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Not a question.

I stood there, flabbergasted. When he was completely out of my sight, I rushed back into my office and shut the door. My entire body was still tense and restless. I needed fresh air. I needed to go for a run. I grabbed my things and left the university as quickly as I could. I didn’t take a carriage home. I ran.

By the time I got to the manor, Irving was again in the living room, lost in another book. I took one look at him, and when he smiled, I saw Sylvan’s arrogant smirk. My gaze dropped to the book, and I remembered Sylvan’s silken voice quoting poetry to me. Why the fuck was that so agonizingly … flustering.

“Are you alright?” Irving asked.

“Fine,” I said, before zipping off to my private bathroom. As the tub filled, I stripped off my dress and paced the length of the room. I couldn’t get the honey of Sylvan’s voice out of my head. As I slipped into the warmth of the tub, I realized I should’ve filled it with cool water. Because as I leaned back and closed my eyes, it was Sylvan’s smoldering amber gaze in my mind. His handsome, chiseled face, his soft brown curls just begging to have my fingers tugging at them while he⁠—

Gods, I needed to stop.

But the longer I sat there with my eyes closed trying to focus on anything else, I remembered the feel of his length straining against me as he held me against the lab counter. The way his fingers brushed against my hip. The restraint he’d shown, and the damn poetry. It should not have been as alluring as it was, but the aching throb below my waist was growing ceaseless at the thought. My hand slipped between my legs.

I simply had to get it out of my system.

With Nidhogg draped around my neck and my silk robe over my freshly washed body, I stepped into the main room. Irving was still sitting there, lounging on the chaise, his long, dark hair dangling over the arm of the couch. He lowered the book, peering at me with a knowing look in his eyes. A mixture of amusement and something I couldn’t quite make out wafted off him.

“You know …” he began. “Sometimes I like the super vampire hearing. Other times …” He grinned and raised the book again, covering his face.

“What are you—” My nose scrunched with realization. “Oh.”

“Mm-hmm,” Irving said from behind his book. “What’s gotten you all hot and bothered? Or I guess I should ask, who has penetrated the—oh gods, wrong word. Who has cracked the hard exterior that is Aurelia Nygaard?”

I didn’t know if I should laugh or shout at him. “Don’t be stupid,” I said, lifting his legs to plop myself onto the chaise. He sat up and set his book aside. My gaze lingered on the book, and there was Sylvan’s voice in my head again, his fingers brushing my hip. I groaned inwardly.

Irving’s eyes flicked from my face to the book, then back to me. His perfect brows drew close and he pointed, “A book has you in this state? What the hells are you reading at the university? Because you may need to bring it home.”

“Irving—”

“Oh, come on, Aura. I’m just sitting here in this castle⁠—”

“It’s not a castle⁠—”

“—all day, every day. Let me live vicariously through you. Or well, you know, live.” The last word was said with air quotes. “But in all seriousness, why is your heart racing when you look at a book?”

I stood abruptly, and Nidhogg tightened briefly around my neck.

“That snake will throttle you someday,” said Irving.

“He won’t.” I removed him from around my neck, holding him up so his tongue flicked out again and licked my nose. “You wouldn’t harm a hair on my head, would you, Nidhogg?”

Irving made a face. “You know,” he began. “Some people have cats.”

I only smirked at him and cradled Nidhogg in my arms like a child. The snake crawled up my chest and draped over my shoulder, earning yet another pointed look from Irving.

“Don’t think you’ve distracted me from my question. You’re spending more time at the university, even when you don’t have a shift, and … Well …” There’s that knowing smirk again.

I thought of telling him about the extracurricular work with the cure samples, but he didn’t know about my Lobofebris, and it was too dangerous for him to learn about it. So, I simply said, “Can’t a woman have needs?”

“Yes, but the thing is, when a Nygaard has needs, they take it. I’d expected a revel every night in Bellatrix’s absence. The ultimate fuck you for her latest intrusion.”

I shrugged, my stomach souring at the disgust she so often wore in my presence. My skin heated, happening so quickly that it startled me. My flesh crawled, every part of me going jittery. “I’m going for a walk,” I told him.

Wearing the unassuming dress Sylvan had given me, my hair pinned up off my neck, I stepped into the night air. The crescent moon greeted me, and I wanted to raise my hand and shake my fist like a villain from one of those books Bellatrix used to bring me as a child.

I once thought she loved me. As my mother, she was supposed to, but instead she hated me for something that I couldn’t control. I used to ask more about my father when I was younger, but she had been so quick to snap at me—tell me it was none of my damn business. I learned from a young age not to push her on that subject.

The town was more alive now the full moon was at its end. Humans poured out of pubs and other buildings, stumbling home after a night of drunken excitement or visits with their families and friends. A group spoke of a body found near the southern border. There was a mention of beasts, one suggesting the attack was of lycan nature, another wondering if it had just been a bear or a natural wolf.