“Like...” I wave my hairbrush, searching for the right way to describe this. “Like it’s trying to tug me toward him. And like it starts to simmer.” With a sigh, I bite my lip. “Does that make any sense?”
“Of course.” Alina pushes to her feet and walks over to me at the vanity. Her hand is cool as she reaches to take the hairbrush. Softly, she starts drawing it through my long hair. The rhythm is soothing, and it reminds me of how my mom brushed my hair when I was a little girl. “My magic does something similar when I’m around Raelan. But I’m pretty sure that’s our mate bond.”
“Vampires don’t have mates, do they?” Lyra asks.
Poppy shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“What does it mean, then?” I ask.
Alina’s blue eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I’m not sure.”
Lyra shifts on her bed, sitting up and crossing her legs. “Are you going to try to find out?”
Again, they all wait for my response. But I have a feeling they already know the answer.
I give them a smile in the mirror. “Of course I am.”
Because there’s no way I can turn back from Severin now. The pull between us is too strong. And even though I know I should resist, I’m too curious to turn away.
Alina’s mouth pulls into a frown. “Just be careful, okay? We don’t want you getting hurt.”
Reaching up, I put my hand over hers as she holds the hairbrush. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
But I’ve decided: I’m going after Severin D’Arques.
And in my veins, I swear my magic sparks. I think it’s happy about this decision too.
Chapter 14
Severin
“YOUR ARGUMENT ISN’T WRONG, MR. Westin,” I say, turning the student’s parchment around on my desk and pushing it back toward him. “But it’s incomplete.”
My student frowns, a furrow forming in his brow as he picks up his parchment and looks down at it. “How? Emotionally driven magic is what caused the instability and eventual disaster.”
I tilt my head. “Did the magic fail because the practitioners felt too much, or did it fail because they refused to acknowledge that they did?”
Mr. Westin continues to stare at his parchment, worrying at his bottom lip now.
“In this case, Mr. Westin, the danger in this magic wasn’t the emotion; it was denial of that emotion. The witches and warlocks were trained to demonstrate composure, but their magic responded to everything they felt: grief, fear, desire.” That last word has a pair of stormy purple eyes blinking intomy memory, but I push them quickly away. “Suppressed emotion has the tendency to reveal itself catastrophically.”
Those eyes are trying to pull my focus again, so I stand from my desk and move to my bookshelf, drawing my eyes across the spines.
“So, the lesson to be learned here is that emotionally charged magic isn’t necessarily reckless?”
I turn, meeting Mr. Westin’s eyes. “That’s for you to determine.” I flick a glance at his parchment. “Though I’d suggest you reexamine your thesis.”
Mr. Westin nods once, then looks up at me. “Thank you, Professor.”
He puts his parchment into his bookbag, then reverses his wheelchair from my desk and heads toward the door. Before he can get to it, there’s a light knock, and the door slowly opens.
“Oh, hey, Beckett.”
My entire body responds first to the sound of her voice, then to her scent as it floods my office from the connecting hallway. After kissing her in that stairwell, I had to scrub my hair and body numerous times before I could no longer smell her on me. And now her scent is going to cling to everything in my office, causing more distractions for me, makingnotthinking about her harder than it already is.
I have to turn back to my bookshelf and reach quickly into my vest, pulling out my flask and taking a swig as Maeve speaks to my other student. The blood is lukewarm and bland, but at least it’ll help me curb the need to sink my fangs into Maeve’s throat.
Maybe.
