And, oh yeah, I’m being stalked by a ravenous vampire!
“How much of that did you see?” I demanded. “Did you sit by and watch a maniac order a student to jump off the roof? Please tell me I can get you fired for that?”
Radu crouched down next to me, blocking my view of the cloudless, sunless sky. There was no reaction to my threat or my raised voice as he lazily lit a cigarette. “So, what did you want?”
“What?” My brow crumpled. “What are you talking about?”
“Yesterday, you said you needed me.” He took a long drag and blew the smoke out the side of his plump, pale, pierced lips.
I didn’t like smokers because it skeeved me out that someone could care so little about their health and body, they’d deliberately poison it.
But my boy Radu was dead as a dodo and wasn’t about to die again from lung cancer, so where did that leave me and the confusing thoughts filling my head of how sexy he looked smoking that cig?
“Pardon?” I roughly shook my head, snapping out of my trance. “Yesterday? When did I—?” The memory hit me like a brick. “Wait a second. Are you talking about the offhand comment I whispered to myself in another professor’s busy classroom?”
“That’s the one,” he drawled.
My jaw dropped. “Oh my gods! You really are stalking me!”
Amusement bled into his voice. “I never denied it, little one, so, out with it. What is it that you...” Cold, bloodless fingers brushed my cheek. “...need from me?”
“I... I...” Everything I wanted to know tumbled through my brain. I wanted to ask him if he knew so much about the witches because he was undead and walking around above when supernaturals and witches clashed. I wanted to know what he knew about the Avos coven, and if it was true that these murders were just the beginning of something even more horrible to come. I wanted to ask if he really was the deadly, unstoppable assassin of the underworld, could he hunt down one sister-stealing son of a bitch for me.
I wanted to know so many things, but instead, I closed my mouth... and said nothing.
Sabrina said I had no friends or allies in this school. She was wrong. I did have people on my side...
...and Santino Radu wasn’t one of them.
If my instincts are telling me anything...I gazed into those too-bright eyes.It’s that this guy is the scorpion offering to carry me on its back. Even if it means we drown together, if I trust him, I won’t get away alive.
“It’s nothing, Professor.” I scooted out from under him and got to my feet. “Or at least, it must’ve been nothing since I don’t remember what I wanted to ask you. Nope. Definitely wasn’t important.”
Smoke enveloped his head in a gray, almost ominous cloud. Those lamp eyes pinned me through the haze. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.” Hard, thick seriousness laced my words. “I am absolutely sure that I need nothing from you.”
Turning around, I walked away to the sound of his low, musical laugh.
HOW DID I MAKE IT THROUGHthe rest of the day? The answer is: I didn’t try to.
It was a long trek, but when I reached the demon side of the manor, I went straight to my room and didn’t leave my bed until Sabrina demanded to be let in. And after that, I went right back to sitting on my bed with my notebook, trying to devise some kind of plan to move along my efforts to find Dora.
I didn’t know if classes were canceled for the day, so there was every chance I was courting expulsion, but I didn’t care. It just couldn’t go on like this anymore—Dora and Icouldn’t go on like this anymore.
I’d been at Abaddon Academy for days, and so far, I’d racked up a mess of enemies, but zero viable suspects.
“How do I get her kidnapper to reveal themselves?” I muttered to myself as I stared at all the ideas I wrote down and then crossed out. “If they really need me for something, could I use myself as bait somehow? Can I draw them out with something else they want?”
I looked over to Sabrina. She was snoozing away on her armchair.
“Sabrina? Sabrina?”
“What do you want, human?” She answered without opening her eyes. “It is hard enough to sleep with your scribbling. Must you shout at me as well?”
“I just want to know if getting a closer look at the crime scene taught you anything?”
“It did.”
