Page 95 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

“Of course, Professor,” she squeaks, lowering herself onto one of the thin black mats and smoothing her skirt beneath her as she goes.

“No, no.” Zott clicks his tongue. “Do not trap the fabric beneath you. It restricts movement. Lift it up. Quickly.”

I flinch at the sudden edge in his voice. He never told her to lift her skirt.

Before Becky can comply, he catches the hem and yanks it up, exposing bare legs and blue satin panties.

Several vampires lean closer to see. Wolves, too.

Victoria stifles a yawn.

Zott taps Becky’s knees with the pointer. “Heels closer. Knees open.”

Becky obeys.

“Wider. And lift your hips.”

She spreads her legs until the position looks almost painful, and Zott’s pointer begins a slow path up the inside of her thigh.

Nausea rolls through me. Only minutes ago, I threatened to tear off Felix’s fingers for touching Jane’s hair. Now a professor is exposing Becky before an entire classroom, and I am sitting here with everyone else. Watching. The difference is not that this is any less wrong. It is that everyone in the room has agreed to call it a lesson.

The pointer reaches the apex of Becky’s thighs and stops. Or perhaps it presses there, because she squirms slightly. Her face is flushed, her smile held too tightly for me to tell whether she is enjoying the attention or merely enduring it.

Seconds drag by as Zott keeps the pointer there, his breathing loud and shallow in the hush of the classroom. That is when I notice his free hand gripping himself through his trousers, fingers stroking himself over the strained fabric.

I should look away, but I cannot. It is simply that horrible.

At last, he releases a long breath and nods approvingly. “There. You may sit up.”

I gape as Becky returns to her place wearing an unsteady smile. She catches me looking and grins.

I try, for her sake, to smile back.

What. The. Fuck?!

“Now practise with your assigned partners,” Zott calls, disappearing behind the chalkboard to his desk.

The room erupts into movement. Vampires rise from their chairs and direct the wolves towards the thin black mats. The same instructions echo from every side.

Lie back.

Lift your skirt.

Heels closer.

Knees open.

The male shifters are made to assume similar poses. It is all so degrading.

And being forced to sit by and watch it unfold makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. Complicit, even. Because it quickly becomes clear that a collar does indeed spare a wolf from most of the practical.

Most.

When Felix tries to take Jane by the arm, I step in front of her instinctively.

Felix looks unimpressed. “Out of my way, Kira.”

“No.”