“Are you insane?!” I thrashed in the chains, flinging myself about. “Let me out of here, you lunatic! I’m not human!”
“—three, two—”
I blinked and Radu was looming over me, wielding an axe.
He swung on my arm. “One.”
“I’m here for my sister!”
The blade halted millimeters from my wrist.
“My sister,” I bleated. “She was taken by demons a little over a month ago. The same five demons who were the first to be murdered. I still don’t know who had her taken or what they want, but I know that I’m no threat to anyone!
“I came here to save my sister and bring her home, and nothing’s going to stop me. Not even you.” Furious eyes flayed him where he stood. “Because if you try to kill me,hewill killyou.”
“Who”—Radu squeezed the axe handle so tightly, he snapped it in half—“ishe?”
I bit my lip hard, penning in the truth.
But it was no use.
“Lucifer,” I whispered. “I made a deal with him to get into this academy, so that I could search for my sister.”
A scream leaked through my teeth when he pressed his face against mine, inhaling me into his lungs. “And is that all he did for you, little one?”
“N-no...” I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop apologizing to Dora deep in my heart. “He sent me Sabrina to be my guide—”
“And?!”
I jerked out of my skin, crying harder. “And he gave me a disguise—”
“Why?” Radu hissed. Grabbing my face, he rubbed and kissed all over my cheeks, eyes, and lips—making my tears his own. “Why? Why? Why?”
He was insane. Completely and absolutely gone, and now... I would be too.
“Because... I’m a human mortal woman,” I whispered, “and as alive as they come.”
“Ah— Ahh!” he cried out—jubilance heavy in his voice even as he fell to the floor, clutching his head.
It was much the same pain and head-clutching that Tristan felt when the glamour broke, and the wool fell from his eyes. And as Radu gazed at me like I was the crown jewels, Mona Lisa, and the sunset over Lake Brienz all in one, I knew that wool was gone.
My flush cheeks, my fluttering heart, my very much not-red eyes. He could see it all.
“Professor, please—”
A loud, hair-raising hiss ripped from his throat. Eyes darkening to pitch black, Radu crouched—his muscles coiling.
“Don’t!”
He pounced. Tearing my head half off my shoulders, he snapped it to the side, exposed my neck, and buried his fangs in my vein.
Chapter Twelve
Iwoke up in a strange bed, not in a strange place.
The shelves, upon shelves, upon bookshelves surrounded me, welcoming me back to Professor Radu’s quarters.
I stirred under the sheets, making a half-hearted attempt to push them off and sit up, but I didn’t so much as twitch a finger before giving up.
