanna still caged in is arms. I take the moment to look down at the white cloth and use it to wipe my face. Out of the corner of my eye I see Hanna’s eyes widen.
Asher clears his throat. “It was an accident – “
“If you’re about to tell me,” he interrupts and silences Asher, “that this vampire accidently bit Ms. Waterstone I need you to move it along so I know whether or not I need to detain the vampire.”
After I have the blood wiped from at least my lips and the rest of my mouth and chin as best I can I huff and look to the ground off on the side. At this point they should just kill me. It would be easier for all of them.
“Do you find this situation an annoyance, Ms. Tsuki?”
His voice is all power, all commanding, all consuming. It forces the listener to bow, to submit, to heed. Especially when he says your name. But it makes me realize now what kind of being he is. I had forgotten that in addition to the six beings of moral – five of them being able to attend the university – the celestials are also able to attend. Them being the demons, the angels, the demigods, and him. The devils.
“Yes,” I answer plainly.
