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“What was that? Tell me, Alex, that you aren’t afraid of little old me.”

I’m nearly on top of him now. I can smell his fear. Hear his thrashing heart with its slight murmur. I could touch my lips to his and make his day, but I don’t. I bare my teeth again, but not in a smile. Like a mad dog.

“You want to force me out? Fine. You want to shoot yourself in the foot? Fine.” I grab the email exchange from his desk and crumple it inside a fist. Then I grab his chin and force him to unhinge his clenched jaw, my fingers slipping on his rancid stress sweat. “You’ll be sorry one day.” I shove the crumpled paper inside and close his mouth, holding his chin in my hand.

I’m inches from his face and all I want to do is peel his skin off with my teeth.

I’m gleeful. And that’s the difference between me and the other people in this department: they get mad. I couldn’t give less of a fuck.

My lips curve into a hard smile and for a single second, his brow softens from fear into something else: need. Oh, how Dean Hansen needs me.

You see, the power inside of me, the one I’ve carried for so long, is a writhing flame. Hungry. Ravenous, even. The beast inside of me protests my inaction. And why shouldn’t it? I’ve never been a kitten, quailing and shaking in a corner. I’m no soft plaything. I’m a risk.

Why shouldn’t I make one last meal of this place? It would be so easy.

My fingertips flutter back around his head, grasping the top of his neck. “Tell me, Alex,” I growl, my lips a whisper away from his, all cut up from the paper, “what else you wanted from me. I was perfect, wasn’t I? I was your good little professor. I did it all, didn’t I?”

He groans around the paper, the sound wet and tacky behind his wrenched open jaw. Damn, that blood—the copper stink of it—it’s a pheromone, uncut. I draw my tongue over my lips and lean in, lapping at his bruised skin. He sighs and sinks a little, the wretched heat wafting off of him warming my own chilled body. His erection presses hard against my leg, pulsing and disgusting. He’s putty in my fingers, so willing.

And I’m so hungry.

I crush my lips to his and the monster rears her livid, bristling head, my carefully honed skin tearing and breaking as my true form breaks free. Alex doesn’t have time to scream.

My blackened tongue spears down his throat, wraps around the butterfly-quick thump thump thump of his heart and crushes. Gore spurts around our fused mouths, the vessels in his eyes bursting with pressure. I’m painted in his blood, sticky-sweet and sharp. He wrenches once, twice, then stops moving. That last burst of prey drive stills him as he succumbs, the glittery taste of his adrenaline slicking my throat.

I make sure I hold his gaze as he fades to nothing. I want to see his light go dull and dead. I want to see him limp and useless as he was in life. He never gave me anything I couldn’t simply take for myself.

Part of me wishes I made him suffer more, but the taste of him is too sweet. He’s all sugar, this husk, and I slurp his life force down with a hard swallow.

What’s left of Alex: empty skin, pitted bone, ragged mouth, flops to the floor in a heap.

“Thanks for your consideration,” I snarl.

My true form slides back inside of the skin I’m wearing with a wet, hard suck. Organs rearrange, a familiar sharp tugging pain. Then I turn on my heel and I’m gone, slamming his door behind me. I feel alive for the first time in a year. There’s nothing, and I mean nothing, like killing a boy.

My official acceptance from Preston University’s waiting in my inbox when I get home. I skim through the logistical stuff: particulars like the percentage of the moving budget they’ll cover, faculty housing, faculty handbook. At the bottom is a letter from John Shea himself.

MARCELLA,

IT’S MY PLEASURE TO WELCOME YOU TO THE PRESTON UNIVERSITY CLASSICS FAMILY. WHEN YOU ARRIVE, PLEASE VISIT ME SO I CAN GIVE YOU A PERSONAL TOUR.

JOHN

“Sure, John,” I say to the email, in a saccharine voice. I unwrap a Snickers bar and chomp the end of it off, pretending it’s Alex’s head. I didn’t dine on the delicacy of his brain, which I regret. “I’d just love to have you parade me around your department like a prize-winning filly.” I swallow. “Fucking psychopaths.”

Mrow. Bellatrix lifts her head from her bed, ears in full airplane-cat position.

“Sorry, babe,” I murmur to her. “Mommy’s pissed.” I stroke her head with my black claws and she purrs, her sweet little Halloween cat face soothing my rage.

She’s the only friend I have. Sure, I make them sometimes, but the reality is that I’m not a great hanger-outer. I don’t really like food other than Snickers bars and drinking doesn’t make me fun, and I’m pretty enough that other women tend to stay away. I swipe away the lonely thoughts—it’s not worth it to go full fugue state. I did that during the French Revolution and it didn’t turn out well for me.

I sit down on my green velvet couch and toss the Snickers wrapper on the side table as Bellatrix clambers onto my lap. So funny: animals aren’t afraid of me. It’s like they can sense I have zero interest in eating them. Bellatrix purrs and purrs, and the thoughts I don’t want slip away again where I can bury them. After a moment, I pick up my phone again to tap out a response, keeping it professional.

JOHN,

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR OFFER. I’M EXCITED TO COME TO PRESTON. SEE YOU SOON.

WARMLY,