When he doesn’t say anything, I look up at him, and everything within me frosts over at the expression on his face. He has gone completely rigid, unblinking and unbreathing, like a statue.
“What is it?” I ask, all semblance of warmth gone from my body.
Conversations at other tables are fading, and I look in the direction of William’s gaze. An attractive woman with wavy brown hair and an intense stare has entered the dining hall and is conferring with Director Minaro.
“Who’s that?” asks Trevor.
William finally meets my stare. “Fabiana.”
CHAPTER 47william
“Hi, I’m William’s aunt Fabiana,” William hears the vampire saying to Minaro. “Allow me to speak with him in private.”
She is compelling the director.
“Of course,” says Minaro. “Shall I get him for you?”
“No need,” says Fabiana, turning away from her and locking eyes with him. As she approaches his table, every conversation shifts to the same subject.
“Who is that?”
“She looks like a supermodel.”
“I think William knows her.”
“Look how he watches her! He’s not even blinking.”
“Lorena has some major competition.”
Fabiana is drawing too much attention.William wishes she had just stayed outside, hidden from view, until he picked up her scent. Why did she have to announce herself this way?
“Hi, I’m William’s aunt,” she says, surveying his tablemates, her gaze snagging on Lorena, probably since they are sitting very close together.
“Hi, I’m Trevor—”
“Come with me, please,” Fabiana says to William. Beyond the impatient parental authority in her voice, he can hear her disapproval.
“I will be back,” he says to a worried Lorena, then William follows Fabiana out of the dining hall. They move at mortal speed through the school.
“What are you doing here?” he murmurs once they have put a good distance between themselves and the dining hall.
“I came to warn you,” she says in an equally low voice. They do not say anything else, and he stops walking once they reach the game room.
“This is far enough,” he says. “Has something happened?”
“No. Not. Yet.” Her fragmented speech makes it seem like she is not speaking freely. “Someone is listening,” she says in a volume inaudible to humans.
“Come here, Lorena,” says William.
The woman he loves enters the room slowly, like she is embarrassed to be caught. She is still breathing heavily from the exertion of chasing after them. William turns to Fabiana to make an introduction, but the professor is glowering at Lorena with open distaste.
“Fabiana, this is my girlfriend, Lorena.”
Both women snap their gazes to him in surprise. Then a smile illuminates Lorena’s features, while Fabiana’s only hardens.
“Girlfriend?”Fabiana steps closer to William, her shoulders inching forward, as if she were going to challenge him to a fight. “Thisis why you wanted some time to yourself? So you could fuck around with human girls—?”
“I am going to give you the opportunity to stop now, before you say something I cannot forgive.”
