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My god, but she’s beautiful painted in gore.

I ease to my knees, no easy feat below the bar. “How can I help right now, lamb?”

“D-don’t call me that,” she says, shuddering.

“I won’t hurt you,” I murmur. “I promise.”

She sniffs, but her eyes are fierce as they meet mine. “I don’t believe you. You’re—you’re a monster! You killed him! My direct boss, no less.” She wrenches from my touch, snapping our fragile point of connection.

I draw back, stung, tucking my hand against my hip. “You’re worried about your academic career at this moment? Really, Lacie, you ought to take a hard look at your priorities. I did this for you. He was dangerous.”

She gives a laugh that’s half sob. “Don’t fucking lecture me right now, you—you creature.” She lifts her blood-slicked face from her palms. “How can I know for sure that you didn’t hurt Therese? Laurel?” Now her tears are coming in earnest again, her shoulders shaking with them. I want to gather her into my arms, kiss her fears away. Kiss her quiet.

Because this presents a problem, now, doesn’t it? I can’t let her run to Dean Shea with this information. Goddess knows what he’d do, even without an impossibly strong undead form. Apart from what Lacie might think, I’m not some murderous freak. Arjun was an accident. This, however, was calculated, and I cannot let her think otherwise.

My thoughts are so much sharper—I feel much better than I did before. No matter what kind of energy it is, it sates the beast inside of me. It might not last as long—undead energy never does—but it’ll hold me for now.

“Of course I didn’t harm them.”

“What?” She snaps her eyes to mine, watery behind her smudged glasses.

“Love,” I croon, “I’m only killing boys.”

I have killed women, of course; I’ve killed all genders. But I’ve found that many men’s ills fall neatly under the punishable part of my moral code. So, if they mistreat me, use others, or are implicated in some broader politicking I don’t care for … well.

“You’re killing people,” Lacie sobs, her voice breaking.

“I have to eat.”

“Eat something else.”

“Stop.” I pin her to the side wall beneath the bar, hands on either side of her face. Lips nearly touching.

She trembles but she doesn’t turn away. Ah, there’s the trace of a backbone I saw in her. “I—I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I kill Laurel?” My false breath mingles with hers: cold meeting hot. Between us, an electrical storm, crackling and thick.

She feels it. I know because her pulse is a tangible thing for me, its rhythm speeding, skating on my tongue. It’s delicious.

“For her spot,” Lacie spits. “So you could go to Preston.”

I can’t help it: I break into a shrieking laugh. “My dear, I am hundreds of years old. I have means and resources you cannot imagine.” True. “I am never without options.” Partially true. “In all my time, Preston has been the least interesting place I’ve made a temporary home. And after I leave, I’ll barely remember this place’s name.” That would have been true—until her.

Lacie clenches her fists. “Draugur are known liars.”

I snort and whip away, kicking Dr. Sims’s husk of a body out so I can scramble to my feet. I look down at Lacie, sparking with anger. “You of all people must know there are many, many realities, many perspectives. I am not the monster those saga heroes should have hated.”

Lacie gazes up to me, her throat bobbing with a swallow. Considering.

“And rest assured, if I had wanted you dead, it would have happened near the moment I met you. Not after all this, all I’ve promised.”

She says something to her hands and I snap, “What did you say?”

A fire burns in her eyes when she looks up. “What do you get out of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, being here. At Preston.” She pauses before forcing the next words out of her mouth. “Helping me.”