Page 96 of A Society of Traitors

She stared at me as if she were actually considering it.

Then, out of nowhere, she laughed softly.

“Larissa.” Her voice was far too melodic, far too sweet. She stepped closer. “I advise you to know your place. Don't forget that I know things that could completely ruin your cute new luxury life here.”

Something inside me tensed. My throat tightened and I was unable to respond.

Olivia smiled.

“I knew it.”

And then she turned and strutted over to the other Transformed, who had been watching us with their expressionless faces.

The tightness in my chest grew, threatening to choke off the air I no longer even needed to breathe.

And as Olivia disappeared toward the west wing with Dahlia, her two companions, and three other guys, I at least managed to fix my gaze on the muddy asphalt of the parking lot.

I must have stared for a while, because it wasn't until a dull gray Lamborghini raced across the parking lot with screeching tires, passing far too close to me and causing students – at least half of whom got splashed with a good dose of muddy water – to jump aside, only to slide into the space next to me, that I looked up, directly at the open window where my brother turned off his car, took off his sunglasses, and got out in one smooth motion.

“Is that a man thing or a Ruisangor thing?”

He just grinned, and slammed the car door.

“It’s a DeLoughrey thing.”

In fact, Adrian and Bastien drove similarly, even though they – unlike Miles – at least avoided splashing passersby with water, speeding through red lights without blinking, making crowds of ravens shoot up into the air, ramming trash cans for fun when parking downtown, or deliberately revving the engine when a panicked grandmother crossed the crosswalk and scared herself to death.

No one could have been a better brother than this idiot. He was annoying. And yet his manner usually made me laugh.

Right now, though, I couldn't laugh. Olivia had pulled the right trigger.

I had thought that, even though I had died on Halloween, I was finally alive again, but she had put me back into survival mode.

Out of habit, Miles used his high-tech car key to roll down the window of his back seat, and I threw my helmet inside.

“Looks like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today,” he teased.

Annoyed that I was so easy to read, I pressed my lips together.