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“I don’t want to see your stupid drawing.” I try to free my arm but he’s holding on fast.
“Yes, Sindri, show us your drawing! We want to see!” The other girls all but clap their hands together like demented sea otters. “You’re such a great artist.”
I almost throw up a bit in my mouth but it seems there’s no escape just yet. I have to be subjected to more of this torture.
With his other hand—the one not painfully gripping me—he lifts the drawing for all of us to enjoy and I blink, certain I’m seeing things.
It’s a very realistic—and quite flattering—drawing of me.
“So what do you say?”Sindri says after the class has finished and the other students are filing out, talking and casting me weird looks.
“About?” I’ve sat, quite numb, through the rest of the class, as the teacher came around the groups and asked how we did and what we learned and which style we like best. She cooed in sympathy when one of the girls told her how my drawing wasaccidentallytorn in half and said I need to draw another one for my file.
Of course.
“I said I’ll do it,” Sindri says. “I’ll be your partner for the joined project the teacher assigned us.”
“Joined project?”
“Yes. Work in pairs, produce at least two drawings in different art styles with a short description explaining how we went about it… yeah?”
I finally notice that he has a few girls hanging behind him as if waiting for a chance to talk to him. I wave a hand at them. “You have other options. Why don’t you choose one of those bitches and leave me in peace?”
“I don’t want any of them,” he says loudly enough for them to hear. A couple flinch and wander away. Others stay, a stubborn look on their faces.
Masochists.
Then again, what am I, if not that?
“Okay,” I mutter. “Fine.” How can I complain when nobody else wants to work with me? Still… “Why are you doing this? I said I’ll help you with the issue of the surges. You don’t need to sweeten the deal by helping me back, and it’s not getting you out of the favor you owe me.”
“Are you sure?” His grin grows crooked. “You can draw me. Not many have the privilege of seeing me naked. I’m told that I am glorious.”
Oh God, give me patience. I roll my eyes. “I’m sure you’re nothing special, and I haven’t said I want to draw you.”
“You will when you see me undressed.” He winks at me.
“You’re a pompous ass,” I inform him.
“I know. I’m an unlovable bastard.” He shrugs. “See you in my room tonight.”
And leaves me spluttering, while the other girls watch him forlornly as he swaggers away.
What have I gotten myself into again?
I’m notsure I can stand having more classes with the boys, but of course I do. We do share quite a few classes, as it turns out, and this one is History.
That I share with Ashton.
“Today,” the teacher says, a tiny, red-headed woman in heels so high she looks like she’s on stilts, “we shall look at the eighteenth-century vampire revolt and how it made its way into myth and folklore tradition, foreshadowing the final rise of the demonblood races in today’s era. Does anyone know the first literary mention of vampires?”
“Heinrich August Ossenfelder’s poemThe Vampirein 1748,” Ashton says. “Of course, we vampires have featured in legends and stories since ancient times, way before demonblood became dominant, like the legends of the Lilitu in ancient Mesopotamia—”
“Yes, thank you, Ronan Ashton.” The teacher beams at him. “What about the other races?”
“Well, the werewolves were first officially mentioned in ancient Greece with Lycaon—”
“Thank you, Ashton. Let others talk as well. I know you know it all already.”
