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But that smile faded at Headmaster’s tone. “You have a peculiar way of enforcing our laws. Unless your intention was to create this…carnival atmosphere. ” He surveyed the room once more, disgust playing on those handsome features. “Assez regrettable. Tell me, Guidon Masha, was this carnival your intention?”
“No, Headmaster,” Masha said meekly.
“I will take it from here. Guidon Masha, we will discuss this later. ” He stared down the crowd. “All of you, go. ”
Acari, Trainees, and Initiates scattered like mice from the hall.
I bent to scoop up my bag with pretty much the only parts of my hands that weren’t bleeding—the fingertips of my left hand.
“Stop,” said Headmaster.
I dropped the bag, bolting to a rigidly upright position. I knew that would’ve been too easy. Emma and I were the only ones left in the hall, and I wished I could’ve seen her face.
“You and your peer must suffer some penalty. What say you, Acari? Should your punishment be corporal or custodial? Or perhaps a touch of each?” He seemed almost bored now, his gaze skipping between us as if we were a couple of tiresome adolescents. But his eyes hardened as he came to a decision. “Acari Emma, you will come with me. ”
My heart clenched for my friend. Would this be their opportunity to get Emma back for bowing out of last semester’s Directorate Challenge? Would I ever even see her again?
“And you. ” Headmaster’s eyes pinned me, and I flinched, my heart exploding into double time. “Acari Drew, you will report to Master Alcántara for your punishment. ”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Scared shitless just about summed it up.
Crass, yes, but it was the only way to describe how I felt as I walked across the quad to Alcántara’s office. I imagined the experience was not unlike, say, heading to the gallows. Or walking the plank.
Actually, no. It was worse than those things.
I slowed as the sciences building came into view. It was a squat stone structure, and if the teachers inside hadn’t been vampires, it could’ve been mistaken for any academic building on any campus in the Northeast. All that was missing was some ivy crawling along the outside.
I chafed my arms, wishing I’d worn my thick parka instead of the lighter navy trench. Summertime, my ass. It hadn’t been above fifty degrees in a week. Stupid Isle of Night…more like Isle of Crap Weather.
I was happy I’d dared the quick detour to my dorm to change. I may not have had time to shower, but I did feel a little less vulnerable having traded gym shorts for my gray uniform tunic and leggings.
I slowed my pace even more, trudging up the stairs.
At least it was heated inside, the radiators pinging and knocking as though it were fall term already. The lights were dim, though—not many kids had independent studies in science or math. The remedial topics all seemed to be physical in nature, whatever that implied.
Alcántara kept his office on the second floor, and I headed to the stairwell at the end of the corridor, passing a row of darkened offices and my phenomena classroom on the right, and a library on the left.
“You have found me. ” Alcántara emerged from the shadows.
I jumped, putting a hand to my pounding heart. “Jeez. You found me. ”
It’d been a nervous statement made without thought, but he responded with a low, husky laugh as if I’d said something witty, maybe even suggestive.
“So it seems,” he said with a smile on his face, and his demeanor threw me. As I took in his shaggy dark hair, the form-fitting black sweater over his taut body, his casual pose leaning in the dimness of the library doorway, I became acutely aware of the true and total sexiness of Master Hugo Alcántara.
A shiver rippled over my skin. I might have been a virgin, but I knew sexiness led to sex, and sex was something I’d never have with a vampire. I mean, technically they were dead—did all their boy parts even still work?
I cleared my throat, trying to clear the thought from my head. Unfortunately, it was replaced by an even creepier thought. “How did you know I’d arrived?”
“I caught your scent. Only this time, it held something fresh…anticipation perhaps? It told me you were coming. ” A slow grin spread across his face. “To me. ”
He let the statement hang, and that shivery sensation of a moment ago became infused with an alarming warmth. I held my breath, fighting a woozy, must-fall-into-his-arms-like-a-limp-rag-doll feeling. Even as my body was susceptible to him, my mind shrilled, No, no, no.
Alrighty, then. It appeared Ronan wasn’t the only one on this island with the power to control the impulses of others.
Except likening Ronan to Alcántara would’ve been ridiculous—talk about comparing apples to oranges. Ronan was Ronan, and I’d come to feel a sort of odd affection for him that I mostly tried not to think about.
