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She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself.
“The full moon.”
“Shut up,” she whispered shakily.
“Is your shifting getting harder to control around the full moon?”
She didn’t respond. She just stared into nothingness. “So, what I’m getting is, should a vampire have to combat bloodlust in the way you suggested,” she said after a while, “then she’d have two options. One, suffer and maybe die, or two, do whatever needs to be done with the person who understands.”
My heart hiccuped. “If it turns out that you need my help, I will. Just like when you had that spike in the library.”
Her cheeks turned an adorable purple-pink, and she made a disagreeable sound as she pushed off the counter. She paced the length of it, probably a needed distraction.
“Will you let me help you?”
The large distance between us was charged. I expected a rejection. I expected her to kick me out or get her snake again, but she only nodded as she paced.
“I need your verbal consent to touch you if push comes to shove, because once you’re in that state, you’d beg anyone.”
She halted, disgust on her face as she stared my way. Now that I knew the extent of how she’d learned to hate the lycan part of her, it didn’t hurt me. I hurt for her.
“You have my verbal consent,” she said. “Now stop flapping your gums for one moment and grab some vials so I can harvest the antivenom from the mice.”
28
PENT UP
AURA
It wasn’t often I encountered students in daylight, but as Sylvan and I stepped into the main hall, there was a gaggle of pupils chatting animatedly among each other. I immediately regretted walking with him.
“Do you think it was the same lycan who attacked Tabitha?” a student asked her peers.
“I don’t know, but I guess it should be expected that a hunter met his end that way,” said another. They were all hushed tones and gossip, not even realizing anyone else was in the vicinity.
“That hunter has escaped death for a long time. He had it coming.”
“I heard he was carrying vials of blood and something black. Like venom.”
My steps halted as did Sylvan’s. Venom. Hunter. Devlin. Fucking gods …
“Honestly, good riddance. Who’s to say that he wouldn’t have started hunting spellcasters? Maybe we should thank the lycan. They may have saved us from being his next victims.”
“Idiot. You’re missing the point that we may be the next victims of this feral lycan. What if it has Lobofebris?”
My heart squeezed. I pressed my hand against a nearby beam and Sylvan said something to me, but I was focused on the conversation among the students.
“You’re a human. You’re immune to Lobofebris. The worst you’d get is an infection. Come off it.”
Beside me, Sylvan was as tense as I was. I glanced sidelong at him, at the hard set of his jaw. His heart skipped. “Another lycan attack,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
It was all he offered me, but enough that it was painfully evident he knew about it. He turned back down the corridor, gesturing for me to follow him. We left behind the conversation, my pulse skittering and making my chest hurt. “Why didn’t you say something?” I whisper-shouted.
His brows were cinched together as his eyes met mine. He turned, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one was coming our way, then his voice dropped down to a stern but low tone. “I’ve been spending most of my time trying to get you to see that lycans aren’t all bad. You think I want to point out that there may have been one that mauled a man to death?”
He had a point. Unfortunately.
